The 80s: the Effect of the Growth in Law Firm Librarianship, IT and Legal Publishing on BIALL

Abstract

In the 1970s London law firms realised just how useful law librarians could be and there was a huge growth in their number during the 1980s. The first co-operative venture began in the mid-70s when we produced a Union List of Holdings and from that grew the City Law Librarians Group. By 1986 there were at least 60 firms in London employing over 150 professional law librarians. Provincial law firms were generally smaller but by the same date firms in Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Norwich and Bristol were employing law librarians.