This is very much a personal opinion on the potential demise of the traditional library (which some would argue has already gone). My aim was to reassure library and information professionals that there is a role left for our profession in the world of lawyers who are able to access information at their desks; a world which includes professional support lawyers and know how databases. This is no place for the fainthearted, and especially not for the stereotypical librarian – if such a creature exists. This article will only scratch the surface of some issues, so I welcome comments, feedback and downright disagreement – sdoe@sidley.com

Over the last six months there have been a number of developments in legal information provision. The major publishers have released new services, and have updated existing products. As a busy information professional it can be difficult to keep up to date with all the changes, and there is not always time to evaluate the benefits of one service over another.

The subject of this article is not strictly limited to law librarianship but I do feel that it is a topic that a large number of us are exposed to and for which I myself initially had little guidance. In the hard financial climate that we have been experiencing recently, negotiating good contract renewals has become a vital skill for any legal information professional.

A campaign to bring the law up-to-date with the current world of publishing has been led by the British Library, on behalf of all the legal deposit libraries and the publisher trade bodies. If the move is successful, new generic legislation will ensure that non-print formats are included within legal deposit – allowing UK businesses and education to benefit from access to the widest possible collections of research material, now and in the future.

One of the most satisfying aspects of editing a magazine such as Managing Information, is the gathering together of expertise to help people improve their abilities and the services they provide and to facilitate, through raised awareness and discussion, the development of solutions to issues. Just such an opportunity has presented itself over the past year in the form of the imminent implementation of EU Directive 29/2001.

By the Spring of this year, if all goes to plan, there will be changes to our current laws on copyright. EC Directive 2001/29/EC on the Harmonisation of Certain Aspects of Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society is soon to be implemented into legislation in all Member States. This article describes the reasons behind the changes, what the changes are and how they affect the library and information sector.

This is not intended to be a “how to do it” article as I am sure there are plenty of you out there who could do that, rather it is intended to be a description of the problems I ran into when attempting to complete a copyright audit form and to give you food for thought.

This site contains information on copyright, designs, patents and trademarks. The legal decisions page includes selected decisions issued by the Patent Office since the beginning of 1998 and links through to the Patents Court website, European Patent Office website and Copyright Tribunal. News and press releases on aspects of intellectual property and the Trade Mark, Patent and Design Journal notices can also be viewed here with all pages including a note of when they were last updated. A page with information on patent and trademark searches and a search facility for the whole site is available. A list of forms can be accessed and viewed along with guidance notes and fees information. Progress on implementation of the EU Copyright Directive is brief but helpful. The glossary of terms covers very few terms and some pages would benefit from hyperlinks being added such as the information about international treaties. URL: http://www.patent.gov.uk/copy/index.htm

On joining Browne Jacobson just over six years ago I inherited a paper based catalogue and notebook of items taken from the library which were then crossed out on return. Quickly finding this was impractical and cumbersome to use, to the point where it very often was not used, one of the main priorities was to automate the catalogue and circulation system as quickly as possible. Calm 2000 was purchased as a stand-alone system in the library with capacity for up to 10,000 records and worked well initially but as fee earners gained increasing access to a wide variety of resources and other local library catalogues from their own PCs demand grew for access to in-house library holdings and the cataloguing of websites, online journals and internally generated documents. Difficulties arose in using a stand-alone system when I ceased to be a solo, particularly for receipt of journals and loose leafs. The firm had also expanded significantly in size and opened an additional office. Libraries in the London and Birmingham offices being smaller than the main library at the Nottingham office created demand for holdings information to facilitate loans between offices.

In recent years BIALL has informally addressed the question of a Code of Ethics for its members. Discussions have taken place in the Professional Standards and Development Committee, and the issue has been raised cursorily by Council in its occasional meetings. Hitherto, however, there has been no attempt at formally addressing the question of ethics specifically for law librarians in the UK or the Republic of Ireland.

“If the Information Society is to be both open and universal it should develop along the principles embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They are, among others, the right to freedom of expression, free access to information, the right to education and the right to participate in cultural life.’ (UNESCO 2000)

A new ethics resource was launched at the end of January; Cardiff Centre for Ethics, Law and Society (CCELS). The web site was officially launched by Dr Michael Wilks, Chairman of the BMA Ethics Committee, and the event was attended by some 90 people who listened to talks by Professor Richard Gardner, FRS, Professor Bob Lee, Professor Peter Whittaker and Professor Ruud ter Meulen. Full details of the occasion and of the papers given are on the web site at www.ccels.cardiff.ac.uk