In the 150th anniversary year of both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the inception of the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting (ICLR) this article by Alison Million considers any possible common contemporaneous connections between their authors. It makes particular reference to Lewis Carroll's legal associations and his fascination with the processes of law, considering to what extent these may have influenced Alice. In briefly reviewing ICLR history and the instigating factors behind reform it looks at the requisite skills needed finally to devise a successful scheme and any potential overlap between those and some of Lewis Carroll's many subject disciplines. The article concludes that just as the law helped shape Alice, so has Alice contributed to English case law by providing a descriptor for “perfect nonsense”.

Infiltrate and Conquer … looks at how librarians might take inspiration from outside of their profession to gain greater visibility and influence within their own workplaces. The piece is a mixture of experiences: from the author, Emily Allbon, from others who have left the profession but who use those skills in other careers, and also from some librarians outside of law. The focus here is on why, and indeed how, to forge partnerships and encourage collaboration with others inside and outside of your profession. The author's Lawbore website and associated technologies will be discussed throughout the article.

The Library is of value as a physical and social space, as a place that can facilitate learning; independently and in distinct ways to its role as repository of, and point of access to, information. The problems that defenders of this “learning place” aspect of the Library face are bound up with a very powerful, and indeed prevalent, metaphor. This metaphor is of teaching and learning as the transfer of information from one place or head, to another place or head. Therefore, Graham Ferris and Angela Donaldson put forward a far more realistic account of learning, and combine it with an example of learning being enacted in practice. We need to articulate the value of the Library as a place of learning because it is under threat from pressures on resources that are being deployed on a “common sense” but fallacious assumption that Libraries are about the storage and manipulation of information only.

This article, written by Emily Stannard, is based on her presentation at the 2015 BIALL Annual Conference. The article discusses the recent statutory changes to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and reflects on the impact it has had on information professionals, especially those working within the cultural heritage and education sectors. The wording of the legislation is considered in detail with the aid of case law to provide context where necessary, particularly with reference to fair dealing provisions. Developments within the Digital Single Market of the European Union also have a significant impact on national copyright law, and it is imperative that information professionals remain informed about upcoming copyright initiatives as well as making sense of the new statutory instruments.

Over the past few years the cataloguing community has seen radical changes in cataloguing standards, changes which appear to have been largely ignored by legal information professionals. This is a mistake according to Helen Doyle; the new cataloguing model can have enormous implications for the legal community, particularly in the spheres of information and knowledge management, and the profession is missing a huge opportunity by ignoring it. A new cataloguing standard (RDA) has been developed based on an alternative theoretical approach, known as “Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records” (FRBR). FRBR seeks to change the way we approach the bibliographic universe: from stand-alone, individual repositories of information to networks of linked data built on a structured hierarchy. Commercial law firms are constantly trying to make connections between their traditional resources, online repositories, internal know-how, etc, but struggle to achieve complete synchronicity. FRBR provides a solution to this knowledge management problem: all resources (including people, events and subjects) become searchable, and because everything is linked, users can access information by navigating to it, establishing their own pathway through the data. Moreover, the major legal databases are already utilising linked data in this way – it is time for law firms to catch up.

This paper, which was written by Rona Blair, is drawn from her presentation at the 2015 BIALL Annual Conference. The article looks at the challenges of working in a geographically dispersed team and how to overcome these challenges using pragmatic and workable procedures.

This paper is adapted from a presentation given by Sara Roberts at the 2015 BIALL Annual Conference. On September 4th 2010 Christchurch suffered the first of a series of catastrophic earthquakes which continued over the next two years and damaged much of the city. During this time the University of Canterbury suffered greatly, both through physical damage to the campus and from a loss of students willing to come and study in Christchurch. Subsequently, the dedicated Law Library on campus was closed and it was necessary to reassess the service in the light of severely reduced resources. More than four years on from that first earthquake, the law collection is situated in the central library on campus, and the number of professional law librarians supporting the service has reduced from four to two. Yet despite the changes the service has not diminished and, indeed, is stronger in some areas.

In this article Ruth Bird examines the issues around moving, or relocating, a library. Drawing on her experiences of moving, relocating and renovating, and in the context of current work that is happening at the Bodleian Law Library (BLL), she compares the issues in relation to both law firm libraries and academic libraries. The article examines space management and collection management issues, planning, allocating roles and how the burden of moves can be shared in a collaborative way. Ruth also looks at the ‘people’ issues and the implications for collections.

This is the latest report analysing the results of the Society of Legal Scholars and BIALL Survey. It has been written by David Gee, Deputy Librarian at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.