On Friday 12th June 2015 the Bar Council Law Library took home the prestigious Lexis Library Award for Best Legal Information Service (Non-Commercial Sector). Presented at the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) Annual Conference held at the Hilton Hotel, Brighton, the Law Library becomes the first winners of the award by any library service in the Republic of Ireland.
The awards were presented by Marianne Barber, President of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians, and Tom Laidlaw, Head of Academic Development and Public Sector Marketing at LexisNexis (UK).
Nuala Byrne, Librarian & Information Services Manager; Vanessa Curley, Assistant Librarian (Collection Development & Acquisitions) and Damien Grenham, Senior Library Assistant (Member Relations) accepted the award for Best Legal Information Service (Non-Commercial Sector) on behalf of The Law Library/Bar Council of Ireland.
The award comes on the back of the member nomination survey of Law Library services. Over 300 members of the library contributed to this survey and relevant comments included:
“The Law Library team admired for consistently delivering unsurpassed level of service”
“The Law Library team ‘leave no stone unturned’ and operate ‘beyond the call of duty”
The Law Library wishes to thank everyone who completed the nomination survey.
Other award winners on the night included:
Best Legal Information Service outside of London (Commercial Sector): Irwin Mitchell
Best Legal Information Service (Commercial Sector) – London Only: Withers LLP
About the Awards
Now known as The Lexis Library Awards, formerly The Halsbury’s Awards, these awards were established in 2007 by the BIALL Awards & Bursaries Committee and LexisNexis. They replaced the previously named BIALL Awards for Excellence which were presented in 2005 and 2006.
The Lexis Library Awards were conceived in order to recognise, celebrate and reward the dedicated performance and outstanding service given by legal information services, law libraries and those teams managing legal collections and resources. These awards are particularly unique as they are the only legal information service awards that recognise the value and importance of dedicated team work within our sector.
2007 marked the centenary of Halsbury’s Laws of England, the definitive authority of the law of England and Wales. BIALL and LexisNexis chose to celebrate the centenary by establishing these awards in association with BIALL for the Best Legal Information Services in the UK and Ireland. The inaugural presentations were made at a special event held at The Inner Temple on 16th October 2007.
The announcement about the 2015 winners is on the BIALL website at http://www.biall.org.uk/pages/halsburys-awards.html