About LLLIRSBLS
　　
　　                                  The Backgrounds for the Establishment of LLLIRSBLS

　　Since the reform and open-to-outside world, China’s construction of legal system has been developed rapidly in the constitutional principle of Strategy of Ruling by Law. Those fields such as legislation, judicature, legal education and legal research have attracted special attention home and abroad. The science of law has always been prominent in the field of social science. However, for various reasons, the development of legal publication and information, especially the construction of law libraries as the specialized institutions to collect and utilize law books, serve legal scholars and students are far behind the construction of legal system and development of legal discipline. Meanwhile, an array of legal databases and legal websites emerge with the tide of fashion, such as commercial websites, academic websites, legislative, judicial and government agencies’ information center websites and legal media websites. The circle of foreign and international law libraries and the legal academic organizations have been paying their attentions on the development of Chinese law librarianship and legal information profession with great interest and concern, and hoping to expand exchanges with Chinese counterparts. They expect that Chinese law library and legal information profession participate in the communication of world legal information field as a whole and play a more active role in the law globalization.
　　
　　As China’s political and cultural center, Beijing has a unique and advantageous condition for the development of Chinese law librarianship and legal information industry. The local law libraries’ professional activities and academic communication have been very active and have a considerable nationwide impact over the past decade.
　　
　　In 1999, the Law Library of PKU Law School initiated the cooperative and collaborative activities among Beijing’s law libraries. The Law Branch of Beijing Society for Social Sciences Information Research of Higher Education which is composed of the law libraries of Beijing’s universities’ law schools, have held five biannual meetings (once every 2 year). With the development of information profession in China, the Law Branch has accepted the units as members, such as national judicial, prosecutorial and public security systems, governmental legal information organs, research institutions and influential legal websites. Furthermore, the Law Branch actively organized and partook in the communicational and cooperative activities in the field of law libraries and legal information home and abroad, to discuss and study a lot of issues in a wide range of legal information technology, Chinese and foreign legal documents, the utilization of Chinese and foreign government information, interlibrary cooperation, and comparative study of Chinese and foreign law libraries.
　　
　　In 2007, the Information Center of China Law Society held the legal websites’ cooperative mechanism’s establishing meeting in Beijing. Ten central legal departments, legal websites of law schools participated in the cooperative mechanism and a high-level symposium was held. These activities have given a big push to the sharing of legal information resources and the construction of China’s legal documents’ digitization.
　　
　　Given ten years’ regional activities and communication in the field of law libraries and legal information home and abroad, the law library and legal information professionals have reached a common understanding that it’s a great challenge and an very important task for us of how to coordinate effectively in the construction and development among different kinds of law libraries and legal websites, how to conduct scientifically the research in the legal information, and how to support, maintain and promote the healthy development of legal information profession nowadays. In such a situation, it’s very necessary to establish the Law Library and Legal Information Research Society to undertake a united guidance and coordination. Therefore, the conditions to establish the society has come.
　　
　　The Preparations for the LLLIRSBLS
　　
　　In 2009, initiated mainly by PKU Law Library, THU Law Library, CUPL Library and RUC Law Library, the preparatory meeting was held and attended by the representatives from National Judges College Library, National Prosecutors College Library, Law Library of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Legislative Reference Service of National Library of China, Website of China Law Society, Website of Chinalawinfo (of PKU), the Supreme People’s Court Library, Beijing Higher People’s Court Library and State Council Legislative Affairs Office Information Center. And then the Research Society’s preparatory group was established.
　　
　　The preparatory group held several meetings to thoroughly discuss the specific issues and detailed works for establishing LLLIRSBLS. In accordance with  the Bylaw of China Law Society, and the Bylaw of Beijing Law Society’s Application Procedure for establishing Research Society and Legal Organization, and the Beijing Law Society’s Regulations on Research Society and Legal Organization (for Trial), the application report and organization rules were discussed and drafted, and a recommended list for members, Director and Vice-Director candidates, Secretary-General and executive members’ candidates was made by the preparatory group. In the meanwhile, these draft plans were forward to all relevant units for consultation and suggestion.
　　
　　The preparatory work has always been affirmed and supported greatly by the leaders of relevant departments and units, and responded and participated actively by the peers of law libraries and legal information profession.
　　
　　On December 28th, 2009, Beijing Law Society officially approved the establishment of Law Libraries and Legal Information Research Society (BLS [2010] No.7). The newly-founded society is affiliated with Tsinghua University Law School, and the secretariat is located at THU Law Library.
　　
　　Brief Introduction of LLLIRSBLS
　　
　　LLLIRSBLS (short for the Law Libraries and Legal Information Research Society of Beijing Law Society), a subordinate research society of Beijing Law Society, is an academic organization established by law to coordinate universities’ law libraries, government offices, legislative and judicial branches, law firms’ libraries or information centers and legal websites in Beijing.
　　
　　The LLLIRSBLS’ purposes and missions are:
　　
　　To strength the professional connection among all the law libraries and legal information practitioners, to carry out legal informational exchange and research activities with Chinese characteristics, to train professional services team and academic talents suited for the construction of Chinese legal system, to push forward the Chinese construction of legal information resources to be more scientific, systematic, standardized and institutionalized, to advance the healthy development of Chinese law libraries and legal information profession.
　　
　　To organize and coordinate law libraries’ experience exchange and academic research in Beijing area, to promote the legal literature resource construction and sharing among the university law schools, government agencies and websites, further strengthen and regulate the professional standard and industry norms for law libraries and legal databases, to support Chinese legal construction with information resource, to channel the legal information and culture’s communication and dissemination.
　　
　　To strengthen the ties between higher education institutions and substantive departments, to research the new problems emerging from the literature resource construction and sharing, to sum up new experiences, to enhance legal professional information’s communication, dissemination and service, to carry out actively academic exchange and cooperation with other academic societies, research departments, colleges and universities, to communicate, and to carry out the academic exchange activities in the field of law library and legal information home and abroad.
　　
　　(This English version is translated by a graduate of PKU Law School, revised by Mr. Wei Luo)
　　
　　Contact:
　　Mailing Address:
　　Yu Liying
　　Law School of Tsinghua University
　　Mingli Building, Tsinghua University
　　Haidian District,Beijing, 100084
　　P.R.China
　　Email: lawyly@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn <mailto:lawyly@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn>