There is a wide range of sources that might fruitfully be used in criminological research. This article, by Andromachi Tseloni* and Nick Tilley**, overviews the type of evidence used in research that has recently appeared in the British Journal of Criminology, gives examples of unobtrusive administrative data that have been used in recent projects, and focuses on a single data set, the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which covers a wide range of criminological topics. Finally, it will be suggested that criminologists may be missing opportunities to draw on valuable data sets that, though imperfect, could be useful to them in their research.

This article by Helen Riley explains how changes in official publishing have affected the provision of official publications at Warwick University Library, and discusses the pros and cons of print versus online publications. It also explains how using and promoting good online databases may help to save staff time and shelf space at a time when library budgets are being curtailed.

In this article Cheryl Caballero, Erica Smith and Rosalind Guldner, members of the Ontario Legislative Assembly indexing team, describe the challenges of indexing legislative text and how they set about meeting them. A version of their article was originally published in The Indexer in June 2015*.

Marci Hoffman, General Editor of the Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals, reports on how this major multilingual legal index handles its content, and how it is developing in the electronic era.*

Keeping up-to-date with available resources in the legal information field is often a daunting task; patrons in all sectors continue to demand the most accurate and cost-effective information. Beyond the ever-increasing number of resources that librarians must keep track of in their own jurisdiction, there are an equal number of developments in other jurisdictions which add additional challenges. These new resources, in addition to the unique quirks encountered when researching the law in a different jurisdiction, can make for a challenging task, as Alison Shea explains.

This article follows an initiative to create a Knowledge Database in SharePoint from inception to roll out. Written by Allie Lustigman and Amy Hanley, the Knowledge and Information Team at Charles Taylor, this article explores how certain customisations to SharePoint 2010's out of-the-box capabilities can be successfully applied to a knowledge repository on a limited timescale and budget.

The Principles of Legal Research (PLR) website of the University of Ottawa's Brian Dickson Law Library is a bilingual (English and French) online learning tool for all first year students in both Common Law and Civil Law.1 Law librarians use this e-learning website to facilitate teaching components such as student assignments and assessments. This user experience study aims to investigate law students’ real experience with the system. Their feedback will be used for future development planning as well as analysing user behaviour trends. The authors investigate the following aspects: accuracy of information, interface design, navigation system, Web 2.0, social media, and smartphone version.

This article by Lizzie Seal is adapted from a presentation given at the Sources and Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice socio-legal research workshop that was held at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in November 2015. It explores the selection of qualitative sources for a project that aimed to uncover public responses to capital punishment in the mid twentieth-century. The article discusses which sources were selected and considers their strengths and weaknesses. It concludes that the particular sources chosen as data can, in themselves, help to shape researchers’ thinking about their findings.

This is the latest report analysing the results of the Society of Legal Scholars and BIALL Survey. It has been written by David Gee, Deputy Librarian at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.

In this article Pattie Punch reflects on IALL's 34th Annual Course on International Law and Legal Information which was held at Statsbibliothek, Berlin from 20th to 24th September, 2015. The course was entitled ‘Within and in Between: German Legal Tradition in Times of Internationalization and Beyond’ and the work and content of the presentations made her consider what she values about the education of law librarians in the 21st Century. The course raised many questions in relation to a resilient education for law librarians. Since this course, the Brexit referendum in the UK has taken place and the author offers her thoughts about this change of direction and what it might mean for the profession.

The Radzinowicz Library is the specialist criminology library of the Institute of Criminology, a research and teaching department of the University of Cambridge. As Stuart Stone explains, it is the premier academic criminology collection in the United Kingdom and indeed it is one of the major collections in this subject in the world. The library primarily serves the Institute and the University but also the wider community of criminal justice researchers, many of whom are regular visitors. In common with other libraries, financial pressures are a continuing concern, especially because of the interdisciplinary nature of the subject. Outreach and engagement with organisations outside academia add to the distinctive characteristics of the library.

This article by Rosemary Auchmuty and Erika Rackley introduces the Women's Legal Landmarks Project. The project is an interdisciplinary collaboration involving feminist scholars from law and other disciplines engaging in the process of identifying, researching and producing critical accounts of the key legal events, cases and statutes which represent significant turning points for women in the UK and Ireland. In creating the first scholarly anthology of legal landmarks for women spanning four jurisdictions and spanning eleven centuries, it seeks to contribute both to the development of the discipline of feminist legal history as well as societal understandings of the contribution women have made to public life and, more specifically, their involvement in the production of law, law reform and justice.

The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies holds copies of case papers of appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC). Steven Whittle describes the recent open access initiative at the IALS, working with BAILII to provide online access to historic case papers of appeals from over 35 countries from the period 1935 to 1985. These are cases of the highest importance in the legal development of each of the countries and to the development of common law shared by many countries worldwide.

The National Archives has an important role in providing access to records of crime because of its role as the national archive for the records of the higher law courts and central government departments. Because of its status as the national archives for the United Kingdom, it has a pivotal role in shaping and influencing the developing freedom of information and data protection issues concerning records of crime. As Nigel Taylor describes in this short article, it has also created internal structures to cope with the increasing workload, complexity and need for transparency when dealing with these matters.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the scholarly peer-reviewed publications relating to social media objectives and challenges of law libraries. The methodology is that of a systematic literature review. The studies included in this literature review shows that the social media objectives of law libraries are: promoting and marketing resources and services, supporting legal research teaching and tutorials and providing reference services. Secondly, law libraries face some challenges with their social media usage regarding the quality and scope of content, technological difficulties and online privacy.

In this article Michael Maher, Librarian of the Law Society of England and Wales, examines the history of the extensive library on Chancery Lane, the range of services it provides to help support its members (including their agents i.e. law librarians) and the future plans for the library.

This article by Adrian Howe is based on a presentation given at the ‘Sources and Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice Conference’ in November 2015, jointly sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Education and the Socio-Legal Studies Association. She begins by querying whether there are indeed distinct feminist methods in the social sciences. She outlines the impact of what she calls the ‘methodical revolution’ on the criminology discipline, Foucault's contribution and Foucauldian methodologies deployed in criminological and criminal justice research.

Free access to public legal information for the general public and professionals promotes justice and the rule of law. Presenters at the 2015 Law via the Internet conference discussed projects using the power of technology combined with expert human input to make information accessible, and to extract new information from large document collections. Although the scale is different, there are similarities in the ways in which indexers and informaticians explore meaning, develop standards and consider user needs to make information widely accessible. Glenda Browne reports on the conference.*