Apologies for being late on this one (I blame Christmas and end-of-semester essays), but it does rather help to make the point..!
The other week, Andrew Marr's Start the Week programme on Radio 4 featured Richard Susskind. The podcast could be downloaded for one week following the broadcast as per the BBC's policy on archiving. I'd already copied the file to my hard drive to listen to later, but this doesn't help blog readers who've already missed the boat, so to speak.
It is available on the list of previous STW programmes (for about 6 months it would seem) so it can still be downloaded as I write this post, but it depends on when you read this. I also requested one of our library services (The Spoken Word is a JISC funded project) to archive a copy in their respository should anyone wish to use or relect on it in the future. In sum, the programme considers:
"in this period of financial difficulty, can we afford lawyers? RICHARD SUSSKIND thinks that the legal services have not previously had enough pressure on them to keep up with technology and have become worryingly inefficient. He argues that by harnessing Web 2.0 technologies lawyers will become cheaper, thereby enabling justice to be available to more people. The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services is published by Oxford University Press and Richard Susskind will be giving a lecture on 2 December at 4.00pm, Gulbenkian Lecture Theatre, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford."
The remainder of the programme features Chris Bishop and John Dupre who comment on DNA in particular. Returning to Susskind, Nick Holmes gives a useful overview of his latest book - in particular how lawyers conduct their business and how improved access to justice can be achieved. If it's on your christmas reading list, please comment here!
I've also been subscribed to Radio 4's Law in Action series (although the programme is currently taking a winter break until January 2009) and the podcasts pose a similar life-span issue if you don't download them immediately, or automatically... and then they are only for personal use. I've found several to be useful for teaching with topics such as paternity, witness memory and forensics covered in the recent past, but there is no archive that I can see with the actual audio content. Another job for the Spoken Word services then!
