This article by Blair Kauffman, the Director, and Mary Jane Kelsey, the Associate Director, of Yale's Lillian Goldman Law Library offers a brief overview of the direction being taken by one of America's better-known research libraries. The library has staked out a leading position in its innovative use of technologies while continuing its commitment to building and preserving collections in all of the formats demanded by its diverse clientele.

Ruth Bird of the Bodleian Law Library identifies useful resources for US legislative research. The Bodleian Law Library (BLL) has extensive, current holdings of the majority of these resources in its collection, which are identified in the course of the paper. References to online locations for the titles and resources are also included.

Roger Cook of Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw has produced a guide to the most important and accessible sources of US law reports which is aimed at those of us who do not necessarily need constant access to such sources.

Paul Norman passes on the benefit of his many years' experience of researching US law at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.

Deborah Paulus-Jagric, Reference Librarian at N.Y.U. Law School Library, uses a case study to illustrate the workings of the US administration and gives us an insight into how to conduct legislative history research in the US. The footnotes contain much extremely useful bibliographic information.

Dave Rogers from Sidley Austin in Chicago provides an overview of the major corporate information resources that we are likely to need.

Joan Batchen, who is Firmwide Library Services Manager for Kirkland & Ellis LLP, describes the entrepreneurial nature of the organization and outlines the services offered by the library and information services within this context.

Over-paid, over-worked, and over here? From a trickle of firms arriving in the UK 50 years or so ago, US law firms are now a noisy presence in the London and wider European legal marketplace. They are expected by some estimates to commandeer 10% of the UK legal market within the next couple of years. Linda Maynard examines what it is like working in such a firm, in particular, looking at multi-site law firm management from the fringes rather than the centre.

Vanessa Hayward, Librarian and Keeper of the Records at Middle Temple, charts the history of one of the most important collections of American law in this country.

This is the latest article in our Checklist series and has been written by Fiona Durrant. It consists of a methodical list of questions to aid reading of a contract for an online subscription.

Chris Wallis provides a useful guide to developments in the legal portal market and continues our series of articles on portals begun in the last issue with an article by Jill Halford.

The majority of websites and intranets are built by creating static HTML pages with software such as FrontPage and Dreamweaver. The effective use of these products requires staff with a combination of technical, design and content management skills, and these are not easy to find, even for large organisations. Over the last few years content management software has become increasingly popular as a way of being able to ensure that the content on web sites and intranets can be updated as quickly as necessary without the need for everyone who wants to publish to be trained in a software product such as Front Page.

Bad information can have a number of undesired consequences for those people and organizations supplying it, whilst those affected by its provision have a number of legal remedies open to them. Jonathan Crowhurst discusses these issues after some definitions of information and bad information have been suggested. Concluding remarks suggest that information is not neutral, that bad information is largely down to lack of end user education and lack of investment in training, and that technology does not supply all the answers.

This is the latest report analysing the results of the Society of Legal Scholars and BIALL Survey. It has been compiled by Peter Clinch, Information Specialist – Law, Cardiff University.

Katherine Read identifies some of the main issues which made a particular impression on her during her CILIP sponsored visit to Germany. Particular highlights include a feature on a virtual library of legal resources and a look at some of the current copyright issues under discussion.

Martin Vorberg provides a useful accompaniment to Katherine Read's account of her recent trip to visit various German law libraries, by describing the first privately-owned law library in Germany.