I first mentioned the FLAG database on this blog in 2009 and the Guide has been in existence for over a decade. It provides information on the print and microform collections of foreign and international law held in UK libraries.
The focus is on primary materials, with individual jurisdictions, treaties, papers of the UN and other international organisations covered.
Between June last year and this May, the FLAG Update project team visited over 60 libraries in order to update the information available via the Foreign Law Guide. A number of collections previously recorded have been disposed of as a result of the trend towards providing access to material online. However, some previously unmapped collections were discovered and are now included.
FLAG is hosted by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and can be found at: http://ials.sas.ac.uk/library/flag/flag.htm
The Foreign Law Research (FLARE) project has been going for a number of years, but I've not mentioned it before and thought that it was about time that I did!
FLARE is a collaboration between a number of major academic law libraries and aims to improve the coverage and accessibility of foreign legal materials.
The FLARE web site includes links to guides on specific jurisdictions, details of holdings of Official Gazettes for European countries and a link to the FLARE Index to Treaties. This index provides details of over 1500 of the most significant multilateral treaties and gives details of where they can be found in print, with links to the online version where this is available.
Prior to FLARE, there was the FLAG (Foreign Law Guide) project. The FLAG gateway links through to details of the holdings of UK academic and national libraries in the areas of foreign, international & comparative law. So, if you need to know who holds court reports from Colombia or the legislation of Saudi Arabia this is the place to go.
