Saturday, May 04, 2013

Canadian Association of Law Libraries 2013 Conference - Annual Reports

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) is beginning its 2013 annual conference tomorrow in Montreal.

Annual reports of committees and special interest groups have been submitted in anticipation of the general meeting.

Here are some of them:

Archivist:
Last summer, CALL donated $1,500 to the University of Manitoba to hire a summer student to complete the organizing of all outstanding association records and to create a finding aid for researchers.

Education Committee:
Its major activities are the New Law Librarians Institute (NLLI), an intensive, week-long program aimed at developing librarians' skills in the key competencies of law librarianship, and the organization of continuing education webinars.

The next NLLI will be hosted in 2014 at the University of Ottawa.

As for the webinars subcomittee, it held 5 successful sessions in 2012-2013 on legislative research, "60 sites in 60 minutes", new trends and issues in copyright, key resources for foreign and international legal research, and the integration of public legal information into private enterprise research tools. Net revenue from webinars last year was close to $6,000. 2013-2014 webinar ideas include: social media in law libraries, economical current awareness tools, making a business case, competitive intelligence, web searching tips, teaching with technology.

Committee to Promote Research:
Last year, to encourage applications for the association's research grants, the committee broadened its criteria so that “applicants may apply individually or in partnership with another researcher.” Applicants must be a member of CALL/ACBD, but their research partners do not need to be members. As there were no applications for the 2012 Research Grant in March, a second competition was conducted in October for the Research Grant of $3,000. The 2012 Research Grant was awarded to Kim Nayyer for her project “Resource ‐ Sharing Options for Canadian Law Libraries.”

Membership Development Committee:
The committee has been quite active in contacting lapsed members. The process revealed that CALL/ACBD can do a better job of advising members to renew. In terms of recruitment, many schools were visited including the Library and Information Technology program in the School of Business at the Nova Scotia Community College, the School of Information Studies at the University of Ottawa, and the iSchool, University of Toronto, Legal Librarianship class.

The committee also runs CALL's mentorship program and it conducted a student survey to gauge student interest in CALL. According to the survey, CALL must:
  • Market more aggressively and increase the number of Student Member Special Interest Groups (SIG’ S) to increase presence among the student population. Many of the students that completed the survey were unaware of what CALL/ACBD could offer them. 
  • Simplify the registration process by eliminating the need to have a faculty member sign the registration form. 
  • Focus on services that help connect students with jobs . Examples of services include job shadowing, law library tours, networking and mentoring programmes. 
  • Consider reducing student membership fees and/or offering special membershi p deals. Both the environment al scan and the survey showed that CALL/ACBD student fee s are high relative to other niche professional associations
KF Modified Classification Committee:
The regular updates to the KF Modified classification schedule (Library of Congress cataloguing system) have been completed along with the enhancement of the section on "Indians. Native Peoples. Aboriginals. Inuit". The enhancement of the Taxation section has also been finished and the Committee will review this work with plans to incorporate it into the classification schedule later this year. This leaves the enhancement for Access to Information/Privacy left to complete.

Canadian Law Library Review:
There are changes to the editorial board, the most notable being the nomination of Susan Barker as the new editor as of May 2013. Other notable happenings include the completion by Janet Moss of the history of CALL's most recent 25 years. During 2013, this history will be published in four parts in the pages of the Review.

As well, Cambridge University Press, which publishes the journal Legal Information Management (Brtitish and Irish Association of Law Librarians), has approached CALL to consider a publishing relationship. If things work out and CALL and Cambridge find a way of cooperating, this could broaden the Review's audience tremendously.

Canadian Abridgment Editorial Advisory Board:
It meets twice a year with Carswell, the publisher owned by Westlaw.

The Board has been advised of the Abridgment publishing program for the 2013-2014 period: In 2013, ten titles will be reissued, totaling approximately 25 volumes (Debtor and Creditor; Financial Institutions/Guarantee and Indemnity; Public Law; Commercial Law; Communications Law/Conflict of Laws; Intellectual Property; Natural Resources; Pensions); in 2014, Labour and Employment will be reissued. Estates and Trusts was reissued in June 2012 with five volumes. Municipal Law was reissued in August 2012 with 15 volumes. Canada Law Book content, including the Western Legal Publications digest services, will be used to improve the classification digests, especially in Intellectual Property, Communication Law, and Public Law.

As for the Index to Canadian Legal Literature, the Board has been informed about improvements to the indexing of provincial and federal government reports, including Law Reform Commission documents.

Canada Law Book (CLB) content continues to be integrated into Westlaw products. The full ‐ text of the cases available in the Dominion Law Reports and the Canadian Criminal Cases will be included in Westlaw Canada. Thousands of tribunal decisions will be added to Westlaw Canada. CLB and Westlaw Canada treatment types differ, but they are now being combined and are live in Westlaw.

Finally, Carswell is investigating the possibility of making the McGill Guide (Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, 7th ed.) available electronically.

I hope to add more information about CALL annual reports tomorrow or Monday.

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posted by Michel-Adrien at 11:53 am

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