Dumpling in a Hanky

So, on Monday afternoon, it was time for the now-annual Scottish Law Librarians Group jaunt to the Edinburgh International Book Festival . Every year, the Committee try and decide on an event that's as relevant to the members as possible (law related, Scottish issues, publishers with a Scottish interest), and at as convenient a time as possible...and that we can get enough tickets for. As you can imagine, that's not always an easy trick, but I think we did well this year, and even managed to get a day when the mud was minimal, despite the signs warning us about it! The event chosen was Michael Mansfield. The info's gone from the site now, but it was: Michael Mansfield Mon 31/08/2009 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM From Ruth Ellis to Jean Charles de Menezes, Bloody Sunday to the Marchioness disaster, Michael Mansfield has taken on many of the most difficult cases of our times. The Memoirs of a Radical Lawyer recalls a career defending the innocent (and sometimes the guil...

From the Guardian , news that the transcripts of Old Bailey trials from 1674 to 1913 are now available online. I spy a few interesting hours to be spent browsing this site!

I don't know, I don't think JK's really got a strong case here. After all, it's just a reference guide to her work - she didn't write it, someone else (a librarian, woo-hoo!) put in that hard work. I wonder, to take it to an extreme, if she wins this does it mean that travel writers won't be able to write about the countries they visit, because they didn't create them, just experienced them and loved them? Assuming they even visited them in the first place, of course . The case is being heard in America, and I'm not clear enough on UK copyright law (other than to know what I can and can't copy in a commercial library) to know if she'd be able to bring the same sort of case here. I have a feeling she couldn't but can't guarantee it. Either way, I think she's perhaps getting a bit uptight about work created by people who love what she writes, and want to help guide others.

You know, I thought the UK political situation could be difficult. The Welsh Assembly , Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Assembly all having different levels of devolved powers. Knowing who can do what, and where that power comes from can be a nightmare. Each piece of secondary legislation has to be double checked to see if it applies to all the parts of the UK, or only some, and even the ones that only apply to some parts may have some importance in general to the parts they're not actually in force in. For instance, the pleural plaques compensation is currently UK wide legislation, but the Scottish Government disagrees with the decision, and is planning to create its own legislation under its devolved health remit. But the Belgian situation makes all those niggles easy to deal with. They've only just managed to swear in a government...after elections in June 2007! And it may still collapse in July 2008. At least in the UK we only have one language to have to cope ...