WORKING GROUP ON COLLABORATIVE COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT OF
FOREIGN LEGAL MATERIALS
Wednesday 10th October 2001
Present: Jules Winterton, Lesley Young , Institute of Advanced Legal Studies
Library; (IALS)
Jennie Grimshaw and Janet Zmroczek , British Library.(BL)
Apologies: Andrew Smith, British Library and Jennifer Jones, Institute of Advanced
Legal Studies Library
1
Audit of Foreign Legal Gazettes
Western Europe
The IALS holdings have now been added to the master list of West European
gazettes. Further URLs will be added if found. A visit will be made to the
British Library stock at Boston Spa in November or December to check the
holdings and the condition of the runs at the shelf. The West European list
will then be finalised as far as IALS and BL holdings are concerned.
Eastern Europe
The East European gazettes holdings will also be checked at the shelf in
November/December. The British Library of Political and Economic Science,
the Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library and Glasgow University
Library have confirmed their willingness to consider adding their holdings of
East European material to the list.
Stock Rationalisation
Once the condition and completeness of the runs have been checked at the
shelf at the British Library’s Boston Spa site, the group will agree runs from
two countries for a pilot stock rationalisation exercise, one west and one east
European. We will then proceed to:
Get a quote for microfilm surrogates for the chosen runs from CRL and the
Library of Congress
Identify funding and investigate the possibility of a joint purchase
Agree storage location and access arrangements
Agree whether or not the printed originals should be discarded, taking into
account rarity, research value and alternative locations for hard-copy originals
in accordance with developing BL policy on discards
Investigate catalogue records and assess the extent of any necessary upgrades
Draw up a proposal for discussion and agreement by stakeholders at the BL
and IALS
GO AHEAD, once all parties have agreed.
Investigations in Eastern Europe showed that neither film nor fiche were
available for current purchase. Investigations would be made to find out
whether several American specialist microform publishers might be prepared
to film on our behalf.
2
Research Guides
Good progress is being made in identifying potential authors for guides to Serbia,
Hungary, Czech Republic, Ukraine and Belarus.
LLRX.com would be contacted to ensure that this Group is not duplicating any guides
commissioned by them.
3
British Library Document Supply Centre/IALS Holdings Rationalisation
No progress had been made on checking the list of DSC low use titles against IALS
holdings but it was hoped that this would be done as soon as possible.
4
Training Course
Good progress was being made in identifying suitable speakers, most of them
London-based. The draft course programme will be revised to give it a more regional
focus with presentations on law of Central European countries, former Soviet
Republics and the Balkans as well as the general introductions to the law of the
transition states and English language sources, and the presentation on Russian law.
It may be necessary to postpone the course date until April 2002.
Some discussion ensued about the number of free places on the course to be reserved
for BL and IALS staff.
5
Project Web Site
The draft design for the home page of the project web site was approved and an inhouse web editor at the BL would begin work on the design.
The minutes would need to be edited into a form suitable for public dissemination on
the web site.
The question of choosing a suitable name for the project was deferred.
6
AOB
None
Date of Next Meeting
January 10th 2002
Working Group on Collaborative Collection Development of Foreign Legal Materials
October 16th 2001