ALLA (WA) News Blog

It is all a buzz here as Legal Aid WA is on the move to new premises. We officially close the doors at 5pm on 28th May and open again on Tuesday the 2nd June at Level 2, 32 St Georges Terrace, Perth (the re-built May Holman building), now called Golden Square. Our phone numbers, email addresses etc. all remain the same, only our fax number has changed to 9261 6554. Anyway Judy and I are very excited and we shall invite you all for a look see at our beautiful new space very soon. Have a great long weekend and think about me directing removalist whilst you sip your wine in the sun. Cheers Deb Harvey Librarian Legal Aid WA

Good morning, The Law Library, Supreme Court of WA is looking for other libraries in WA which may hold the decisions of the Third Party Claims Tribunal . If any holding library could contact me, together with their holdings details, I would be grateful. Many thanks, ALLA(WA) Member - Belinda Eisenhauer Librarian, The Law Library, Supreme Court of WA

Author Alex Johnson was recently interviewed on Late Night Live (Radio National) on the topic of his book Improbable Libraries: A Visual Journey to the World's Most Unusual Libraries . Some of the intriguing and amazing libraries that he discusses include subway and taxi-based libraries in South America, animal-driven mobile libraries (camels and donkeys!), tiny lending libraries, and grassroots libraries like that of Occupy Wall Street. You can read a summary or download the interview from the RN website . Link contributed by ALLA(WA) Member - Catherine Macgill Law Librarian, Law Library, Supreme Court of Western Australia

Collaborate and Learn ALLA is proud to collaborate with LexisNexis to bring you this webinar series. ALLA will continue to collaborate with leaders in the information industry to bring you the expertise to help you turn information into knowledge. Webinar: Mitigation financial, regulatory and reputational risk Now more than ever law firms are under pressure to better understand their prospects, clients, litigation opponents, IOP/M&A targets and business associates to help mitigate their financial, regulatory and reputational risk and reduce liability. Join this 1 hour webinar to gain an understanding of the; Current anti-corruption and compliance landscape Regulators expectations Recent enforcement activity Due diligence process (from free > paid > risk advisors) You can see the full invitation, with some information about the speaker, Mark Dunn, he re . Registration only takes a minute, click here to sign up or follow the links in the invitation .

Image by Horia Varlan from Flickr , used under CC BY 2.0 Roshan Khadka from the Copyright Agency gave a presentation on Copyright Licensing and the Copyright Act to 11 ALLA (WA) members yesterday, 20th May 2015. While law firms are regularly assisted by helpful sections in the Copyright Act 1968 (s 43), most people don’t realise that they are in fact violating the Copyright Act when: A fee earner or staff member emails an news article to another fee earner or staff member about a client or current situation A fee earner forwards a news or journal article – something published – internally to another employee or externally on to a client or a friend A staff member goes to a competitor’s website, downloads an article or newsletter that the competitor firm has written and forwards it internally to another staff member. A fee earner is writing an article for marketing purposes and needs to research the position and therefore downloads a mass of articles from their LexisNexis subs...

Dear members, The State Solicitors Office released a communication on Monday 18 May 2015 about the future of the Law Library at the Supreme Court of Western Australia, please see the attached notice. Consultation seminars and workshops have been organised to aid in addressing any questions from the profession. These seminars will be held on Monday, 25 May from 1.00-2.00pm, Monday, 25 May from 4.30-5.30pm, and Friday, 29 May from 9.00-10.00am at the Law Society , Level 5, 160 St Georges Terrace, Perth. If you would like to attend one of the sessions please register with Emily Negus at the State Solicitors Office either by telephone (08) 9264 1888 or E.Negus@sso.wa.gov.au . I will be attending one of these sessions, and intend to seek clarification regarding access to the Law Library collection for librarians and library staff; and how inter-library loans and requests will be handled. I would encourage everyone to either attend or provide feedback.  If you are unable...

In preparation for our upcoming Copyright and Law Firms event (RSVP by 18th May!), this brief blog post from the Australian Libraries Copyright Committee is worth a read. The piece describes the contradiction between copyright parameters prescribed by law and the restrictive licences drafted by many content providers. If we transferred this way of thinking to the print world, it wouldn't make sense: Imagine a world where every book on every library shelf had different terms and conditions of use. Where before book was borrowed a ledger was consulted as to acceptable uses for that book. Where some books may be taken home, others read only in the library, still others only read by certain people, at certain times and in certain ways. But this is the world that we create with licenced resources. The post points to international position statements as well as copyright reform proposals that would disallow licences from overriding use rights granted by copyright law. The next ...

Originally Sent through the ALLA-ANZ Mailing List We have positions vacant for a Knowledge Consultant in Brisbane and a Knowledge Consultant in Sydney. Brisbane We are looking for a Knowledge Consultant to join our Knowledge Management team in Brisbane.  In this role you will provide high quality legal and business research, training and knowledge management services to internal and external clients.  The position is full time or part time (4 days). For full position details and to apply, please see our website . For further information on this role, please contact Olanda Gislason at olanda.gislason@au.kwm.com . Sydney We are looking for a Knowledge Consultant to join our Knowledge Management team in Sydney.  In this role you will provide high quality legal and business research, training and knowledge management services to internal and external clients.  The position is full time. For full position details and to apply, please see our website . For further ...

Do you have an idea for a blog topic? Do you think there is something we should discuss? Do you have something to share? Your latest trip with the Australian Law Librarian , an interesting article, something you just think fellow ALLA(WA) members would be interested in? Send through you ideas and suggestions (with an explanation of what it is) to allawablog@gmail.com and your Blog editors, Megan and Alice, will look through them and post them up when appropriate! We'll give all posts appropriate credit - unless you want to remain anonymous . This blog is for ALLA(WA) members, by ALLA(WA) members so feel free to contribute anything you want to! Image Credit: Pimthida, " Idea ", used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The High Court of Australia's decisions from 2000 onwards are now available from the Court's website .  The new digital collection showcases an advanced interface developed through the use of open source software, DSpace and with the assistance of BarNet - JADE who provided enhancements to the search engine and customisation of the interface. There are plans for further content to be added such as the Unreported Judgments. You can subscribe to email alerts for advance notice of judgment delivery by clicking on Subscribe to Judgment Alerts on the Judgement Database homepage.

The UK Supreme Court recently announced on-demand access to video recordings of proceedings through the court's website (see current cases and decided cases ). The streaming videos are available on the next working day after a hearing and continue to be accessible for one year. Meanwhile, in Canada, a selection of Supreme Court hearings are available as streaming videos via the Cable Public Affairs Channel (which also shows parliamentary proceedings, documentaries, and other political programmes). Video recordings back to 2009 are also available on the Supreme Court's website . Of course, the Australian High Court also posts video recordings of  full court hearings in Canberra, with archives back to 2013 (select cases). These recordings are valuable resources for anyone interested in  judicial affairs or doing research into particular decisions. It will be interesting to see how questions of metadata, storage, and public access are handled as the courts' video...

ALLA(WA) invites members to a brown bag lunch session: Copyright & Law Firms. This session will look at how the Copyright Act 1968 applies to the daily workflow of law firms. Roshan Khadka from Copyright Agency will present on: Copyright101 - refresher on copyright law basics Definitions and practical examples Application to workplace activities, and client communication Common copyright myths and pitfalls Exceptions in the Act related to law firms and compliance gaps Risks, tips and solutions Where : Corrs, Level 15, 240 St Georges Terrace, Perth When : Wednesday, 20th May 2015 @ 12.30pm - 2pm RSVP : Luise Crisafulli ( lcrisafulli@chambers.francisburt.com.au ) by Monday 18th May 2015

The International Association of Law Libraries will hold its annual conference in Berlin, Germany from 20-24 September 2015. Several bursaries are being offered to provide financial assistance to attendees, and some are open to non-members. More information is available on the IALL website . The bursary application deadline is 5 June 2015.

According to The Wall Street Journal Digits Blog - Librarians love PowerPoint Comedy. PowerPoint Karaoke, as it is also know, began in Germany around 2006 and is is based on a simple concept: Let the participants make an unprepared presentation to a randomly chosen PowerPoint presentation. Let a jury make a judgment. A winner is crowned. Big companies like Google compete for bragging rights at the technology industry Speechless tournament. Recently the Association of College and Research Libraries, the California Library Association and the American Library Association have hosted competitive PowerPoint Karaoke events at their annual conferences. The Digits Blog explains the concept in more detail: "At the California Library Association’s annual conference, librarians have given fake talks on real issues in their world, including “Outreach and Embedded Librarians” and “Innovation in the Modern Library.” The trick is to make the speech flow with baffling accompanying slide...

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries / L'Association canadienne des bibliothèques de droit (CALL/ACBD) is currently holding its annual conference in Moncton, New Brunswick, and the ALLA(WA) committee's own Alice Hewitt is in attendance. For a glimpse into what hot topics are being discussed in Canadian law libraries, have a look at the program on the conference website .

Book Art. It's everywhere. Except, unfortunately, it's not in my library and probably not in yours. So here's a collection of some awesome places to see some awesome book art to make your Friday afternoon more awesome. Inspiration Green Journey to Aragoza - Cara Barer This website shows a collection of sculptures made from books - and some, you wouldn't even know they are made from a book. The focus is using old books to up-cycle them into something beautiful - what else is there to do with a stack of old phone books and some screws? There's even a 'Book Cell' that you can walk through. Jodi Harvey-Brown A collection of book sculptures made by hand by Jodi Harvey-Brown. You can purchase from her Etsy Shop . Custom orders available. In the Library - Jodi Harvey-Brown " The books that we love to read should be made to come to life.  Characters, that we care so much for, should come out of the pages to show us their stories.  What...