We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 July 2019
In this article, the authors, Catherine Bowl, John Furlong and Caroline Mosley look at the direction the Association's Annual Conference has taken over the past 50 years since the first Conference in Liverpool in 1970. The emphasis is on the mid-1990s to the present day, during which period the authors served as Chairs of BIALL's Conference Committee1.
Other Chairs of the Conference Committee during this time were Michael Maher, Susan Scorey, David Wills, Roger Cook, Elaine Cameron, Gillian Watt and Julie Christmas.
2 The authors are indebted to Barbara Tearle's article on the early years of the Conference. Tearle, Barbara (2002) The Way We Were: Liverpool 1970: Continuity and Change. Legal Information Management 2(3), 17–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 A full list of locations through the years for the BIALL Annual Conference is available on the BIALL website.
4 As Ireland has a different VAT system and UK based delegates were unable to reclaim the Irish VAT, in 2016 BIALL paid delegates' VAT to help make the Dublin Conference more affordable.
5 Tearle op. cit.
6 The table in Barbara Tearle's article compared the composition of delegates at the 1970 and 2002 Conferences. This table has been updated to include the composition of delegates at the 2005, 2010 and 2018 Conferences to reflect the changes in the composition of attendees over the past 50 years. Tearle op. cit.
7 Ideally the Committee prefers to offer delegates a choice of hotels, including a budget option. However, if one hotel can accommodate the Exhibition, speaker programme and has sufficient bedrooms there is a potential to save costs as buying power is strengthened and use of one hotel creates better networking opportunities.
8 Robert Logan holds the record for being LCO three times. Blake, Mary “A History of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians 1969–1999”, [Warwick]: BIALL, 2000, p. 67Google Scholar.
9 Sovereign Conference has acted as PCO since 2001.
10 The Thistle Grand Hotel, as it was then.
11 Proposal for Council to restructure the format of the Annual Study Conference, December 2002.
12 Conference Committee's 2006/07 Annual Report, with thanks to David Hart.
13 Prizes are donated by our sponsors and exhibitors.
14 For example, Cadbury's World (1994). Portsmouth Harbour and the Mary Rose (1998).
