ALLA (WA) News Blog

Cross-posted from multiple mailing lists The IFLA Law Libraries Section with Public Libraries Section & Government Information and Official Publications Section is seeking proposals for papers to be presented at a session to be held at the IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Columbus, Ohio (USA), August 13–19, 2016. Theme : “Bringing the Law to the Library: Connections, Collaboration, and Community in Support of Access to Justice and the Rule of Law". Session Theme People around the world need government and legal information, but often they are not located near a physical law library collection and they lack the means or knowledge to access to online legal resources. For most users, navigating the finer points of legal materials in any format requires some assistance. Public librarians have front-line access to people who want to use legal resources but they are often not trained in the use of those resources, in print or online. This session will focus on ...

Readers may have seen reports recently that the board of the American Association of Law Libraries has proposed renaming the organisation as the Association for Legal Information . The final decision yet to be made by members, but this blog post from an American law librarian offers thoughtful commentary on the issue. From her perspective, the name "librarian" is not necessarily neutral and may not be adequately inclusive. Moreover, in a profession so defined by constant change, it makes sense for the association to be open to new possibilities afforded by a new identity. The full post offers more insights on the landscape of law librarianship in general. What if the Australian Law Librarians' Association considered a similar change? Hat tip: ALLA(WA) Vice President - Natalie McDonald. Legal Information Manager, Lavan Legal.

Formats of content available under CC licences. Graphic from the  State of the Commons report 2015,  licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .  Glyphicons by Jan Kovařík CC BY 3.0 It was reported this month that since 2002, creators have applied 1 billion Creative Commons licences to their works allowing others to access, share, and reuse them for free. According to the State of the Commons report : "If we want to live in a digital world that is fair, diverse, vibrant, serendipitous, and safe for everyone, we will have to choose to make it that way. If that world is going to be accessible, equitable, and full of innovation and opportunity, it will require our leadership to foster and defend these ideals. Founded in 2001, Creative Commons has created legal and technical infrastructure that is fundamental to the Web we know and love. Today, our work goes beyond the ubiquitous CC licenses to foster cooperation and sharing, support ...

Legal Information Management http://journals.cambridge.org/ LIM Volume 15   /   Issue 04   , December 2015, pp 207 - 286 Published Online on 14th December 2015 Editorial Editorial David Wills   Legal Information Management   ,   Volume 15   ,   Issue 04   , December 2015, pp 207 - 207   doi: 10.1017/S1472669615000535 ( About doi ) Published Online on 14th December 2015   [ abstract ]   Obituary Rikki Breem 1934–2015 Legal Information Management   ,   Volume 15   ,   Issue 04   , December 2015, pp 208 - 209   doi: 10.1017/S1472669615000547 ( About doi ) Published Online on 14th December 2015   [ abstract ]   Feature Article The Raven, the Writing-Desk and the Reports: a Sesquicentennial Tale of Nonsense and Law Report Reform Alison Million   Legal Information Management   ,   Volume 15   ,   Issue 04   , Decemb...

The 2016 IFLA World Library and Information Congress will be held in August in Columbus, Ohio, USA. The 2016 National Committee is offering a fellowship grant to librarians outside North America to attend the conference, covering travel, registration, and accommodation. Applications are due on 31 December 2015. For more information, visit the IFLA conference website .

Justis publishing have released a free version of their latest platform, JustisOne. You can register for a free account here  which will provide you with access to all case law featured on their platform from 2011 onwards.

Ever read the Australian Law Librarian and thought “I could do that”? Ever wanted to share your legal research skills with your professional colleagues? Ever felt the desire to give in to your inner editorial genius? (Are you deeply moved by the correct placement of the Oxford comma?) Well here is your chance. The Australian Law Librarian is seeking volunteers to assist with the Journal in the following roles: A guest editor for one issue of the journal Sourcing articles Writing articles Proof reading and preparing articles for publication  If you are interested in this great opportunity for service and professional development, please contact ALLA(WA) President Alice Hewitt as soon as possible. Joining the Australian Law Librarian team would be a great opportunity to develop connections and produce a great publication. What a better way to start the new year?  

Fiona, Mawghan, and Linda were selected by their fellow ALLA(WA) members to be awarded ALLA certificates of appreciation in 2015. Thank you all for their service, leadership, and mentorship. Fiona Archibald Fiona’s dedication to ALLA (WA) and her long standing commitment as a valuable member of the WA Committee show that she is a worthy recipient of a Certificate of Appreciation. The Committee has relied heavily on her knowledge of ALLA and of law librarianship – and her impeccable editing skills are appreciated almost as much as her good humour and caring. She has previously put great effort into coordinating the ALLA (WA) blog and we are grateful for all her valued contributions over the years. Mawghan Elverd Mawghan has gone above and beyond the call of duty over the course of her presidency of ALLA (WA) and service to the Committee. Not only did she put a lot of energy into leading ALLA (WA), she even volunteered to stay on as President for a second term. She remains a valu...

ALLA(WA) members gathered on a warm evening in the CBD to close out 2015 with food, drink, and laughter at the annual Christmas function. LexisNexis continued to provide generous sponsorship of the event, and four fortunate members came away with gift vouchers to kick off the season: Stephen Griffiths, Department of the Attorney General (WA) Alice Hewitt, Murdoch University Jenny Lucre, Department of the Attorney General (WA) Natalie McDonald, Lavan Legal Thank you, LexisNexis, for your support! Beyond the usual festivities, the evening was a very special one, as three members were presented with certificates of appreciation from ALLA. Congratulations to Fiona Archibald, Mawghan Elverd, and Linda McNamara. Read more about their contributions here .

Did you know that the publisher Justis has a blog ? Even if you don't subscribe to their products, you might find the blog to be a useful current awareness tool for UK and EU law. A couple of times per week, posts on the blog summarise and discuss key judicial decisions and legislation passed in Europe. Feature articles and research tips also occasionally appear. Visit the blog to have a look and sign up for notifications.

The Harvard Law School Library is seeking a new Executive Director. There is no date or deadline on the job posting , but it was mentioned on the Library's blog on 23 November 2015. The job description summary is fascinating for those of us who work in very different environments: "The Executive Director oversees the operations and programmatic efforts of the largest academic law library in the world. In partnership with the Vice Dean of Library and Information Resources, she or he sets the budget priorities for the library and manages its approximately fourteen million dollar budget. The ED provides strategic planning for the library’s departments, services, and over fifty-person staff. As the administrative leader of the library, the ED manages relationships with the central Harvard Library staff working in the law library and their supervisors in the central Harvard Library. The Harvard Law School Library is home to the Library Innovation Lab and the successf...

Did you know? On the State Law Publisher website , when you go into the versions page for an act, there's a new option called Compare, which will show the difference(s) an amending act has made. So for instance, when clicking on: Compare between: [12 Dec 2005, 05-b0-02] and [09 Apr 2006, 05-c0-06] ...here is an example what is shown: ALLA(WA) Committee member - Anne Young. KM Librarian (Litigation and Regulatory), DLA Piper.

A recent post by Nate Russell on the Slaw blog begins with a brief discussion of "judicial quips" that scoff at the notion of citing Wikipedia in legal context. This cliched reaction or ridicule, though, can obscure the potential value of taking a crowdsourcing approach to assembling a compendium of authoritative and up-to-date information. Russell introduces Clicklaw Wikibooks  as an emerging example of open access legal information with contributions drawn from multiple sources: "Clicklaw Wikibooks takes the information locked away in booklets, guides and other resources for self-represented people, and releases it in several different ways to promote accessibility, from EPUBs, to smart SEO-friendly webpages, to books in print, on demand, in libraries, etc. The Clicklaw Wikibooks platform is a customized install of MediaWiki. As the name implies, its emphasis is on “books” (rather than stand alone “articles” per se). It currently hosts 20 or so titles and it loo...

ALLA(WA) held a current awareness roundtable on 20th October 2015 at Jackson McDonald to discuss current awareness and the resources available to assist with keeping up-to-date with case law, legislation and news. A number of discussions took place, and the following question was put to the 11 members that attended: How do library staff notify clients/fee earners of new law reports, journals etc. when many of us are now predominantly electronic?   One member indicated that it is responsibility of the fee earner to keep up-to-date by signing up to receive the LexisNexis notifiers , alerts via Westlaw AU etc. A number of members mentioned that they still spend time either photocopying the contents pages of law reports and journals or circulating the electronic issues/table of contents to subscribed fee earners. Some members mentioned that the use of the library catalogue allows for current awareness to be streamlined. First library software for example allows library staf...

In this blog post Susan Munro asks what is the right pace of change and looks at two assumptions of legal publishing which have challenged our belief of what to change and what not to. I am sure we have all come across these two assumptions, some of us on a daily basis. These assumptions are: Print is on its way out. Digital natives intuitively know how to use any technology. View the article here .

Cross-posted from ALLA National Collaborate and Learn This month ALLA is proud to collaborate with Kim Sherwin from ARUP. Over the coming months ALLA will collaborate with leaders in the information industry to bring you expertise and knowledge that will enable you to turn information into knowledge. Future Libraries by Arup: our role, our space & our research Kim will present on the role of the Library team at Arup and the delivery of their new and exciting workshop space in Sydney. Kim will also talk about the Future Libraries research that Arup published earlier this year. The session will provide a journey through the opportunity rich environment that Arup provides. It will also challenge our thinking of what's possible for libraries of the future When : Tuesday, 8th of December, 2015 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM AEDT  ( 10:00 AM in Perth ) Cost : Free to ALLA members Registration : click here We Thank : CCH Wolters Kluwer for assistance with the GoToMeeting ...

The International Association of Law Libraries has posted news from the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS) about an important digitisation project. Thousands of Case Papers from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council are now freely available on BAILII . The database includes all decisions from 1996 and selected historical decisions back to 1890. The report by Steven Whittle of IALS explains that: "The Judicial Committee of The Privy Council is the court of final appeal for the UK overseas territories and Crown dependencies and for those Commonwealth countries that have retained the appeal to Her Majesty in Council or, in the case of Republics, to the Judicial Committee. As well, the Privy Council hears some appeals within the UK. Historically, it was the supreme appellate court of the British Empire, whose decisions also provided persuasive authority in British courts. It has decided cases across a wide range of legal topics such as: admiralty, constitutional...

According to the print edition, articles from the  Business News  are available for free on its website for this week only (23rd November). Peruse the news items, search for companies and look at the book of lists. Hat tip: ALLA(WA) Committee member - Anne Young. KM Librarian (Litigation and Regulatory), DLA Piper.

Text cross-posted from various e-mail lists Have you ever thought about taking part in a MOOC but were worried it would take too much of your time? Are you interested in exploring which free mobile apps could help you in your teaching or supporting your students? Would you like to take part in a fun, free, practical online course this December? Then the 12 Apps of Christmas could be for you. Last year, hundreds of educators and librarians around the world took part in a new open course hosted by Regent’s University London - the 12 Apps of Christmas. In just a few minutes a day, they learned about and tried out a range of free mobile apps with potential classroom use, built a community of practice, and had fun doing so. The course was a success, winning the Credo Digital Information Literacy Award and inspiring people to run versions at other institutions. Now, the original is back – better than ever ! From 1st to 16th December this year, we will be presenting Christmas ...

Thomson Reuters is providing online access to the text of the Hon. Michael Kirby's Leo Cussen Justice Lecture at the Australian Law Teachers' Association Conference earlier this year. It's interesting reading for librarians who are involved in supporting legal education in universities. The ten 'commandments' to Law Schools presented in the lecture are: Assure a more diverse intake Attend to vulnerable students, so that they survive their studies Address some particular subjects of poverty law Encourage engagement by future lawyers with civil society Promote engagement with all forms of legal aid Acknowledge the importance of the law on costs Enhance access to law through new technology Establish miscarriage of justice and innocence clinics Undertake reliant empirical research and law reform projects Consider basic lessons to be derived from foreign systems The text of the lecture can be downloaded from the Thomson Reuters Insight blog  for free, althou...

American case law is being made available outside expensive paywalls thanks to Harvard University who is digitising their complete legal library. They have made this possible by partnering with Ravel Law who are funding this project. 40,000 physical books are in the process of being scanned so they may be freely available to the public and fully searchable online. This open platform will be of particular importance to small law firms with limited resources as well as the general public. The expected completion date is in 2017 and cases will be available at www.ravellaw.com . Read the full article here .

A handy link if you need to find US case law: The Law Librarians' Society of Washington D.C. has compiled a  website with quick links to sources of U.S. federal court decisions.

Cross-posted from the WAIN mailing list The Foreign, Comparative and International Law Special Interest Section (FCIL-SIS) of the American Association of Law Libraries is now accepting applications for the 2016 FCIL Schaffer Grant for Foreign Law Librarians. The Grant subsidizes a foreign law librarian to attend the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), the world's largest law librarian professional organization. The FCIL Schaffer Grant for the AALL Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois (July 16-19, 2016) provides a waiver of the AALL Annual Meeting full registration fee and a money grant of a minimum US $2,000 to assist with accommodations and travel costs  Details regarding the FCIL Schaffer Grant for Foreign Law Librarians as well as the application form can be found at http://www.aallnet.org/sections/fcil/grants-awards/FCIL-Schaffer-Grant . The application deadline is December 15, 2015. Applicants must be law librarians or other profession...

The Supreme Court Library Queensland, in partnership with the Queensland University of Technology Law Library, has issued a press release announcing that two sets of statutes reprints are now online: the 1962 Reprints , and the pre-1991 series of reprints (also known as the 'White Reprints'). Australian Law Librarians’ Association (Queensland) Inc.supported these projects. The full press release is here [PDF].

The Australian Law Librarian is a well travelled journal with its recent journey to iMfolozi Game Reserve in South Africa. Can you see what we can see underneath the tree?  Below is the close up:                                                                                                                                 It was an amazing experience. We saw many different animals, large and small, and slept in the game reserve for 3 nights sharing our sleeping quarters with one scorpion, one centipede and one baboon spider who very kindly made themselves known to us. Where will the Journal travel to next? ALLA(WA) Committee Membe...

ALLA(WA) members, you're invited to a wine and cheese discussion on 11th November at 5.15. You should have received an invitation by e-mail with the details. If you didn't receive it, please contact us at allawablog@gmail.com . We look forward to seeing you there!

Legal information has been accessed electronically for decades, but how many legal professionals have technical skills in designing tools for organising or delivering information resources? The Melbourne Law School offers a unit called Law Apps [ PDF unit guide ] in which students design apps that deliver advice for common legal problems. A design competition is also part of the project, as described in this press release . Perhaps this type of skill will become more prevalent in legal education in the future?

Did you know? The Western Australian Industrial Gazette is now online back to 1965 (volume 45) on the State Law Publisher website. The gazettes can be browsed by date, and there is also a cross-search function. In addition, indices and appendices can be downloaded.

On Three Geeks and a Law Blog , Casey Flaherty recently offered insightful commentary on the "myth of the digital native", particularly in the context of legal education and training. Check out both part 1 and part 2  of the topic. The myth in question is the notion that people who have grown up using computers are therefore adept at using any kind of "technology" (itself a vague term) naturally, without any training. Flaherty offers evidence from his 20-something students' performance on his Legal Tech Assessment  test, which focuses on word processing and spreadsheet tasks. It's probably not a shock to anyone who works with university students or recent graduates that the results were fairly dismal. The reason, Flaherty argues, is that "Everyone just assumes that they know things that they had no way of knowing absent training. They are not stupid, lazy, or untalented. They are smart, hard working, and full of promise. They simply lack trainin...

The following update is from the ALLA National Conference convenors We are very excited to launch the website for the 2016 ALLA National Conference , to be held at the State Library of Victoria August 24-26, 2016. Watch for further announcements by email or follow the conference hashtag on Twitter (#ALLA2016Conf) for updates about the conference program, speaker announcements and much more! We want the 2016 conference to be one that reflects the needs and interests of our entire membership. To this end, it would be great if you could take a few minutes to complete this survey , letting the committee know your ideas and suggestions for topics, speakers, events or anything else you would like to see at the conference.This will greatly assist the committee in crafting a truly spectacular conference for you all! The survey will be open until the end of November, so get your thinking caps on and suggest away! This is the first of what will be many exciting updates regarding the 2016...