The growth of electronic legal resources has had a mixed effect on collection management. This is particularly true for primary source material such as official gazettes, court reports, and other government documents. With a collection of over 2.84 million print…
Author Archive for Michael Lindsey
Open Access to Turkish Primary Legal Information Resources
In the recent years, there were several developments in open access to information resources in Turkey. One of the most important ones is primary legal information resources namely legislation, the official gazette and case law. I want to address these…
Legal deposit goes electronic… for better or worse?
The concept of legal deposit is an old one, and has been in place for nearly 600 years, being introduced not long after Gutenberg’s marvellous invention of moveable type. The first country to implement the concept was France in 1537,…
Introducing a new Journal Award and sunsetting the Web Award
During its meetings in Barcelona, the Board decided that in order to encourage publication the International Journal of Legal Information, IALL should honour the author of the best article published each year with a Journal Award. The Award will be…
IALL Life Memberships and Honorary Memberships awarded in 2013
At the International Association of Law Libraries (IALL) Board Meeting held in conjunction with the IALL’s 32nd Annual Course on International Law Librarianship in Barcelona, Spain in September last year the Board of Directors made the following awards: Life Membership…
Yearbook of the United Nations
As many researchers know, finding UN documents can be an unpredictable process. Though sophisticated search engines and digitized materials have improved access significantly, many researchers are surprised to find that not all materials are available electronically. Of the materials becoming…
The UK Charity Sending Law Books Worldwide
The International Law Book Facility (ILBF) was formed in 2005 in the United Kingdom to redress the waste of good quality law books which are discarded en masse each time a new edition is published. Since that time the ILBF…
Free Access to Government Legal Information in China: A Path Full of Hopes and Thorns
The year 2013 marked the five-year anniversary of the enactment of the People’s Republic of China’s (“PRC”) first national Open Government Information Regulation.[1] China has made significant strides on enhancing free access to legal information since then. Adopted and enacted…
Developments in Comparative law research
Possibilities for cost (and time) efficient Comparative law research are now much broader thanks to the Hathi Trust. The Hathi Trust is a partnership of over sixty Libraries and research institutions worldwide and currently contains 11 million digitized volumes. Access…
The Rediscovery of Legal Culture: Legal Scholarship in Germany faces the Challenges of Internationalization and Interdisciplinarity
Over the past two years the Wissenschaftsrat (German Council of Science and Humanities) has evaluated in fundamental analysis the structures of legal scholarship in Germany. As a result a bundle of recommendations has been adopted with a special focus on…