It is a very great honour to be invited to give this lecture in memory of Willi Steiner. I was not privileged to know him personally but I have long been aware of the enormous contribution that he made to the development of the Squire Library in Cambridge and the library of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, of which I have been a grateful user for many years. I am also very aware of Willi's contribution to legal scholarship in general and in particular to comparative law. His work on the Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals is just one example. I hope and believe that the topic on which I am going to speak tonight would have interested him.

The modern Library or Information Service (IS) cannot, and should not, operate in isolation from the strategic planning of its wider organisation. Most IS units already tie their aims and objectives to the organisation's strategic mission, but how can the IS move from the confines of its traditional role to have greater influence and responsibility within the wider organisation? How can building relationships with key individuals/departments strengthen the overall role of the IS?

Let's face it librarians have until relatively recently had a pretty stereotypical image which occasionally, perhaps justly, is one of quiet resolve where the library is your domain and those that enter should do so quietly and should not remove your materials. This image is reinforced by adverts, television, films and even dolls.

This article by Susan Mansfield describes a number of techniques, which can be used in isolation or together, to demonstrate the value of an information centre.

The workshop delivered in Harrogate and this paper have been created in response to the increased role which legal information professionals are having to take in client handling, promoting themselves and managing conflict within their teams.

Nottingham Trent University is a post-1992 University and has one of the largest full service university law schools in the UK. NTU has approximately 1300 undergraduates on our qualifying law degree programme, who are studying either full-time, part-time or via distance learning. Many of the distance learning students on our UK-based LLB actually live overseas, and we also operate a distance learning LLB degree in conjunction with the Open University Hong Kong. In this article, I will mainly concentrate on the impact of these guidelines on libraries, but will also consider the wider impact on law schools and universities as a whole.

Although the United Kingdom has been a member of the European Union for three decades, there has so far been little reference to Continental law and legal systems in British law library literature. I hope that this article will help to begin filling that gap.

Following an introduction to the Hungarian legal system, highlighting some of the main events of the history of the Hungarian state and Hungarian law and reviewing the system of Hungarian legislation, this article provides sources of legal information in Hungary, including the most important acts, reference books, legal periodicals and sources of legal information in printed and electronic form and on the internet. It has been contributed by Tamás Böszörményi, Eszter Horváth, Tibor Kövér and Krisztina Orphanides.

This article by Harvinder Kaur describes and analyses key bibliometric components of articles published in the Malayan Law Journal (MLJ) and is the result of research carried out for her library science masters degree.

The USA PATRIOT Act (“Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act”) has been troubling for libraries of all types, writes Dave Rogers, and recent legislation to renew provisions have brought the debate on balancing security and personal freedom to the foreground. The article contains an annotated bibliography.

Most employers seek references for all prospective employees by way of a factual check on a candidate's employment history, qualifications and experience and in order to obtain an assessment of their performance and character from their previous employer. However, the risk of ill-judged or inaccurate comments resulting in legal action has caused many employers as a matter of policy to provide only bare references specifying job title, length of service and leaving salary and to decline the provision of any further facts or expression of opinion. This growing gap between the information employers are willing to give and the information they want to receive, alongside the obvious adverse consequences for employees where an existing or former employer declines to provide a reference, continues to cause much confusion. So what are an employer's responsibilities when they are asked for a reference?