Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T12:55:46.278Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Emergence of Professional Law Librarianship and the Professional Law Librarian: the History of BIALL in Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2019

Guy Holborn
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Guy Holborn revisits the research he carried out in preparing the chapter on law libraries from 1850 to 2000 in the Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland. Much of the material he gathered was not included in the chapter as published for reasons of space. Drawing from both the previously published chapter and the unpublished material, he selects four themes relevant to BIALL in its 50th anniversary year: legal education and law libraries, the development of law firms and their information services, the content of law libraries and the information needs of the profession, and the emergence of the professional law librarian.

Keywords

legal educationlaw librarianshiplaw librarianslegal information managersBIALL
Type
BIALL’s 50th Anniversary: A Celebration
Information
Legal Information Management , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , June 2019 , pp. 80 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2019. Published by British and Irish Association of Law Librarians 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Footnotes

1 Holborn, G., “Lawyers and their libraries” in Black, A. and Hoare, P. (eds.), The Cambridge history of libraries in Britain and Ireland. Vol 3: 1850–2000 (Cambridge, 2006), 453–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I am grateful to Cambridge University Press for permission to reprint here some parts of the chapter. The footnotes follow the citation style of the book not the usual style of this journal.

2 Select Committee on Legal Education, Report and minutes of evidence, Parliamentary Papers (1846) vol. 10, 224 (H.C. 686).

3 Abel-Smith, B. and Stevens, R., Lawyers and the courts: a sociological study of the English legal system (London, 1967), 54Google Scholar.

4 Roxburgh, Sir R. (ed.), Records of the Honorable Society of Lincoln's Inn: the Black Books. Vol. V: A.D. 1845– A.D. 1914 (London, 1968), liv–lixGoogle Scholar.

5 Kersley, R. H., Gibson's 1876–1962: a chapter in legal education (London, 1973)Google Scholar.

6 Abel-Smith and Stevens, Lawyers and the courts, 363.

7 Pollock, F., The uses and ordering of law libraries: a paper read at the Annual Meeting of the Library Association, held in London, 1886 (London, 1887), 7Google Scholar. Also in: Oxford lectures and other discourses (London, 1890; repr. Freeport, NY, 1972).

8 “The Library of the Middle Temple”, Law Magazine and Law Review 7 (1859), 82.

9 The Royal Commission on Legal Services (Chairman: Sir Henry Benson), Final report, Cmnd 7648 (London, 1979), para 32.13.

10 Abel-Smith and Stevens, Lawyers and the courts, 177, n. 4.

11 Kirk, H., Portrait of a profession: a history of the solicitor's profession, from 1100 to the present day (London, 1976), 60Google Scholar.

12 Pandya, J. B., “The University of Sheffield Law Library: Crooksmoor Library”, The Law Librarian 11 (1980), 27Google Scholar.

13 Abel-Smith and Stevens, Lawyers and the courts, 182.

14 Doyle, S. M., “Law in Durham University Library”, The Law Librarian 8 (1977), 19Google Scholar.

15 Cartwright, J., “The University of Exeter Law Library”, The Law Librarian 9 (1978), 35Google Scholar.

16 Hoyle, L. M., “Southampton University Law Library”, The Law Librarian 2 (1971), 19Google Scholar.

17 Dane, J., Nash, E. and Jones, D.L., “Law libraries in the University of Wales”, The Law Librarian 8 (1977), 36Google Scholar.

18 Montrose, J. L., “University law libraries”, Journal of the Society of Public Teachers of Law 4 (1957), 1–7Google Scholar.

19 With a further change of guise to the University of Law in 2012.

20 Collins, P. M., “The Legal Practice Course”, The Law Librarian, 23 (1992), 170Google Scholar.

21 Published as a pamphlet (London, 1883), and reprinted as an appendix to the variorum edition of Dicey's Law of the constitution, ed. J.W.F. Allison (Oxford, 2013).

22 Baker, J.H., “University College and Legal Education 1826–1976”, Current Legal Problems 30 (1977), 1–29Google Scholar.

23 Tearle, B., “The Law Library at University College London 1829–1979”, The Law Librarian 10 (1979), 3–7Google Scholar.

24 University of Cambridge, Faculty of Law, 750 years of law at Cambridge: a brief history of the Faculty of Law [written by J.H. Baker] (Cambridge, 1996), 18. A full account is Steiner, W.A., “The Squire Law Library of the University of Cambridge” in Gödan, J.C. and Knudsen, H. (eds.) Bibliothek und Recht-international: Festschrift Ralph Lansky (Hamburg, 1991), 243–294Google Scholar.

25 Carter, P. B., “The new Bodleian Law Library at Oxford [part 2 of Symposium on law libraries]”, Journal of the Society of Public Teachers of Law 8 (1964), 80–85Google Scholar. There is a brief chapter on law libraries in Lawson, F.H., The Oxford Law School 1850–1965 (Oxford, 1968), 178–83Google Scholar. See also: Lush, S. A., “The Bodleian Law Library”, The Law Librarian 7 (1976), 19–21Google Scholar, and Logan, R., “Law libraries in Oxford”, The Law Librarian 20 (1989), 49–54Google Scholar.

26 Simmons, J.S.G., “All Souls, the Codrington, and the law”, The Law Librarian 7 (1976), 36–8Google Scholar.

27 Steiner, W. A., The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies of the University of London 1947–1976 (London, 2000), 2Google Scholar.

28 Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Union list of Commonwealth and South African law, 2nd edn (London, 1963); Union list of United States legal literature, 2nd edn (London, 1967); Union list of legal periodicals, 4th edn (London, 1978).

29 Some statistics are given in Steiner, The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, 24, and appear in the Institute's annual reports.

30 Robson, R., The attorney in eighteenth-century England (Cambridge, 1959), 38–49Google Scholar.

31 Ballantyne, G. H., The Signet Library, Edinburgh and its librarians 1722–1972 (Glasgow, 1979)Google Scholar.

32 Barclay, J. B., The S.S.C. story, 1784–1984 (Edinburgh, 1984), 108–25Google Scholar.

33 Kirk, Portrait of a profession, 119.

34 “The organization of a solicitor's office”, Solicitors’ Journal 29 (1884), 22–23.

35 Gasaway, L. N. and Chiorazzi, M. G. (eds.), Law librarianship: historical perspectives (Littleton, Colorado, 1996)Google Scholar (AALL publication series; no. 52), 79.

36 Abel-Smith and Stevens, Lawyers and the courts, 435.

37 Moys, E. M. (ed.), Manual of law librarianship: the use and organization of legal literature (London, 1976)Google Scholar.

38 British and Irish Association of Law Librarians, Directory of law libraries in the British Isles 2nd edn. (Yeovil, 1984); 3rd edn (Hebden Bridge, 1988); Directory of British and Irish law libraries, 6th edn (Hebden Bridge, 1998).

39 Scott, A., “Private law libraries in the City”, The Law Librarian 9 (1978), 3–4Google Scholar.

40 McTavish, S. and Duggan, F., “Law firm libraries in Britain and Ireland”, The Law Librarian 30 (1999), 56–63Google Scholar.

41 For one view of what the future was thought to hold for such libraries see: Celik, M. and Yeomans, J., “The smaller law firm library over the next 30 years”, The Law Librarian 30 (1999), 226–7Google Scholar.

42 Jones, H. K., Butterworths: history of a publishing house, 2nd edn (London, 1997)Google Scholar; Maxwell, Sweet &, Then and now 1799–1974 (London, 1974)Google Scholar; Kinahan, A. J. (ed.), Now and then: a celebration of Sweet & Maxwell's bicentenary 1999 (London, 1999)Google Scholar.

43 Now the RELX Group.

44 Now Thomson Reuters Corporation.

45 Wilkinson, C. L., “Legal information and loose-leaf services”, The Law Librarian 29 (1998), 249–57Google Scholar.

46 Bull, G., “Technical developments in legal information retrieval”, The Law Librarian 11 (1980), 34–40Google Scholar.

47 “Eurolex: [news item]”, The Law Librarian 11 (1980), 5.

48 Bosworth, K., “In praise of law librarians: LEXIS in the United Kingdom 1975–1993”, The Law Librarian 24 (1993), 133–6Google Scholar.

49 The launch of Westlaw UK in 2000 was of course to change this. How the seeds were sown for this by the founding in 1986 of the Legal Journals Index by professional law librarian Christine Miskin, and the creation of her Legal thesaurus, deserves a separate article.

50 Society for Computers and Law, A national law library – the way ahead: a proposal for a computer-assisted retrieval system for the UK (Abingdon, 1979)Google Scholar.

51 Oliver, R. C. B., “John Hutchinson: teacher, poet and librarian, 1829–1916”, Radnorshire Society Transactions 50 (1980), 34–55Google Scholar.

52 Dobson, C., The Library of the House of Lords: a short history; rev. edn. (London, 1972)Google Scholar; Jones, D.L, “The House of Lords Library”, The Law Librarian 29 (1998), 105–7Google Scholar.

53 Spilsbury, W. H., Verses to friends (London, 1871)Google Scholar, and Miscellanies in verse (London, 1876).

54 [News item] Law Journal 18 (1883), 44.

55 [“Obiter dicta” editorial], Law Journal 29 (1894), 625.

56 British and Irish Association of Law Librarians, BIALL salary survey 1999/2000 (London, 2000), 18.

57 Hewitt, A. R., “Law librarianship”, Library Association Record 50 (1948), 91–7Google Scholar.

58 Kauffman, S. B., “Law libraries” in Wiegard, W. A. and Davis, D. G. (eds.), Encyclopedia of library history (New York, 1994), 332–6Google Scholar.

59 Blake, M., A history of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians 1969–1999 ([Warwick], 2000)Google Scholar.

60 Way, D. J., The student's guide to law libraries (London, 1967)Google Scholar.

61 Cited at n. 37 above; with a 2nd edn in 1987.