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Describes how on March 31, 1995, the Chicago office of the law firm of Baker & McKenzie dismissed the entire library staff of three professionals, seven paraprofessionals, and additional 25 support staff. While the publicly stated reasons for this action were to bring the library more into the electronic age and to make it more global, a recent $3,700,000 award for sexual harassment and a bloated staff‐to‐attorney ratio of two staff for every attorney, were the influencing causes. Outsourcing in business, and in academic libraries, is not a new phenomenon. Cataloging departments are most likely to be outsourced because it reallocates resources, produces higher quality of cataloging, and there is a well‐developed infrastructure of vendors who provide cataloging on a contract basis. Private law libraries outsource some of their functions, but not their reference desks. Discusses the literature of outsourcing and presents an outsourcing survey of private law firms.

Purpose–To share themes and issues of a conference held in Nigeria of a specialized group of librarians, law librarians. Design/methodology/approach–This is a review of the conference. Findings–Surprisingly, the issues that were highlighted in the papers and presentations was not the most important nor interesting sense of this meeting, but the poor attendance, participation and the incredible sense of digital divide that is described and how weak conditions are in Nigerian law libraries due to inadequate connectivity overall and Internet access in particular. Access to resources regardless of the standards is highly restricted. Practical implications–Intervention of resources, technology, capital and human resources are all badly needed to make a difference in training and rendering improved services in law libraries. International content available via the web is not helpful if access is so cumbersome and restricted. Originality/value–Provides information of value of Library professionals.

Legal reference has gone public. Ten years ago, tables of cases, Supreme Court digests and legal encyclopedias were confined to an esoteric circle of law libraries. Today, in the wake of activism, consumerism and sunshine laws, the public at large has demanded and received legal reference tools hither‐to unheard of in the public libraries and general academic collections.

In order to better understand how collections are used, this study aims to present a large‐scale analysis of usage patterns for non‐core monographs in the collections of fourteen general academic libraries of varying sizes.

Using Spectra Dimension, a collection analysis tool, this study compares use data from multiple academic libraries.

It appears that general academic libraries are overinvesting in legal materials and perhaps underinvesting in medical materials.

This study suggests that analysis of use data from multiple libraries may help individual libraries better understand their own collecting needs. Local issues may, however, override the broad patterns identified here.

In lean budgetary times, understanding collection use is key to making informed decisions about resource allocation for collection development. Libraries may be able to use these data to better manage their own materials budgets and collecting practices.

Though there have been a number of large‐scale analyses of collections, most have relied on sampling or have compared small portions of collections, and few have compared use across libraries. This study analyzes collection use across many institutions at a level of detail not possible before the introduction of multi‐library collection analysis tools.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the initiatives providing legal information during the COVID-19 emergency, focusing on the fundamental role of digital libraries in creating, managing and sharing services to support and ensure access to legal information in times of emergency.

To have an overall view of the legal information on COVID-19 available on digital libraries during the outbreak, a desk-research on the Web was conducted looking for both public and private sources of information. The selection of the sources was based on the type of information and services offered, the quality of information structuring, together with the data updating and the target users.

The survey provided a huge and heterogeneous amount of legal information resources on COVID-19. The analysis on the source of information selected showed different kinds of approaches adopted by digital libraries in relation to types of information provided, information categorization, target audiences, purposes and services offered.

Two limitations have been identified: lack of previous studies in the domain and size of the samples cited. The conducted research should be seen as the “building block” upon which further research should be broadened and deepened. Limited samples are cited because of a rational choice; nevertheless, future research should be conducted also addressing a quantitative choice on identifying sources.

The research proposes to give users practical guidance, namely, a first set of authoritative sources which gives legal information on COVID-19.

This review paper could be seen as a first study on the issues related to accessing and sharing legal data at the time of the COVID-19; the research could be a starting point for devising a new form of communication of legal information in times of crisis.

Librarians have been urged to emphasize social justice and human rights issues in their library mission, but they may find themselves challenged to provide additional services, such as access to legal information for those who cannot afford an attorney. Social justice services in libraries are seldom adequately funded and providing services in this area is labor intensive. In addition, there is an emotional intensity in library services for social justice that is often not considered in the initial enthusiasm of providing services in this area. Yet there seems to be no limit to the need. An interesting and useful perspective on how a public agency such as a library responds in circumstances of limited resources and unlimited demand can be found in the book Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service, by Michael Lipsky. In this perspective, lower level civil servants who interact directly with members of the general public exercise a level of discretion in the amount of services provided and how those services are administered. This chapter explores how this can generate tensions between more traditional library bureaucracy and social justice services, such as providing public access to justice resources in law libraries. However, the “street-level” response is evolving into a sustainability perspective as librarians embrace a more social justice–oriented outlook in library service planning.

This paper aims to explore the need for training and retraining of law librarians and other information professionals on the critical art of technical services. That exploration becomes even more critical in view of the exponential growth of available legal information in primary, secondary and web sources and the attendant change in legal information processing and management. The topic was discussed in a Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies' (NIALS) workshop in June 2007.

An exploratory research design was adopted. The method was to first examine the course objectives of the workshop to ensure that it is well packaged to empower and re‐equip law librarians and information professionals. The next approach was to discuss the NIALS as the apex Institute for research and advanced studies in law. Then, the general overview of the workshop was discussed.

Law libraries and law librarians are challenged to develop better retrieval tools that enable access to legal and other subject‐specific information needed by the library's critical public and clientele system – user community. This is being necessitated by the fact that computer and other electronic systems are now used in the provision of technical services such as the production of catalog cards, indexing and abstracting of legal materials, to mention but a few.

The paper's originality lies in its discussion that new law librarians and other information professionals often find it difficult to relate their academic library training to real‐life professionals practice situation, especially in the sophisticated discipline of law. Older professionals on the other hand need retraining to adapt to the new era of technology‐driven information handling methodologies.

Copyright law supposedly brings a balance between copyright owners and information users as a way of creating a harmonious relationship. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between Kenya’s Copyright Act and the provision of information services in public university libraries in Kenya.

The study was informed by both the organization theory and the social systems theory which, respectively, provided a base for discussion on the library and its basic functions, and an interdisciplinary approach that accommodate library services and law. Data were collected from a sample of 77 librarians from public universities libraries, and analyzed using the qualitative method.

The study established that librarians were reasonably aware of the copyright Act. However, they were apprehensive and uncertain about copyright effect on the library. Evidence from the study showed that librarians needed to extend their knowledge and understanding of the copyright law for the effective provision of information services. The paper concludes that there is scope for librarians, using their wealth of knowledge and expertise, to make relevant and useful suggestions on copyright. Such contribution would assist in bringing harmony in the use of copyrighted materials.

These findings are original and will be useful in giving general direction on copyright. The study highlights the important issue of universities as parent institutions providing needed leadership in the copyright area.

Public access to legal materials is extremely important because of the number of laws, regulations, and court cases governing our society. In order to function effectively on a day‐to‐day basis and carry out his or her responsibilities toward the legal system, an individual needs an understanding of the law and the legal process. In this article we explore the steps that public librarians must take to establish and utilize a basic legal collection for their communities and offer some insight into the suggested approaches for dealing with legal reference inquiries.