Canadian Association of Law Libraries 2014 Conference - Annual Reports from Special Interest Groups

This is a follow-up to yesterday's post called Canadian Association of Law Libraries 2014 Conference - More 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 (SIG) have been submitted in anticipation of the general meeting.

Here are summaries of some of the SIG reports:

Academic Law Libraries SIG:
The SIG is sponsoring a session at the conference entitled Legal Research Instruction: A Whole Different Classroom, given by Eunice Friesen, Associate Director of the Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning at the University of Manitoba.

The SIG also maintains an active listserv. Some of the activity last year on the listserv included an invitation for members to take part in a study to investigate what effect(s) the act of conducting research has on professional practice; a discussion on learning management systems; questions about whether libraries are paying for web access to newspapers which have introduced paywalls; and a media release of Melbourne Law School’s new blog “Opinions on High” the first legal academic blog covering the High Court of Australia.

At its business meeting in Winnipeg, the SIG will discuss issues such as how the role of law librarian is changing with changing strategic plans at host institutions, chat services, what is being kept in print in legislative collections, and new ways to increase the awareness of faculty of library services.

Access and Resources Sharing SIG:
The implementation of the new cataloguing rules, Resource Description and Access (RDA), is underway. Over the next year the SIG will review the available training materials and assess the need for materials related specifically to the cataloguing of legal resources in Canadian law libraries.

The SIG is sponsoring a pre-conference workshop called “A Conversation on the Semantic Web and Legal Information”. It aims to provide an “overview of the emerging linked data and semantic web in the context of legal information aimed at an audience with little pre-existing understanding of the subject.”

Courthouse and Law Society Libraries SIG:
The main focus of the SIG has been the organizing of a conference session on "Resource sharing: Where do we go now?"

From the description: "Is interlibrary loan still a valued library service? What does resource sharing mean in the digital library landscape? Are formal agreements between libraries for resource sharing, reciprocal borrowing, and other collaborative collection decisions still relevant? Does a last print copy repository make sense for Canada, given our geographic size and institutional diversity?"

Government Libraries SIG:
The SIG has been updating the 2004 document Law Libraries in Canada to provide an overview of the organization and operation of government law libraries across the country, and to give librarians guidance on which library might be best suited to help when looking for assistance in a particular jurisdiction. This should be completed in 2014-2015 and the final document will be published on the CALL website.

Prison Libraries SIG:
The SIG is sponsoring a session at the conference on library services to prisons in Manitoba. Next year, the SIG hopes to work more closely with the recently formed Prison Library SIG of the Canadian Library Association.