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.

this article by dilshaad brey, reference librarian, is a description of the brand van zyl law library at the university of cape town (uct), south africa. the author met gillian sands whilst on an internship at the ials library in june 2004.

I arrived on Thursday, the day before the start of the conference, which gave me plenty of time to settle in and then meet up with my designated mentor, Jon Beaumont. He had attended the conference for the first time last year, and gave it a glowing report. It was good to start things off by sharing experiences and anecdotes of legal information work over a couple of pints.

There is an overall Head of Library and Information Services (LIS), who has responsibility for all the UK libraries and also has a ‘dotted’ line responsibility for the library teams in the international offices.

The University of Leicester is a pre-1992 University with a Law Faculty of more than 1000 students, 900 of whom are studying on qualifying law degree programmes. The collection that they use is housed in the main University Library, just next door to the Law Faculty. A large proportion of Leicester's total student population are distance learners, mostly studying on Masters' programmes. Partly because of this, the institution is extremely interested in pursuing electronic delivery of courses and has just appointed an e-learning professor, based in the central administration and responsible for introducing a radical new e-learning strategy. Leicester, like all other universities, will be introducing top up fees from the start of the next academic year. It is in this rapidly changing and increasingly demanding educational context that this comment on the JASB guidance should be placed.

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.

Is each site autonomous or is there an overall head of information?

There is an overall Head of IS.

Who is the information team answerable to?

The Head of IS who reports to the Managing Partner.

paper given by amy b. osborne, foreign and comparative law specialist at university of kentucky college of law library at the biall pre-conference seminar on treaties and international law, harrogate, june 9, 2005. eisil, the electronic information system for international law was fully launched in september 2004. a project of the american society of international law, eisil is designed to assist researchers both experienced and novice, who are looking for information within the realm of international law.

It is quite the norm these days for the larger Scottish law firms to have more than one office, and for each of those offices to have its own library. For the most part there is a main office with satellite offices in other cities. We have four offices, in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and London. Edinburgh, Glasgow and London all have established libraries, and until recently both the Edinburgh and Glasgow libraries were staffed full time. This changed in November 2003 and I now have to co-ordinate all three libraries and keep an eye on our new office in Aberdeen. I am based in the Edinburgh office, which is currently spread over three sites all on the same street. The Glasgow office is split between two sites, slightly further apart, and our London office is all in one building.

This article by Jenni Crossley and Claire Tylee examines the process of developing an online interactive guide for law students by librarians at the University of the West of England. The guide was based on material contained in the professional studies printed resource book and various multimedia applications were included to enhance the learning experience for students.

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.

international law and treaties was this year's theme at the seminar in harrogate. maria bell reports on two of the papers. professor anthony aust gave the opening paper on the basics of international law and the treaty framework. paul barnett and nevil hagon of the foreign and commonwealth office treaty section presented an overview of their work in maintaining treaty records and in advising on treaty procedures and processes.

This article by Eileen Fry, Law Society Chief Examiner for Skills and Pervasives, gives an overview of the Practical Legal Research element of the Legal Practice Course, including looking at why the Law Society regard it as important, the course objectives, how it is taught and assessed, and proposals for the future. It should be read in conjunction with the article by Martin Hannibal and Alison Pope which also appears in this issue.

I haven't opened my mail this week (it's only the end of Wednesday after all); last week's mail is opened and it's sitting in another unloved pile waiting for whenever I have a chance to actually do something with any of it, though all the critical stuff is at least removed and done. The open boxes in front of my desk are the new library materials which unfortunately have arrived just before the Glasgow library moves to the bigger space with more shelving that I require in order to get any of it integrated into stock. My desk appears to be a perilous pile of email printouts from research queries with hand-written scrawls all over them about progress to date; bits of faxes and new floor layout plans. I won't even discuss the state of my unread email inbox, or the other piles of less urgent backlogs behind my chair, mostly cat/n/class, journals to be delved through for current awareness nuggets and material for adding to the library know-how system.

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.

legal information has specific features due to its nature, its different utilisation purposes and the intrinsic need for integration of its components, represented by legislation, cases and doctrine. access to legal literature in particular is a primary requirement; it responds to the demand for understanding and interpretation of statutes and cases, an objective that law scholars and professionals greatly contribute to.

Martin Hannibal and Alison Pope of from Staffordshire University have written this article to explain why Practical Legal Research (PLR) skills are necessary for a trainee solicitor and how the Law Society's learning objectives for PLR are achieved and assessed on the Staffordshire Legal Practice Course (LPC). The article should be read in conjunction with the article by Eileen Fry which also appears in this issue.

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.

The College of Law is the largest provider of vocational legal education and training in Europe, and has a client base of both pre- and post-qualification students. It has five centres across the UK in Birmingham, Chester, York, Guildford and London, and caters for over 5,000 students each year. Although it is a multi-site organisation, the aim at the College is that students should have the same experience in terms of course structure and delivery, regardless of which branch they choose.

the sarbanes-oxley act of 2002 has established a new reason for legal publishers to bring out books and loose-leaf services on a new topic. in his second contribution dave rogers from sidley austin's chicago office describes materials of greater interest to law librarians and lawyers.