Keywords
Citation
Bell, V. (2012), "The IALL International Handbook of Legal Information Management", Library Management, Vol. 33 No. 3, pp. 196-200. https://doi.org/10.1108/01435121211217252
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
This International Handbook addresses the process and vital problems that authorised information managers and law librarians are beset with in the context of the heterogeneous authorised environments in that they work. It provides resources, analysis, and deliberate studies on this area for seasoned professionals, those about to come in the field, and any person involved in authorised information in the twenty‐first century. So we read in the Foreword by Professor Richard Susskind, OBE.
This book has been published under the auspices of the International Association of Law Libraries (IALL). This Association is a worldwide, cooperative professional body concerned with access to legal information, particularly on a multinational and global scale. It comprises law librarians, law libraries and other persons and institutions active in the acquisition, delivery and use of legal information from sources beyond their own jurisdiction. Many members of this Association have contributed to the content of this Handbook, providing others with a better understanding of many of the issues now being faced in the ever‐changing world of information management.
The editors set the scene with Professor Danner providing a framework and description of the twenty first century legal information environment. Amongst other things in his chapter “Defining international law librarianship in an age of multiplicity, knowledge, and open access to law “ he discusses the role of law librarians and law libraries, opening up the conversation for many esteemed professional to contribute in the chapters that follow.
An overview of “Globalisation and legal information management” has been contributed by his fellow editor. As an international handbook, this is an equally important chapter, directing the reader to many of the issues which the intended audience grapple with and which the publisher (the IALL) represents. Winterton provides a brief survey of what globalisation means in the field of legal information management and what effect it has had and will have on a range of activities and policies relevant to the practice of legal information management.
He emphasises that the developments and changes brought about by globalisation imply trends for the future of law libraries and new challenges and opportunities for law librarians.
The impact of digital technology is highlighted and again this chapter leads neatly into the new models of communication offered to librarians in the various roles of capturing, organising, describing, indexing (implying a rediscovery of the importance of metadata and selection), and preserving information, as well as in sharing intellectual content and opportunities in the increasingly sophisticated management of resources, aspects of publishing information, retrieving and packaging information for research, and education and training, using skills of information management and collaboration.
“The education and training of law librarians” considers the competencies of law librarianship, with emphasis on education and training in the USA. The history, present and future of education and training is discussed at three levels – the core librarian competencies, those of law librarians, and those of foreign, comparative and international law librarian's world‐wide. The author, Penny Hazelton, impresses upon the reader that every type of education from the formal to the informal to on‐the‐job learning must be present in a robust educational environment.
The chapter “Global legal education and its implications for legal information management” goes the further. The authors contend that global legal education now presents a multi‐faceted challenge. It has impacted on the curriculum, moving from the periphery to the centre of curriculum design. The matter of pedagogy is discussed, with globalisation said to have accelerated the trend away from learning the rules towards resolving the problems. Globalisation has also promoted geographical, social, and cultural diversity among faculty and students involved in legal education, impacting the participation in legal education. Finally there is the matter of program structure, all of which have significant implications for the management of legal information. Michael Crommelin and Carole Hinchcliff discuss many of the changes underway in curriculum and pedagogy that have implications for the management of legal information. They maintain that the demarcation line between faculty and librarians, already blurred, will become less clear and law librarians must be drawn into the task of designing and participating in the learning process devised for the acquisition of mastery over a broad range of complex sources of legal information.
Tanya du Plesis introduces the reader to “Global legal practice and information management”. Her clever analogy with wheels and cars in enhanced with some sound examples of the management of tacit and explicit legal information and knowledge in a global legal practice. Knowledge management, the value it can add, systems used, challenges, and possible solutions are discussed. Methods for identifying and eliminating gaps in the KM system of a legal practice are explored. She reminds the reader that IT is a significant force that has made knowledge management more achievable, but emphasises the need to recognise that technology is an enabler of KM and that KM is not always technologically based.
The issue of “Ideology, illusion and the global copyright regime” is discussed by Colin Darch in an entertaining, realistic and meaningful way. His illustrations of Intellectual Property as a metaphor, as a parallel and as a sub‐type of property were enlightening in a way this reader had not previously considered. His concerns with the corruption and co‐option by vested interests who manipulate the copyright and IP systems against the best interests of the citizenry are well expressed.
Ruth Bird, in her article “Legal information literacy” introduces the reader to the legal landscape in common law countries when legal research training concentrated on the mastery of a clearly defined body of information organised by type of material. Examples of this material include law reports, legislation, digests and core journal. With so many changes taking place in this landscape in the form of delivery, format and geographic spread of legal information the need to revisit legal information literacy becomes a given. Bird examines the definitions of IL from various organisations around the world, and notes the skills and competencies of the information literate person. She maintains that law librarians have been at the forefront of librarianship in seeing training of library users as an integral part of their role, a role that has grown along with the use of legal databases and related e‐resources in formats that are changing to such an extent that training is required in using the technology before learning to use the tool for content.
Harking back to the chapters on education and on the legal practice, various legal research competencies are considered, and placed in the context of the changing nature of legal information, study of law, and users of legal information. This chapter highlights the role of librarians in teaching legal information literacy, the skills those librarians need, and the ongoing challenges they face is keeping ahead of their users.
A major part of this invaluable handbook is made up of country profiles of “Law librarianship around the world”. Each country profile addresses topics which describe and explain the overall environment in which law librarians operate in their country. The profiles give the number of practicing law librarians; the education and training and general qualifications available, as well as noting the usual qualification expected to be held by a law librarian; reference is made to any association or organisation that encourage participation of law librarians in activities such as networking, continuing professional development, oversight of professional qualifications, service collaboration of service, and lobbying. Libraries that hold major law collections are identified and described, as is the legal publishing environment. Contributing authors to this section of the book were also asked to identify major policy issues affecting law librarianship in their countries. The countries included in this handbook are India, Moldova, Nigeria, Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam, with the profiles written by recipients of either a grant or a scholarship provided by the IALL either to attend its annual course in international law librarianship, or to undertake an internship at an overseas institution, and each recipient of these awards are seen as playing a significant role in the profession in their country.
The issues described in these country profiles highlight the deed for “Digitizing the world's laws”. Claire Germain, in her own words, evaluates the current state of progress in online access to the content of foreign law, provides a world snapshot, and discusses such digital law issues as authentication and preservation for long‐term access. With digitisation comes the whole new world of “Free access to legal information, LIIs, and the free access to law movement”. In this chapter Graham Greenleaf explores the origins and role of legal information institutes and the expansion into the corporation and the Free Legal Access Movement. Globalisation has again impacted on the spread and growth of this movement, affecting government providers, publishers, translations of laws, citations, standards and reliability and raises the question of who really pays for free access, and whether it is truly accessible if it cannot be accessed by search engines like Google.
Given the amount and type of legal publishing of more than just legislation it should come as no surprise to the reader that the next challenge to be tackled in this well constructed volume would be “Globalisation and commercial legal publishing”. The author details legal publishing and the emerging oligopoly and the history of the origins of anti‐trust law, with particular emphasis on the USA. He brings us up to date with the transformation of the legal publishing industry, the emergence of computer‐assisted legal research and the Thomson Corporation, the world's largest purveyor of legal information. Svengalis completes his narrative with a round up of the current state of legal publishing, bemoaning the fact that the mergers and acquisitions detailed, while creating advantageous synergies of combined intellectual content and research systems, and financial gain to the Thomson‐West conglomerate, did not really bring legal information closer to consumers in the form of lower prices. This merger had the reverse affect for many libraries, forcing a reduction in subscriptions, particularly of the printed kind.
The question then arises as to how a legal librarian handles “Collection building: foreign, comparative and international law in print”. Holger Knudson contends that this type of law librarianship is different from all the other fields of librarianship for several reasons:
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law is a genuinely national affair;
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national law is based on national languages;
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the meanings of legal terminology are different from jurisdiction to jurisdiction;
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the format of legal sources differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction;
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there are no unified ruled for citation;
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specialised law publishers (if any) differ from country to country; and
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the system of legal bookselling (if any) differs from country to country.
Having explored the issues around building a print collection, the reader is encouraged to think about the issues involved in “Shaping electronic collections in foreign, comparative and international law“. In this chapter Marilyn Raisch describes a well‐structured electronic library of international and comparative law and suggests how this library might be created.
She identifies three key areas of activity. First, selection of the best free and commercial databases for international and comparative law research using criteria for evaluating content and functionality. She goes on to discuss the integration of databases and their content, including what on the free web might be referred to as portals, into a tool for discovery and access. Raisch continues with a discussion of the presentation of this information through an integrating tool, and provides examples of these.
Her final model of a virtual library as publisher/mentor with many facets including a web‐space users can customise and colonise privately, a large dynamic but controlled array of information sources that can be searched like Google, a repository of collections of texts or sound files or images, etc would make any librarian proud.
The chapter on “International organisations and legal information” looks at the search for authoritative texts. Jeroen Verrvliet discusses the definition of treaties and conventions and the resolutions of international organisations and judicial decisions as sources of law, and provides substantive examples of international organisations producing legal information.
Teresa Miguel provides an overview of some trends in the academic realm of comparative law in the twenty‐first century in her contribution “Comparative law: academic perspectives”. The chapter is organised along geographical lines but recognises that the importance of borders is diminishing for legal scholars; the amount of cross‐national legal scholarship, teaching and practice is increasing; and discussion of and engagement in comparative legal methodology is not confined to North America and Western Europe, even though scholarship is more plentiful in these regions.
The handbook is completed with a look at “A research agenda for international law librarianship” and more information about the International Association of Law Libraries, its history, the courses it has arranged, its publications, scholarships, and officers and board members. The Association, and the editors of this volume are to be commended on the timeliness, the breadth and scope of coverage, the usefulness, and the expertise presented. The intended audience is never declared, but it would behove anyone – student, practitioner or librarian – to read some (or all) of the chapters. Individual authors have provided extensive references enhancing the value of their writing. The key issues of legal information management have been identified and discussed in a logical and accessible manner. With a clear focus on the legal, this reviewer found additional value in some of the points raised, examples provided, and methodology used as being pertinent to other disciplines that librarians need to be across in both their day‐to‐day duties and long‐term planning.