Where for art thou, FLO?

The adventures of the Finding the Law Project continue! 

So it’s time for another update from the Project Lead, Anastasia Stepanovic, and Project Coordinator, Alice Hewitt.

Our last update on the ALLA (WA) Blog was back in June – and since then we have presented at the ALLA (WA) Conference, published articles in the Australian Law Librarian journal, and we’ve gained a lot of ALLA member feedback and suggestions – end even a few new members to the project team. 

At the ALLA Conference 2022 in Hobart, Anastasia and Alice presented a paper paying respect and homage to the evolution of Finding the Law – including all its various names, formats, and teachers. The presentation was centred around where ALLA had began this sort of law librarianship skills training, the different names the course was titled over time, and the different divisions that took the lead over time. The conference presentation was delivered using Rise Articulate, the building ground of the new FLO Project and you can view the presentation here. A complimentary paper for the presentation can be found in the Australian Law Librarian Journal: 

Anastasia Stepanovic and Alice Hewitt, “Finding the law: Past, present and future” (2022) 30 (3) Australian Law Librarian 92

The only thing missing from the paper and presentation you can see above; is the sneak peak of the new modules the conference attendees were treated to. This demonstration of how the module is coming together was met with excitement interest from the conference attendees and generated much discussion – and food for thought for the Project Team and the ALLA Ltd Board.

The excitement at the conference led to new volunteers from across the country putting their hand up to assist in editing and user testing, and ultimately allowed us to fill a jurisdictional content expert gap we had regarding Tasmania, Queensland, and the Northern Territory.  The Project Team has an amazing team of volunteers, who are working hard at highlighting the ever-interesting tips and tricks of each State and Territory within Australia. With the help of our expert volunteers, we are confident in producing a course that is concise, engaging, and covers the legal research skills that modern law librarians need Australia-wide. The online modules will focus on being able to locate and understand authoritative primary legal materials in each state, along with free tools that can support research in this area. Blended learning opportunities are expected to be launched in 2023 to complement the online module and provide learning opportunities in relation to the ever-changing subscription database landscape. 

Since our last Blog update, we’ve continued to be in discussion with the ALLA Ltd. Board around the project’s Terms of Reference. With additional questions raised at the conference, and the Board indicating that they consider this document to be fluid, the Project Team is working on ensuring outstanding questions around branding, pricing models, blended delivery modes and more are resolved in a timely manner. The Project Team is working hard on ensuring that modules will be completed for hand over to the ALLA Ltd Board in May 2023. From there, ALLA Ltd will be able to finalise the modules, and be ready to launch. 

Anastasia and Alice would like to thank every ALLA member who asked questions and provided feedback at the conference, our new volunteers, and the continuing work of our original volunteers to the project. We have now had the opportunities to pick the brains of our jurisdictional experts and together we are getting into the real work on designing and constructing the modules, 

The National FLO Project Team will continue to provide updates via the ALLA (WA) Blog. For any further information please see the updated Finding the Law page on the ALLA website or you can contain the team via our new dedicated ALLA Learning email address.