This study examines the preservation practices of academic law libraries and argues that the survey results illustrate the growing gap between current preservation practices and new technology. The introduction to the study discusses challenges for libraries and cultural institutions in the digital age. In the second section, the paper analyzes U.S. copyright law and the effect of recent amendments on library preservation activities. The third section reports the results of a preservation practices survey. In the fourth section, the paper explores options for future law library preservation including institutional repositories and collaborative preservation efforts. The paper concludes that a new approach to scholarship and preservation is necessary to ensure that future generations have access to historically important legal literature.

D. Litt. et Phil. / The main research question addressed by this study is whether the application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has an effect on the practice of law, and specifically whether information and knowledge management affects the process of legal research. Various issues are considered in this regard, including what the concept of knowledge management (KM) entails in a law firm and what the current KM trends are in South African law firms. To this extent an investigation follows of the global trends in the application of ICTs for legal research purposes and what the specific applications are of KM in support of legal research. Furthermore, this study investigates how information technology applications and KM systems and strategies can support the legal research process and what the benefits of KM are to legal research. This entails a study of the unique characteristics of legal research in a digital information environment and of the challenges legal researchers face in a changing information environment. Subsequently the skills and tools that are required for effective digital legal research are discussed. This research also considers the effect the changing information environment has on the role of the legal information professional, which includes an investigation of the reasons why legal information professionals can and should support lawyers in their legal research activities. Specifically, this study considers the roles, skills and competencies of legal information professionals as knowledge managers, digital librarians and trainers of legal research skills in a changing information environment. Lastly, this study investigates whether current legal research skills training offers useful guidelines to future digital legal researchers.