Methodology

1. A survey of researchers in law and related fields has established their present and future needs for foreign legal materials. The survey has provided information about the expectations and needs of researchers when tracing the location of foreign legal materials. The results have informed the design and content of the web site. The full report of survey is available in the Activities section of this web site. Edited versions were published in Amicus Curiae (November 2000) and the Journal of Legal Information Management (Summer 2001).

2. The collections of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies have been appraised in the early part of the project to develop a methodology for the collection of data and to test objective indicators of the strength of the collections. Details of the conventions used in data collection and in the construction of entries in the database are available from here.

Download Conventions

3. Once the methodology was tested the collections of the other project partner libraries were appraised.

4. In the current, final phase of the project the methodology is being used to appraise the collections of higher education libraries throughout the UK, and the national libraries of Scotland and Wales. Data collection was preceded by a postal questionnaire survey, the responses to which indicated where substantial holdings of foreign legal materials are held. The results of this survey are available in the Activities section of this web site.

The development of FLAG was financed by the Research Support Libraries Programme