The BIALL Blog

Intending delegates are advised that the Pre Conference Seminar  - "Finance for Non-Finance Personnel" is proving very popular. This seminar takes place on Wednesday, 13 June at the Holiday Inn, Belfast.

We are limited to 50 participants so if you want to include this as part of your conference arrangement, you should get booking as soon as possible!!

The Conference Committee completed a final site visit to Belfast last week  to firm up on arrangements for a number of the events including
the presentation of the Halsbury Awards at the Titanic Centre. 

Nominations are now being accepted for the Halsbury's Awards 2012, to be presented at the BIALL Annual Conference in June.

The Halsbury's Awards were established in 2007 by the BIALL Awards & Bursaries Committee and LexisNexis, in order to recognise, celebrate and reward the dedicated performance and outstanding service given by legal information services, law libraries and those teams managing legal collections and resources. These awards are particularly unique as they are the only legal information service awards that recognise the value and importance of dedicated team work within our sector.

Categories:

- Best Legal Information Service (Non-Commercial Sector)
For non-fee charging operations in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, including the academic sector, government libraries and special libraries/information services.
- Best Legal Information Service (Commercial Sector)
For law firms and other legal information services that operation commercial, fee-charging services in Wales, Scotland, Ireland and all areas of England outside the M25.
- Best Legal Information Service (Commercial Sector) - London Only
For law firms and other legal information services that operation commercial, fee-charging services in the greater London area (within the M25).
Nominations can be made by:
- The service providers themselves
- Other legal information professionals who know and use the service 
- Any legal professionals with experience of the service.
To make a nomination, please visit the Halsbury's Awards website. 

The deadline for nominations is Friday 18th May 2012.

The Awards & Bursaries Committee is now inviting nominations for the Wallace Breem Memorial Award 2012.
The aim of the award is to recognise especially good contributions to law librarianship, or provide financial assistance for special research or other projects at a senior level. The broad terms of the Award allow the Award Committee to consider the widest range of publications or projects (in-hand or proposed), including assistance with travel or any other research costs.

For more information about the award and to download a nomination form please visit the BIALL website. The closing date for nominations is Friday 4th May 2012.
The award will be presented at the BIALL conference in Belfast in June.

If you’re considering writing about legal aspects of librarianship for your dissertation, you could win £ 250.

Back in January 2001 Lord Woolf issued a Practice Direction on the citation of authorities in court. Following in his footsteps the Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge has fleshed out and updated the guidance.

Find the full Practice Direction at the following link.

http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/publications-and-reports/practice-directions/2012/lcj-practice-direction-citation-authorities-2012

It sets out very clearly which authorities are to be used and when and even deals with the possibility of exceptions to the rule.

For the anxious trainee solicitor - and librarian trying to guide them - this is one very useful piece of direction.

BIALL is pleased to announce that Legal Journals Award 2012 is open for nominations.
Please submit your nomination by Friday 27 April using the form at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BIALLLegalJournalsAward2012