Skip to main content

EBLIP conference presentation from Legal Aid Queensland

By
I was fortunate to attend the recent, excellent 8th Evidence-Based Library and Information Practice (EBLIP8) conference, hosted at Queensland University of Technology. The program is available online.

To get a taste of the conference, have a look at the Twitter stream or view the recording of the ‘Evidently Practical’ panel discussion. There were many interesting and thought-provoking sessions, but one of particular interest to ALLA(WA) members was “A training needs analysis case study at Legal Aid Queensland” by Claudia Davies and Richard Vankoningsveld.

The aims of their project were to develop a sustainable training needs analysis (TNA) methodology for the organisation and also to assess whether appropriate evidence of users’ needs was being collected.

They deliberately avoided clients’ self-assessment of their needs. Instead, they focused on empirical evidence, using a multi-faceted approach with 5 components:
  1. Query logs (i.e., clients’ searches on in-house databases)
  2. Usage statistics from vendors
  3. Records of research requests
  4. Client observation (i.e., librarians shadowed lawyers during their work day)
  5. Client stakeholder interviews
By using these varied sources of evidence, they were able to develop a holistic picture of their clients’ behaviours and needs, which in turn now informs their service delivery and provision of training. A few interesting tidbits from their findings include:
  • Based on vendors’ search logs, people tend to only view 1 or 2 documents per search result set
  • In databases like LexisNexis, users searched by keywords 90% of the time rather than browsing, except for the criminal law commentary sources
  • quick links to key resources by topics are very popular, accounting for around 80% of all catalogue activity
  • Many of their research requests are simple reference queries. The reasons for this need further investigation (lack of time or lack of skill?)
  • Clients prefer face-to-face rather than online training
In the end, Richard confessed that all of this data collection took much longer than anticipated, but it appears that it was worthwhile for the insight they gained. Perhaps this project can serve as inspiration for other law librarians to use evidence to inform their practice—not just as a ‘special occasion’, but as a normal way of working (to paraphrase keynote speaker Virginia Wilson).

The presentation also noted that there is a gap in the literature with regard to legal professionals' information seeking behaviour, perhaps because the legal profession is quite ‘proprietary’. Ready for a research project, anyone?

ALLA(WA) Secretary - Megan Fitzgibbons. 
Librarian, University of Western Australia.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ALLA National Board - Nominations Open

By
ALLA members would have received an email from Emma Joneshart, President of ALLA Ltd regarding a call for nominations for members to join the ALLA Ltd Board of Directors. Nominations will be voted upon at the ALLA AGM, held on Thursday 23 September during the ALLA Virtual Conference 2021 . The ALLA Ltd Board of Directors is an important part of the Australian Law Librarians' Association's governance. Made up of at least eight members of ALLA, nominations are open for the following positions:  Vice President Secretary Treasurer Vendor Relations CPD Coordinator General Directors The Vice President position is for a term of 3 years, consisting of a year each as Vice President, President and Past President. The other positions are for a 2-year term, allowing for a sufficient time period to become familiar with the role and have meaningful impact on ALLA projects.  Each role is varied, with support from other members of the Board, and in addition to monthly meetings (mainly via te...
Post a Comment
Read more

Keeping Up With ALLA (WA) News

By
In March 2023 we announced the  closure of the Allgwa list , and welcomed the arrival of the  ALLA (WA) Google Group .  To take full advantage of the Google Group - particularly the ability to deliver news directly to your inbox - the ALLA (WA) Committee has made the decision to cease posting to the ALLA (WA) Blog.  ALLA (WA) Members are encouraged to join the Google Group to make sure they don’t miss out on key news, events, job opportunities from the committee and our members.  Over the past twelve and a half years we've have over 208636 visitors (and still counting) to the ALLA (WA) Blog, from all over the world. We thank all of our readers who have supported the blog. We especially thank all of our blog editors and contributors who have volunteered their time, skill and knowledge to develop this resource. The ALLA (WA) Blog will continue to be available in an archive format. We look forward to using the ALLA (WA) Google Group to share infor...
1 comment
Read more

ALLA Conference 2018 - Call for Papers

By
Submissions are now open for the 2018 ALLA Conference!   The 2018 Conference will be held in Darwin, Northern Territory at the Doubletree by Hilton Esplanade and there will opportunities to visit law libraries and enjoy the array of culinary and cultural highlights of Darwin. Centred around the theme of Global Impact/Local Footprint, the Conference Committee is looking for papers and posters, including but not limited to those that address the themes: Indigenous issues Career development Technology Education Presentations There will be a variety of presentation formats and lengths. The Conference Committee welcomes a variety of proposals including: Individual presentations Panel discussions (multiple, complementary speakers on a single topic) Practical workshop sessions Digital - posters (with an optional additional hard copy submission) Lightning talks (5/10 minute sessions) Abstracts should be submitted to convenor@alla.asn.au and submissions clo...
Post a Comment
Read more