This article, written by Lenka Geidt, gives detailed insight into Brexit projects undertaken by Middle Temple Library. The library specialises, among other areas, in European Union law. This article explains how members of the Inns of Court and librarians can benefit from these projects which focus on legislation, case law and the legal debate regarding the United Kingdom's referendum on European Union membership and Brexit.

The Principles of Legal Research (PLR) website of the University of Ottawa's Brian Dickson Law Library is a bilingual (English and French) online learning tool for all first year students in both Common Law and Civil Law.1 Law librarians use this e-learning website to facilitate teaching components such as student assignments and assessments. This user experience study aims to investigate law students’ real experience with the system. Their feedback will be used for future development planning as well as analysing user behaviour trends. The authors investigate the following aspects: accuracy of information, interface design, navigation system, Web 2.0, social media, and smartphone version.

The Internet has become a major source of health and nutrition information. Little is known about the type of consulted websites (institutional v. non-institutional) and the tendency to discuss with a healthcare professional (HCP) the information found on the Internet. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to investigate health- and nutrition-related Internet use in a large French population-based study. Data were collected in 2013 using self-administered, web-based questionnaires from 42 113 participants of the NutriNet-Santé study (mean age=51·2 years, 76 % women). Unconditional multivariate logistic regression analyses and χ2 tests were used for comparisons. In total, 85·1 % of the subjects used the Internet to search for health and/or nutrition information, and 23·6 % used the Internet to read or post messages on health/nutrition forums. Only 16·0 % discussed with a HCP the information found online. This proportion was lower in subjects with lower educational level (OR 0·77; 95 % CI 0·72, 0·82) and lower computer skills (OR 0·70; 95 % CI 0·65, 0·76). In total, 8038 health/nutrition websites were cited, with institutional websites representing only 12·9 % of that number. Only one institutional website was present in the top 10. Older subjects (OR 1·49; 95 % CI 1·28–1·74), those with lower educational level (OR 2·08; 95 % CI 1·75, 2·50) and lower nutritional knowledge (OR 1·33; 1·12, 1·59) were more likely to cite non-institutional websites. This large population-based study showed that institutional websites were infrequently accessed and that a few participants discussed the information found online with their HCP. This particular trend was especially visible among individuals who were more vulnerable regarding misleading information. This supports the need to increase awareness of high-quality websites providing reliable health/nutrition information.

This study proposes an initial and a revised model of government-oriented public relation (PR) strategies based on the results of two content analyses of website news regarding the PR activities of 76 firms in general and six well-known firms in China in more depth. With the perspective of resource dependence theory, this model reveals that firms in China employ six types of formal PR strategies, including visitation, philanthropy, participation, publicity, party involvement and political propaganda, to manage their dependence on government for resources. Further, the implementation of such strategies involves a four-step process: organizing PR activities with economic, social and political significance; obtaining the involvement and recognition of the government; building firms' resource, moral and cultural legitimacy in the government's eyes; and interacting with the government on the issues of firms' dependence to influence government policies relative to firms. We also explore the differences that exist among firms with different ownership structures in the use of these PR strategies, the level of government involved and the issues pursued.

It has become increasingly common for a reader to follow a URL cited in a court opinion or a law review article, only to be met with an error message because the resource has been moved from its original online address. This form of reference rot, commonly referred to as ‘linkrot’, has arisen from the disconnect between the transience of online materials and the permanence of legal citation, and will only become more prevalent as scholarly materials move online. The present paper*, written by Jonathan Zittrain, Kendra Albert and Lawrence Lessig, explores the pervasiveness of linkrot in academic and legal citations, finding that more than 70% of the URLs within the Harvard Law Review and other journals, and 50% of the URLs within United States Supreme Court opinions, do not link to the originally cited information. In light of these results, a solution is proposed for authors and editors of new scholarship that involves libraries undertaking the distributed, long-term preservation of link contents.

Tax, national insurance, tax credits and the minimum wage are often difficult to understand. Those with questions frequently turn to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) for answers, but the HMRC website is often out-of-date and confusing. Last year, Anne Redston launched the Cobweb Campaign to sweep out the dusty corners of this huge information database.

Peter Jordan and Helen Lippell describe the role of metadata, including taxonomies, in re-designing the flagship government website, Directgov.

Derek Sturdy explains the importance of search engine optimisation for the legal information professional involved in the organisation's website in the Google era and suggests that the most important pieces of information are the title and the abstract. He also discusses the rise in automatic classification in the enterprise search context.

Diane Raper describes the ongoing project at the University of Kent to upgrade the free Lawlinks portal established nearly ten years ago by Sarah Carter. The emphasis is on ensuring linking is working, establishing new links, and generally making the site more user-friendly, both to Kent law students and the outside world.

Due to the involvement of scientific, industrial, commercial and public sectors of society, the complexity of the issues concerning the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for the environment, agriculture, and human and animal health calls for a wide coverage of information. Accordingly, development of the field of biotechnology, along with concerns related to the fate of released GMOs, has led to a rapid development of tools for disseminating such information. As a result, there is a growing number of databases aimed at collecting and storing information related to GMOs. Most of the sites deal with information on environmental releases, field trials, transgenes and related sequences, regulations and legislation, risk assessment documents, and literature. Databases are mainly established and managed by scientific, national or international authorities, and are addressed towards scientists, government officials, policy makers, consumers, farmers, environmental groups and civil society representatives. This complexity can lead to an overlapping of information. The purpose of the present review is to analyse the relevant databases currently available on the web, providing comments on their vastly different information and on the structure of the sites pertaining to different users. A preliminary overview on the development of these sites during the last decade, at both the national and international level, is also provided.