This article results from the Pre-Conference Seminar presented at the BIALL Conference in June 2009 by Victoria Jannetta and Pamela Wolffsohn. Having both raised their Information Department's profiles in a better economic climate, they shared how they created opportunities to establish good positioning in their firms. They also addressed the challenges we now face in these frostier times. This was a workshop and was brought to life by spirited discussions, potential solutions and ideas on how to deal with problems faced by many of us – reduced resources and headcount.

Carl Clayton, Director, SINTO - the information partnership, writes that there is no shortage of legal information, yet for some people it can still be difficult to get access to the legal information they may need as citizens. Libraries in the Sheffield area have a strong history of co-operation but this cannot remove all the barriers.

In this article Christian Wolf seeks to identify and understand the nature of the profession of law librarianship in Germany. The first question he seeks to address is whether there is a recognised profession at all. He explains some basic principles of German public and labour law and then, having laid this foundation, he describes the profession of law librarianship in Germany in detail.

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 Gill Black of Biggart Baillie LLP, the current Convenor of the Group, describes its membership and activities.

Greg Rose outlines the main publishers of construction contracts used under English law. He then looks at sources for obtaining the contracts, both hard copy and electronic versions, and advises us on how to keep them up-to-date.

Since it was established, GlobaLex has become a recognised and heavily accessed worldwide database of international, foreign, and comparative law research articles. As Mirela Roznovschi explains, GlobaLex represents a valuable component of legal research in today's cyberlegal environment. In February 2015 GlobaLex celebrates a 10 year anniversary. This article celebrates the success of the service.

Roddy Waldhelm, Head of the Solicitor's Legal Information Centre, describes the work of Government lawyers in Scotland and how their information needs are met by his team, which provides a dedicated in-house legal library and research service.

Ruth Ward explains how open access to legislation in Africa is a much more recent development than in the developed world. Several recently launched projects are well underway, and are contributing towards promoting justice and the rule of law in Africa. Access to legislation facilitates great transparency and access to the law for the promotion of trade and investment; and supports the resulting economic development on the continent. Several different approaches to establishing projects which deliver reliable consolidated access to legislation are illustrated, and show that successful projects can be established and maintained on modest budgets by very small teams.

This article by Paul Billingham of Concept Searching and Phil Ayton of UC Logic covers the history of computerised searching aids in the context of knowledge management projects and describes conceptSearching, which is a scientific approach to trying to solve natural language searching problems using a number of techniques, not just an algorithm. They also consider federated searching and describe the Sysero information portal and a taxonomy manager application.

It is apt to start this review about the 2000s by mentioning ‘a project called UKILELI…it aims to create a database of UK full-text legislation and case transcripts; available via the web. More critically it aims to be free.’ It was later renamed to the more easily pronounced BAILII. BIALL had voted to support the project with a donation and to encourage law libraries to do the same.

This article, by Mercedes Robba and Mariana Lavalle, deals with the civil right to reproduction and procreative liberty aroused by the Argentinian legislation and Court's decisions, in the light of the new concept of family in the country. This contribution focuses exclusively on the barriers to equal access to reproductive health in Argentina, taking into account infertility, infecundity and childlessness, according to the right to raise a family in conditions of equality and freedom.

Mark Pexton, of Herbert Smith Freehills LLP, provides a report on the findings of a survey into the use of Collection Development Policies (CDPs) and related collection development issues in law firm libraries. The survey was conducted during September 2014 and during the course of this article he provides an analysis of the benefits and difficulties of creating and implementing a CDP.

This article by Rachel Brett highlights the key issues to be aware of when carrying out international company searches and reviews the information available online from the national company registries for some of the key European and offshore jurisdictions including: Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands.

This is an edited version of an article by A.R. Hewitt which first appeared in The Indexer in Autumn 1963 and was re-published in The indexer in 2014. The editor of LIM felt that the article deserved a wider audience and is grateful to The Indexer for allowing it to be reproduced here*. Although contemporary indexers do not have to trouble themselves with the layout of index cards, much of the advice contained in it is still applicable a half-century later. It is concerned with English law, but again, many of the principles apply to indexing works on legal subjects for other jurisdictions.

This paper was presented by Penny Bailey at the 38th BIALL Annual Study Conference held in Sheffield in June 2007 and covers the challenges involved in introducing a knowledge management strategy to a law firm. It suggests methods to be adopted in trying to implement such a service including identification with the firm's business objectives; persuasive communication; identification of the benefits accruing and strategies for collecting knowledge.

Melinda Renner, from the University of New Brunswick, writes about her experiences as a New England Law Library Consortium International Fellow who was seconded to the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London. She describes the visits she made and her impressions of how academic librarianship in Britain and Canda appear to share many of the same issues and problems.

In this piece Jackie Fishleigh offers her views on the rather edgy and menacing world of data privacy and protection, focusing on developments during the last year. Her article provides a summary of the key issues that are currently being discussed and debated, including at BIALL's own annual conference which took place last year in Harrogate.

Technology is transforming the way legal work is being delivered. It is influencing what law firms, clients and legal departments are expecting of their employees and what employees are expecting of their employers. It is reshaping legal education and careers; lawyers are becoming legal knowledge engineers, information professionals and knowledge managers are working closer than ever with IT teams. In this article, Ann Hemming and James Wilkinson will be considering lawyers’ training and BIALL members’ role in the landscape being reshaped by legal technology.