Book auction lets solicitors plug into on-line services

Birmingham Law Society is to plough most of the 615,000 it raised at last week's auction of its antiquarian law books into improved electronic services for its members.The 1,100 books from the Society's library went under the hammer in London last week.

A copy of Percy Bysshe Shelley's Condemnation of the Sentence passed by Lord Ellenborough on Mr DI Eaton - who was jailed and pilloried for publishing the third part of Thomas Paine's Age of Reason in 1812 - sold for 74,800, ten times its pre-sale estimate.

The only other copy in existence is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.The oldest book in the sale, a first edition of Nicholas Statham's Abridgement of laws in Norman-French published in 1488-90, fetched 29,900 after bidding.Birmingham Law Society president Michael Ward said: 'The members have authorised us to use the funds for capital purposes only.

Top of the agenda will be the development of a Web site and the provision of electronic services to members.' A resource similar to an on-line library would be the ultimate goal, he said.Andrew Towler