Legal Research

All the worlds a stage...

Posted on January 16, 2009
...and so it would seem are Libraries. At least if plans by Edinburgh Council go ahead to change the titles of Librarians working in their public libraries from "Librarians" to "Audience Engagement Officers" suddenly I have an image of a Librarian...sorry Audience Engagement Officer holding up a card saying clap, or maybe shsshh would be more appropriate?Unsurprisingly this hasn't been received well by the Librarians who work for Edinburgh Council with the threat of a strike on the horizon...

BIALL wants to hear from you!!

Posted on January 12, 2009
If you're a BIALL Member then the BIALL PR & Promotions Committee would love to hear from you!They are looking for members who feel they could write on any of the following topics:The future roles of the commercial information professional, or information management, in the 21st century The use of Web 2...

BI-ALLSIG

Posted on January 07, 2009
Earlier this month BIALL announced the launch of a new mailing list specifically for Academic Law Librarians. From the email sent to the BIALL Mailing List:"At the BIALL Conference in June 2008 there was a particularly successfulsession conducted by Peter Clinch involving issues relating to standardsfor academic law libraries...

Merry Christmas!!

Posted on December 26, 2008
Merry Christmas to everyone who currently reads the BIALL Blog and of course to all BIALL members. The BIALL Blog team will be back posting updates in January 2009...<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheBiallBlog/~4/494103616" height="1" width="1"/>

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Merry Christmas!!

Posted on December 24, 2008
Merry Christmas to everyone who currently reads the BIALL Blog and of course to all BIALL members. The BIALL Blog team will be back posting updates in January 2009...

Westlaw highlights 2008

Posted on December 18, 2008
Westlaw have very considerately consolidated all the new content and new features they have added to Westlaw during 2008 into a single email or if you didn't receive the email, online a href="http://info.westlaw.co.uk/rp//43/process.clsp?EmailId=30875amp;Token=2607801306C5878A98E2AF1AA02CF75D7"here/a...

Westlaw highlights 2008

Posted on December 18, 2008
Westlaw have very considerately consolidated all the new content and new features they have added to Westlaw during 2008 into a single email or if you didn't receive the email, online here.My highlight of the year, RSS Feeds because we love RSS Feeds at the BIALL Blog...

Best careers 2009...

Posted on December 16, 2008
...you guessed it Librarian...At least according to the US News.com website from the site;"Forget about that image of librarians as a mousy bookworms. More and more of today's librarians must be clever interrogators, helping the patron to reframe their question more usefully...

PLC RSS Feeds

Posted on December 11, 2008
Practical Law Company (PLC) have recently started rolling out RSS feeds for some of their modules:The feeds currently available are:PLC Corporate: - http://corporate.practicallaw.com/rss.doPLC Employment: - http://employment.practicallaw.com/rss.doPLC Finance: - http://finance...

AustLII and CommonLII case law crackers!

Posted on December 05, 2008
We couldn't resist a Christmas themed post title and they really are crackers! Both Binary Law and SLAW have both recently posted about two websites which AustLII and CommonLII have been developing. The first, LawCite is an international case citator, what this means when you use the site is that you can search for a citation or a case name and the site will return cases that match your search terms with the details of where the case has been cited or referenced including overseas cases...

Lawtel RSS Feeds

Posted on December 03, 2008
If you have a subscription to Lawtel then you'll be pleased to know that the RSS Feeds described in a recent update are now available. From withing Lawtel click on RSS Feeds to start subscribing to the available feeds.

From Court to Westlaw

Posted on December 01, 2008
Ever wondered how a case goes from Court to Westlaw? Well wonder no more...the short video available from this post on the WestBlog explains the process in full.Note - this is the US version of Westlaw.

Go Go Google

Posted on November 28, 2008
I use Google on a daily basis, I'm sure most people do but how far should Google be used when it comes to Legal Research?This was the subject of much discussion on LIS-LAW recently after the following were posted on LIS-LAW:Using Google to research case law Googling your legal research If Google is a big part of your life, you might be interested in fnding out what happens after you enter your search terms in "Anatomy of a search"

Sweet & Maxwell new website

Posted on November 26, 2008
Sweet & Maxwell have recently launched a new Corporate website, which looks pretty good. If you're keen to look at the sites new features, there is a site overview.One thing the site doesn't have is RSS feeds for new content (books, journals, loosleafs etc) Hopefully this is something Sweet & Maxwell will incorporate next year.

BIALL OMB/Solos Blog

Posted on November 24, 2008
If you haven't read the news in the BIALL Newsletter yet the BIALL One Man Bands (OMB)/Solos group has launched a blog.The blog already has some interesting posts on it, including:LinkedIn and the solo workerInformation Literacy, Web 2.0 and the New LibrarianThe Blog is already part of my RSS Feeds subscriptions and I would encourage everyone to have a look and subscribe to the feed.

How will you cope in the crisis?

Posted on November 10, 2008
Planning and running away or hiding and hoping that the Global Credit Crisis goes away? Forget it! As this article from Information World Review (IWR) blog reports "Never before has it been more important to prove the worth of the information professional"So what are you waiting for...

Will old law reports ever die?

Posted on November 05, 2008
An interesting post here from SLAW bearing in mind it is from a Canadian perspective, in it the author discusses how for decades publishers have been threatening (or promising) that Law Reports will eventually become obsolete. Yet in 2008 they still have as many Law Reports being published as they did in the 1970's...

Copyright licence extended for digital use

Posted on October 31, 2008
The BIALL Blog is a bit late reporting on this, but it's good news and we like reporting good news!Finally after were sure many months on negotiations with publishers the Copyright Licensing Agency has completed the development of a "Digital Licence" for Law Firms...

Happy Halloween!

Posted on October 31, 2008
It's Friday it's Halloween could there be a better reason to post the following:Don't be afraid of ghosts...The most haunting - do you agree?Have a great Halloween!

Law Librarians? Role in Developing Associates

Posted on October 31, 2008
Do Law Librarian's have a role in the development of Associates (Fee-earners)? This is the subject of this article in Professional Legal Management Week Magazine.[Hat Tip - Strategic Librarian Blog]

Death of Blogging?

Posted on October 23, 2008
In the Wired article, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004, blogging is pronounced dead.Having to compete with professional journalist teams that can produce 30 posts a day and the simplicity of one line updates Facebook and Twitter provide are a couple of the reasons for the blog's so-called demise...

Digitising Hansard

Posted on October 14, 2008
As reported in the latest CILIP Update the digitisation of Hansard, the official report of debates in Parliament is nearing completution and the team responsible for its development are looking for feedback on how they can improve the site.Contemporary versions of Hansard (from 2005 onwards) will continue to be available on the UK Parliament Website...

Update on the BIALL Website

Posted on October 10, 2008
Earlier this year the BIALL Web Committee (BWEB) asked BIALL Members for their feedback on the BIALL Website. Encouragingly, there was a great response rate, with 136 BIALL members taking the time to respond. Of the 136 responses received the majority agreed that the BIALL Website needs a refresh and a new look (75% of respondents), should be better structured and there should be a better search...

Court in the crunch

Posted on October 10, 2008
An interesting article here from the Information World Review blog, which will strike a chord with anyone who uses Reed Elsevier (Lexis Nexis Butterworths) or Thomson Reuters.The article discusses how LNB and TR continue to dominate the legal market but "the two big hitters acknowledge they face stiff competition from more specialised providers, and some users are anxious not to tie themselves in too closely to one provider"The article also asks, how in the face of economic downturn not just in the UK but around the World customers are reacting?Well good and bad news...

UK Parliament Labs

Posted on October 07, 2008
A new blog here dedicated not to the science of producing an MP but to the work of the Web team at the Houses of Parliament. From the Blog:"This is a blog from the Web Centre team working in the Houses of Parliament.Aside from keeping the site up and running and doing daily updates, our team spends its time working on developing the website...

The Update Blog

Posted on October 06, 2008
Earlier this month CILIP Launched the Update Blog, as well as a new look look for CILIP Update and a digitial edition of the magazine. From the introduction to the blog:"For the first time Update?s regular contributors will share thoughts and concerns not just with CILIP members, but a global community of people who care ? about quality information, access to, and the accessibility of, knowledge and information resources, information literacy, economic competitiveness through knowledge-based excellence, and all the business, social and public policy issues that come as part of an information professional?s intellectual and cultural baggage"If you see something that interests you on the Blog, why not comment, your comment might well be published in the next print edition of Update.

Ready to argue your cause?

Posted on October 02, 2008
Then you might be right at home at LexisNexis according to their careers page, which features this video of Andy Prozes (CEO of LexisNexis) talking about what LexisNexis look for in successful applicants.They are looking for leaders who are innovative, intelligent and, apparently, quarrelsome, or at least people who can argue their point ?forcefully? but importantly not for too long...

US Courts Website now does RSS

Posted on September 29, 2008
Just recently every other article or post we read on a blog seems to be about RSS so it was no surprise that we read this post about the US Courts Service Website.The use of RSS by Government Departments, Associations and Commmercial Organisations can only be a good thing and the addition of RSS Feeds to the US Courts Website might make a few Law Librarians working in UK based US Law Firms very happy...

Justis does RSS

Posted on September 26, 2008
Justis have unveiled a new addition to their flagship product RSS Feeds. There is a detailed FAQ with all the information you need on how to subscribe to and start reading RSS Feeds and more information on what RSS Feeds are.There are even some example feeds on the support page including:Latest cases in The Weekly Law ReportsJustis news JustCite newsGood work Justis!!

Law Firm Libraries and Information Services in the 21st Century

Posted on September 25, 2008
If you haven't already you may be interested in completing this survey, which has been compiled by Rachel Brett at Lovells. Rachel is currently undertaking a Master?s dissertation at City University and is conducting an online survey of law firm libraries and information services in the UK and Ireland...

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