This issue of LIM has a theme of Scottish legal information and David Hart the highly respected and long-standing (ex) Scottish law librarian, kindly agreed to talk to the Editor about his long career on law librarianship and his involvement with BIALL

This article by Stuart Reid and Janice Edwards of Maclay Murray & Spens, focusses on three areas of the Scottish legal system: the Scottish courts system; the impact of devolution in Scotland and some examples of differences between the Scottish and English legal systems.

This article, written by Susan Mansfield, Head of Information Services, on the eve of the Scottish Parliament's tenth anniversary, discusses how the Parliament came into being and explains how it works. There are a number of resources mentioned to assist the reader in following the business of the Scottish Parliament. The article goes on to discuss how the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) was set up, its founding principles, its structure, staffing and services and concludes with a look at future challenges for SPICe.

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.

Nick Brotchie, Librarian of the Scottish Law Commission, provides a history of law reform initiatives in Scotland, traces the evolution of the Scottish Law Commission and explains the process of law reform in Scotland.

This article by Andrea Longson, the Senior Librarian, outlines the history of both the Advocates Library and the Faculty of Advocates. It describes the collections and services offered by the library.

The library of the Royal Faculty of Procurators in Glasgow has been in existence for over 190 years. It is open to all practising and retired solicitors, advocates and law firms. This article by John McKenzie briefly outlines its history, relevance to the legal profession today, current set-up, challenges and future.

Elaine Bird, the current Librarian of the Signet Library, describes the history and current activities of this library which forms part of one of the world's oldest legal professional bodies

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

Law publishing in Scotland has seen something of a renaissance during the last 20 years. This article by Margaret Cherry is an overview of Scots law publishing from a Scottish perspective. It looks at the factors which influence publishing decisions, including market and economic considerations and the nature of Scots law itself. It also covers the principal publishers – both past and current – who have produced books on Scots law.

Kay Munro, Senior Assistant Librarian at Glasgow University Library, writes about the courses offered by the Faculty of Law at Glasgow, the law library's collections and the services offered to students.

This article by Gareth Ryan, Law and Official Publications Librarian, describes the history of the library, outlines the courses offered by the law school and details the collections and services offered by the law library.

In this article, Julie Jones looks at the past, present, and possible future of information organisation, and considers how legal research might be conducted in years to come as the internet and computer science advance. Information classification systems have historically had finite life spans and there is no reason to believe that the current crop is any different. With increasingly more information being born digital, new ways of thinking about organisation and searching methodologies are developing to handle the deluge.

Jules Winterton recounts his experiences attending a recent conference in the Philippines and also provides a history of the professional information organisations in the Philippines and their relationships with IALL.

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.

In this checklist, Margie Jones picks out some of the key issues she encountered when moving a regional law firm's library from the head office to new premises situated six miles from the town centre to a converted warehouse. These include the challenge of offering a distance service to the fee earners.

John Eaton from the University of Manitoba at Winnipeg, describes an important Canadian knowledge initiative within the academic library community relating to acquisition of digital resources.