ALLA (WA) News Blog

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 ...

Back in May we brought you an update on the start of the new National Finding the Law Online (FLO) Project (you can see it here Do you know about FLO? ).  Below is an update from the Project Lead, Anastasia Stepanovic, and Project Coordinator, Alice Hewitt. 

Just a quick reminder that applications for the ALLA (WA) 2022 Conference Bursaries are closing on Monday 20 June.  For more details, see this previous blog post , or Members, check your emails. 

ALLA (WA) Members will have recieved the following email from ALLA (WA) President, David McDowell about the opening of ALLA (WA) Bursaries for the ALLA Conference 2022 to be held in Hobart 2022. The email included a Bursary application form. If you did not recieve the email and require the form, please contact the ALLA (WA) Committee

Get ready to conference! The ALLA Conference 2022 website is a great resource to find out all you need to know about the conference. Make sure you take a look to check out details about the conference, including special conference rates for accomodation . This year the conference is being held at the Hotel Grand Chancellor Hobart , Tasmania and the conference program looks to have some great events in the program! Workshops Per ALLA Conference Tradition, there will be a half-day MOYS Workshop held on 24 August 2022. This 3 hour workshop will be led by staff of the High Court of Australia Library. It costs $75.00 for ALLA members, and $95.00 for non-members. Get in quick though - the workshop will be limited to 12 people.  Tours What is a librarian conference without a tour of a library? There are two tours available to nominate for when completing the registration form . Conference registrants can nominate for a tour of either the State Library of Tasmania or the Andrew Inglis C...

ALLA members from around the country have joined together to work on updating and expanding the Finding the Law Online (FLO) course! This sub-committee, led by ALLA Vic. President Anastasia Stepanovic and along with ALLA (WA)'s own Alice Hewitt as Project Co-Coordinator, will see the development of a new set of online learning modules for FLO. Drawing upon the jurisdictional expertise of  FLO team members - Paula Jane Everett , David McDowell,  Kate Freedman, Alisha Nolan, and Amanda Surrey - we will develop a course for new law librarians, or law librarians new to a jurisdiction, or just librarians trying their hand at legal research. The FLO Team currently has volunteers who will share their knowledge of case law and legislation research for the Commonwealth, the Australian Capital Territory, South Australia, Victoria, and Western Australia. For New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Tasmania and Queensland - we are still looking for volunteers. Please get in touch...

Details of the ALLA Conference 2022 are now available from the ALLA Conference website: allaconference.com.au/  The ALLA Conference 2022 will take place 24-26 August 2022 in Hobart, Tasmania at the Hotel Grand Chancellor .  The theme for 2022 is THE NEW NORMAL, with the following sub-themes: Post COVID considerations How has covid affected your work, your life, the library profession, the legal profession? Where to from here? How do we deal with fake information and disinformation, how do we respond to the changes in society with regards to gender and cultural inequality? How can we as law librarians help these changes and change makers? How have things changed? Legal history, how will legal history be recorded / accessed in the future? What is your favourite legal topic? Has it changed lately? How have the courts changed? Are trials now more like tv court? A call for abstracts is now open on the ALLA Conference website and closes 1 May 2022.  Conference registrations w...

This year the ALLA (WA) Committee was pleased to offer ALLA (WA) members Kate Hewit and Vidagdha Bennett bursaries to attend ALLA's first ever, and slightly delayed, virtual conference. We congratulate them both on their successful applications for the bursary.  As part of the bursary both Kate and Vidagdha have written a short blog post recapping their experience of the conference.  To help them write this piece, the ALLA (WA) provided the following questions as prompts: How did you find attending the conference virtually? What were the advantages and disadvantages? Would you been keen to attend a virtual conference again or prefer a face-to-face conference?  Who was your favourite speaker / favourite session and why? What did you learn that you will find helpful in your current position?  Did you meet anyone interesting in the breaks / virtual meeting rooms? What was your overall experience with these meeting rooms?  What session would you recommend peopl...

Strategic Plans for Libraries Tuesday 9 November, 10.00am (AWST) In this session two law librarians share their experiences developing and implementing strategic plans for their libraries. Register online : NOTE: this event is open to ALLA members only, please have your membership number with you when you register. At the Supreme Court of Victoria, consultation with the legal sector helped develop a five-year strategic plan that reflected the desire for a modern and dynamic Law Library of Victoria. The plan aims to establish a digital library service to support current and future generations of the legal profession to deliver better justice outcomes for all Victorians. Law Library of Victoria Librarian Laurie Atkinson will present the strategic plan and describe the consultation process, how the plan evolved, became operational, and how progress is measured. From the Supreme Court Library Queensland, David Bratchford will focus on the process of developing SCLQ’s current strategic plan...

It's the ALLA (WA) Blog's 11th Birthday! Our first post back on the 25th of October 2010 was a President's Letter , from our then  President Jacqueline Seligmann.  The ALLA (WA) Committe thanks all of our current and past contributors and readers.  To celebrate this milestone, our current President David McDowell has a fresh new President's Letter. 

Creating Engaging Online Content for Library Users: Introducing Kahoot! and Padlet Thursday 7 October 11.00am (AWST) Michelle Clarke from K&L Gates and Anastasia Stepanovic from the University of Melbourne will share their knowledge of Kahoot! and Padlet, two free platforms that have helped them create engaging online content for library users. Register online : NOTE: This event is open to ALLA members only, please have your membership number with you when you register. As online learning replaces face to face library sessions, librarians may find themselves looking for affordable options to create interesting course content.  In this session two experienced librarians share their knowledge of Kahoot! and Padlet. Kahoot! Kahoot! is a widely used cloud-based tool to create and deliver teaching and testing quizzes. It’s used in educational institutions as an online game-based learning platform and includes a free component. In this online session Michelle Clarke from K&L Gate...

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...

The ALLA (WA) Committee is excited to offer ten bursaries to cover the virtual registration costs for the 2021 ALLA Virtual Conference  taking place on the 23 and 24th of September 2021.  These bursaries are valued at $120 each and will reimburse ALLA (WA) members for the cost of registering to attend the 2021 ALLA Virtual Conference. Applications are open to ALLA (WA) Members only. To apply please provide a short statement (no more than 500 words in length) outlining why you believe attending the ALLA Conference 2021 would be beneficial to your career development.  Requirements for Successful Recipients: Successful recipients must register for the conference before seeking reimbursement from ALLA (WA). Successful recipients must attend the specific conference within the calendar year of receiving the award. If the award is not taken up within the time frame, the funding and registration will be void.  Successful recipients are required to either  Submit content...

Alison Jones, a Knowledge Manager and Librarian posted the following on her LinkedIn: Was pleased to write this guest piece for Vable on the one thing that surprised me about being a librarian... which was coming to the realisation that while the lawyers I work with are experts in the law, their librarians are the experts in legal research. And how having the confidence to assist them with legal research, especially through training, has assisted with the library being well regarded within my organisation. In the Vable piece, 'The One Thing That Suprised Me About Being a Librarian' Alison speaks about how our value as librarians 'resides in our ability to mediate between the collection and the people we serve.' Speaking about the Library as a Collection and the Librarian as an Intermediary, Jones goes on to discuss the knowledge gap between legal research required at law school and legal research required in a law firm. What do you think of what Jones' says...

Natalie McDonald, ALLA (WA) President, 2017-2018 ALLA(WA) AGM We held our AGM on 9th August 2017 where the new 2017/2018 Committee were confirmed. This term we had a few new members join the Committee, David McDowell from Jackson McDonald and Judy Allan from Legal Aid. I would like to welcome David and Judy to the Committee. I would also like to welcome back the following Committee members : Vice President: Stephen Griffiths Secretary : Alice Hewitt Treasurer: Anne Young Committee members: Gil Bevan and Catherine Kafentzis. Details of the new Committee will be updated on the ALLA website soon and can be already found on the About The Committee page of this blog. I mentioned at the AGM that the attendance at past AGM’s and CPD events had been poor and one of our focus’ for last term was to look at ways of improving the attendance. The Committee has worked hard in organising events, seeking feedback from members who attended the events but the support unfortunately...

Announcing the 'LibrariesWA' Facebook Group At the Library Leadership: A Celebration day, one of the consistent themes was about enabling communication across silos and different types of library and information services. In an effort to achieve this, we are pleased to announce the launch of a Facebook group specifically for Western Australia LIS professionals. Why a Facebook Group? Facebook is one of the most popular social networking platforms in the world. It may not be for everyone, but a lot of us use it to stay connected with friends and family, and now increasingly for work as well. A Facebook Group allows you to post messages to anyone who has joined even though you aren't necessarily connected with them directly, the potential to reach a relevant audience is much higher than posting from your personal or organisation page. The other really useful functionality is that any group member can create an event! The Libraries WA group has the potential to beco...

[ View the story "Library Leadership: A Celebration" on Storify ]

There are 100 librarians, library technicians and library lovers today at Library Leadership: A Celebration! Speed networking with librarians is certainly not a quiet exercise! Check out our Twitter @lawlibsWA and follow #LibrariesWA for updates and more from speakers including Dr Carmen Lawrence, Jennefer Nichols and members of the LIS profession in Western Australia!

Last night on Biblia (ALIA West's Blog), we saw that our Vice President, Alice Hewitt, has been busy at work helping plan the Library Leadership: A Celebration. See if you can spot her in the post Collaboration in Action! Library Leadership: A Celebration For more information on the Library Leadership: A Celebration event, check out our previous post , or our Facebook event . Spaces are filling, but you've still got time before registrations close on May 12.

Are you thinking about extra studying or upskilling yourself? Or maybe you just want to fulfill your lifelong dream of becoming a librarian. Take a look a the courses from the School of Information Studies at Charles Sturt University. Applications are now open for Session 2 2017 in the follow courses: Master of Information Studies; Master of Education (Teacher Librarianship) Master of Education (Knowledge Networks and Digitial Innovation) Bachelor of Information Studies. For more details, check out the course information website here . Thanks to Kelly Underwood for suggesting this post.