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Editorial

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2017

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Abstract

Type
Editorial
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017. Published by British and Irish Association of Law Librarians 

Welcome to the autumn issue of Legal Information Management (LIM).

EUROPEAN UNION MATTERS

Given the topical nature of Brexit, we begin this issue with three articles concerning European Union matters. The first article in this section is written by Marc van Opijnen, Ginevra Peruginelli, Eleni Kefali and Monica Palmirani and looks at a comprehensive comparative study concerning the publication of court decisions within all Member States of the European Union. Turning our attention towards Brexit, Margaret Watson writes about the changing role of European Documentation Centres. Their role has been to support academic research into European integration. The decision to trigger Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union raises questions about the future role of the EDCs in the United Kingdom after Brexit. Lenka Geidt's article explains how members of the Inns of Court, and librarians, can benefit from the projects, undertaken by the Middle Temple library, which focus on legislation, case law and the legal debate regarding the United Kingdom's referendum on European Union membership and Brexit.

CURRENT ISSUES

Five articles make up the current issues section. Firstly, there is a second piece from our Middle Temple colleagues. Adam Woellhaf describes the legal research training offered by the Middle Temple library to members of the Inns of Court. His article examines the challenges of designing and delivering legal research training to practitioners, as well as offering guidance and advice to others regarding their own approaches to legal research training. Staying with the subject of training matters, Lisa Davies, from the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies library, provides a report on a recent initiative to create online tutorials to improve the legal information skills of postgraduate researchers. The project is called Law PORT.

For the next article, I am very grateful to a former editor of LIM, namely Laurence Eastham, who edits the prominent journal, Computers & Law. Laurence has kindly allowed LIM to re-publish a piece written by Dr Rónán Kennedy from the School of Law at the National University of Ireland Galway. In this short piece, he explores some fundamental issues surrounding the use of algorithms in the context of the rule of law in our society. Naturally, I am grateful to Rónán too for permitting his article to be reprinted.

Hélène Russell, who has written for LIM on two previous occasions recently, presents a further article in relation to knowledge management matters, this time entitled, ‘Reflective learning and after action reviews’. The current issues section is wrapped up with an investigation, by Zaki Abbas, Andrew MacFarlane and Lyn Robinson, into the use of mobile technologies by law students in law libraries.

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

In this section we welcome an article on the subject of legal citation in a digital landscape. It is written by Melisa Castan from Monash University in Melbourne and Kate Galloway from Bond University.

CURRENT AWARENESS

We end this LIM in the usual way with the current awareness section compiled by Katherine Read and Laura Griffiths of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies library.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As editor, I am enormously grateful for all the excellent contributions received for LIM. My thanks go to our colleagues at Cambridge University Press, especially to Hannah Patrick and Craig Baxter, and to the members of the LIM Editorial Board including the chair of the committee, Loyita Worley, and in particular the team of proof-readers for all their hard work.