Dr. Dahlmanns' invitation to Australian Law Librarians to tell the world about their activities in this issue of the International Journal of Law Libraries has been welcomed by the eight librarians to whom it was sent. Three of them, at least, have been happy to let me speak for them. The history of the Australian Law Librarians' Group is almost inextricably wound up with my personal history as a law librarian. While I apologise for being autobiographical this course of action is unavoidable if the true history of the A.L.L.G. is to be written.

The Member States of the European Union have diverse legal traditions explained in part by the dichotomy of common law and civil law systems. Yet notwithstanding this diversity all Member States have adjusted to the new legal order created by the European Community in accepting the primacy of EC law and the legal principles establishing by the European Court of Justice. This paper examines briefly the Irish experience in making that adjustment.

It is more than ten years since our new constitutional era dawned, and nearly ten years since the Constitutional Court was established. It is a fitting time then to reflect upon those first ten years: what have been the achievements, and what challenges remain for the future.

In the United States today, digital versions of current decisions, bills, statutes, and regulations issued by federal and state governments are widely available on publicly accessible Web sites. Worldwide, official (defined as “authoritative,” or “the official” word of the law) legal information issued by international organizations and foreign governments is also becoming available on the Web. However, there are currently no standards for the production and authentication of digital documents. Moreover, the information is sometimes available only for a short time and then disappears from the site. No guidelines exist either to promote a uniform way to cite to digital legal materials.

This article examines the contents of legal data and information on the Internet, with a special focus on the United States. It then evaluates the quality of the data, its impact on legal research and access to legal information, and addresses some issues raised by the digital medium, such as its reliability and permanent access concerns.

Problems of copyright infringement involved in the extensive and largely uncontrolled use of coin operated photocopying machines in libraries, particularly University libraries, have become the most acute in Australian copyright law at the present time. These problems are not of course unique to Australia, but the recent decision of the High Court in University of New South Wales v Moorhouse and Angus & Robertson (Publishers) Pty Ltd has created a serious and difficult situation for libraries for which a workable solution has not yet been found. In 1974 the Australian government appointed a Committee, known as the Franki Committee, to examine the question of the reprographic reproduction of copyright works in Australia and to recommend any alterations to the copyright law and any other measures considered necessary to effect a proper balance of interest between owners and users of copyright materials in respect of reprographic reproduction. The Committee has not yet made its report and it is not known whether any recommendations will be made which will assist libraries in arriving at a solution to the legal problems now facing them where selfservice coin operated photocopying machines are made available for use by readers.

The significance of career choice in human life cannot be overstated. Many law students upon graduation do not proceed to mainstream legal practice. They pursue careers in public administration, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), as corporate secretaries, and so on. The aim of this study is to confirm the readiness of law students to proceed to legal practice upon graduation and to assess their level of career awareness in relation to law-related careers. The study also determined the areas of interest of law students in law-related careers. The study employed the survey research design in which questionnaires were used to collect data from the twelve universities that run the approved undergraduate law program up to 500 level in south-west Nigeria. Krejcie and Morgan's formula was used to select the sample size of 597. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results showed that a majority of law students do not wish to proceed into mainstream legal practice. Law students’ career intentions are in a variety of legal careers.

Law is changing, and with it, so too the systems of higher education and research. Over the past two decades, both have been undergoing a progressive process of transnationalisation. In the field of law, we are currently experiencing a proliferation of transnational law. In the systems of higher education and research, national structures of knowledge production are giving way to transnational institutional frameworks. Disciplinary boundaries are becoming more permeable. Today, legal scholars have to engage in an increasingly interdisciplinary and transnational dialogue on law. The aim of this piece is to provide an overview of that process and highlight several significant consequences this development might potentially hold for legal scholarship (and its media).

Fragrant Harbor is the literal translation of the Chinese (pinyin Xiang Gang) for Hong Kong. Once a British colony and now a Special Administrative Region within the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong is also a global financial center. In June 2006 I had the privilege of conducting legal research as a visiting scholar at the Universities Service Centre of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. My research topic was the influence of Hong Kong banking law on banking reform in the People's Republic of China. The following is a brief summary of my research and experience there.

Ireland is a small common law jurisdiction with a devolved legal system. These two factors combine to present a number of significant problems with regard to legal information sources:

• Devolution has promoted incremental and incidental change. There has been little systemic review and the law is a complex mix of amendment, addition and judicial review.

• Much of our legislation is reactive to social or political requirements.

• Until recently, sources of law have not been prioritized as an important national resource requiring investment in terms of review and access.

• Consolidation is infrequent and ineffective. Codification has only recently been considered.

• Current sources of modern Irish law have been substantially shaped by major historical events of the last three centuries. Today's Irish legal system and sources of contemporary law owe a lot to the pragmatic adoption and adaptation of the Westminster model and the English common law as it stood in the early twentieth century.

The necessity to counteract corruption effectively has lead to an increased integration in judicial cooperation. This paper analyses the legal instruments adopted by the EU for fighting bribery in order to explore in detail existing interrelationships (i.e. differences and peculiarities) between European and Italian rules. The latter is of singular relevance particularly since 1992, when a widespread system of corruption had been discovered and a broad campaign to prevent corruption (“mani pulite“) had been undertaken which resulted in an important work of reform and brought existing rules up to date. Finally, Italy also played an active role at the European level: the 1997 Anti-Corruption Convention was adopted on the basis of an Italian proposal.

Outside of the common law and civil law legal traditions, what is termed “Islamic law” forms one of the world's largest legal systems. There are more than one billion Muslims world-wide, and millions of those Muslims populate some of the world's richest trading zones. As of 2005, the Gulf Cooperation Council (G.C.C.), comprised of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, was the United States' fifth largest trading partner.