INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the first issue of Legal Information Management (LIM) for 2020. We start the spring issue with a celebration of the life of Abdur Rashid Siddiqui who was a founder member of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL). Rashid, as he was known to colleagues, made an outstanding contribution at the University of Leicester as their law librarian from 1966 until 1997. He was a remarkable man whose impact was felt in a much wider context than just law librarianship. His contribution in the UK's Islamic community was significant and was greatly appreciated by many people, as this tribute in LIM will explain.
THIS JOURNAL AT 50!
Last year BIALL celebrated its 50th anniversary. A year on and the feature article in this issue marks 50 years since this journal was launched in 1970. As the current editor it has been a great privilege to write about the history and development of this publication. It started its life as the The Law Librarian with the subtitle, Bulletin of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians. In 2001 it changed its title to Legal Information Management. During its history there have been two publishers – firstly, Sweet & Maxwell and then, from 2004, Cambridge University Press, our current publisher.
The journal has been the main publishing vehicle for BIALL for 50 years and remains the leading journal in the British Isles concerning the law library and legal information industry. This article follows the publishing journey of LIM over the past 50 years, observes the changes in the legal information landscape during that time, which has been reflected in the content published by the journal, and gives an account of the progress that has been made by each of the six editors. The article finishes by noting some of the challenges for the future.
FOCUS ON LEGAL PUBLISHERS AND SUPPLIERS
In this series we have featured different publishers and suppliers connected with the legal world. This time it is the turn of Wolters Kluwer and an article authored by David Bartolone, Vice President and General Manager for the International Group at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. He documents the history of the company, looks at its current publishing interests and notes how it has adapted to meet many challenges including those posed by technology.
Figure 1: The cover of Legal Information Management.
MORE PAPERS FROM THE BIALL CONFERENCE 2019
In this short section there are two more papers from the BIALL Annual Conference that took place in June 2019. These articles are in addition to those published in the winter 2019 issue. Renae Satterley and Adam Woellhaf ask ‘are user surveys fit for purpose?’ and offer their ‘case study on the use of a contingent valuation survey at Middle Temple Library’. Secondly, Barry Vickery's article is entitled ‘A Glance at the Past and a Glimpse of the Future’ and discusses how to learn from past experiences in order to make better decisions in the future.
CURRENT INTERESTS
Under the ‘current interests’ heading there is a final report written by Zaki Abbas, Andrew MacFarlane and Lyn Robinson concerning their research into the use of mobile technologies by law students in law libraries.
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
Two articles appear in this section. Firstly, there is an investigation into artificial intelligence in Canada's court cases. It is written by Channarong Intahchomphoo, André Vellino, Odd Erik Gundersen, Christian Tschirhart and Eslam Shaaban. Secondly, there is a piece by G. Mahibha and P. Balasubramanian entitled ‘A Critical Analysis on the Significance of the eCourts Information Systems in Indian Courts’.
CURRENT AWARENESS
As usual, the current awareness section is provided by Katherine Read, together with her colleague Heather Memess, of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Library.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always, I wish to give my thanks to the members of the LIM Editorial Board especially the proof-readers. I am also very grateful for the continuing support of our publishers, Cambridge University Press.
