This article by John Larkin QC, Attorney General for Northern Ireland, is based on his keynote speech which he delivered at the BIALL Conference which was held in Belfast in June 2012. He discusses the ways in which serendipity can play an important part in researching law, speaks of the frontiers that stand as limitations to contemporary legal research and identifies how these limits can be overcome; and he promotes the importance of both libraries and law librarians.

This paper is drawn from a presentation, by John Morison, that was made to a plenary session of the 43rd BIALL Annual Study Conference in Belfast, Northern Ireland 2012. The presentation introduced the audience to a research study, recently funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, entitled “What Makes an ‘Important Case’? A Study of the Creation, Transmission and Validation of Legal Knowledge”, and being carried out with Professor Gordon Anthony. The presentation to BIALL also attempted to engage the audience of legal information specialists with the specifics of the project and enlist their help in understanding how an important aspect of legal practice actually works. This paper has the same objective, and, additionally, it reports on some of the initial findings of the research which aims to develop a comprehensive sociology of legal knowledge.

This article is broadly based upon a presentation given by Gordon Anthony, which was given at the annual conference of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians on 15 June 2012 in Belfast. Its purpose is to outline some of the ways in which public law in Northern Ireland is unique within the wider setting of the UK. Although it is true that the law of Northern Ireland shares much in common with principle and practice elsewhere in the UK, there are some notable differences that are attributable to the fact that Northern Ireland has its own court system and legal and political history. The article thus examines some of the differences that exist at the constitutional level and which can be associated with, most famously, the Belfast Agreement 1998. It also summaries some of the differences that can be found at the level of legal citation, for instance of case law and statute law for the jurisdiction.

Law has been a little slow off the mark in the UK when it comes to the world of mobile applications (apps). In an environment where students spend more time using mobile applications than they do browsing the internet, the authors were keen to take their Learnmore website to the next stage by developing an app for law students. The Learnmore website (part of the Lawbore suite of resources from City University) has received much attention for its quirky visuals, multimedia learning tools and winning marriage of librarian and student generated content. With an ultimate aim of easing the transition between A-levels and degree and making the ‘building blocks’ of legal skills more interesting. Emily and Sanmeet secured substantial funding from JISC after a call for universities to create mobile apps from existing content, teaming up with a colleague in City University's Human Computer Interaction and Design department. The app was to be designed to help students learn essential legal skills in an innovative way, employing more interaction than was possible via the web. The emphasis on video content meant an early decision to fix on iPad rather than iPhone as the tool for mobile learning. The JISC funding paid for the services of a developer to help bring their ideas to life. This paper looks at the transformation from standard wiki to mobile application; focusing on the process of developing the concept for the app and the major milestones, as well as providing an insight into the expected challenges along the way. These included: working in a multidisciplinary team, communication of ideas, recognising the differences required in design for an app as opposed to a website and managing conflicting visions. The team motto was that creating an app cannot be simply a re-skinning process; but a re-working of content to to ensure a truly effective learning resource.

This article by Jas Breslin was, again, based on a presentation given at the BIALL Conference in Belfast in June 2012. It provides a background to the implementation of Research@mofo, a centralised enquiry service run by the library team for the benefit of the firm and its clients.

A job with a global law firm can involve meeting or working alongside colleagues from many different countries. In order to communicate effectively, we need to be aware of the different norms within which we work. Sara Batts, Jas Breslin and Susanna Winter, who together have many years’ experience working internationally, discuss three key areas which can help enhance our interactions with our counterparts overseas.

The Bodleian Law Library has only existed as an entity in its own right for less than 50 years. Yet part of the collection dates back to the days before the founding of the Bodleian Library in 1602. The rise and fall in fortunes of the teaching of law at Oxford is closely tied to the establishment of the law library. A lesser known aspect of the history includes the ties between Oxford and the United States, especially its oldest law school, William and Mary Law School. In this paper, Ruth Bird offers a brief history of the University of Oxford and then looks at the history of law teaching, before moving on to the evolution of the Law Library itself, and some links with our cousins across the pond.

William & Mary, chartered in 1693 by King William III and Queen Mary II, is the second oldest college in America. When George Wythe was appointed Professor of Law and Policy in 1779, the College opened the first American law school. This article, written by Jim Heller, traces the development of the law school and its library in four stages. The Founding Stage, from 1779 until the commencement of the Civil War in 1861, shows gradual growth for the young law program. The Stage of Decline lasted from the closing of the College in 1861 to the reinstitution of the study of law at the College in the early 1920's. The fifty-year Struggling Revival Era runs from the early 1920's through to the 1970s. The Modern Era, from 1980 to the present, shows maturation and growth of the law school and the law library.

This article, written by Claire Bonello, presents the French collaborative project to digitise, spread and preserve heritage law collections. As a result, Gallica, the French national digital and encyclopedic library, gives freely access to a “law information universe”. This digital law library from heritage collections on Gallica is set to become a central point of access to legal contents for researchers as well as for jurists.

Lesley Dingle, founder of the Eminent Scholars Archive at Cambridge, gives a further contribution in this occasional series concerning the lives of notable legal academics. On this occasion, the focus of her attention is Stroud Francis Charles (Toby) Milsom QC BA who retired from his chair of Professor of Law at the University of Cambridge in 2000 after a distinguished career as a legal historian at the universities of Oxford, London School of Economics and St John's College Cambridge. His academic life and contentious theories on the development of the Common Law at the end of the feudal system in England were discussed in a series of interviews at his home in 2009. At the core are aspects of his criticism of the conclusions of the nineteenth century historian Frederick William Maitland, upon which the teaching of the early legal history of England was largely based during much of the 20th century. Also included are insights into his research methods in deciphering the parchment Plea Rolls in the Public Records Office, and anecdotes relating to his tenure as Dean at New College Oxford (1956–64) as well as associations with the Selden Society: he was its Literary Director, and later President during its centenary in 1987. Professor Milsom also briefly talked of his memories of childhood during WWII and his inspirational studies as a student at the University of Pennsylvania (1947–48).

This article is based on a presentation given by John Bell at the annual conference of The Society of Legal Scholars (SLS)1 held in Bristol in September 2012. His talk reflects the immediate challenges facing law schools, academic lawyers and the legal publishing industry in the light of the recent Finch Report2 and the subsequent response by the Government3 whereby it has adopted an open access policy to publicly funded research.