Greetings from Chicago!

How are all of you? Here, in the United States, we are living in extraordinary times—thousands of federal employees are losing their jobs (including the National Archivist), the richest man in the world spoke from the Oval Office with his four-year-old son on his shoulders, immigrants continue to fear deportation, and the Vice President lambasted our European allies. I’m also concerned about the millions of dollars that my own institution may lose for medical research. It’s a sad state of affairs, and libraries could not be any more important. Libraries (everywhere) must continue to uphold democratic values and serve as gateways to knowledge—particularly amidst government upheavals and unprecedented funding cuts.

Speaking of libraries, this issue of the IJLI contains several articles and features that will be especially interesting to law librarians. Qudri Ali Abu Bakar is a librarian in a Malaysian law firm and has contributed an informative work about the library management system (LMS) his library has used for several decades. In another corner of Asia, Ugyen Thinley has penned a fascinating article about how he established Bhutan’s first law library. Ugyen and I met at the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) annual conference last year in Chicago, and I’m incredibly grateful to him for agreeing to write this terrific piece.

I am also excited to introduce the first installment of a new regular feature of the IJLI, “Behind the Books: Global Insights from Law Librarians.” Duke University law librarians Mike McArthur and Julie Wooldridge came to me last year proposing a new column that would spotlight individual law librarians from around the globe. This first column features Dr. Ji Young Kwak, who serves in the Supreme Court Library of Korea. Many thanks to Mike and Julie for proposing this feature and agreeing to co-edit it.

In addition to the above, this issue features the work of two professors who spoke at IALL’s 2024 Annual Course in Oslo. Professor Gentian Zyberi has contributed “Some Personal Reflections on Enhancing Global North – Global South Academic Cooperation in Legal Higher Education in the Era of Artificial Intelligence,” which is certainly a timely topic. And Professor Inger Berg Ørstavik’s “Development of Large Language Models: Copyright Law Perspectives for Research Institutions and Research Libraries” discusses some of the issues involved when European copyright law is applied to the development and training of generative AI and natural language processing in public interest research institutions and libraries.

I’ve also included an excellent contribution by Ngoc Son Bui, Professor of Asian Laws at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, who examined six decades of the study of Asian laws around the world. The article includes useful appendices that contain lists of centers/programs, associations, law journals, and book series that focus on Asian laws.

Finally, please don’t forget to check out the Book Reviews (edited by Caroline Osborne, University of North Carolina) and the International Calendar (compiled by Amy Flick, Emory University).

I hope the contents of this issue will inspire more of you to contribute to the IJLI.