Don Raistrick, who is nearing the end of a long career in the government service, and who was recently awarded the MBE, writes about the challenges of working in a government department which has changed dramatically over the years. The DCA has to conform to its own change agenda and to that of the government. This has affected the organisation of library services, creating pressures caused by increased responsibilities and a broader customer base but in a climate where project disciplines are used to define and introduce new services and where we are encouraged to share our experience and our services with other departments.

Peter Clinch, Information Specialist – Law, Cardiff University describes the nature of the BVC and the important role played by law librarians in the training of young barristers.

Michael Chapman, who is a Senior Lecturer at the Inns of Court School of Law, writes about how the BVC is delivered to over 500 full-time students each year, using state of the art technology and e-learning methods which are a far cry from traditional teaching methods. This article is a companion to Peter Clinch's article on the BVC which also appears in this issue.

Victoria Moody of the Information Commissioner's Office considers the regulatory framework of the right to know. It focuses on the public/private interface of information held by public authorities in the outsourcing of their functions.

Michelle Wyer, who works in the Information Resources team of the Inland Revenue, describes the current and future structure of the Department and explains how the system for complying with requests for information under the new Act has been set up and how staff have been educated in its use.

Anne Jones, Assistant Commissioner for Wales, reports on how the Act has been implemented in Wales, discusses some of the issues that have arisen as a result, and outlines the Information Commissioner's approach to its regulation.

Anne Jones, Assistant Commissioner for Wales, reports on how the Act has been implemented in Wales, discusses some of the issues that have arisen as a result, and outlines the Information Commissioner's approach to its regulation.

The US Freedom of Information Act is a tool that can be used with success, but the current climate makes it less effective than it has been in the past. Privacy Acts are set up to protect the citizenry from untoward governmental scrutiny, but even with current legislation in place private collection of information from governmental public record resources and a variety of private resources can compile a relatively complete picture of many individuals in the U.S, from where Dave Rogers from Sidley Austin in Chicago sends us this report.

This is the first in a new series of short articles or checklists on practical aspects of our day to day work and we have asked senior information people within our field to contribute each article. Vanessa Forster, who is Training Manager at Cobbetts, is our first author.

This article by Shaikh Mohamed Noordin gives a comprehensive overview of the types of law library in Malaysia, plus details of the various electronic sources of legal information available to information professionals and the general public.

Tim Williams explains that the use of modern digital data formats such as Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) and the Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) enables the on-line searching and publishing of data held in data repositories where the ownership rights over the intellectual property are controlled. Understanding the security and quality of the content of the documents emanating from such data repositories is vital for good business strategies to be defined. As the larger publishers move increasingly towards global trading, they will control and distribute their assets globally via the internet.

Andrea Naylor supplies an explanation behind the row of figures which the sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed now appear above each article in the Journal.

So, a trip to Boston, one of the first cities of the USA, brimming with history, and, for a week in July, brimming with law librarians. Worn out by 15 of my nephew's friends at his birthday party the day before, I got a lift into Boston early Sunday, managed to meet up with a fellow Brit at our hotel, and found myself registered and sitting in my first programme session by quarter past ten. To follow were four very full days of lectures, exhibition-visiting, library tours and social events which were almost as tiring as the toddlers.