Legal Research

Review of the BIALL Code of Good Practice

Posted on June 25, 2009
As part of the Legal Information Group's (LIG) work the committee is reviewing the BIALL Code of Good Practice for Law Publishers. The code was launched at the Harrogate conference in June 2005. It has therefore been running long enough for the Legal Information Group to have formed an opinion of its effectiveness...

Halsbury's Awards 2009

Posted on June 25, 2009
The winners of the Halsbury?s Awards 2009 were announced on Thursday 18 June at the 40th British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) Annual Conference held in Manchester.The winners, in each category, were announced as follows;Best Legal Information Services (Non-Commercial Sector):The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies LibraryBest Legal Information Services (Commercial Sector):Clarke Willmott LLP Information Services, BirminghamBest Legal Information Services (Commercial Sector) - London Only:CMS Cameron KcKenna LLP Knowledge & Information ServicesThe BIALL Website has more information and pictures from the award ceremony.

How to lose a million dollar contract!

Posted on June 25, 2009
Elaine Billingslea Dockens has written an interesting article for LLRX.com which many BIALL members will be interested in. The article "Vendor Pitfalls in Negotiating Large Multi-Year Contracts - or How to Lose a Million Dollar Contract" looks at some of the mistakes Vendors of legal products make when the visit customers to negotiate contracts...

The new BIALL website is launched!

Posted on June 23, 2009
Visit the the redeveloped and redesigned website of the British & Irish Association of Law LibrariansThe BIALL web committee have been working hard over the last year to bring you a site with an updated look and feel, a more intuitive site architecture, a better search function and more ways to get new content to you...

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BIALL Conference Day Three

Posted on June 23, 2009
Day three of the conference started (somewhat blearily for certain members of the audience) with a very interesting and informative talk by Vanessa Gamet of Kings College discussing the Terrorism Act and Patriot Acts in the UK and US, and their impact on and responses from the librarian community...

The Black and White Ball - BIALL Conference 2009

Posted on June 20, 2009
Friday night at the BIALL Conference saw attendeess get all glammed up for a Black and White ball...with a hint of Ruby Red! The ball took place at the iconic Midland Hotel in Manchester. Dinner was followed by the presentation of two awards, the first the Legal Journals Award was won by the journal Estates Gazette...

BIALL Conference Day 2

Posted on June 20, 2009
Day two of the BIALL Conference started with two excellent Plenary Sessions. The first"The digital information supply chain: Impacts, effects, opportunities and challenges of the rapidly changing landscape in e-content delivery" looked at the move by publishers from print to electronic publishing formats...

BIALL Conference - Day 1

Posted on June 19, 2009
Yesterday was the first official day of the 2009 BIALL Conference. Unforutnately I didn't arrive in Manchester until mid-morning so missed the first two sessions of the dya but the remaining Day 1 sessions didn't dissapoint.The first session I attended was Tony Simmonds talk entitled "KS and Tell - Web 2...

Halsbury's Awards 2009

Posted on June 19, 2009
Last night three organisations received Halsbury's Awards for excellence in law library provision. The Halsbury's Awards "recognise, celebrate and reward the dedicated performance and outstanding service given by legal information services, law libraries and those teams managing legal collections and resources...

BIALL is all a-Twitter

Posted on June 17, 2009
As reported on LIS-LAW earlier today the BIALL Web Committee (BWEB) has set-up a Twitter account for BWEB and Official BIALL representatives to keep members informed of interesting BIALL news.The official BIALL account is available at http://twitter.com/biall_uk do follow the account if you want to get up to the minute updates from the BIALL Conference...

Academic librarians - a chance for discussion

Posted on June 16, 2009
This year the academic librarians are arranging an Academic group meeting at the BIALL Conference. Details are as follows:The place - University Place Conference Manchester Room 1.218 Manchester (of course!!)The date and time - Friday 19 June 11.30 -12...

A light grilling!

Posted on June 15, 2009
With only three days until the official start of the BIALL Conference 2009. The BIALL Blogger asked current President Jackie Fishleigh a few probing questions about the Conference and her stint as President.BB - There are only three days until the the start of the Conference, what reasons would you give for attending?The programme which has been described as "excellent" by the editor of CILIP Update,Elspeth Hyams...

University Libraries book cuts!

Posted on June 12, 2009
This is a rather worrying but not unexpected news story from the Times Higher Education Supplement which reports on how "40% of university libraries plan cuts to book and journal purchases next year"According to the report the drop in the pound's value has had a "crippling effect" on the budgets of UK University Libraries, which are unfortunately experiencing huge increases in subscription costs for research journals from the US and Europe.

Don't fancy Pizzahut?

Posted on June 10, 2009
In a weeks time the Pre-conference seminar at the BIALL Conference will take place and Membership Services Committee are very kindly organising a meal on the Wednesday night for anyone who is in Manchester for the pre-Conference seminar.If you don't fancy heading out as part of a large group what are your other food options whilst in Manchester? well I asked our resident "mancunian" what some of the best places are to eat in Manchester;Croma is a Pizza restaurant which is very central and apparently isn't too priceyYang Sing restaurant is apparently the most famous chinese restaurant in Manchester, this might mean it's a bit expensive though...

The *new* Lawtel

Posted on June 08, 2009
In a surprise move Lawtel have announced in their Lawtel What's New May 2009 newsletter that they are rolling out a new version of Lawtel.The existing Lawtel interface is certainly looking a bit tired and crowded so improving it can only be a good thing...

Thinking and Acting new

Posted on June 05, 2009
The Keynote speaker at this year's BIALL Conference is David Snowden from Cognitive Edge. I asked David about his Keynote session and some of the challenges facing Librarians.BB - David the theme for this years conference is "Locks and Keys", do you see safeguarding information but also making information more widely available including via Social sites the biggest challenge for information professionals? DS -No, its important, but basically the world has shifted and current attempts to manage security are based on compliance and enforcement rather than "habits and rituals"...

BIALL Conference: Wednesday night in Manchester

Posted on June 05, 2009
If anyone attending the BIALL Conference this year is arriving on Wednesday 17th and would like to meet up that evening for a meal, please let Hazel Eccleston know by next Wednesday (10th) lunchtime.Hazel can be contacted on 0191 201 2048. Any suggestions for places to eat are also welcome via this blog or direct to Hazel.

Proposed merger of Middle and Inner Temple Libraries

Posted on June 04, 2009
Following a previous post on the proposed merger of the Middle and Inner Temple Libraries. BIALL President Elect Daniella King has prepared a document outlining some of BIALL's concerns about the proposed mergers. The full document is available on the BIALL Website, the key points from the document follow:If all the facilities were under one roof, would there be enough space to cater for the hundreds of visitors who come every yearMiddle Temple has 14 professional members of staff, while 9 are employed by Inner Temple...

14 days and counting...

Posted on June 04, 2009
...until the official start of the BIALL Conference and the rollout of the new BIALL Website.I've been heavily involved in the development of the new website so I'm very excited about seeing it finally go live. The website will be demonstrated during "Have your say" and will be officially launched after the Conference...

Marketing Your Skills - Getting that promotion: the role of Web 2.0

Posted on June 03, 2009
With only 17 days to go until the start of the BIALL Conference. The BIALL Blogger got the lowdown from Nicola Franklin of Sue Hill Recruitment about her Conference Session and some of the weirdest things people have put on their CV's.BB - Nicola your session is called Marketing Your Skills - Getting That Promotion : the Role of Web 2...

Free v paid online legal research tools

Posted on June 01, 2009
The Lawyers Weekly a weekly magazine which is published in Canada, has an interesting piece on Free v Paid online legal research tools. The piece asks "Can we (Lawyers) get by using only freely available research tools?"The answer is pretty much no but the good news it that free online legal research tools continue to develop...

Sharepoint and Social Software for Knowledge Management

Posted on May 29, 2009
Knowledge Management and Sharepoint do they go together like chalk and cheese? In his session at the BIALL Conference Neil Richards from Knowledge Thoughts will look at how Sharepoint could be used for Knowledge Management. The BIALL Blogger got the low down on his session...

KS and Tell : Harnessing Web 2.0 at the College ofLaw

Posted on May 27, 2009
In the next post in a series of posts which look at some of the session taking place at the BIALL Conference. The BIALL Blog asked Tony Simmonds from the College of Law about his experiences with Web 2.0 and his session at the BIALL Conference.BB - Tony your session is called KS and Tell : Harnessing Web 2...

Removing the ?Hard? from Hansard

Posted on May 22, 2009
This headline from the House of Butter blog certainly grabbed my attention! The post describes a new service Justis is rolling out called Justis Parliament, from the Justis Press Release:"The accessibility of material from Hansard and other data from the Houses of Parliament is set to improve immeasurably on 1st June when the notoriously difficult-to-navigate website is indexed by a new service, Justis Parliament"Sounds great and the site is free to use until the official launch on the 1st of June.

What do you call yourself?

Posted on May 21, 2009
There was an interesting discussion earlier today on LIS-LAW where someone asked the question "What is the Library called in your organisation?" Some interesting reponses from the list included:Information CentreInformation UnitInformation ServicesKnowledge & Information ServicesThe question is, what do you call yourself?

Behind the scenes at Manchester

Posted on May 19, 2009
In four weeks time the BIALL Conference in Manchester officially starts, so what better time to ask the Chair of the Conference Committee John Furlong a few questions about the work that goes on behind the scenes. Many thanks to John for answering the questions!BB - The theme for this years Conference is "Locks and Keys" who thinks up the name of the Conferences and is there much discussion about what they should be called?JF - Over the past number of years we have tried to come up with a witty title which reflects what the Conference is about and also where it is taking place...

Four to Manchester

Posted on May 18, 2009
Before anyone gets worried I'm not talking about Manchester United scoring four goals. With only four weeks until the BIALL Conference in Manchester, it's time to look at some of the things you could do whilst there...an oh boy are there some treats in store for anyone who decides to go to Manchester early...

Inner Temple and Middle Temple Libraries to merge?

Posted on May 08, 2009
The Executive Committees of Inner Temple and Middle Temple have agreed to commission a feasibility study to investigate the potential benefits of merging their Libraries and creating a Joint Education and Advocacy Centre.The study will be overseen by a working group chaired jointly by Master Jonathan Hirst for Inner Temple and Master Stanley Burnton, Deputy Treasurer, for Middle Temple...

LexisNexis marks 10 years of the CPR

Posted on May 04, 2009
The 26th April 2009 marked the ten year anniversary of the implementation of the Civil Procedure Rules. To "celebrate" Lexis Nexis organisedhosted a debate exploring those issues and assessing the impact of the CPR, chaired by Lord Neuberger.You can watch excerpts from the debate or the whole thing (60 minutes) but you will need to register first if you want to watch the entire debate...

LIM goes West!

Posted on April 30, 2009
If you're a BIALL Personal member you will automatically start receiving the hardcopy of LIM as one of the benefits of membership, but what if you want to access it online though...well now you can...via Westlaw.This is great news not only because I have a Westlaw Alert which lets me know when any articles on Web 2...

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