Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Canadian Association of Law Libraries 2014 Conference Annual Reports

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) is beginning its 2014 annual conference this weekend in Winnipeg.

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

Here are summaries of some of them:  

Education Committee: 
The New Law Librarians Institute (a crash course in law librarianship for new professionals in the sector) is being held June 8 to 12, 2014 at the University of Ottawa. Margo Jeske of the University of Ottawa’s Brian Dickson Law Library is the coordinator of this year’s session, and has carried out the planning for this event in close conjunction with CALL head office. Next year, the Committee will put a lot of effort into the work of the Core Competencies Working Group. The spring 2014 CALL Members Survey revealed an expressed need for more professional training and the Committee already helps accomplish this through its extremely active Webinar Subcommittee, which held 6 successful sessions in the 2013-2014 season:
  • How Can Law Libraries Use Social Media to Connect With Their Communities?
  • Staying Alert: The 411 on Free & Subscription Based Content
  • Taking the Business Case Approach
  • Google: Search Below the Surface
  • Civil Procedure 101 – An Overview for Legal Information Professionals - Legal Research and Knowledge Management Support of a Litigation Practice
  • Competitive Intelligence: How Intelligence Accelerates New Client Acquisitions for Law Firms
Membership Development Committee:
In 2014, the Committee conducted an in-depth survey of member needs and aspirations (findings will be made public later this year; they have been shared with committees and the executive of CALL). There is a strong indication from the survey that CALL needs to reach out more to students, reconsider a different membership model and redesign the website. The MDC would hope to reach out to non-members with a revamped website and promotional materials to present a fresh polished image.

It has also undertaken follow-up / outreach initiatives with expired members and it intends to be more active in getting existing members to renew membership. One of the big outreach activities of the Committee consisted of education visits to library technician and graduate library studies programs across Canada.

The mentoring subcommittee organized the mentoring program and advertised by email and on the CALL website. A couple of CALL blog posts and social media spots advertised the regular mentoring program and a "speed mentoring" event at the CALL conference in Winnipeg. Targeted emails were sent to all new CALL members. The program closed April 4 and 6 mentoring matches were made this year.

Scholarships and Awards Committee:
  • The 2014 Diana M. Priestly Memorial Scholarship is awarded to Veronika Kollbrand. She is currently enrolled in the JD/MLIS program at Dalhousie University 
  • 3 James D. Lang Memorial Scholarship were awarded this year: Jennifer Adams (Sir James Dunn Law Library, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University) received funding to support her attendance at the four day “Certificate in Leadership Excellence” course at St. Mary’s University; Mary-Jo Mustoe (R. Boak Burns Law Library, Welland County Law Association) received funding to attend the U of T iSchool Institute Symposium called “Defining New Metrics for Library Success”; and Bronwyn Guiton (Lawson Lundell LLP, Vancouver) will receive funds to attend a course at 2014 SLA in Vancouver this June. The course is called “CI Success for Librarians and Info Pros, from Start- up to World Class”. 
  • Education Reserve Fund: CALL members were invited to apply for funding from the Education Reserve Fund to support their attendance at the 2014 New Law Librarians’ Institute to be held at the University of Ottawa, June 8-12. Katherine Laundy (Manager, Collection Development, Supreme Court of Canada Library) will receive funding to attend
  • Denis Marshall Memorial Award for Excellence in Law Librarianship: the winner will be announced at the Winnipeg conference
Canadian Law Library Review:
Publication of 38 (3 - 4) at the end of 2013 marked the beginning of a new partnership between the Canadian Law Library Review and Managing Matters, the company that took over the management of the association in 2013. The Review has been focusing on developing policies, procedures and timelines for managing the non-editorial aspects of publication. In 2014-2015 it will be focusing on developing a production style guide. For volume 39(2) the Review conducted a complete physical redesign, adding graphic elements and enhancing readability in preparation for the migration of CLLR from print to electronic. The Member Survey indicates that 25% of members read the CLLR from cover to cover and another 42% read some but not all of the articles.

Copyright Committee:
The Committee posted an article on the CALL/ACBD committee space and the CALL/ACBD blog on the Authors Guild v Google Books, Inc. and Authors Guild v HathiTrust litigation in the US. The post was accompanied by links to articles from the perspective of Canadian copyright lawyers and scholars and a copyright librarian. A co-chair participated in a local community panel discussion on the Authors Guild litigation and the elements of the defence of fair use in US copyright law, the comparisons with fair dealing in Canadian law, and the implications and importance of these themes for libraries and digitization, for Google Books, HathiTrust as research resources, and for authors, publishers, and booksellers.

In conjunction with this, the co-chair produced a curated commentary-based article explaining background to the Authors Guild litigation and the fair use issues implicated in US copyright law and discussing potential outcomes. The link to this article was shared with CALL/ACBD via the Committee blog.

The co-chairs tracked some outcomes of Access Copyright license withdrawal or expected withdrawal, via new practices implemented at their respective institutions. Members attempted to track developments in Access Copyright activities, including the litigation with York University and proceedings with the Copyright Board, via posts to the Committee blog.

In 2014-2015, the Committee will:  prepare a compilation of practices for institutions that have withdrawn from or have plans to withdraw from the Access Copyright license; research and get an understanding of whether legal publishing in Canada, particularly by smaller Canadian legal publishers, is being affected by the trifecta of amendments to the Copyright Act , the 2012 SCC copyright pentalogy, and widespread institutional withdrawal from the Access Copyright license; and monitor or review publishers/vendors’ license agreements to determine whether they include new attempts to work around fair dealing.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Bookmark and Share Subscribe
posted by Michel-Adrien at 7:04 pm

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home