CALL 2008 Conference - Courthouse and Law Society Libraries Meeting

The 2008 conference of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries is underway in Saskatoon.

Yesterday morning, the Courthouse and Law Society Libraries Special Interest Group or SIG (of which I am co-chair) held its business meeting.

Among the bits of member news, here are some of the major announcements:

• the Supreme Court of Canada Library made its A-to-Z serials list available to the general public and it has also launched a review of its collection development policy (looking especially at possible changes to its foreign collections and the impact of any changes on academic and law society library partners)
• the Nova Scotia Barristers Society Library in the past year has launched a new website, new resource lists, new quantum charts and is now working on producing new annotated rules of procedure. It is also proud of its training initiative that involves sending a librarian to travel to law offices around the province
• the British Columbia Courthouse Library Society received funding to increase access to legal materials in public libraries and to create a portal to act as a unified point of access to the many sources of public legal education and information in British Columbia. As well, the Society has launched a series of legal research video tutorials

Over the next year, the SIG will freshen up its mandate and terms of reference, and explore ways of enhancing its web presence.

For the 2009 CALL conference in Halifax, the SIG will be looking at various programming possibilities. Possible topics that the co-chairs will look at (that is Susan Jones from the Nova Scotia Barristers Society and myself) include: self-represented litigants, specialized tribunals (e.g. mental health courts, aboriginal healing circles etc.), and/or courts in the movies and pop culture.