ALLA (WA) News Blog

Legal Information Management           http://journals.cambridge.org/LIM Volume 16 / Issue 01 , March 2016, pp 1 - 56 Published Online on 16th March 2016 PDF version of this Table of Contents        Editorial Editorial         David Wills Legal Information Management , Volume 16 , Issue 01 , March 2016, pp 1 - 1 doi: 10.1017/S1472669616000013 ( About doi ) Published Online on 16th March 2016 [ abstract ] Obitu...

Curtin University has opened a new Law School campus in Perth’s Central Business District within an existing 1912 heritage listed building located at 57 Murray Street. Situated in the Perth CBD in close proximity to the Supreme Court, District Court and Perth Magistrate’s Court, as well as statutory tribunals such as the State Administrative Tribunal, the city campus will facilitate student’s education within an applied industry setting in line with Curtin’s primary vision of developing job-ready graduates. The new facility will also provide a unique home for the Law School and provide a hub for both formal and informal interactions between the staff, students and in-house legal professionals. Teaching and learning has been optimised within the building through the use of state-of-the-art collaborative and distributed learning space design and learning technologies. These facilities include a technologically equipped moot court, allowing for both traditional and seminar based lea...

ALLA has appointed Richard Vankoningsveld to the position of Membership Co-ordinator. Richard has currently been employed at Legal Aid Queensland, has previously had significant involvement in ALLA Queensland Division, and brings a wealth of knowledge on technical issues to the role.   The role is for a fixed term of 3 years initially.   Welcome to you Richard!

Freedom of access to information is part of our professional ethics: Librarians and other information workers reject the denial and restriction of access to information and ideas most particularly through censorship whether by states, governments, or religious or civil society institutions. (IFLA Code of Ethics, also endorsed by ALIA) So here is an important element to that debate:  https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/zero-rating-what-it-is-why-you-should-care Whilst the discussion of the legal issues are US centric, there are useful descriptions of what is happening in the internet space from some of the big players and why we as information professionals should care. Margaret Allen CEO and State Librarian State Library of Western Australia

The 2016 ALLA Fellowship has been awarded to Holger Aman. Holger has elected to attend the IALL Conference in Oxford in July. The ALLA Board congratulates him and looks forward to hearing about the conference and his travels.

Alex Cato, our ALLA National Vice President, is the new guest editor for the next issue of the Australian Law Librarian Journal. She is looking for your articles! Alex's email address is Alexandra.Cato@ashurst.com should you wish to send an article or ask a question.

Tottle Partners have appointed David Medlen to the position of Library Assistant. Best wishes in your new position David!

Here's an interesting paper about legal research education, by Caroline Osborne from Washington and Lee University . Worth a read. The State of Legal Research Education; A Survey of First Year Legal Research Programs or 'Why Johnny and Jane Cannot Research' http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2724095

IPKat image from IPKat blog, CC-BY licence Anyone who is interested in keeping current with intellectual property should have a look at the IPKat blog , which offers news and analysis on IP: Since June 2003 the IPKat weblog has covered copyright, patent, trade mark, info-tech and privacy/confidentiality issues from a mainly UK and European perspective. A recent post offers a handy round-up of trends in IP data , as usual with plenty of memes to lighten up this difficult subject area. IPKat is also on Twitter .

Applications for financial assistance to enable law librarians to attend IALL's 35th Annual Course in Oxford in the UK from Sunday 31st July to Wednesday 3rd August 2016 are now being accepted. To apply for a Regular Bursary or a Members-Only Bursary, you must use the online application forms found at http://iall.org/scholarship-information/ . All applications and accompanying documentation must be in English. Deadline is Sunday 1st May 2016.

One of the challenges many lawyers face is keeping up to date with developments in their area of practice. Most are time poor and/or ‘mobile’ so don’t have time to sit and read emails on current awareness. Social media offers an alternative to the traditional dissemination of items through tablets and mobile phones. The Victoria Legal Aid Library uses the Flipboard platform and has created an online magazine titled The Vibe . Although primarily aimed at our lawyers’ practice areas, it is accessible to the wider public. We are interested in exploring other means of using social media to communicate with our lawyers and are wondering if any libraries use social media for their current awareness services. I’d be happy to share responses if anyone is interested. Graeme Barry Library Projects Office Victoria Legal Aid

ALLA(WA) invites Western Australian Law Library professionals to participate in our Employment and Salary Survey for 2016. The survey will be open from Monday 14th March and closes Friday 8th April and takes no more than 5 minutes to complete. In the past, the survey has proven useful to law library professionals in their annual salary negotiations. Please respond to the survey only once unless you work in multiple organizations. Please click the following link to access the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SJV3RNC Please contact Mawghan Elverd or Luise Crisafulli with any questions.

ENSULIB (the IFLA Environmental Sustainability and Libraries Special Interest Group) has the pleasure to announce the IFLA Green Library Award 2016. Winners will receive 500 Euro, sponsored by de Gruyter. Find all the information about the award objectives, guidelines, selection criteria and application form from the following link: http://www.ifla.org/node/10160 Deadline is 1 April 2016

Meet ALLA(WA) members through our "this is how I work" series. If you would like to be profiled, please contact us at allawablog@gmail.com I'M JAYA RALPH AND THIS IS HOW I WORK Current gig : Faculty Librarian - Law, Curtin University Library. One word that best describes how you work : Organised. I work 3 days a week so have to be extremely organised to get maximum efficiency out of these 3 days and to make every moment count! What's your workplace setup like? My office is within the Curtin Business School (CBS) and I sit with the Faculty Librarian for Business, Kitty Delaney as well the staff from the CBS Communication Skills Centre. This unison ensures there is plenty of brainstorming and flowing of ideas between us which leads to new workshops and the creation of new learning objects. Things are never stagnant in this office! My desk is covered with post-it notes and deadline lists. I use 2 screens and have my iPhone and iPad within arms reach at all times. ...