Key updates since the previous edition

It is eight years since the publication of the 3rd edition of Essential Law for Information Professionals. The book incorporates the changes that have taken place in those intervening years – in terms of new statute law, new case law and new case studies, and examples of how the law works in practice. This 4th edition reflects the law as it stands at the time of writing (April 2019).

The book contains a new chapter entitled ‘Library law’ (Chapter 2). This looks at the types of library service that are underpinned by statutory duties. It also covers legislation such as the Equality Act 2010 with its public sector equality duty, which has been used in a number of legal cases relating to local government cutbacks that have had a huge impact upon public libraries.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force in May 2018. It represents the most radical overhaul of data protection legislation for twenty years and led to the UK passing the Data Protection Act 2018. Chapter 7 of the book, which covers data protection, has been almost entirely re-written to reflect these legislative changes.

The chapter covering defamation (Chapter 12) reflects the changes to defamation law introduced by the Defamation Act 2013.

Brexit

The text for this book was completed in early April 2019 at a time of huge political turmoil. The UK government were originally scheduled to leave the European Union on 29 March 2019. That did not happen and at the time of writing there is still uncertainty as to Brexit.

I would, therefore, like to draw attention to legislation relevant to library and information professionals which has been put in place in anticipation of the UK leaving the European Union. This includes:

• • The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018: SI 2018/1353

• • The Intellectual Property (Copyright and Related Rights) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019: SI 2019/605

• • The Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments, etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019: SI 2019/419

• • The Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments, etc.) (EU Exit) (No. 2) Regulations 2019: SI 2019/485.