Dumpling in a Hanky

Admittedly, various legal database suppliers seem to think that English/Welsh law and Scots law are interchangeable. For example: Westlaw. It’s developed a sort of “know how” product called Insight, which should allow more in depth analysis and updates on certain points of law. This is handy, and the sort of things our users like – no wading through articles or textbooks and checking if they’re up to date or take into account recent judgments – just nice primers on specific legal points. Which would be lovely, if Westlaw could remember that not all jurisdictions are the same. When I go into the Scots Law tab on Westlaw (which should restrict my searches to only Scottish material, hence avoiding a lot of time wasting and confusion when I’m looking for something with a specific Scottish meaning), it gives me the new option of Insight within that tab. “Oh good,” I thought, “they’re actually paying some attention to their Scottish users, and putting Scottish content on!”. So I wen...

Certain old law books are very, very expensive (like this one ). Certain new law books are also very, very expensive. This book has slipped from its original publication date by about 3 years so far, so there's no guarantee that it will actually be coming out in November this year, as currently promised. But just look at that price. £785. Yes: that's not a typo. It actually costs £785 for a single volume of a single book. It has 568 pages.  That's £1.38 per page . Law book prices are just insane sometimes.  

Or really, any sort of service at all, since offering a 'free' issue of a newsletter for assessment doesn't really make me a customer, since I've not bought a product yet.... Ah, the joys of LexisNexis! They must be getting desperate for business indeed, if their new tactics are anything to go by. I was called up a few weeks ago by a woman. I don't know who, she never gave her name. She asked me if I would like a free sample issue of their relaunched "Tolley's Employment Law Newsletter". As thats an area we cover, I said yes, but also that it was hugely unlikely we'd take out a subscription of any sort. She said that was fine, but went on to make a HUGE point of the fact that, I HAD to reply to the email she would be sending me within 30 days. I had no idea what the email content would be, it would be made clear in the email, but I HAD to reply to it. I said no problem, and calendared it in as I was talking to her. She had me spell out my email add...

The current Big Idea in the legal / library blog world is the Free Legal Web (FLW). Originally mooted by Nick Holmes, the idea is to pull all of the content currently floating about the ether (legal professionals blog posts, Government information etc) into one portal. That in itself is a big enough task, but what doesn't seem to be clear yet is...who is this Free Legal Web for? The people involved so far seem to be legal professionals and IT specialists. The legal professionals will be working out some way of getting the useful materials together, and persuading other legal professionals that giving up their valuable time and work (such as blog postings) for this enterprise will be a worthwhile investment, and will reap them rewards in the end. The IT professionals job will be to write the scripts and programmes that will get everything together in the one place, and working well with all the other bits and pieces. That's all lovely (although it's hard to tell what's...

Having had to delve in quickly already this morning, I'm liking the redesign. My main delight is the fact that, when using Stair Memorial Encyclopedia (our main reason for subscribing), there's now a lovely new option. Previously, to see a whole section of the encyc, you had to click individually on each separate paragraph. Now, when you click into a para, there's a lovely option in the top right that says "View whole of"...it's a joy! Now I can scroll merrily through the encyclopedia, without thinking that it'd actually be quicker to use the paper version! Well done Lexis Nexis! Now, off to get used to the navigation (already re-sorted my bookshelf) before someone else needs me to do something useful with it!