Press Release
Date 20 May 2011
Legal Information Conference and Exhibition
The British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) is pleased to announce that its 42nd Annual
Study Conference is being held at The Sage, Gateshead, Newcastle from 16 to 18 June 2011. The
Conference is the premier event for those working in the legal information sector.
The theme for this year's conference is Sharing Experience; Building Value in Legal Information
and the programme will comprise presentations by invited speakers and BIALL's members. Niamh
Burns, Programme Coordinator reports "The Programme will provide valuable, instructive and engaging
sessions for all sectors and seniority levels within the legal information profession. This year we have
decided to shift the focus from surviving the economic downturn to developing the profession
and building value into the future provision of legal information."
Knowledge Management consultant and author of "Learning to Fly" and "No More Consultants", Chris
Collison, will start proceedings with his Keynote Address, "Going Off the Road with KM". Mr Collison
will be followed by Graham Virgo, Professor of English Private Law at Cambridge, who will present the
Willi Steiner (Institute of Advanced Legal Studies librarian 1968 to 1981) Memorial Lecture on "Why
Study Law? The Relevance of Legal Information to the Law Student, Researcher and Practitioner."
A Pre-conference seminar on US Legal Research led by Alison Shea, Reference Librarian at Fordham Law
School Library, is scheduled for the afternoon of Wednesday 15 June.
The Exhibition will provide delegates with an opportunity to meet representatives of some 30 publishers
and suppliers and there will be opportunities to see demonstrations of new products of interest to the
profession.
Press contact
Chair of the Conference Committee
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John Furlong
Matheson Ormsby Prentice
70 Sir John Rogerson's Quay
Dublin 2
Ireland
E-mail: john.furlong@mop.ie
Notes to editors:
BIALL: the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians was formed in 1969 as an independent and
self-supporting body to promote the better management of law libraries and legal information units in
United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland and to represent the interests of law librarians and legal
information professionals, and other suppliers of legal literature and reference materials.
It has in excess of 800 members, both personal and institutional, who work in the courts, government
departments, higher education, chambers, law firms, the professional bodies, commercial and other
organisations with legal information units and in publishing and book supplying.
It provides training courses, conferences, journals and other publications, a website, a mailing list,
bursaries, a duplicates’ exchange scheme and meetings for members. It promotes awards for
excellence. It co-operates with other organisations nationally and internationally.
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