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IALS Library serves the national academic research community and other significant and diverse communities including IALS researchers, the University of London Colleges’ LLM programmes, visiting scholars from overseas, and subscribing practising lawyers.
You can reply online via the form below or if you prefer to fill in the form by hand or wish to remain anonymous, please, please pick up a form from the Library Issue & Enquiry desk or download Reader Satisfaction Survey and drop completed form into the survey box at the library exit. Forms can also be emailed to Laura.Griffiths@sas.ac.uk.
If you would like your name to be included in the prize draw (the prize is £50 worth of cinema or theatre vouchers) please include your name, college and contact details.
The School launched the Humanities Digital Library in January 2017 with monographs in history, law and classics. Over the coming months it will grow to include books from other disciplines researched in institutes across the School, implementing plans to take a flexible approach to scholarly writing, publishing monographs and edited collections as well as innovative research in longer and shorter formats. Each title is published as an open access PDF, with copies also available to purchase in print and EPUB formats.
We were delighted to launch the new service with the fourth edition of Electronic Signatures in Law. It is written by IALS Associate Research Fellow Stephen Mason, who is a barrister and leading authority on electronic signatures and electronic evidence.
Stephen Mason’s enthusiasm and commitment to open access in the current project builds on a successful earlier collaboration with the Institute to provide an open access online version of the innovative Digital Evidence and Electronic Signature Law Review published by the IALS on the School of Advanced Study’s Open Journals System http://journals.sas.ac.uk/deeslr/. His manifesto for future updates (http://ials.sas.ac.uk/digital/humanities-digital-library/observing-law-ials-open-book-service-law/electronic-signatures-0) illustrates the ambitions and opportunities for engagement and collaboration provided by the new service.
To further develop the IALS Open Book Service for Law and provide editorial oversight the Institute is establishing an Editorial Board and Advisory Board with representatives drawn from the UK legal research communities and scholarly professional associations for law such as the Society of Legal Scholars (SLS). The aim is to develop a broad team of consultant editors with particular subject expertise in law to help provide a new UK service with international reach.
As the Centre’s first director, Dr Judith Townend, moves onto a new post at the University of Sussex, we thought it would be an opportune moment to offer you a brief summary of some of the Centre’s activities so far.
The Centre was launched in February 2015 with a remit to provide opportunities for academics, lawyers, policymakers, journalists, NGOs, charities and other parties to explore the way information and data is controlled, shared and disseminated.
As well as a small academic staff, its members include a number of associate research fellows based at various UK universities, and visiting fellows from around the world. An expert Advisory Board has helped us develop our programme of research.
At the launch event, presentations were given on topics as diverse as institutional data sharing, privacy vigilantism and cybersecurity. In the evening, Timothy Pitt-Payne QC, barrister at 11KBW and specialist in information rights, gave an informative and entertaining talk entitled ‘Does Privacy Matter?’
After an encouraging start, the Centre pursued a variety of inter-related research avenues.
One of the Centre’s main areas of interest during this period has been the progress of the Investigatory Powers Bill. During 2015, a team led by Professor Lorna Woods sought to establish the legal provenance of as many clauses in the draft Investigatory Powers Bill as possible. The Centre also collated commentary and other materials related to the Bill. These online resources support research into issues raised by the Bill around privacy, security and data sharing.
The Centre has also taken an active interest in the government’s Prevent strategy and the potential impact on freedom of expression and academic freedom brought about by the enforcement of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. In October 2015, in collaboration with the Human Rights Consortium at the School of Advanced Study, the Information Law and Policy Centre held a one day event considering how the Act might affect universities, their staff and students. The keynote was delivered by the Rt Hon Sir Vince Cable.
The Centre’s work on intellectual property law, led by Dr Christina Angelopoulos (who will be taking up a post at the University of Cambridge in October), has focused primarily on the law of copyright. The Centre has been particularly interested in the relationship between human rights and copyright, the issue of intermediary liability for copyright infringement and the need to re-evaluate the position of copyright in the modern economic and technological landscape. Most recently the centre hosted the launch of Angela Daly’s new book on the legal implications of 3D printing for copyright law.
More broadly, the Information Law and Policy Centre has also contributed to events coordinated by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. In particular, the Centre has assisted with a number of events exploring the humanity of law including ‘The Humanity of Judging‘, ‘Judgecraft and Emotions’ and ‘The Humanity of Barristers: Stories from the Bar’. In June 2016, the Centre helped organised an exhibition of drawings from the UK Supreme Court and other courts which provide artist Isobel Williams’ perspective on the human participants involved in legal proceedings.
Speakers have included the Scottish Information Commissioner Rosemary Agnew, Heather Rogers QC, former UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression Frank La Rue, Dominic Grieve QC MP, Jessica Simor QC, and investigative journalists Heather Brooke and Ewen Macaskill. Numerous academics have joined discussion panels or led seminars; among these were Dr Judith Bannister, Professor Eric Barendt, Professor Ian Cram, and Professor Lilian Edwards.
We believe the Centre has had a strong start over the last 18 months and we would like to thank you for all your support of the Information Law and Policy Centre during this time. The Centre is only successful because of those of you who have attended events, given presentations, written guest blog posts, contributed to our research activities and encouraged us in the Centre’s work. We are especially grateful to our excellent advisors – both official and unofficial – and to all the external organisations and institutions with which we have partnered.
And more events are to come! Activities for autumn 2016 include ongoing research on protection for whistleblowers and journalists, an annual workshop themed on information control and human rights sponsored by Bloomsbury’s Communications Law journal (9th November), and a seminar and panel discussion at London’s Free Word Centre to celebrate 250 years since Freedom of Information took root in Sweden in 1766 (8th December).
Looking ahead, we hope the Information Law and Policy Centre has an important contribution to make in the future bringing together academics, policymakers and practitioners in this field to discuss and research these issues.
As such, we are looking forward to seeing how the Information Law and Policy Centre develops under a new Director who will be appointed in the near future: the post will be advertised shortly via the University of London website.
For inquiries about the Centre’s activities, please contact our part-time research assistant Dr Daniel Bennett (daniel.bennett@sas.ac.uk).
The most recent report on the annual SLS / BIALL academic law library survey has just been published in Legal Information Management and is also available on the IALS website at: http://ials.sas.ac.uk/library/SLS_BIALL_survey.htm.
The comprehensive report, which I wrote on behalf of the UK’s Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) and British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL), provides a useful snapshot of the staffing, funding, collections and range of services provided in 2013/2014 by university and college law libraries in the UK and Ireland.
Comparative year-on-year data and analysis is provided on student numbers, provision of seating and workstations, law library usage, opening times, support services for distance learning courses, acquisitions expenditure, sources of income, contributions from law schools, staffing levels, qualifications of library staff, the location of the law library within the university library and subscriptions to legal databases, e-journals and e-books. In addition the most popular law databases, e-book publishers, suppliers of library management systems and free websites with legal content and are also identified.
The SLS / BIALL academic law library survey has been running since 1996 and has established itself as the leading survey of its kind for the UK and Irish academic legal communities. It provides authoritative and trusted data which academic law library managers use to benchmark their own services, collections and funding requirements, and law course validation bodies note when appraising the provision of institutions seeking to run law courses. The report also greatly assists the UK’s Society of Legal Scholars in monitoring the continuing influence of its 2009 Statement of standards for university law library provision in the United Kingdom: http://www.legalscholars.ac.uk/documents/SLS-Library-for-a-Modern-Law-School-Statement-2009.pdf.
In a letter of July 19 1950 now in the IALS Archives, George Curtis (Founding Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada) sought help from Professor David Hughes Parry (Director, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies) in obtaining case papers from two notable Canadian Appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London.
George Curtis, a friend and host for Professor David Hughes Parry’s lecture tour of North America in the autumn of 1949, drew special attention to the current and future research value of the case papers generally: “Their value to us would be so very great that I would like to make an effort to collect as many as possible” … “I think that as the years go by this sort of material for research and teaching purposes would be very valuable indeed”.
The Judicial Committee of The Privy Council is the court of final appeal for the UK overseas territories and Crown dependencies and for those Commonwealth countries that have retained the appeal to Her Majesty in Council or, in the case of Republics, to the Judicial Committee. Historically it was the supreme appellate court of the British Empire, whose decisions also provided valid precedents for British courts. It has decided cases across a wide range of legal topics such as: admiralty, constitutional and ecclesiastical matters, contract, murder, status of persons; and had a key role in the export and assimilation of common law around the world.
In drafting its Statement of Development Policy for the Quinquennium (1952-1957) the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies made provision to acquire the Canadian Law Library – a large library which included many papers from the Canadian Appeals to the Privy Council and was owned by the Canadian Government and had been maintained in London for many years for the use of Counsel appearing before the Privy Council. Once Canadian Appeals to the Privy Council ceased, a purchase was made and the library was added to the Institute’s collections in 1953. The purchase drew on a £3,000 reserve of funding from a £10,000 Nuffield Foundation grant made to the IALS to help in developing a unique national collection of Commonwealth law.
Subsequent arrangements over the years with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council itself built a comprehensive collection at the Institute of JCPC Appeal case papers for many former colonies and Commonwealth jurisdictions including: Aden, Antigua, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Basutoland, Bermuda, Canada, Ceylon, Cyprus, Dominica, Fiji, Ghana, Gibraltar, Gold Coast, Great Britain, Guernsey, Guyana, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica, Jersey, Kenya, Lesotho, Malaya, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, New Zealand, Nigeria, Palestine, Rhodesia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somaliland, Tanganyika, Trinidad and Tobago and Uganda.
Now, in 2015, case papers held in the collection at IALS from both the key Canadian Privy Council Appeals highlighted by Dean Curtis are being made freely available online – included in an important project at the IALS which is making case papers from more than 1,400 Privy Council Appeals from many Commonwealth countries available on the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) service alongside the judgment texts http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKPC/
Thanks to an award from the School of Advanced Study’s Strategic Development Fund, IALS has been able to digitise many of the additional case papers it holds relating to historic Judicial Committee of the Privy Council decisions. Over 5,000 searchable PDFs have been created involving more than 317,000 page scans.
Case papers from the IALS collection from 1935 -1985 (effectively a full paper set from 1950 to 1985) and some selected papers from earlier judgments of special interest to researchers have been included in the project. http://ials.sas.ac.uk/library/pcdocs/pcddd_project.htm
These substantial papers (case for the appellant, case for the respondent, record of proceedings, factums and appendices) are often extensive documents giving far more detail than the judgment text itself. They are records of the law in action, providing an insight into a wide range of public, personal, social, and human issues. They also reveal the foresight of the JCPC in a practical commitment to the recognition of diversity in culture and religious belief; in seeking to ensure environmental protection; to safeguard individual dignity and support the wider international legal order.
We plan to add brief notes highlighting, as examples, the significance of some case papers to particular research and legal development and share those examples through linked public events at IALS – highlighting thematic interests and ways in which the more readily available case papers will form a basis on which further work can be built. Professor Catharine MacMillan and Dr Charlotte Smith of the University of Reading and Dr Nandini Chatterjee of the University of Exeter are kindly helping us as research advisors to the project.
We believe that this project will benefit the research community and public knowledge on several levels and make a valuable contribution to facilitating further initiatives in the UK and overseas in the areas of Commonwealth legal and cultural development, and additionally extend the scope of wider open access information delivery.
The IALS project and development on BAILII also serves as a pilot project for a potentially larger collaborative initiative that LLMC and partners are planning if necessary funding can be secured in the USA. That will build on the collection of images created here and aim to create a comprehensive online collection of JCPC case papers.
For further information please contact Steven Whittle, Information Systems Manager, IALS steven.whittle@sas.ac.uk
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The National Archives (who are responsible for legislation.gov.uk) are offering paid student placements over the summer. The hours are flexible, and the pay will be the equivalent of £18,000 per annum, pro rata.
You will help The National Archives to update primary legislation. Full training and support will be provided, and once you’ve been trained you can either work from Kew or from home. The editorial tools you’ll be using are online and they’re easy to use. And don’t worry – all of your work will be checked before it goes live! It’s a great opportunity for you to get some paid work experience.
What you need is excellent attention to detail, a passion for getting things right, and a real interest in helping citizens to access up-to-date law. You’ll be able to point to the legislation on legislation.gov.uk you’ve helped to update and you’ll receive a certificate after you’ve completed your training.
If you’d like to find out more, come to the drop in session at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies next week, on Thursday 9 July. The session will be held in room L102 between 11.30am and 12.30pm.
To help manage numbers it would be great if you could let us know if you’re planning to attend. Just email judith.riley@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk to let her know.
In early February I was lucky enough to visit the exciting and vibrant city of Berlin in my role as the IALL Board Liaison Officer for the forthcoming Berlin Conference from Sunday 20th September to Thursday 24th September 2015. I have only visited Berlin briefly once before on a wonderful day trip from Hamburg. However my appetite was whetted by this whirlwind trip and I was very much looking forward to a chance to see more of the city as part of the process of finding out more from the local organisers about their detailed plans for the conference.
I arrived on a direct flight from London to the modern medium-sized Berlin Tegel Airport and very quickly passed through the efficient passport control and baggage claim. I had various cheap options to travel into central Berlin including using either the TXL Express Bus (for the Zoo station in the west of the city) or the Express Bus X9 (for Alexanderplatz in the east of the city), but instead decided to treat myself and pay for one of the many taxis waiting at the airport to take me directly to my hotel. Door to door the cost was 23 Euros, an option to think about if you arrive with heavy suitcases.
For the purposes of the IALL BLO visit, I had booked myself into the modern and comfortable Maritim Hotel Berlin. This will be the official IALL Conference hotel and has the distinct advantage (particularly if you are running late over breakfast) of being just a ten minute walk from the Berlin State Library which will be our main venue throughout the conference. As usual, hotel rooms have been reserved for IALL Conference attendees at a special lower rate including breakfast.
On the main day of my review it was my great pleasure to meet with Jeroen Vervliet (IALL President) and Ivo Vogel (IALL Local Conference Organiser) and his enthusiastic local team at the Berlin State Library. This enormous and rather beautiful 1970’s building is the largest academic library in Germany and has a spectacular reading room which I liked very much. Jeroen, Ivo and I then spent a busy day from 9.00am to 8.30pm running through the preliminary conference academic programme, visiting the proposed venues around central Berlin and clarifying the interim conference budget. Here’s a few highlights which have been arranged by the Local Organising Committee so far:
The thought-provoking extensive academic programme will be focused primarily on the German legal tradition in a challenging international context. The transnationalisation of law, the role of Germany in EU decision-making, reassessing the Nuremberg trials, human rights, constitutional law, real property law, legal blogs and access to libraries for researchers with special needs will all be themes.
The venue for the Opening Session on Sunday 20th September is already booked and will be held at the stylish Microsoft Atrium in central Berlin.
The Otto-Braun Hall will be the main lecture venue and is also booked. This impressive conference facility is conveniently attached to the Berlin State Library and has a capacity of 400. There is deliberately plenty of space outside of the hall entrance for our usual interesting trade exhibition and for refreshment and lunch breaks.
Afternoon cultural visits are also being planned to the German Bundesrat and the Sanssouci Palace and Gardens, as well as an evening Berlin City Tour.
The Berlin-(+)-Tour is the name for the Optional Day in Berlin on Thursday 24th The educational focus of the day will be on the Research Services of the German Parliament and the Library of the German Bundestag. After the lectures you will receive a special guided tour of the Library which is situated within the magnificent modern architecture of the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus. The German Parliament and library are not normally open to the public, so this is a rare chance to see inside and learn about their activities first hand. Additionally, the day will provide a scenic boating tour on the River Spree to discover the City of Berlin by river and to enjoy a buffet lunch and coffee break in beautiful surroundings.
Both Jeroen and I were very impressed with the progress of the Local Organising Committee so far and assured that everything is being done to deliver a wonderful conference in September.
Since the advent of the web, the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London has been actively involved in innovative legal information delivery – developing and promoting public access to materials capable of supporting legal research on the Internet. IALS is committed to extending the reach of digital provision of legal information by delivering specialist legal research tools and niche web services – maximising access to key or hard to find information to facilitate legal research, public understanding, and promote justice and the rule of law. The IALS website includes a portfolio of award-winning national online services for law and research tools that have resulted from IALS projects and are made freely available to all.
The Institute is now working on a redevelopment of the IALS website and web databases http://ials.sas.ac.uk/
We would like to understand what you think about the current design, content, and functionality of our website and databases. This will help us to ensure that we deliver the best possible experience for visitors in the future.
The survey includes 11 questions and should take approximately 10 minutes to complete.
Please do share your feedback and help us improve our website and databases.
‘Vehicle remote keyless entry systems and engine immobilisers: do not believe the insurer that they are perfect’, Computer Law and Security Review, Volume 28 Issue 2 (April 2012), 195 – 200
Welcome to the official blog of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, to be launched in 2015. In the meantime please visit our website for information about the Institute, the library, events and training.
