While every law librarian should be able to find a case, tracking one from claim form to judgment is another thing entirely. Here Anneli Sarkanen outlines why and when this might need to be done, the various sources that are available and the methods that are used

The advancement of technology has drastically changed the way information is being stored in the law library. With current technology, many have found that legal information is easy to retrieve from federal or state government websites in Malaysia. But while federal legislation can be accessed via the internet, some of the law cannot be accessed for the public to review or download. Also, older law is unavailable from the federal gazette website, and it is crucial for the lawyer or law librarian to publicly access it. This paper, by Qudri Ali Abu Bakar, discusses the restriction of access to legal information and looks at some alternative ways of gaining full access to federal and state law in Malaysia.

The National Archives launched a new service called Find Case Law in April of last year. Here Daniel Hoadley, Amy Conroy and Editha Nemsic, of Mishcon de Reya LLP, argue that while this does offer some accessibility and legibility it's perhaps not providing access to the full corpus of law that it could, or even should. Also, on a broader level, they propose that there is a case to be made for access to the law being guaranteed and publicly funded.

This article is designed for law librarians based outside the United States. The paper, written by Marcia Zubrow, provides basic information about the United States legal system and its sources. This background foundation to the article is important in understanding how to effectively use the two major U.S. databases, Lexis and Westlaw. The author describes the contents of the two databases within the context of the background information. Search techniques, including advance searching strategies, are described.

This article written by Hester Swift is based on the online course entitled, ‘Customary International Law’, which was created by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS) Library for the Postgraduate Online Research Training (PORT) platform and is available to all at <https://port.sas.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=120>. The PORT service is provided by the University of London's School of Advanced Study.

During its 70th Anniversary celebrations the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London launched IALS Digital - a new name for established and evolving online services at IALS, bringing together resources, opportunities for new legal information initiatives, research projects and partnerships, and delivering support for digital legal scholarship. This paper written by Steven Whittle, IALS Digitial Manager, developed from presentations at the launch in November 2017, reports on the event and describes what the Institute plans to achieve through IALS Digital, explaining what it is, how it has developed and how it fits well with the IALS national role in the promotion and facilitation of legal research.

The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies holds copies of case papers of appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC). Steven Whittle describes the recent open access initiative at the IALS, working with BAILII to provide online access to historic case papers of appeals from over 35 countries from the period 1935 to 1985. These are cases of the highest importance in the legal development of each of the countries and to the development of common law shared by many countries worldwide.

The internet and the World Wide Web (www) has allowed the free flow of information across countries. Peter Martin and Tom Bruce from Cornell Law School pioneered the development of the ‘Free Access to Law Movement’ around the world. The Australian Legal Information Institute and various other Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) were established by adopting the Montreal Declaration at the Law via Internet Conference held in 2002. As a member of the United Nations, India adopted the UNESCO policy guidelines for the development and promotion of governmental public domain information. In India, the National Informatics Centre has played a leading role in supporting the maintenance and dissemination of Indian government public information that is useful for legal education, research and practice. This paper by Priya Rai, and Akash, gives a brief informative overview of the ‘free access to law movement’ resources pertaining to India. These resources have been categorised for easier understanding: parliamentary resources, legislative resources, case laws, law reform reports, international treaties and legal scholarship and journals. The article also provides an overview of the Legal Information Institute of India extending its contribution to disseminating Indian legal information.

The ever increasing capabilities of online legal research platforms have revolutionised the strategies we adopt in tackling routine research questions. It is now possible, for example, to comprehensively identify later judicial references to any given earlier case at the click of a button. However, we are potentially running the risk of believing that the online platforms are capable of providing us with answers to questions that they are not yet able to deliver. In this short article Daniel Hoadley focuses on the capability of the current spread of online research platforms to answer a frequent and fundamental legal research question: “is this case still good law?”

This article by Alexander Lock and Jonathan Sims describes the context in which Magna Carta was obtained. It distinguishes different versions of the charter and signposts particular documents and publications in the history of its transmission and interpretation up to the early nineteenth century. It also identifies various texts and objects which have indicated the charter's significance for groups and individuals at particular junctures. These include information carrying objects which might support research on Magna Carta within the context of the circulation and reception of legal meaning. A major focus of the article is a chronological account of the charter's invocation from the thirteenth century to the early nineteenth century.

The article below, which is written by Gloria Orrego Hoyos, presents an overview of the Inter-American Human Rights System, its main instruments, its organs for the protection and promotion of human rights in the Americas and the available tools for the academic research and the activism in the vindication for human rights in the region. This information is presented from the contextualization of the system within a history of violation of human rights in the region, and the role of both the Inter-American Convention and the Inter-American Court in the transformation of the social, political and institutional realities of the people of the continent.

This paper, written by Sue du Feu and James Lambert, outlines the challenges faced by the Jersey Legal Information Board (JLIB) in providing free access to legal information. The power of modern internet search engines has implications for a small island jurisdiction wishing to make its case law available on-line (see: www.jerseylaw.je). Having established protocols and policies to ensure a balance between open justice and privacy, several years later, JLIB is faced with concerns from individuals who feel that continuing public access to their earlier misdemeanours is an unfair burden. The paper will explain how the JLIB addressed the challenge of publishing court judgments online while safeguarding the interests of the individual.

The purpose of this article, written by John Furlong, is to provide a comparative overview of the Irish legal system with that of the jurisdictions of the United Kingdom and will cover the range of free-to-use resources that are available in respect of Irish case law, legislation and commentaries. The content is aimed at librarians and legal information professionals who are required from time to time, to understand and source Irish law. The article is based on a paper presented at BIALL's 45th Annual Conference, which was held in Harrogate in 2014.

In this paper Carole Hinchcliff, Megan Fitzgibbons and Claudia Davies review free resources that can be used when researching the law in Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea. Background descriptions of the countries' legal systems are provided, along with brief descriptions of websites which provide access to the legislation and case law of the relevant jurisdictions. The article is based on a presentation developed by Carole, and subsequently delivered by Megan and Claudia, at the International Federation of Library Association (IFLA) meeting in August, 2013.

Despite a lack of a national legislation that mandates open government information in the People's Republic of China, each major government branch has taken proactive efforts to make primary legal information issued within their power available to the public. A close examination of Chinese official legal information portals on the national level reveal issues such as a lack of uniformity and a lack of access to authenticated primary legal information. This article, by Xiaomeng Zhang1, proposes a solution that would not only offer more consistent guidelines for the government but would empower the public to assert their right to primary legal information more powerfully and effectively.

This article, written by Katherine Read, gives an introduction to printed and electronic German legal resources that are collected by the Library of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and including those that are accessible through the web. Particular attention is given to English language sources where they are available to library users.

This article, written by John Bahrij and Lily Ko, focuses on resources in print and electronic form that are available in English for Chinese legal research in the Greater China region. The article covers resources for the People's Republic of China (PRC), Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) and Taiwan. An overview of each jurisdictions legal system is also provided so that the resources can be discussed in the context of the prevailing system of law.

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.