In Autumn 2021 the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) carried out a follow-up survey to the May 2020 ‘Covid-19 Industry Survey'. BIALL President, Catherine Bowl, gives an overview of the findings of ‘State of the Nation' survey which was published in December 2021. The results of the survey are to be found on the pages that follow this introduction.

The British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) carried out a survey of BIALL members during May 2020 in order to gain a view, at a point in time, of the impact of Covid-19.1 National lockdowns in both the United Kingdom and Ireland had come into force in March 2020. The survey was a way of gauging how the legal information community was responding to the challenges and changing circumstances brought about as a result of the pandemic. This brief introduction by Karen Brown, President of BIALL, sets the scene for the results of the survey which appear in the pages that follow.2

In this article Peter Kargbo describes the impact of the first national lockdown, due to Covid-19, on students using the Hartley Library at the University of Southampton. He describes some of the ways that library services responded and looks at some aspects concerning collection development. He begins his article by taking a brief look at life in the library for students prior to the arrival of the pandemic before describing the period that followed up to the end of the academic year in summer 2020.