Within the legal library world “outsourcing” has become a hot topic, and not necessarily a welcome one. In the last 12 months there have been several law firms making the move to outsource their Information Services, so why is this happening and what are the options? Kate Stanfield, Vice President, Knowledge and Research at Integreon examines the issues. Her article is based on a presentation given at the BIALL Conference in June 2011.

Kate Stanfield has based this article on a presentation given at the 2008 Online meeting. She considers the potential role of the non-traditionally trained information professional within a law firm information service. Such roles include professional support lawyers, para-legals and business development and IT professionals.

This checklist should be read in conjunction with the authors' article at page 20 of this issue, and includes points to consider which have come out of their experiences in delivering training.

The authors, Karen Gray, Diane Miller, Karen Scott and Kate Stanfield, are experienced legal information professionals who are responsible both for designing and delivering in-house training sessions, and for running the BIALL Training the Trainer seminar for the last three years. The aim of this article is threefold: to explore the rationale for providing training; to examine the groundwork and preparation necessary to create the right training culture; and to offer practical guidance on how to deliver successful training activities.