Government Policy on Matters of the Information Society

While information technology has for a long time been utilized in public administration in Iceland, co-ordination and policy formulation only started in the mid-nineties. In 1996, the government made arrangements for a comprehensive policy formulation in this field, when the government formulated a specific policy on matters of the information society and established a provisional developmental project for this purpose under the direction of a special working group under the auspices of the Prime Minister's Office. While the project was to be completed within five years, from 1998 to 2002, it was decided at the beginning of this year to extend it to the end of the year 2003 while an appraisal of its implementation was carried out. Among the goals set in the governmental policy was that legislation, rules and the working methods of the public administration should be reviewed with a view to information technology, for the purpose of stimulating technological progress, and to make information accessible to the public irrespective of residence or economic resources. Furthermore, a special emphasis was put on the utilization of information technology in the dissemination of public information, and that all information systems used by government agencies should be structured so that they would provide information on laws, regulations, rights and obligations, and such matters, via a computer network, and also enable the public to go about their business, monitor the progress of important matters, and be provided with all such services which can be provided in this manner.

For most of its history, the International Journal of Legal Information has been published by the International Association of Law Libraries. Volumes 3–5 (1975–1977) were published by Verlag Dokumentation, and volumes 17–23 (1989–1995) by or in association with the International Institute for Legal Information. Since volume 25 (1997), the Journal has been printed and distributed for the Association by Thomson-West.

Like most members, I always look forward to the Association's Annual Course on International Law Librarianship. The program offers countless learning opportunities, including scholarly lectures, visits to libraries and information centers, and meetings with publishers and vendors. Last but not least, it offers the chance to meet new colleagues as well as to renew friendships and contacts with law librarians from around the world. I anticipated the 2002 Course with particular excitement, because this would be the first time that I would attend one in my own country. Indeed, it would be the first time IALL met in the United States for over a decade. Having experienced the hospitality of law librarians in many different countries over the years, I knew it would be especially meaningful to be able to welcome colleagues from abroad to the United States.

The Republic of Moldova (www.moldova.md) is a sovereign, independent state, situated in southeastern Europe between Romania and Ukraine. The form of government of the country is the Republic. Governed by the rule of law, the Republic of Moldova is a democratic state in which the dignity of people, their rights and freedoms, the free development of human personality, justice and political pluralism represent supreme values, guaranteed by the Constitution's Article 1.

This article is intended to be a guide for researchers who seek information in English about Swedish intellectual property law. It should be stated at the outset that it is not possible to thoroughly research Swedish law by only consulting works published in English. Considerable information exists in English, but it is selective in coverage and often does not reflect recent developments. Despite these limitations, the English language sources discussed in this guide will provide a useful foundation from which to consult experts in the field.

Courses on topics of international law librarianship and legal information have been a primary feature of IALL's educational program since 1966. The courses have been held at prominent institutions throughout the world at intervals of one to three years, and have been offered annually since 1993. Throughout its history, the International Journal of Legal Information has published advance information and reports on the courses, as well as selected papers. Since 1994, full proceedings from the courses have usually been published in the Journal. Proceedings from some courses, as well as from other IALL meetings and programs, have been published separately. Separately published proceedings are included in this volume in the section: “Publications of the International Association of Law Libraries.”

Every night for ten nights last May, I returned to room 128 in the Westside YMCA (West 63rd Street, New York City — just off Central Park) armed with more behind the scenes insights, professional secrets and first hand accounts of US law library operation and management than one slim A5 notebook could hope to hold. I was fortunate to be in the United States on a two-week placement at Columbia University, visiting some of America's great law libraries — the law school libraries of Columbia itself, New York University and Yale University. Each morning after an orange juice, toasted cream cheese bagel and cappuccino, I would head out with the commuters to join the subway at Columbus Circle — uptown for Columbia or downtown for NYU. Every evening I would admire the energy of the mostly silver-haired athletes in brightly colored lycra returning to the Westside “Y” after numerous circuits of the Jackie “O” reservoir on the upper east side of Central Park. The park is 843 acres of creative space bound by impressive hotels, apartment blocks and the streets of Harlem. In May it is in perpetual motion from dawn to dusk with joggers, roller-bladers and cyclists weaving their way around the trees, fountains and numerous statues. Indeed it appears to be a huge magic garden, complete with beautiful street lamps that seem to come from C.S. Lewis's Narnia — another world, like the City itself, at once familiar and fascinatingly different.

Where in the UK can I locate the most extensive collection of the current legislation for the Cayman Islands?

Which library has a comprehensive set of the World Trade Organisation International Trade Law Reports?

Where can I find verbatim debates on bills as they pass through the New Zealand House of Representatives?

Where are good collections of international environmental or commercial law?

What are the opening hours and access conditions for a visiting researcher wishing to use the official publications collection of a particular major UK university?

The papers in this issue were presented at the IALL's 21st Annual Course on International Law Librarianship, held at Yale Law School, October 20 through October 23, 2002. The program featured several of America's great scholars in international law and drew on the rich resources of Yale University and its environs. It also introduced participants to the history of legal education in America and included excursions to America's first national law school, in Litchfield, Connecticut, and to the United Nations headquarters, in New York City. A pre-conference reception was held at the nearby Quinnipiac University School of Law Library, on Sunday afternoon, October 20th, in Hamden, Connecticut, and a post-conference institute on Islamic Law, was held on October 24th, at Harvard Law School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Law publishing — that is, the reproduction and dissemination of statutes, judicial decisions, commentaries, legal forms and texts — is as old as writing and can be found in all literate societies. In the ancient world, written law was essential to political and social relations. That can be seen from the importance given to law codes in the Semitic, Greek and Roman societies. Over the centuries and in every medium from stone and clay, papyrus and parchment, to paper and the electronic media of our day — law has been a major component of literature. The very fact of publication is an essential requirement for the enactment and efficacy of laws in many societies. Publication of law was widespread before the invention of printing and was achieved by reproducing important texts in multiple manuscript copies which could then be disseminated to libraries, officials and others who needed them and could afford them. The printing of law depended not only on the invention of the press itself, but also on the acceptance of what more accessible law might mean to society. In England, for example this was a matter of considerable controversy for over a hundred years.

This Bibliography draws together materials authored or edited by librarians and members of the legal community in the Commonwealth Caribbean and further afield. It was compiled as part of a research study on The Provision of Legal Information in the Commonwealth Caribbean, in an effort to bring together and disseminate a listing of materials, particularly those on the legal information and the various laws and legal systems of the Caribbean.

Histories of law publishing in the United States can be found in a number of sources, several of which are listed in the bibliography that accompanies this article. Although there are no completely up-to-date treatments of the subject, the most comprehensive is probably Erwin C. Surrency's A History of American Law Publishing (1990). Surrency discusses American legal publishing from the colonial era to the late twentieth century, but his book closes before the far-reaching changes resulting from the growth of electronic publishing and dissemination of legal information in the latter years of the twentieth century. A few sources discuss the initial impacts and implications of computer-assisted legal research databases. More recent literature on the Internet's effects on legal research is discussed in section IV of this article. Other useful sources for exploring the history of U.S. law book publishing are found in two edited collections: George S. Grossman's Legal Research: Historical Foundations of the Electronic Age (1994); and Betty Taylor and Robert Munro's four volume set: American Law Publishing 1860-1900: Historical Readings (1984).