ALLA (WA) News Blog

It has been observed that many law librarians aren't always great at explaining their role. A bit of reflection on what we do and why we're important/special/highly skilled is useful, along with practice in articulating what law librarianship means. Hein Online, that venerable legal research database, recently began posting video interviews with current and retired law librarians on its YouTube channel , as part of the work An Oral History of Law Librarianship . See more on the Hein Blog . The videos range from 15 minutes to an hour and offer both information and inspiration. Perhaps an ALLA member would like to pursue getting some Australian voices into the mix? ALLA(WA) Committee Secretary - Megan Fitzgibbons.  Librarian, University of Western Australia.

The American Association of Law Librarian has released A Report of the American Association of Law Libraries Economic Value of Law Libraries Special Committee January 2015. The Report does not set out the value of law libraries in monetary terms, but instead provides "research and best practices for each library manager to use to determine the value standards held by their own organization and how those values are measured and reported. The report offers guidance for each librarian in determining how best to align their services to their organization's mission.  Since even the best services may go unrewarded if not recognized, the report describes methods for reporting the library's value to its important stakeholders." The Report is well worth a read for any person working in libraries, regardless of your role, or the type of library. ALLA(WA) Committee Member - Alice Hewitt.  Librarian, Reference and Information Services, Murdoch University.

The Acts and Instruments (Framework Reform) Bill 2014 (Cth) passed in both Houses of Parliament on the 23rd of February 2015. The Bill was referred to Committee (30/10/2014): Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee; Committee report (02/12/2014) An important bit from the Explanatory Memorandum : The existing Acts database established under the Acts Publication Act and the existing Federal Register of Legislative Instruments (both are accessible by ComLaw) will be integrated into a single register called the Federal Register of Legislation (the Register). The Register may contain other relevant documents and information likely to be useful to users of the Register. Further: The Bill establishes a new category of instruments called notifiable instruments, which will be able to be registered in authoritative form. This new category of instrument is designed to cover instruments that are not appropriate to register...

It has happened to all of us: you're reading an article and happen upon a footnote that looks intriguing. You click on the link, and boom, 404 error. Last year, the Harvard Law Review Forum published ' Perma: Scoping and Addressing the Problem of Link and Reference Rot in Legal Citations: How to Make Legal Scholarship More Permanent , which offers a solution for the broken links that litter legal scholarship over time. They found: "Of our spot-checked sample, only 29.9% of the HRJ links, 26.8% of the HLR links, and 34.2% of the JOLT links contained the material cited due to link or reference rot." The article therefore pitches the idea of Perma: "...a platform that will allow authors and editors to automatically generate, store, and reference — in a freely and publicly accessible manner — archived data representing the relevant information of a cited online resource. A freely accessible web database of cited materials will not only al...

Research has been published and shows that one of the most desirable jobs in Britain is a Librarian.  It seems that 54% of respondents want to be a Librarian. So when you are having a bad day at work, 54% of Britons want your job. The top six most popular jobs: Author Librarian Academic  Lawyers Interior Designer Journalist You can read more at The Independent . ALLA(WA) Committee Member - Alice Hewitt.  Librarian, Reference and Information Services, Murdoch University.

ALLA(WA) invites one and all to our Icebreaker Breakfast! Kirsty McPhee, Knowledge and Business Development Manager, Tottle Partners will speak on: Shaken and Stirred: Adding value by adding CPD programs for lawyers. Information professionals are increasingly looking outside the box for ways to add value to their organisations. This session will focus on the successful introduction of an accredited Continuing Professional Development program for lawyers in a mid-tier Perth law firm. Date: Wednesday 25 February 2015 Time: 7:30am - 9:00am Venue: Jackson McDonald Level 17, 225 St Georges Terrace RSVP: Luise Crisafulli: lcrisafulli@chambers.francisburt.com.au by COB 18 February 2015 A light breakfast will be provided! Presentation sponsored by Thomson Reuters

Cross-posted from an American Association of Law Libraries e-mail list Access to Justice: A Webinar Series for Law Librarians Webinar series co-sponsored by the Self Represented Litigation Network - Librarians' Working Group (SRLN-LWG) and the State, Court, and County Law Libraries - Special Interest Section (SCCLL-SIS) of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). Webinar I Access to Justice: Who's Your Partner and Where Are You Going?   Wednesday, Feb. 18, 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. Eastern Panelists: Sara Galligan, Terrye Conroy Moderator: James Durham Program Description: Partnerships are essential ways of doing business for law librarians in all types of libraries.  This access to justice webinar will describe areas for strategic partnering such as training, core collections, centralized websites, and technology.  It will also describe major partners in the legal community and ways to strengthen our collaboration with valuable allies. Free registration fo...

Twitter users—or those who want to give Twitter a try in a meaningful way—check out this announcement from the Special Library Association. Unfortunately the live action isn't at a convenient time for Australians (except insomniacs), but it will be interesting to have a look after the discussion. Cross-posted from the Special Libraries Association Branding isn’t just for marketing professionals (or cattle ranchers) any more. In today’s fast-moving digital environment, personal and professional branding allows us to communicate our goals and interests, distinguish ourselves based on our strengths, and contribute to conversations we are passionate about. Focusing on how to build and communicate a strong identity for ourselves, our information centers, our field, and our professional association, this hour-long Twitter chat will help attendees consider the benefits of branding. Wednesday, February 18 3:00-4:00 p.m. EST (8:00-9:00 pm UTC) What time is that where you are?   ...

Australian Law Librarian in New York and Chicago, December 2014 ALLA(WA) Member - Catherine Macgill As the last traveller of the year from the Law Library I took off in December with my trusty front cover of the journal. It made quite a cheerful though rather wet appearance in New York at the public library. My boots did not stand up to the 'puddling', a rather jolly word for large pools of water on the undrained streets. I now have waterproof boots that will last me the rest of my travelling years. It was quite warm and dry inside as many other soggy tourists could confirm. A treasure of a place to visit. A week later - do not be deceived by the bright blue skies above the rather uncharacteristically (for Chicago) ornate Chicago Public Library. See here for a better photo and history . We were rushing on our last day but if we had known about the winter garden we would have made a detour - next time. I had no inclination to retrieve the journal as I might ...

A recent article has highlighted a short coming in trusting Google to stick to its original mission statement "to organise the world's information and make is universally accessible and useful". In Never trust a corporation to do a library's job the author, Andy Baio discusses the ever evolving projects and policies of the search engine giant and what impact relying on these to stay the same could have in the long run. Google is shown to be abandoning some of the projects that would have, hopefully, actually made the world's information perpetually "accessible and useful". On the other hand, " Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music and more." It includes the Wayback Machine that contains 452 billion web pages archived. You can even use Wayback Machine to capture a webpage as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future. Google may be a better search engine, and have it...

The Library Journal has published an article where the author, Steve Bell compares academic librarians to Bono from U2, and not necessarily in a good way (sorry, Bono fans). In the article, Trying Too Hard For Relevance , Bell points out that it's not a librarian whose head you press in iTunes to access the artists listing, but Bono's. He also points out that Bono fills stadiums while academic librarians can often struggle to fill their information literacy training sessions. I'm pretty sure if we had the production value of a U2 show that might be a different story (give me fireworks when you find the right case any day). Then the comparisons do seem to make a bit more sense: "But there might be one thing that many academic librarians have in common with Bono: They are both struggling to maintain their relevance. And, in what is perhaps a common strategy to defend what’s left of that relevance, both Bono and academic librarians are willing to insert themsel...

Some sad news out of Iraq where Islamic State has been burning books in an attempt to purge the society of anything that does not conform to their interpretation of Islam. You can read more about this in UN Laments 'Cultural Cleansing' In Mosul As ISIS Ransacks Libraries and Burns Books from International Business Times.

Firm Law Librarians may wish to share this around to interested CPD point seekers. CASE for Refugees is holding a CPD event in conjunction with Murdoch University School of Law on Thursday 19 February 2015. Proceeds will be Directed to the Fair Go for Asylum Seekers Appeal . An Evening with Dan Mori Murdoch University School of Law & CASE for Refugees invite you to join us to learn from renowned lawyer Lieutenant Colonel (Ret) Dan Mori.  Dan earned prominence for challenging the US military commission system and representing Australian citizen and Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks. He will talk about: The Australian government system for supporting Australians facing trail overseas.  The relevant procedures from extradition to the transfer of prisoners back to Australia to serve any sentence Date: Thursday, 19 February 2015 Time: 6.30pm to 8pm Venue: King & Wood Mallesons. Level 30, QV1 Building, 250 St Georges Terrace, Perth Cost: $95...

ALLA (WA) members may be interested in attending a free public lecture by Professor Catharine A. MacKinnon - 'Gender Equality in Global Perspective'. Professor MacKinnon is a professor of law at the University of Michigan and Harvard Law School. She practices law, consults both nationally and internationally on legislation, litigation and activism, works with NGO groups working to end human trafficking,  promote sex equality rights for women. Catharine A. MacKinnon has been at the forefront of sex equality legal advocacy and has been influential in defining sexual harassment in America and Canada as well as the recognition of rape as an act of genocide. Law Librarians will be interested to know that Professor MacKinnon is among the most widely-cited legal scholars in the English language and the most widely-cited woman. The free event is scheduled for Monday, 16 F ebruary 2015 at the University of Western Australia. Booking a place is essential. For more information ...

Here at the ALLA(WA) Blog, we are taking the chance to help members to get to know their Committee a bit better. Introducing: Alice Hewitt , Reference & Information Services Librarian (Law), Murdoch University. 1. Who is a hero who has inspired you in your career? I always find hero a hard thing to point down, everyone is a hero everyday really - just in different ways at different times. So pointing to one person is rather tricky. Even trickier as I'm inspired by so many amazing librarians everyday - and not just the law librarians. I've met a children's librarian who believed that young adults were being overlooked and went back to university to do more research into this in the hopes of helping these people. I've met librarians who want nothing more than to help, to teach and to mentor others to help them become the best at what they do. I'm still new to this Librarian gig, and I like to think that every day I come across at least one hero w...