IALS Library News Headlines - Autumn 2010

FLAG (Foreign Law Guide) update
A review and update of the FLAG database for 2010 has been completed by Dr Peter Clinch and IALS staff. The updated FLAG database is freely available on the IALS website at: http://ials.sas.ac.uk/flag.htm

The FLAG Foreign Law Guide, originally developed at IALS in 2001 and updated periodically since then, is a database locating primary foreign law print collections in UK libraries.

FLAG tells you where to find foreign law  - with descriptions of print or microform collections of primary law in serial publication (legislation, law reports, digests etc.). FLAG gives you contact and access details for the university, national and specialist law libraries with foreign law collections in the UK and indicates the scope of the collection and whether it is still being updated.

Notes about the update are available at: http://ials.sas.ac.uk/library/flag/updating.htm

Jules Winterton appointed Visiting Professor to the Ghana Institute of Advanced Legal Studies
Congratulations to Jules Winterton, IALS Associate Director and Librarian, on his recent appointed as Visiting Professor to the Ghana Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (GIALS). Jules is also a member of the GIALS Advisory Council.

IALS rescues Intute:Law records for legal researchers - Eagle-i Internet Portal for Law Project at IALS
We are pleased to report that work is in progress here at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies on a project to upgrade our Eagle-i (Electronic Access to Global Legal Information) service to continue to provide an important national online service for legal researchers http://ials.sas.ac.uk/eaglei/project/eiproject.htm.

As you may know, JISC funding cuts to the Intute service http://www.intute.ac.uk/law mean no new resources are being added to the Intute Internet catalogue now - just existing records and broken links are being checked until July 2011 only http://www.intute.ac.uk/faq.html. Under our agreement with Intute, as section editors for law since 1999, we have harvested and are enhancing the records we created for Intute: Law - effectively rescuing them for further academic and legal research purposes.

We are developing the Eagle-i Internet Portal for Law www.ials.sas.ac.uk/eagle-i.htm to consolidate and continue the work we undertook for Intute through selective import and enhancement of Intute: Law records for ongoing evaluation and update in Eagle-i. The Eagle-i Internet Portal for Law features a freely available web database which will help ensure that evaluative records of quality web resources (including important new additions) continue to be available to support legal studies and research for the UK. The project is supported this year by modest initial funding from the School of Advanced Study, University of London. A preliminary quick guide to the service is available for download from the IALS website: http://ials.sas.ac.uk/eaglei/project/docs/EAGLEI_IALS_quick_guide.pdf

Please do try the developing database and let us know what you think. Email to: Steven.Whittle@sas.ac.uk

Flare Index to Treaties update
The FLARE Index to Treaties on the IALS website was launched in early 2009 and is a free to use, searchable database of over 1,500 of the most significant multilateral treaties concluded since 1856. During the summer of 2010 the contents of the database were updated by Dr Peter Clinch. The project had three aims, to incorporate: details of treaties concluded since the end of 2008; web links to the text of individual treaties available in the Australian Treat Series (ATS) library on AustLII; a number of new entries for treaties concluded in the early 1990s inadvertently omitted from the original project.

There are now 1,558 treaties, agreements and protocols within the database. The ATS library on AustLII contains electronic versions of every treaty concluded by the Australian government since 1900 and is a remarkable and invaluable resource. Very few governments have loaded on the internet comprehensive sets of treaties to which they are party. The addition of individual links to ATS versions of treaties has resulted in a substantial increase in the number of entries in the FLARE Index having a web link. Of the 1,558 entries 1,315 (just under 85%) have a link to a web version of the text. The remaining 243 without a link are mainly superseded materials.

The content, technical construction and operation of the database have been fully described in an article published on LLRX.

For more information on the database, see http://ials.sas.ac.uk/library/flag/introtreaties.htm or use the 'About' link on the search page.

Your reactions to and comments on the Index and suggestions for multilateral treaties which should be included are welcomed and should be sent to Steven Whittle at Steven.Whittle@sas.ac.uk

Flare Official Govenment Gazettes database
IALS is developing a web database version of the Flare Union List of Foreign Official Government gazettes which provides bibliographic and source information (including details of print holdings in UK libraries and links to online versions) for foreign official government gazettes publishing primary and secondary legislation - offering guidance to pinpoint the relevant portions and sources of gazettes which can be voluminous and complex publications.

The initiative continues collaborative efforts by FLARE, the Foreign Law Research group of libraries, to establish a national distributed collection of government gazettes. Development of the database has been supported by a modest grant from the School of Advanced Study.

Ongoing work on the database takes account of elements such as bibliographic record, holdings records, web record, and library location and access details. In particular, as well as providing ready access via country, the database complements established browsing lists by enabling researches to locate holdings by library and trace previous and continuing titles. Entries for online gazettes containing legislation from other jurisdictions beyond Europe are also being included in the database to assist in extending the scope of the original Union list.

For further information see the FLARE website at http://ials.sas.ac.uk/flare/flare_fog_unionlist_europe.htm

FLARE is a collaboration between the major libraries collecting law in the United kingdom: Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London (Chair); Bodleian Law Library, University of Oxford; British Library, Squire Law Library, University of Cambridge; School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

Please do try the database and let us know what you think. Email to: Steven.Whittle@sas.ac.uk

IALS librarians win prestigious professional awards
Jules Winterton,  Associate Director and The Librarian at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, has been awarded the highly prestigious  'Librarian of the Year Award' during the annual dinner at the Conference of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) in Brighton on Friday 11th June 2010. Steve Whittle, IALS Information Systems Manager, was honoured to receive the Wallace Breem award on the previous evening at the BIALL conference.

New electronic resources at IALS Library
IALS Library now has online access to: World Constitutions Illustrated from HeinOnline, focusing on the study of both historic and current constitutions and governments. The service is available on our account to all IALS Library members onsite at the Institute and remote access via IALS Library card or SAScard is available to IALS and SAS staff, fellows and students and UoL Law staff and students. See catalogue record for access at: http://catalogue.ulrls.lon.ac.uk/record=b3142082~S6 Login from remote access links by entering your family name and barcode number.

Access is available to all IALS Library users onsite at IALS.

For more information on our electronic resources see IALS Electronic Law Library and New electronic resources page.

IALS Library has arranged trial access to a number of electronic resources so we can review their usefulness to our legal researchers and consider purchasing an ongoing subscription.

Please do try these services and let us know what you think via our E-resources feedback page.

Find IALS on Facebook
The Institute and its Library have a Facebook page to provide a further means of keeping in touch with our users, locally, nationally and internationally and to establish new fans and friends. The page carries news and comment on IALS events, services and resources and welcomes suggestions on additional features to further legal research facilitation.



http://www.facebook.com/pages/London-United-Kingdom/Institute-of-Advanced-Legal-Studies-University-of-London/163748273259?v=wall

See also our contacts page on the IALS website for details.