Cynthia Fellows, Philip Leith and Joe Ury report on the survey responses to a usage and attitudinal project carried out in early 2012 by the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII). There were 3,274 survey participants and their responses demonstrate substantial support for BAILII as an open access mechanism, a technically competent dissemination tool and a useful resource for lawyers and non-lawyers alike. Such positive response, we suggest, indicates that BAILII's resources are now threaded through the fabric of UK digital legal information, strengthening the ability of all citizens to access and become better informed about the laws of the land.

Today, the level of access to legal information in Canada equals or surpasses that of any country. Not only do several commercial publishers compete to sell their publications but, in recent years, legislatures, many courts and tribunals have built significant repositories on the web. However, the most spectacular advance has come through the creation of CanLII. In this paper, the Daniel Poulin looks at why and how the Free Access to Law (FAL) approach came about in Canada. He sketches the principles supporting free access, but he tries also to make the business case for establishing it.

In this article Philip Chung, Andrew Mowbray, and Graham Greenleaf, the Co-Directors of the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII), explain the need for an open source search engine which can search simultaneously over legal materials in European languages and also in Asian languages, particularly those that require a ‘double byte’ representation, and the difficulties this task presents. A solution is proposed; the ‘u16a’ modifications to AustLII's open source search engine (Sino) which is used by many legal information institutes. Two implementations of the Sino u16A approach, on the Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HKLII), for English and Chinese, and on the Asian Legal Information Institute (AsianLII), for multiple Asian languages, are described. The implementations have been successful, though many challenges (discussed briefly) remain before this approach will provide a full multi-lingual search facility.

The market in academic monographs is problematic, and sales have been in decline for decades. Concurrently, Open Access models of publishing are being developed and open content licenses designating a ‘some rights reserved’ status for content have been employed to provide a legal framework to reflect the changing ways content is used online. In the context of these innovations, Frances Pinter and Nicholas Bown describe Knowledge Unlatched, a not-for-profit library consortium project which seeks to combine a financially viable Open Access model with the use of open content licences to create a more efficient market in scholarly books to the benefit of all stakeholders in the academic publishing ecosystem.

In this paper Steven Whittle describes recent work at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies to provide open online access to the IALS/SALS official journal Amicus Curiae and selected papers from the Institute's annual W. G. Hart Legal Workshop. It discusses some of the issues involved in a transition from print to web publication and looks at the benefits anticipated from additional web delivery.

There is a revolution afoot in scholarly communication and it is called, Open Access. Whilst Gregory J Gordon is a strong proponent of Open Access, he believes many people are missing the point as more does not mean better, it only means more. Open Access has had a major impact on scholarly communications by reducing the traditional barriers to research. Unfortunately, this has compounded the issues of discovery. Institutional repositories, disciplinary repositories and multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional repositories and metrics such as downloads, citations, and Eigenfactor™ Score are new tools in the scholarly researcher's kit. Familiarity and comprehension of these tools will help scholars make efficient use of the overabundance of scholarly communications. This strategic access approach will ultimately result in greater precision.

Change, it is said, is the only constant. Whilst it cannot be avoided, the worlds of legal education and legal services have arguably enjoyed an extended period where the impact of change has been comparatively minimal. Today, these worlds face significant changes due to a combination of market and regulatory forces. True, such changes are likely to be accompanied by challenges but with these challenges come opportunities. There is no reason why Law Schools and Law students cannot help to shape these changes and benefit from them. Peter Smith, Richard Whittle and Peter Griffith discuss LawSync™, a project that seeks to enable such influence and attract such benefits at Sheffield Hallam University. See http://www.lawsync.com and http://twitter.com/lawsync for more details.

Librarians have an important role to play in providing guidance and assistance to their organisation on copyright compliance. This task is becoming ever more challenging as licence conditions and copyright law are refined and library users want to re-use information in a wider variety of ways. In the following article Dunstan Speight and Jennifer Darroch of Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP discuss a recent pilot project to produce more readily accessible copyright guidance. Although the examples below relate to newspaper copyright issues and are in the context of a City law firm, it is hoped that the ideas will be of more general application.

In this article, James Mullan addresses the recent trend relating legal project management (LPM) by law firms and assesses the long term potential for this concept. In addition, he seeks to identify how those in the law library and information profession can play a significant role in its introduction and development within a firm.

This is the latest report analysing the results of the Academic Law Library Survey conducted on behalf of the Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) and the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL). It has been written by David Gee, Deputy Librarian at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.

In this, the second of two articles, Nadine Fathers looks at what information is available through the various legal online subscription databases in relation to pending appeal cases. Her first article was published in the Spring 2012 issue of LIM.1

In this article, Jackie Fishleigh reflects on her first taste of e-learning whilst undertaking the revamped Legal Foundations Course. She explains how the course now works and compares it to the original version she took 20 years ago. She also looks at the views on e-learning expressed by Professor Richard Susskind and educationalist, Alan Clarke. The advantages and disadvantages are explored, together with the characteristics of a successful e-learner. The article aims to be informative and entertaining.