On reflection, if it were not for BIALL I might well not be writing this. I am not referring to John's invitation to give a presentation in Cork but to the fact that BIALL played a pivotal role in my becoming a professional support lawyer. In 1997, Kate Hodgson and I were awarded BIALL bursaries to go to the AALL Conference in Baltimore; while we were there, Kate happened to tell me about the PSLs at her firm, Cameron McKenna, and the work they did. The more she told me, the more I thought, like the character Mike in the musical A Chorus Line, ‘I can do that, I can do that!’ I came home from Baltimore having gained not only a good friend but also the idea of changing my career in a way that would combine my legal training and my law library and publishing experience.

At Allen & Overy what our customers want is the answer. They want an answer which is timely, accurate and authoritative. I could amplify this bald statement by saying that sometimes the customer wants to know what the question will be. Not long ago a partner said to me that what he really wanted was that I should be able to tell him what the questions would be that the client would ask him at a reception that evening. Perhaps another way of putting it is to say that he wanted the knowledge he did not have at that moment.

My Institute is part of, and funded by, the Max Planck Society, which roughly corresponds to an Academy of Science in other countries. The Society runs 80 research institutes today, out of which 12 conduct research in the humanities, including six institutes that deal with legal questions on a superior level, including mine. The different institutes are located in different parts of the country, and this very much corresponds to the federalist foundations of the German state.

The MDP environment in which I work is the professional services firm of Andersen. I am the manager of the combined research service for Andersen's UK Tax practice and the Andersen Legal law firms in the UK. Andersen Legal in the UK is the firm of Garretts in England and Dundas & Wilson in Scotland. Andersen Legal practices share knowledge, resources and technology to offer a broad range of legal services to clients around the world.

This article aims to give a broad outline of what the JISC Legal Information Service is and why it was set up. In particular it deals with the challenges of the Internet and the new legislation that attempts to regulate it or stimulate its use. The Internet is fast becoming embedded in the FE/HE sector, in teaching and learning, research and administration–ignore it at your peril some might say. Yet there are risks to this, in some cases, enthusiastic rush to embrace all things that utilise the WWW. The relative ease of access, extraction and dissemination on ‘the net’ has tempted some to overlook the legalities. This article summarises briefly the main areas of law under consideration and the potential costs of infringement. It explains that FE/HE is subject to this legislation sometimes in specific ways. It concludes by stressing the need for feedback from the sector including BIALL members in order that the service can improve.

Looking back to 1999, there were a number of search engines which performed equally well. I recommended defining the search strategy very carefully, using Boolean logic and field search techniques, and always running the search in more than one search engine. Numerous articles and Web columns comparing the performance of different search engines came to different conclusions on the ‘best’ search engines. Over the last year, however, all the speakers at conferences and seminars I have attended have recommended Google as their preferred tool for locating all kinds of information on the Web. I confess that I have now abandoned most of my carefully worked out search strategies and comparison tests, and use Google for most of my own Web searches.

Most of these sites contain very good sets of links, both to other Government sites and to other sources of legal information. It is by no means comprehensive, as a comprehensive list would require far more space than is available here, and would also become outdated far more quickly than this selective list. The important thing to remember is that the information is, usually, out there somewhere.

A select group of delegates gathered in the sauna-like atmosphere of the silver Springs cellar to learn how, and indeed why, we should put ourselves forward for Library Association chartership.

The seminar was designed to be compatible with the theme of the conference. It therefore concentrated on facilitating the limited time available so that participants could discuss, practice and reflect on the effective training skills they are required to use in the workplace when training either individuals or groups. In particular the seminar recognised that more and more we are being asked to train our customers to use new tools and techniques, very often involving IT.

The first issue of the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers came out at the end of 1995, and sprang out of the work I was doing on my Web site (http://www.venables.co.uk) as well as my work as an IT consultant for lawyers. Although the Web site is free to the user, I did hope that some money could be made from the Newsletter! Initially, the Newsletter went to just a few tens of clients and subscribers but I am glad to say that it has grown steadily since then and now has around 1,000 paid subscribers.

How does a supplier of information products, whether in an electronic or hardcopy format, go about keeping a customer happy when that customer happens to be a law librarian? The challenge of providing excellent service is of as much interest to the law librarian as a provider of services as it is to him or her as a consumer of services. For the session entitled “I can't get no satisfaction?” a panel of speakers was created consisting of David Smalley (Commercial Director at Lawtel), Paul Baker (Executive Director, Operations at Butterworths) and Pippa Hall (Customer Services Manager at Sweet & Maxwell). The panel was asked to focus on customer care and how it might be improved. As leading players in the field of customer care within the legal information sector how have they dealt with the issues of billing and customer support and how have they communicated with those customers that have raised problems? Do the speakers see a role for law librarians in the process of product development? How do the speakers see their products developing in the future and how do they expect future developments to be communicated to law librarians in the future?

Headquartered in Washington, DC, the Special Libraries Association is the international association representing the interests of thousands of information professionals in 60 countries. The Association offers a variety of programs and services designed to help its members serve their customers more effectively and succeed in an increasingly challenging environment of information management and technology.

In October 2000 I was lucky enough to receive a BIALL bursary to attend the New Zealand Law Librarians Group conference in Christchurch, New Zealand. I had a stimulating and motivating time there and would like to encourage all BIALL members to apply for an overseas bursary at some point–the experience is so worthwhile, which ever conference you go to.

I had always heard that BIALL delegates to the CALL conference were warmly welcomed, and this year proved to be no exception. From the moment I arrived in Canada, I was greeted like an old friend, reflecting the close co-operation between our two Associations over the years. The size of the conference and structure of the programme make it very easy for BIALL delegates to participate, and the facilities in the London Convention Centre were excellent, making this a very enjoyable trip.

Sweet and Maxwell announced the replacement of their Alerter service from I October with an enhanced Alerter product. This will be available by e-mail only and it will no longer be possible to view the daily alerts on the Sweet and Maxwell Web site. Subscribers can receive information at both 9.00 am and 11.00 am. The first morning alert will contain details of cases, newspaper articles and press releases from the previous afternoon and the later update will cover morning press releases and primary and secondary legislation. It is also possible to elect to receive consolidated daily or weekly alerts and specify individual subject areas. The sting in the tail is that the former free service is to be replaced by this ‘affordable commercial service’ based on the size of the subscriber organisation. From mid-September free two-week trials are available. See www.sweetandmaxwell.co.ukJonline/alerter/aler.cfm for details.