The Bar of Northern Ireland wins LexisLibrary Award for Excellence 2019
Caption: Simon White, LexisNexis presents award to Niamh Burns of The Bar of Northern Ireland with Dunstan Speight, President of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians.
The BIALL LexisLibrary Award for Excellence 2019 has been awarded to The Bar of Northern Ireland. The award was presented by Simon White on behalf of LexisNexis to Niamh Burns, Senior Manager of Library Services and Personnel, at the BIALL Annual Dinner at the Hilton Bournemouth on 14th June 2019.
The LexisLibrary Awards were conceived in order to recognise, celebrate and reward the dedicated performance and outstanding service given by legal information services and law libraries.
Chief Executive David Mulholland stated “It is an honour for the Bar Library to have once again received this award which provides external verification of the sustained high quality of our Library and Information service. I would like to extend my thanks to BIALL and LexisNexis for their work highlighting excellence in the legal sector. I’m particularly pleased for the recognition this provides to our Library & information Service staff who can see their hard work and dedication being recognised on this national stage. Finally I wish to thank our Bar Library members for whom we design and deliver our services. Clearly their testimonials and ratings were carefully noted by the judges and we look forward to continuing to develop and innovate our services in anticipation of their requirements.”
Commenting on the award winner, Dunstan Speight, President of BIALL, said “This year we were looking for a winner or winners who demonstrated best practice within their organisation either via the implementation of a new service or change to an existing service. This year’s winner of the award took an existing service, relaunched it and in doing so brought it to the next level. A modest investment in technology resulted in a significant enhancement to the service, but staff professionalism and expertise are key to this service.
“High level of excellence” “Gold standard” “significant and pronounced improvement” are just some of the many testimonials provided. Neither are the winners standing still, having just upgraded their service in 2018, they continue to build on their success, and are developing their service further, responsive to evolving requirements of their users. Not only are they ably assisting their users in navigating and ensuring compliance with GDPR and Practice Directions, they are also leading the way in a move towards the paperless court. The skill, accuracy, reliability, knowledge, dedication, courtesy and efficiency of all library staff were consistently mentioned and praised throughout the recommendations. BLAG – The Bar Library Authority Gathering Service and OBBS - Optimised Brief and Bundle Service are clearly essential and much relied upon services for their members”.