John Furlong attended the Annual Conference of the Canadian Association of Law Librarians (CALL/ACBD) and was particularly interested in the sessions involving the way in which clients are now taught about legal materials and the importance of teaching internet literacy or “neteracy”.

Claire Fox presents a case study to show how information services at a London law firm were improved by developing good working relationships between the library and the rest of the firm.

The Financial Services and Markets Department is one of 11 main departments at City law firm Travers Smith LLP. Shirley Lofthouse, Head of Information at Travers Smith, considers the work of the financial services lawyer and the resources needed to support the research requirements of the department.

Tax, (both corporate and personal tax) is one of the five main departments at City law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP. In the following article, Dunstan Speight, Library Manager, considers the resources needed to support a tax practice and how these relate to the research requirements of tax lawyers.

Suzanna Rickeard and Anne Coles describe the five key stages involved in devising a successful induction programme, based on their experiences at Lawrence Graham, a large London firm of solicitors and offer helpful hints on what any potential problem areas.

Allie Lustigman from Linklaters updates the information collated from a survey of the internal use made by law firms of social software tools and provides an insight into how blogs, RSS feeds and wikis are also being implemented for external use for clients.

Fiona Fogden discusses how negotiation skills can be applied within the information service. She uses a case-study, which involves evaluating the renewal of a news subscription service and the importance of considering which people may be involved in that negotiation, to illustrate her advice.

A vendor launches what they promise to be a fantastic new product which you can not do without so you set up a trial. At the end of the trial you have lots of well-balanced feedback from across your organisation that you can use to determine whether or not to take the product and which also gives you some points for negotiation. Well, that is the theory anyway! In this article Chrissy Street aims to give some guidance about how to get closer to this in practice.

Gerry Power of the IALS writes about the benefits of compiling a portfolio which records and reflects on the skills he has aquired through work and which he can apply in his work as a mentor.

In the first in our series of very short articles devoted to practical library and information management issues, Dean Mason from Salans provides helpful advice on how to set up a business continuity plan for your information service.

Ben Beljaars and René Winter contribute a thoroughly well-researched article on the profile of current users of academic libraries in Holland. They discuss their information requirements and usage; the relationship between the library and the law faculty; the use of digital resources in legal education and developments in legal information literacy.

Employment is one of the five main departments at City law firm Fox Williams LLP. In the following article, Julie Keys considers the resources needed to support an employment practice and how these relate to the research requirements of employment lawyers.