EDITORIAL
First up thanks to Graham Holliday the Information Manager at Clyde & Co LLP in the UK who posted this wonderful quote from the Sunday Times Magazine, “A Life in the Day of Baroness Hale of Richmond (70),” Britain’s most senior female judge who told her interviewer…
“My bookshelves are lined with law reports, which allow me to look up a case quickly, instead of fiddling around on the Internet.”
So that’s 20 years and billions of investment completely wasted on the judiciary ! I imagine that garnered a smile in many a set of chambers and library.
On a sadder note the news from the Caliphate just gets worse by the day with You Tube videos of Assyrian statutes being destroyed and now this report in the Guardian (UK)
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/26/isis-destroys-thousands-books-libraries
Reports this week that Mosul’s central library has been ransacked by Isis and 100,000 books and manuscripts burned has cast an international spotlight on a new wave of destruction that has been raging through the northern Iraqi city since last summer.
Earlier this month the head of the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) voiced alarm over “one of the most devastating acts of destruction of library collections in human history.” Director general Irina Bokova said the destruction involved museums, libraries and universities across Mosul.
She added: “This destruction marks a new phase in the cultural cleansing perpetrated in regions controlled by armed extremists in Iraq. It adds to the systematic destruction of heritage and the persecution of minorities that seeks to wipe out the cultural diversity that is the soul of the Iraqi people.” On Monday, Ninwa Al Ghad, a satellite channel broadcasting out of Mosul, reported that the central library had been burned with the reported loss of Iraqi newspapers from the beginning of the 20th century, as well as maps, books and collections from the Ottoman period. But confusion remains about the extent of the damage, with two local Facebook groups insisting on Thursday that, though some books were burned, the library itself was still standing.
The full report can be found at the link above.
Legal publishing news seems rather redundant after reading a report like the one above but per our prediction late last year there are signs of change all over the industry as evidenced by the following stories we reference in this issue
FiscalNote’s ambition: To build a global LexisNexis
2015 will be a year of change in professional publishing, says Simba report
Article: legal IT Professionals.comMusings on Legaltech 2015 and the Future of Legal Cloud Computing
The platform-publisher race is heating up and LinkedIn is gaining
Facebook patents method to determine a lawyer’s expertise
So… in the space of a fortnight in February we’ve got a company wanting to take Lexis on globally, a report heralding big changes in the indiustry, Linked In seeing (professional) publishing opportunities and Facebook developing a patented product that I suggest could spell the end of vanity legal publishing and (i’m ever hopeful) the legal awards industry.
I think that’s enough to take in
Last but not least we thought for a moment that LN had come to their senses in Aus & NZ by appointing female MD’s who might actually show a modicum of interest in their client base and a little more respect
But how naive we are .. within days of the press announcement one of our Australian contacts sent us a detailed email highlighting the fact that LN are now importing the Indian printed versions of the Australian Law Reports and selling them at highly discounted prices to customers and dealers.
Thus destroying the value of the sets in the Australian second hand legal reports market and making them virtually worthless. Which, as you can imagine doesn’t make those firms and barristers who have bought the sets new, and., at highly inflated prices from LN over the past few years, not the happiest of bunnies
See the story at HOB
https://practicesource.com/australian-ln-clients-furious-at-australian-law-reports-indian-reprint/
Thanks as always for reading
best wishes
Sean Hocking / Editor
