Australian Law Librarian
Vol 19 No. 4 2011
ALLJ Vol.19 No.4.indd 1 24/11/11 12:57:26 PM Australian Law Libarian Published on behalf of the Australian Law Librarians’ Association and printed and distributed compliments of Thomson Reuters
The Australian Law Librarian is the official journal Subscriptions of the Australian Law Librarians’ Association. It Australian Law Librarian (ISSN 1039-6616) is contains articles of interest to those working within published quarterly in March, June, September the field of legal librarianship and publishing and December. The subscription price includes fields. It also provides a vehicle for information delivery. sharing amongst divisions of the ALLA as well as serving as a forum for discussion of issues related Subscribers may send orders directly to the Journal to legal publishing. or use a subscription agent.
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ALLJ Vol.19 No.4.indd 2 24/11/11 12:57:27 PM Contents
Editorial 237
National President’s Column 240
Awards 242
Articles The National Library of Australia: Some Strategic Questions and Context Anne-Marie Schwirtlich 244 Free as in Beer and Free as in Speech: Public Sector Information after 450 Days of Open Government John Sheridan 251 Freedom of Information: A Government Perspective Dr James Popple 256 Leading the Way to Learning and Content – An Online Law Tutorial Julie Cartwright 265 A Century of Information and the Challenge to Maintain Relevance Daemoni Bishop 271 A Winning Conference All Round Kristel Petrou 278
Columns Letter from Oxford Ruth Bird 282 Developments in Canadian Law and Law Libraries Nancy McCormack 285 Developments in US Law Libraries Anne L Abramson 288 New Zealand News Catherine Frew 296 Pacific News Karyn Gladwish, Laura Davern & Kym Freriks 297 State News Alison Jones 299
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ALLJ Vol.19 No.4.indd 3 24/11/11 12:57:27 PM ALLJ Vol.19 No.4.indd 4 24/11/11 12:57:27 PM Editorial Dorothy Shea, Supreme Court of Tasmania
In the words of Stevie Smith, many individuals data but will our brains have the capacity to and organisations are “not waving, but drowning”1 process it and come to meaningful decisions. in the oceans of information that threaten to swamp us in the 21st century. Whether it be Technology will certainly be a powerful tool in the cyber currents of emails, texts, SMS, RSS, the information society but it is well to remember blogs and online discussion groups or the hidden that is what it is – a tool, and it will be institu- shoals of reports, books, newspapers and journals, tions such as libraries that will have the capacity to in electronic and print format, it is becoming play a significant role in using these tools to clear increasingly difficult just to keep afloat, never pathways through the information wilderness, mind navigating our way through to a desired erecting signposts to guide and danger signs to destination. warn, and maintaining physical spaces for people that act as safe havens. And it is not just the general The CSIRO, in its draft report, Our future population that needs such spaces; gatherings world 2 identifies five global megatrends that may of law librarians provide great opportunities for redefine the way people live: discussions on how we are charting and mapping our own information patches as was demonstrated 1. More from Less: A World of Limited at the recent conference in Canberra. Resources; 2. A Personal Touch: Personalisation of One of the great things, for me, about attending Services; library conferences is that you get to pop your 3. On the Move: Urbanisation and head up from the protection of the trenches and Increased Mobility; see what is going on in the world outside. The 4. Divergent Demographics: Older, Hungry experience can range from the terrifying, with and More Demanding; and barrages of opinions being fired from all direc- 5. iWorld: Digital and Natural Convergence. tions, to the delightful when you come across something as wonderful as when Mole emerges In Megatrend 2, Personalisation of Services, it from his burrow to roll in the warm grass of the identifies information overload as contributing meadow on a spring morning. to “significant time losses associated with search- ing and processing irrelevant information”3 and While I don’t tweet, blog or have a Facebook predicts that this megatrend will lead to a strong account, use a mobile phone to make phone demand for technologies, such as memory tools, calls and can’t go past a second hand bookshop that will help people deal with the overwhelming without being drawn inside by some mysterious amount of data they need to remember. Sounds magnetic force, I found the papers at the recent a bit scary! Memory devices may be able to store ALLA Conference in Canberra to be thoroughly the ever increasing amount of information and absorbing. At one end there were the high tech
1 Title of a poem by Stevie Smith published in 1957. 2 S Hajkowicz, & J Moody, Our future world: An analysis of global trends, shocks and scenarios (CSIRO, 2010). 3 Ibid 7.
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presentations dealing with web sites and mobile day event. John Sheridan from the Australian phone apps, in the middle ground some excel- Government Information Management Office lent papers on a variety of information resources, outlined the Commonwealth Government’s and at the other end the historical treasures such commitment to open government through the as newspapers on Trove and opinions of the publication of government information while Commonwealth Solicitor General. We are fortu- Dr James Popple, the Information Commissioner, nate to be able to publish three conference papers provided a very thorough discussion on the new in this issue of the Journal and hope to have more Freedom of Information policies. One could be in the first issue for 2012. forgiven for thinking that this subject might have been somewhat to the right of “dry” but with The Keynote Address for the Conference was both speakers having such obvious enthusiasm delivered by the Director-General of the National and commitment to the cause of making govern- Library, Anne-Marie Schwirtlich, who looked at ment information more freely available, delegates the context within which the National Library responded with considerable enthusiasm at the operates and its strategic directions for 2012- conclusion of these two presentations. The finale, 2014, concluding that “We must initiate, we with Jack Waterword AC, a well known Canberra must shape and we must continue to play a journalist, recounting his early adventures in the vital role in the democratisation of information, quest of FOI material, had many close to rolling the creation of knowledge and the wellbeing of in the aisles with laughter. Australians today and in the future.” As always the subject of legal research skills Having recently read Roxanne Missingham’s provoked considerable comment and discussion New Norcia Library Lecture, “How many roads in the final session of the Conference. Academic must a library walk down”,4 I could not help law librarians throughout Australia put consider- but reflect on the positive attitudes of these two able effort, thought and ingenuity into teaching library leaders about the future of libraries in legal research skills to their students. When these Australia, and their belief that despite the pres- students emerge from the academic environment sures of changing user profiles and behaviour, a into the real world of corporate, government, bleak financial climate and a bewildering proces- court and other specialist legal libraries, it can sion of new technologies, libraries will continue sometimes appear that, following graduation, to reshape their services to meet the needs of this part of their knowledge base has been existing and potential users. erased. In my experience, however, it has simply been submerged as newly qualified lawyers come The other two papers from the Conference that to grips with the culture, work practices and are being published in the Journal were delivered expectations of their employers. Ultimately legal in the session on Access to Government Informa- research units, created by universities, provide tion, which was one of my top picks for the two a foundation upon which particular skills can
4 Roxanne Missingham, ‘How many roads must a library walk down’, 2011 New Norcia library Lecture available at
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be developed by the lawyer, and enhanced by a of law libraries in the Pacific. Alison Jones has friendly law librarian. compiled all the local news from around the states and territories, giving us a picture of who is doing Julie Cartwright, from Charles Darwin Univer- what and going where. sity, has written of her experiences in developing a legal skills unit for a largely external student popu- I would like to thank all our readers for their lation, which presents another facet of this many continued support over the years, Midland Type- sided conundrum. It is not just e-learning being setters for continuing to create meaningful layouts used as a conduit to educate students, it is the from the files I send them and Thomson Reuters necessity for students to cope with the processes for their generous contribution in publishing and of enrolment and admission in an online environ- distributing the Journal. Also without the work of ment that is not always intuitive. the Editorial Board and Business Managers this Journal would never see the light of day. Daemoni Bishop from LexisNexis has written a thoughtful account about 100 years of publish- Finally a Christmas message for everyone, ing in Australia and the evolving role of law suggested by seven year old twins, Tam and Tessa, librarians during that time. He identifies a close as being “something a library person would like”. link between publishers and libraries where the We didn’t have a copy of the book, so they found introduction of new technologies to deliver legal the quote on the Internet as well as a citation, information requires law librarians to step up and with some help from a librarian of course. take a leading role in the transition from hard copy to electronic as well as exploiting the poten- And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold tial of social media tools to enhance the value of in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how the law library within the organisation. could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, When one of our members takes off overseas boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled to live and work it is always interesting to hear ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch of their experiences. Kristal Petrou moved to thought of something he hadn’t before. What London last year and has written about her atten- if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from dance at this year’s 2011 BIALL Conference. a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.5 There is lots of news from overseas, with Ruth Bird reporting on the UK scene and Nancy McCormack and Anne Abramson updating us on Dorothy Shea developments in Canada and the US. Closer to Editor home Catherine Frew brings us news from New Australian Law Librarian Zealand while Karyn Gladwish surveys the state
5 Dr Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Random House: 1957). Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011. 239
ALLJ Vol.19 No.4.indd 239 24/11/11 12:57:28 PM National President’s Column Marisa Bendeich, Blake Dawson, Sydney
I am delighted to be drafting my first President’s to dinner at Parliament House, two landmark loca- Column for the Australian Law Librarian journal. tions that lie at the very heart of what we as legal It is with a mixture of anticipation and excitement librarians and information specialists are about. that I look forward to what will certainly be a very busy year ahead. I would also like to thank our And for those who were not able to attend the Immediate Past President, Naish Peterson, who has conference but followed along with Twitter, I hope done an exceptional job over the past 12 months. you enjoyed being kept informed with the delegates’ thoughts and comments throughout the conference I would also like to thank Leanne Cummings whose sessions. Twitter is proving to be such a valuable amazing three year contribution to ALLA as Vice tool for staying up to date. If you are on Twitter, be President, President, and Immediate Past President sure to follow ALLA @AustLawLibAssoc. has come to an end. Leanne will continue to be involved with ALLA as a member of the National I would like to extend my thanks to the organising Model Project Committee and her enthusiasm, committee of the conference, and in particular the organisation and energy and good sense of humour convenor Amanda Magnussen (ACT President). are an inspiration. It is difficult to understand just how much work goes in to a conference until you have actually been The National Executive Committee also farewells involved in organising one, and I know how much Marion Randall as secretary and welcomes Linden time, energy and effort everyone on the organising Fairbairn who will step into the role. Linden is committee put into the conference. With the 2011 currently the Director of Library Services at the conference being such a success, we are already Department of Justice and Attorney-General in looking forward to the 2012 conference which NSW and I am sure will make a fantastic contribu- will be held on the Gold Coast in Queensland in tion to ALLA. Congratulations Linden! September 2012 (date to be confirmed). As always, we welcome suggestions from members for our Congratulations also to Lisa Sylvester who has annual conferences. taken on the position of Vice President. Lisa has a range of background and experience including as a The Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in training consultant for one of the major publishers, Canberra also meant that the membership finally a solicitor, and a knowledge manager at a law firm. voted on the proposed National Membership Most recently Lisa has embarked on a role at the Model, which I am pleased to report was passed Legal Services Commission in Queensland. ALLA is by a majority vote. The resolution that was passed exceptionally fortunate to have the benefit of Lisa’s sets out the process we now need to follow to move expertise. towards a National Model. As with any change, this won’t happen overnight! But it is a positive For those who attended the ACTioning the Law direction for the Association and will help provide conference in Canberra in September, I am sure a sustainable future for our professional association. you found it as enjoyable, and learned as much as The affirmative vote is the culmination of over three I did. Delegates enjoyed and were treated not only years of work, initiated by John Botherway, Susan to drinks at the High Court of Australia, but also Woodman and Leanne Cummings with the “Case 240 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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for a National Model of the ALLA Membership”, interim Board of Directors (who will manage the presented to Members in 2008. business of the Company until full elections are held at the inaugural AGM of ALLA Limited at our Many thanks to John, Susan and Leanne, along with conference in 2012); and preparing the voluntary James Butler and Naish Peterson who later joined wind up ALLA Incorporated. the project committee. Thanks also to Arnold Bloch Liebler who have provided pro bono legal advice for The National Model Project Committee anticipates the project, as well as Clayton Utz who provided a timeframe of approximately six months for this pro bono legal assistance early on in the process. process. Last but not least, thank you to you, the Members, who took the time to provide us with feedback and The National Executive Committee is busy working questions. I am sure you can all appreciate the huge on a number of other projects which we hope will amount of work, along with the steep learning curve enhance your membership experience – keep an experienced by those on the Committee, throughout eye out for these and more over the coming 12 the process! months.
The next steps in the transition to a National • Continuing to partner with AustLII to digitise Membership Model are outlined below, and were historical bills and explanatory memoranda; documented in the resolution that was passed at • Members-only publisher product trials, to be the AGM. We anticipate that it will take up to six made available via the ALLA website; months for this process and ask that members be • A members-only feedback facility on the patient as the Project Committee balances these ALLA website to communicate (anonymously tasks with their full time jobs, family and social or not) publisher feedback to our National lives (along with other ALLA commitments)! We Publishers’ Liaison; and hope to continue to receive pro bono legal advice • Investigating professional development where required and understand that this can also sessions delivered via webinar. take time. I look forward to getting to know many more of you, The National Model Project Committee (now members and non-members alike, who are passionate comprising John Botherway, James Butler, Leanne about our work, our industry and our future. Cummings, Naish Peterson, Lisa Sylvester and myself) will continue to work on the next steps Marisa Bendeich involved in the transition, including establishing President the new Company, ALLA Limited, establishing an Australian Law Librarians’ Association
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ALLA Annual Fellowship Program This monetary award will provide an oppor- tunity for a Pacific Law Library staff member, The ALLA Annual Fellow Program provides an such as a library manager, librarian or library Australian Librarian with the opportunity to assistant, to improve capacity within their attend an overseas conference of their choice. The winner of the inaugural 2011 Fellowship library workplace and therefore benefit the is Debbie Bennett, Manager, NSW Law Courts library and the law and justice sector agency Library, who will be attending the International they work in. Association of Law Libraries Conference in Kuala Lumpur in December 2011. We look forward to For example, the award could be used to: publishing Debbie’s Report on the Conference in the next issue of the Journal. • Purchase textbooks for the collection and/or subscription to legal databases; Lynn Pollack Memorial Scholarship • Purchase essential equipment such as a printer, digital camera, scanner and/or hard drive; Lynn Pollack was a strong role model for many law • Purchase bookshelves and/or furniture; or librarians. She was inspirational in her dedication • Invest in professional development such as to her profession and throughout her career she encouraged and supported her colleagues as they improving legal research skills or gaining progressed along their career paths. As a tribute a librarianship qualification. to Lynn’s memory the Australian Law Librarians’ Two Assistance Awards were granted in 2011 Association (ALLA) provides a scholarship to assist new law librarians and library technicians in to King Ietera from Kiribati and Johannes Fege their professional development. The scholarship from Papua New Guinea. Details of their Awards provides registration to the annual ALLA Confer- are reported in the Pacific News Column at ence (provided gratis by the Division hosting the page xx. Conference) as well as assistance with airfares and accommodation. All these Awards reflect ALLA’s commitment to providing support and encouragement to the The winner of the 2011 Scholarship was David profession of law librarianship both in Australia Furler from the Law Institute of Victoria. David’s and overseas. behind the scenes work on the ALLA web site makes a tremendous contribution to keeping the I would like to take the opportunity to thank the site relevant to the needs of law librarians through Selection Committees responsible for evaluating the country. the applications for these Awards. It takes consid- erable time and effort and they are often faced Pacific Assistance Award with a very difficult task in deciding who should In 2011 the former Pacific Scholarship became receive the Award, given the high standard of the Pacific Assistance Award. many of the applications. 242 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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ALLA Certificates of Appreciation • Kate Ramsay (Tas) • Mary Swanton (Tas) These certificates are awarded to members of ALLA who have made a significant contribution • Robin Gardner (Vic) to the association or law librarianship over the • Jenna Hildebrand (Vic) previous year. • Michael Gavan (Vic) • Bernard Lyons (Vic) Recipients were announced at the 2011 AGM • Rebecca Dunbar (Vic) and will be awarded their certificates at a local • Marion Randall (Vic) divisional meeting or event. • Amanda Magnussen (ACT)
Congratulations to the following members as • Lisa Sylvester (Qld) recipients of the Certificate of Appreciation: Dorothy Shea • Leanne Cummings (Qld) Editor • Lianne Forster Knight (Vic) Australian Law Librarian
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ALLJ Vol.19 No.4.indd 243 24/11/11 12:57:29 PM The National Library of Australia: Some Strategic Questions and Context Anne-Marie Schwirtlich, Director-General, National Library of Australia
This paper seeks to do two things. Firstly, to • Supporting excellence and world class endeav- outline something of the context in which the our and strengthening the role that the arts Library is, and will operate in, and secondly, to play in telling Australian stories both here and touch on some of the strategic questions being overseas; and considered by the National Library. • Increasing and strengthening the capacity of the arts to contribute to our society and Context economy.2 The Council and the staff of the National Library The Minister has already signalled that he expects of Australia have begun work on the Library’s collecting institutions to: strategic directions for 2012-2014. • be relevant to Australians; As the Library considers its strategic directions • help to promote excellence and drive innova- what does it make of the context for its work in tion; the years ahead? • help build and project pride and confidence The policy environment in Australia’s culture; • increase the enjoyment of arts and culture by The Commonwealth Minister for the Arts, more Australians; Simon Crean, has nominated as his top priority • engage with Australians from across the the development of a National Cultural Policy. country; He has released a discussion paper on the national • support cultural literacy and lifelong cultural policy which is available for comment learning; until 21 October.1 The Minister is aiming for the • assist in improving wider student outcomes; Policy itself to be in close to final form by the • demonstrate excellence in our core business end of 2011, with a view to releasing it in early and sector leadership; and 2012. The discussion paper flags four goals for • diversify funding sources. the policy: As we think about the range of, and priorities • Ensuring that what the government supports for, the National Cultural Policy, the absence of reflects the diversity of a 21st century Australia an information policy or information principles and protects and supports Indigenous is apparent because there are values important to culture; libraries, such as free access to information, which • Encouraging the use of emerging technologies cannot be articulated easily in the suggested goals. and new ideas that support the development of new artworks and the creative industries, Every five years, the Commonwealth Department and that enable more people to access and of the Treasury publishes an Intergenerational participate in arts and culture; Report. These reports are a comprehensive
1
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analysis of the challenges that Australia will face of wellbeing and sustainability and hopes that it over the next forty years. The 2010 report was provides all libraries with a policy space to argue heartening, devoting a chapter to a sustainable the case for the services libraries provide. society.3 Demographic trends The report stressed that: In 2020 Australia’s population will be around 24.8 5 6 Sustainability requires that at least the current million compared with 22.7 million today. The level of wellbeing be maintained for future population will continue to be highly urbanised generations … [and that] … wellbeing is (87% in urban areas of which 64% will be in enhanced if Australians share the benefits of capital cities) and it will continue to be concen- 7 economic growth and members of society have trated on the eastern coast. Therefore, growth the opportunity to participate in economic in the size of our population will not be a driver and social activities. of demand. And it could be argued that urban density should make it easier to achieve econo- Wellbeing [is about] the aspects of life that mies of scale in service delivery. people and societies value … and incorporates notions of individual freedoms, opportunities However, factors like the ageing of the popula- and capabilities … [The report says that] the tion, the worsening of the ratio of people over 65 wellbeing of a generation is determined by to those of working age, the emphasis on engage- the ‘stock’ of resources that is inherited from ment and on productivity could all well be drivers previous generations and the choices that gener- of demand. ation makes. The stock of resources available to a generation include: renewable and non- So, for example, the older the population the renewable resources; physical capital including chances are the more complex and face-to-face machines and buildings; human capital (for the interactions will be. In addition, the baby example through education and research); and boomer generation is entering retirement with the quality of institutions for maintaining a different expectations, demanding higher quality properly functioning human society.4 and a greater range of services than previous generations. We will need to continue to reshape The National Library is pleased that such an our services to streamline, automate and integrate influential policy document includes the concepts them so that we provide better services for those
3 Circulated by The Hon Wayne Swan MP, Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia, Australia to 2050: future challenges, January 2010, Chapter 6. 4 Ibid 83-84. 5 Australian Bureau of Statistics, Population Projections, Australia 2006-2101, see:
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less complex transactions while freeing resources and scenarios. It identified as a megatrend10 the to focus on the more complex.8 personalisation of services which it defined as the innovative means of understanding and supply- In the past decade, Australia’s productivity perfor- ing the needs of individual customers en masse. mance has slowed to an average of 1.4 per cent One of the factors it nominated as pushing compared to 2.1 per cent in the 1990s. this megatrend was the demand for information management and technologies that help people The Intergenerational Report of 2010 is clear that deal with information overload. For example, the demands on Government expenditure make memory tools are on IBM’s list of the top five it critical for Government to pursue productivity technology trends over the next five years. CSIRO through nation building reforms, investment in describes memory tools as things that help people social and economic infrastructure and policies deal with the overwhelming amount of data to support skills and human capital development. they need to remember. This should mean that Otherwise Australia will not see useful economic librarians’ skills in information seeking and clas- growth. sification will be in demand and equip libraries to present our content and resources in ways and In 2008 Australia’s labour force participation rate with functionalities to help people facing infor- of 76.5 per cent for people of working age was the mation overload. tenth highest in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. This is higher than that in the United States but is lower than that The research environment in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada9 and all Australian governments will be looking to Over the last eight months the Department increase this to boost productivity, reduce spending of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research on benefits and improve social inclusion. has coordinated work around the country to produce the 2011 Strategic Roadmap for Austra- At the National Library we have been asking lian Research Infrastructure. The Government ourselves, if building Australia’s productivity and is interested in research infrastructure because increasing employment participation rates are it determines Australia’s ability to do excellent important national goals, how might libraries research which, in turn, is vital to innovation, play a role? productivity, competitiveness and responding to the challenges of our time.11 The 2011 Roadmap One of the many reports that made for interest- recognises that research is becoming more collab- ing reading last year was CSIRO’s report Our orative and interdisciplinary and that it requires Future World: An analysis of global trends, shocks the development and improved management
8 Above n 3 at 34-35. 9 Ibid 26. 10 CSIRO, Our Future World: An analysis of global trends, shocks and scenarios 6-7. 11 Australian Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, 2011 Strategic Roadmap for Australian Research Infrastructure, September 2011, 4. 246 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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of data to make sure that data is interoperable, Libraries are acutely aware that online reading discoverable and accessible.12 behaviour might best be characterised as power browsing with a preference for simple global The Roadmap identifies the following as research searching rather than what is seen as more time- priorities – an environmentally sustainable Australia; consuming searching provided by libraries. This promoting and maintaining good health; under- is particularly so if the end result of searching standing cultures and communities; safeguarding does not yield the text or image sought. Libraries Australia and developing frontier technologies for must keep designing information systems which building and transforming Australian industries.13 accommodate and satisfy such user behaviour and must continue to expose library sites and content The consultation leading to the development in the more highly visible parts of cyberspace. of the Roadmap identified a number of skills shortages including in informatics as well as a The education context need to raise the general level of information In addition to the opportunities and implica- and communication technology skills amongst tions of the National Curriculum for the school researchers if they are to operate effectively and aged education programs and services offered have the capacity to manipulate and analyse the by the Library, we are interested in the level of ever increasing amounts of data available.14 Are information and digital literacy skills across the these gaps in which libraries have expertise to population. offer? Libraries have worked innovatively and hard on Research supported by Roadmap funding is at building the information seeking skills of adults the elite end of the research spectrum and we – particularly to enable them to navigate the believe that mass digitisation and large scale web digital world. There is evidence from the United capture will be important infrastructure for such Kingdom that young people are ill equipped even research. if confident in these areas. Given that digital and information literacy is needed more than ever, The National Library envisages that the number and at a higher level, if people are to really partici- of independent and community scholars will pate in and benefit from the information society increase as more educated baby boomers enter these are important national capabilities. retirement and either continue to research in their areas of interest or use their leisure years Library collections, resources and content to pursue research for which they have never had time. Mass digitising and large scale web Our supply of content, particularly from publish- harvesting will be resources of interest to these ers of journals and newspapers in the Western researchers too. world, is now predominantly digital. The National
12 Ibid 8. 13 Ibid 15. 14 Ibid 13.
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Library will increasingly preference the digital. It Australia a leading digital economy and to deliver is possible that, given the pricing of such material benefits and savings in productivity, innovation, and the constraint on finances, fewer digital titles health, education and participation. or bundles will be acquired with additional reliance placed instead on national and international In May this year, McKinsey & Company released document delivery services. A re-evaluation of a report titled Internet matters which considered the document delivery service models around the the impact of the internet on growth, jobs and world is also likely over the next decade or so. prosperity. The report concludes that the internet is a critical element of economic progress, pushing Australian publishers estimate that e-books which a significant portion of economic growth and that accounted for about 2% of the trade in 2010 will its influence is expanding. Another finding of the account for far higher proportions of the trade in report was that most of the economic value created years to come thereby reinforcing the primacy of by the internet falls outside the technology sector digital delivery. with companies in more traditional industries capturing 75 per cent of the benefits, including For the National Library another very important job growth.16 So, not only do libraries need to stream of supply is the body of material acquired maintain their focus on reaching new customers for close to a century as archives, manuscripts and serving existing ones better with improved and pictures. This material is also increasingly in access, new products and services; libraries need digital form. to keep promoting broad access to the Internet and to content because Internet usage, quality of There are significant issues for metadata practices, infrastructure and expenditure are correlated with ingest, documentation, accessibility, preservation higher growth in GDP per capita.17 and standards with each of these forms of supply. One of the frustrations of National and State Technology Libraries in Australia with existing thinking about The next decade will see continuing high adoption the National Broadband Network is that the and usage of technology and Government has an investment and attention is on rollout with little expectation that 80 per cent of Australians will policy attention focused on how to get more choose to engage with government online and Australian content online. that this will be an increasingly satisfying and efficient form of engagement.15 The Library also knows that there will be continu- ing pressure to be even more responsive, available By 2020 Australia will have a largely completed and interactive as devices, tools and applications National Broadband Network providing ubiq- enable experiential connections we are only begin- uitous, high speed broadband designed to make ning to see.
15 Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, #au20 National Digital Economy Strategy, 2011, 42. 16 McKinsey Global Institute, Internet matters: The Net’s sweeping impact on growth, jobs, and prosperity, May 2011, 1. 17 Ibid 5. 248 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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Financial Strategic Questions While Australians are in far better shape finan- The National Library’s charter is set out in its cially than people in many other countries, the enabling legislation19 and it charges the Library pronounced downturn in consumer confidence to: is clear. The global financial news will continue to subdue sentiment. Whether this consumer • Collect and safeguard a national collection of caution has any impact on visits to and use of library material and a comprehensive collec- public libraries is not yet clear. tion of publications and other documentary resources relating to Australia and the Austral- Treasury’s financial outlook is cautiously opti- ian people; mistic for two to three years hence.18 However, • Make library material in the national collection it is a tough outlook for the next couple of years available with a view to the most advanta- and that is reflected in budgets for the Australian geous use of that collection in the national Public Service. This is probably also the case in interest; and most States and Territories. Governments are • Lead and collaborate in library matters. looking for savings; for greater accountability; for improved performance through collabora- Collecting and safeguarding tion, innovation, revenue raising and for better In terms of collecting and safeguarding a national internal governance – and it is very unlikely that collection of library material and a comprehensive they will exempt their libraries. collection of publications and other documentary resources relating to Australia and the Australian To best manage in this environment and to people we have been asking ourselves: advocate the case for libraries, we need to build our evidence base to make it easier to prove the • What ought the focus and priority of overseas impact of libraries on our users. collecting be – in terms of disciplines and subject, in terms of the balance of print In moving from the context to some of the and electronic, and in terms of the depth of strategic questions I acknowledge that I have collecting? touched on only some aspects of our context and • What is affordable – not just in terms of that there are many others of significance. For purchasing power but in terms of avail- example, what of the political and legal context; able resources to select, acquire, document, what is going to happen to the higher education preserve and make accessible? sector; what will happen in and to library spaces; • Do we need to talk about ‘connecting’ rather how will environmental concerns change the way than ‘collecting’ for a far greater proportion that we do business and affect whether and how of resources? Australians use libraries? • What are the best systems, processes, software,
18 See, for example, Commonwealth Treasury, Economic Roundup Issue 2, 2011 at
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applications to deal with acquiring, preserving • What ought our role be in education, learning, and making accessible digital material? social inclusion and supporting Australian’s to • How can we best position the Library to participate in the economy? maintain and develop a comprehensive collec- tion about Australia and the Australian people? Lead and cooperate Particularly as Australians publish and create The third function with which the Library is library materials in electronic form at a rate entrusted is to lead and cooperate in library and in quantities we can scarcely comprehend; matters. We ask ourselves: and when legal deposit and other legislation do not keep pace with publishing practice and • Will cooperation in library matters involve a therefore do not assist collection building and radically different set of partners or will our accessibility. work with existing partners evolve? Availability and advantageous use • Do we expect to see competitors in the field – not just in terms of what we do but for In thinking about making the collection available attention, for money etc. for the most advantageous use in the national interest, we have been asking ourselves: Conclusion
• How will users want library material made Just thirty years ago Philip Larkin, the eminent available? Will they want it at all? What will British poet and librarian at the University of advantageous use in the national interest Hull, wrote “On the whole, as I am fond of saying, mean? libraries are feminine: they respond, they do not • How do we animate the ‘national’ in the name initiate”.20 Whatever one might think of Larkin’s of our institution and how will we be doing so characterisation of the sexes, Australian librar- in five years time? ies have to keep proving him wrong. We must • How will our collection reflect and serve initiate, we must shape and we must continue to regional and rural Australia? play a vital role in the democratisation of informa- • How will our collection reflect and serve tion, the creation of knowledge and the wellbeing Australian diversity? of Australians today and in the future.
20 Philip Larkin, Required Writing (1983) 250 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
ALLJ Vol.19 No.4.indd 250 24/11/11 12:57:32 PM Free as in Beer and Free as in Speech: Public Sector Information after 450 Days of Open Government
John Sheridan, Australian Government Information Office
Introduction For clarity, let me briefly explain the differ- ence between Web 1.0 and 2.0. Web 1.0 was Reading is a special pleasure for me. I have always about publishing information – mostly static and loved books. Thousands line our walls, scores fill often in voluminous web sites, pages and pages the bedroom, and there are always a couple piled of information, largely converted directly from on the bedside table. While I have struggled with previous brochures and similar documents. The the wilful suspension of disbelief required to watch result was an online library of information but a play, a book can absorb me in an instant. I’d like devoid of most of the features that distinguish a to say my tastes are eclectic – because it sounds so good library – no indexing by subjects, no ready dignified – but, if the truth be known, I tend to distinction between fact and fiction, lack of survive on a diet of history, politics, science fiction proper referencing – and certainly no librarians. and, especially, the American Civil War. Searchable it was and remains but through the use of text searching and without the benefits of It should come as no surprise then that I’ve also the recognition of authority or reputation. got a soft spot for libraries and librarians. In my first year at high school, I was a member of three Web 2.0 does not necessarily address these short- libraries and used to borrow from each of them comings but it introduces new features – chiefly every Friday. While I still have every book I have collaboration. Through Web 2.0, governments ever bought, for a long time, I couldn’t afford to can become involved in the three characteristics buy a lot and thus, even into my 40s, the local outlined in the Declaration – informing, engaging library was important to me. and participating with people, communities and businesses. In this discussion, I will be concen- So, when offered the chance to speak to a group of trating on the aspects of informing, declared librarians, I was more than willing. I figured that, as “strengthening citizen’s rights of access to even in a small way, I’d be able to pay back some information, establishing a pro-disclosure culture of what has been given to me. In doing so though, across Australian Government agencies including I’m not sure that, on the face of it, my message is through online innovation, and making govern- what you expect to hear – but more of that later. ment information more accessible and usable”. The Declaration of Open Government The Government’s commitment to informing is In July last year, the then Minister for Finance demonstrated by the passage of legislation reform- and Deregulation, Lindsay Tanner, announced ing the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and by the Australian Government’s Declaration of establishing the Office of the Australian Informa- Open Government. The Declaration was an tion Commissioner. As the OAIC is represented outcome of the Government’s response to the at the conference by the FOI Commissioner, report of the Government 2.0 Taskforce that it it would be presumptuous of me to dwell on had established in June 2009. The report, entitled this detail. Rather, I will confine my remarks “Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0”, to the manner in which this informing is being covered a wide range of Web 2.0 matters. supported by the government’s information and Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011. 251
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communication technology infrastructure and the printing and signing. Sometimes there are hand ramifications of this support for us and, perhaps, written annotations. There are usually security for you. classifications. Retention times vary. Document identification schemes vary significantly. All these Free as in Beer factors mean that online access, if provided well, is a serious undertaking. If I learnt one thing in the Army, it was that free beer can result in many things – but chief Once upon a time, access to these documents among them was often a headache afterwards. would have been provided via online documents The expectation that public sector information consisting of scanned images. Most of us can cope will indeed be free as in beer is growing, and with with this. Of course, sometimes the images are it, the possibility of a subsequent headache. This a bit blurry but we can normally work our way shouldn’t be seen as a criticism or complaint. It through them. Not everyone enjoys this ability. is, though, a realisation that this expanded access Yet, the beer has to be free for all. Accessibility is needs to be well planned and carefully executed so therefore an important facet of providing public its enjoyment is not marred by the after effects. sector information. The Australian Government has agreed to adopt the international World Wide Agencies are necessarily required to consider Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility how to present this information online. This Guidelines Version 2.0 through a national transi- is a complicated question because it has many tion strategy reaching the middle level standard parts. Firstly, it consumes resources. While not (known as AA) by 2014. Using these guide- prohibitive, the required resources are also not lines, web content is required to be perceivable, immaterial. Almost all public sector informa- operable, understandable and robust for all users. tion starts its life in a computer friendly form. Progress towards this goal is well underway. The The ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite, in use on AGIMO accessibility team has actually won a 84 per cent of government personal computers, is Vision Australia award for its work in this area. most likely the tool de jour in 2011. But this has not always been nor is it guaranteed to be always AGIMO’s developing practice is to publish our the situation. Even within that suite, the format presentations like this one on our blog. As an used varies between versions. Although these example of accessibility, these guidelines will differences are often not marked, especially in the require us to present it in two formats, to ensure eye of the reader, they generate quite a degree of there are options for impaired readers. Power- discussion among the software aficionados. You Point slides, if used, will need to have alternative might be surprised to learn that of the 1300 odd text provided for each image so visually impaired legitimate comments made on the AGIMO Blog readers can understand them. My staff will some- since May 2009, almost 15 per cent were made on times need to adjust the contrast in the text for one post about this one matter. similar reasons. Once used to these arrange- ments, they are not difficult to maintain but they Despite beginning in such formats, the subse- do consume resources. More significantly, the quent official documents are usually the result of conversion of legacy documents, not prepared 252 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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with these requirements in mind, presents a warrant the accuracy of such information? Is considerable burden to agencies. there a requirement to update such informa- tion regularly, even if the reason for its original Not all public sector information, also referred to production is no longer relevant? Should there as PSI, is about documents though. In its daily be limits as to how it can be used or with what business, government produces a large number other data sets it can be mashed up? Generally, of datasets. Some of these, and their sources, are these risks have been assessed as very low level. well known to all of us. The Australian Bureau While Australia has yet to achieve the numbers of Statistics’ extensive statistical data range is of datasets available on similar sites in the UK or provided free online for all those who are inter- USA, the collection continues to grow. ested. Aside from their obvious value, they are often used for other purposes. For example, my Free as in Speech favourite table 6345-5b, the quarterly Labour Price Index, is often referred to in government The second part of this dynamic duo of data is the contracts as the means of applying annual cost concept of free as in speech. To make government increases for contractors. data free in this way, we need to ensure it can be used by others without licensing restrictions. Not all datasets have this degree of reuse for The Government, through the Attorney General’s government purposes. Take, for example, the Department, has amended the intellectual property National Public Toilet Map. Prepared as part of regulations to ensure that the default license for the National Incontinence Strategy, you might government data and documents is an open license, think that the data that supports the map would be typically the Creative Commons license CC-BY. of little enduring value. Well, flush that idea right While the previous crown copyright regime was out of your mind. The data.gov.au site now has rarely invoked, the new preferred regime ensures over 700 government data sets available for reuse that, with appropriate acknowledgement, those by interested citizens, businesses and communi- wishing to use PSI, for example, quoting from the ties. A range of applications have been developed budget papers, can do so freely and legally. to utilise this data, including two that utilise the toilet data. These applications haven’t been paid This regime applies to websites just as it does to for by government or required particular support documents. Increasingly, government interaction or resources. They’ve been developed by interested is occurring online. Our research shows that the parties. Some may lead to commercial opportuni- preferred channel for interaction with govern- ties, others may not – but that isn’t the point. ment for those who have access to the internet is Having been created for one reason, there is no the internet. Of those without such access, 30 per additional development required to present them cent would prefer to use it if they could. Overall for public consumption and little additional cost satisfaction with online government services is to make them available on the data.gov.au site. also high – 86 per cent reporting satisfaction.
There have been some interesting legal issues Increased use of the online channels does bring to consider. To what extent should government with it some particular issues. Earlier, I mentioned Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011. 253
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the AGIMO Blog. It is one of 35 blogs or websites result, indicating that our audience is generally supported on AGIMO’s govspace platform. This well-behaved and self-moderating. Of course, platform allows agencies to quickly develop and your mileage may vary and, yes, we are aware that deploy a public consultation or collaboration government ICT management isn’t likely to be site. For example, just last week, the Depart- on the busiest shelves of your libraries. ment of Prime Minister and Cabinet deployed a Cyber White Paper blog to encourage public So What? comment on this initiative. Supported by a This brings me to considering what effect this Twitter campaign and a more traditional website, move online might have on your profession and this multi-pronged strategy appears to already be the manner in which you assist your customers attracting interest in what could be a somewhat to access information, either from government or dry topic. from other sources. Maintenance of such a platform is relatively simple but it cannot be ignored. The govspace I mentioned earlier that I have thousands of books platform is receiving over 400,000 visits each on my shelves at home. I don’t have thousands month. Our AGIMO blog as I noted has had on my iPad – yet. But I certainly have quite a some 1300 legitimate comments made on the few. The ability to purchase books cheaply and at 140 odd posts published since its inception. that proverbial drop of a hat is changing business However, there have also been 1400 advertising models and not just for book shops, small or spam comments that we have had to manually large. delete and over 10,000 spam comments blocked automatically by our software. While these may I presented at a conference last week on the use of seem alarming statistics, many of those manually ICT in supporting government service delivery. blocked were made before we implemented a As I have discussed, shortly afterwards, we posted ‘CAPTCHA’ technique. This mechanism ensures the presentation on the blog. A day or so later, a that comments can’t be left by ‘bots’ but must be person with whom we worked on the Govern- entered by humans. ment 2.0 Taskforce posted a comment on that blog. He mentioned a book he thought I might More interestingly though, despite having a find interesting and relevant to the presentation. liberal, post-moderation policy for comments I got around to reading his comment late that and allowing hyperlinks to be entered as part night. My interest was piqued and despite it being of the comment, we have only had to delete 13 quite late, within a few minutes, I had purchased comments. Two of these were political comments a Kindle edition and was reading it on my iPad. made during the caretaker period, nine were The book cost less than $10. In fact, in finding a identical and submitted as part of an ill-directed legitimate copy, I had to scroll past several sites campaign (we showed how many there were but offering pirated copies for free. didn’t post them all), one was libellous and the last was silly and we blocked it to avoid embar- And it’s not just books. For the price of less than rassing its author. We think this is a pretty good two hard copies of my favourite US produced 254 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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current affairs magazine, I purchased an entire further, some of the pins are very sharp and can year’s subscription to read on the ubiquitous actually damage, perhaps, badly, the unsuspect- iPad – I even get notified by email when it is ing searcher. ready to download. I am sure your libraries offer online subscriptions to a whole range of specialist What could an information professional do to journals – but these get delivered to me so easily, assist here? On the demand side, assistance it makes even remote online access to a library with efficacious search methodologies is clearly look inconvenient. required. People may attend an ‘information place’ to seek such assistance but maybe a ‘click So, if books are so cheap online that library access to chat’ mechanism on professional search sites isn’t required, journals are so easy to access that might be useful. Whether that service was live or the limitation on reading them is not cost but queued requests for asynchronous attention is a time, and a wealth of information is available at matter for further exploration. You probably do the touch of a (Google equipped) finger, what some of this already. role is there for the librarian? However, I think there is more to be done on the I am sure this question must worry you from supply side. All government departments produce time to time. While nostalgia might keep some a wealth of information and the obvious trend is of us coming for a while, and, of course, there to produce and publish more. While archivists will always be some for whom a computer is a can tell us how to file and store it, the need to step too far or too difficult, these numbers are open it up has produced a need for advice about surely dwindling. I don’t know if there is a defini- how to present it to those who need it. I don’t tive answer or whether it really is a significant mean in a graphic design sense but in a way that problem for you. But, on the off chance it is, makes it easy to find what is required, arranged allow me to finish by sharing with you how I see logically so it can be understood simply and one potential future evolving. authenticated in a way that allows the user to separate the digital wheat from the chaff. The Librarian as Information Broker Navigating the plethora of information available The librarians of my youth helped me find Robert online is a challenge for many people. So many Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Stonewall Jackson. options with so little to differentiate them means Today, I think government needs assistance to that finding the right answer is no longer a matter ensure people, businesses and communities can of searching for a needle in a haystack but, rather, easily find the information it must or should searching for a single needle in a haystack-sized provide to them. Once again, we need your pile of pins. To torture the analogy somewhat help.
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ALLJ Vol.19 No.4.indd 255 24/11/11 12:57:33 PM Freedom of Information: A Government Perspective Dr James Popple, Freedom of Information Commissioner1
Significant reforms were made to the Freedom of tion technology mean that it is now much easier Information Act 1982 (Cth) from 1 November to share information with vast audiences. Once 2010. The guiding principle behind these reforms in the public domain, public sector information is that information held by the Government is to can be reused and reshaped. Communities of be managed for public purposes and is a national interest can ‘mash up’ public sector information, resource. enriching it with data from other sources, and disseminating it even more widely. The reforms included changes to the FOI Act to make it simpler for people to request access to govern- In recognition of this new environment, the OAIC ment information, and a recasting and narrowing of has released the Principles on open public sector some of the exemptions that government can use information2 to provide a framework for govern- to refuse access to documents. Importantly, the ment information management in Australia. The reforms shift the emphasis from a reactive model of principles set out the central values of open public disclosure of public sector information in response sector information: it should be accessible without to individual requests, to a proactive model of charge, based on open standards, easily discover- publication of public sector information through able, understandable, machine-readable, freely the Information Publication Scheme. reusable and transformable.
A key element of the reforms was the establish- This paper describes recent changes to Australian ment of the Office of the Australian Information FOI laws and charts their progress during the first Commissioner. The OAIC is an independent year of reform. statutory agency, which conducts merits review of FOI decisions made by Commonwealth ministers, The Australian Government’s FOI reform departments and agencies; monitors, investigates agenda and reports on compliance with the FOI Act; and promotes awareness and understanding of the The FOI Act gives individuals the legal right to FOI Act and its objects. access documents held by Australian Government ministers, departments and agencies.3 Enacted in Underpinning these reforms is a broader open Australia nearly 30 years ago, freedom of informa- government agenda, which argues that the free tion legislation, it was envisioned, would usher in flow of information between government, business a new era of open government. Substantial change and the community can stimulate innovation, to occurred – government became much more open the economic and social advantage of the nation. – but on one view the FOI Act fell short of its potential. These reforms offer great potential for increasing public participation in Australia’s democracy. Members of the public using the FOI Act to Rapid advances in information and communica- request government documents encountered
1 The author acknowledges the assistance of Jackie Randles, from the OAIC, in the preparation of this paper. 2
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many practical obstacles, such as difficulty in Senate Finance and Public Administration Legis- framing an FOI access request, the high cost of lation Committee and debate in Parliament, the making a request, delay by government agencies Freedom of Information Amendment (Reform) Act in handling FOI requests and difficulty in chal- 2010 and the Australian Information Commis- lenging access refusal decisions. sioner Act 2010 were passed by Parliament in May 2010. A joint inquiry into the FOI Act by the Australian Law Reform Commission and the Administrative Establishment of the Office of the Review Council in the mid-1990s raised concerns Australian Information Commissioner about the effective operation of the FOI Act. Key The OAIC was established on 1 November 2010 recommendations in the inquiry’s final report to oversee the operation of the FOI Act and the included: Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), and to advance Austra- lian Government information policy. The OAIC • the creation of a statutory FOI Commissioner is an independent body established under the to monitor and improve the administration of Australian Information Commissioner Act 2010,5 the FOI Act and to provide assistance, advice and brings together, for the first time, three func- and education to applicants and agencies tions: about how to use, interpret and administer the Act; • strategic functions relating to information • the revision of the Act’s objects clause to management in the Australian Government; promote a pro-disclosure interpretation of • FOI functions; and the Act; • privacy functions.6 • the rationalisation of exemption provisions to apply only to information that there is a The OAIC is headed by the Australian Informa- public interest in withholding; and tion Commissioner, who is supported by the FOI • measures to ensure FOI charges are not Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner. inconsistent with the objects of the Act, with The former Office of the Privacy Commissioner, access to an applicant’s personal information which was the national privacy regulator, was free of charge.4 integrated into the OAIC.
Proposals for reform of the FOI Act became The OAIC is also responsible for promoting a feature of political discussion in 2007, and open government, issuing guidelines to agencies, formed a key election promise of the incoming providing assistance and training on FOI matters, Australian Government in that year. After a monitoring compliance with privacy and FOI period of public consultation, an inquiry by the legislation through complaint-handling and
4 Australian Law Reform Commission and Administrative Review Council, Open government: A review of the federal Freedom of Information Act 1982, ALRC Report No 77 / ARC Report No 70, 1995. 5 Australian Information Commissioner Act 2010 (Cth), s5. 6 Ibid, ss7, 8 and 9. Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011. 257
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conducting audits, reviewing legislation and (2) The Parliament intends, by these objects, providing advice to government. to promote Australia’s representative democracy by contributing towards the FOI reforms following: (a) increasing public participation in The FOI reforms are intended to create a Government processes, with a view to pro-disclosure culture within government promoting better informed decision and the public service to ensure transparency making; and accountability in Government. Openness and (b) increasing scrutiny, discussion, transparency in Government is underpinned by comment and review of the three key principles: Government’s activities. (3) The Parliament also intends, by these 1. Informing: strengthening citizens’ rights objects, to increase recognition that of access to information, establishing a information held by the Government is to pro-disclosure culture across Australian be managed for public purposes, and is a government agencies including through national resource. online innovation, and making (4) The Parliament also intends that functions government information more accessible and powers given by this Act are to be and usable. performed and exercised, as far as possible, 2. Engaging: collaborating with citizens on to facilitate and promote public access to policy and service delivery to enhance the information, promptly and at the lowest processes of government and improve the reasonable cost. outcomes sought. 3. Participating: making government more Other key changes to the FOI Act relate to: consultative and participative. • the FOI request and review process; The pro-disclosure cultural shift of the amend- • applying the public interest test; ments to the FOI Act is exemplified by its new • contracted service providers; and objects. Section 3 declares: • publication of public sector information (the information publication scheme and disclosure (1) The objects of this Act are to give log). the Australian community access to information held by the Government of FOI request and review process the Commonwealth or the Government Amendments to the FOI Act have made it far of Norfolk Island, by: easier for a person to make an FOI request and to (a) requiring agencies to publish the challenge an adverse agency decision. FOI requests information; and can now be made by e-mail. All application fees, (b) providing for a right of access to including fees for internal review, have been abol- documents. ished. No costs will apply where a person requests 258 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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access to their own personal information. The contracts for services provided to the public are first five hours of decision making time is free for covered. all applicants. All charges are waived if statutory timeframes are not met. This is an important change that ensures that government functions are open to scrutiny, Applying the public interest test whether performed by government agencies or A public interest test has been added to many of by private sector providers under contract. The the FOI exemptions. A decision maker is required OAIC has issued guidance on how agencies can to balance the public interest in access against ensure that they comply with this requirement, any perceived harm that would arise from public including a model clause for agencies to include disclosure.7 in contracts.9
To add rigour to that balancing process, the Publication of public sector information FOI Act specifies public interest factors that must Publication of government information carries be considered (such as promoting the objects of economic and social benefits and can stimulate the Act) and factors that are irrelevant and cannot innovation and economic prosperity. It can also be considered (such as the high seniority of the author of a document, or that giving access to the enhance participatory democracy by assisting the document could result in embarrassment to the public to better understand how government Government).8 makes decisions and administers programs. An informed community can participate more effec- Contracted service providers tively in government processes, and contribute to better policy and decisions. Transparency in Under the FOI reforms, anyone can now request government can also lessen the risk that people access to documents held by contracted service will be disadvantaged in dealings with government providers who are delivering services to the through lack of knowledge or a misunderstanding public on behalf of an agency. Agencies must take measures in contracts they enter after 1 November of government processes. 2010 to ensure that, if an FOI request is made, the agency can obtain documents that relate to The Information Publication Scheme (IPS) the performance of the contract. began on 1 May 2011, and requires government agencies to publish a broad range of documents This requirement does not apply to contracts for on their websites. Under the IPS, all Australian services provided for the agency’s own internal Government agencies subject to the FOI Act are use, such as contracts to provide in-house IT required to publish a broad range of information services or to recruit departmental staff. However on their websites. Specifically, agencies must:
7 FOI Act, s11A(5). 8 FOI Act, ss11B(3), (4). 9 Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, Documents held by government contractors – Agency obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, October 2010. Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011. 259
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• publish an agency plan (ss8(1) and 8(2)(a)) indicated they have difficulty publishing docu- • publish specified categories of information ments in a range of accessible formats. Agencies (s8(2)) will need to integrate their communications, web • consider proactively publishing other govern- publishing and IT operations with their FOI ment information (s8(4)).10 operations in order to respond cohesively and effectively to the new publication requirements. The purpose of the scheme is to allow the FOI Act to evolve as a legislative framework FOI teams need to coordinate effectively with for giving access to information through agency- other agency staff to ensure effective information driven disclosure rather than as a scheme that is management. For example, FOI teams need to primarily reactive to requests for documents. The understand their agency’s processes for making FOI Act can, of course, still be used by individu- documents available, and accessible, on the web als to request access to documents that have not and ensure that system administrators are given already been released through other channels, or sufficient time to do so. On the other hand, IT published under the IPS. At the same time there is teams need to be aware of the statutory time- scope for Government and each agency to publish frames for publication and ensure that the web a broader section of ‘public sector information’ management systems can accommodate them. voluntarily. Some agencies have raised concerns that some Documents published by agencies on their web of the information that they publish is at risk of sites must meet the Web Content Accessibility being misinterpreted, or used to draw dubious Guidelines 2.0, which is the first stage of the or incorrect conclusions. Agencies can mitigate Web Accessibility National Transition Strategy, this risk by publishing information in context: by administered by AGIMO.11 WCAG 2.0 identi- making raw data available together with a clear fies techniques to create and manage web content explanation and summary. Importantly, agencies in ways that are more accessible to people with should see themselves as the custodians of this disabilities: for example, through assistive tech- information – a national resource – rather than nologies like screen readers. It also recognises the owners of the information. that more accessible websites are generally more user-friendly. The Australian Information Commissioner has issued Guidelines under s93A to which regard Accessibility has emerged as a concern due mainly must be had for the purposes of performing to the historic nature of the documents that will a function, or exercising a power, under the need to be published, and the current heavy FOI Act. Part 13 of those Guidelines is intended reliance on manual FOI document processing or to assist agencies to meet their obligations under the use of scanned PDF files. Some agencies have the IPS.12 In monitoring compliance with the
10 The IPS requirements are set out in Part II of the FOI Act. 11 See
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IPS provisions, the OAIC will take a pragmatic log. In addition, the disclosure log raises issues approach, in light of resourcing and other agency about the security of publishing redacted docu- constraints. However, agencies will need to show ments: documents that have been edited before a genuine commitment to meeting their obliga- being provided to FOI applicants.14 tions, consistent with accessibility requirements, within specified timeframes. The OAIC’s FOI functions
Disclosure log The OAIC’s role in overseeing the FOI Act includes reviewing ministers’ and agencies’ FOI As of 1 May 2011, agencies and ministers are decisions, and investigating complaints about required by s11C of the FOI Act to publish agencies’ activities. The Information Commis- on a website, to the public generally, infor- sioner review system provides simple, practical mation that has been released in response to and inexpensive external merits review. IC review each FOI access request, subject to some excep- decisions are published on the OAIC web site.15 tions. This publication is known as a ‘disclosure Over time, these decisions will form a useful set log’.13 The requirement to publish a disclosure of precedents to guide FOI decision making. log complements the establishment of the IPS. The OAIC also has powers to conduct investiga- Together, these reforms require agencies (and, for tions and inspect agency documents. As well as the disclosure log, ministers) to publish a greater monitoring compliance with the FOI Act, the range of government information. OAIC conducts training, publishes guidelines, and advises the government on FOI reform.16 In time, disclosure log publication should reduce the resources required by agencies to deal with Information Commissioner Reviews multiple requests for access to the same docu- ments. It will also improve access to government In the period 1 November 2010 to 30 June resources that are of interest to the community. 2011, the Information Commissioner received 176 applications for IC Review raising 210 Not all information that is given to an applicant review issues. All but three of the applications is required to be published in a disclosure log. For sought review of access refusal decisions; those example, if a person is given access to their own three applications were for review of access grant personal records, this information should not be decisions. published. Twenty-nine of the applications were finalised As with the IPS, issues relating to web publication by 30 June 2011. Four of these were concluded and accessibility arise in relation to the disclosure through a published decision of the FOI
13 See Guidelines, part 14. 14 Under s22 of the FOI Act, if a minister or agency decides to refuse to give an FOI applicant access to an exempt document, they must give the applicant access to an edited copy of that document, modified by deletions, if it is practicable to create an edited copy that is not also exempt. 15
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Commissioner, affirming the agency decision in 39 of these. No own motion FOI investigations two cases and setting aside the agency decision were commenced in 2010–11. and making a substituted decision in the other two. The most frequently raised issue in FOI complaints was processing delay (38 complaints). Eighteen IC review requests were identified as Many complaints about timeliness overlapped invalid; consideration was given to whether these with issues about communication. Complaints could be usefully responded to as a complaint could be avoided if agencies maintained open or enquiry, or assistance provided to the appli- and regular communication with FOI appli- cant to make a valid review application. The cants, assisting them to focus the scope of their most common reason affecting validity was that FOI request so that they can be completed in a the original FOI request was made prior to timely manner. Applicants are more willing to 1 November 2010. agree to extend processing times, or accept that extra time is necessary, if they understand the In some other cases, applicants had sought review difficulties that agencies face in processing the before there was a reviewable decision, such as requests and are kept informed about the progress a decision on the imposition of a charge. The of their requests. The OAIC has been working remainder of review applications finalised were to encourage better communication between either resolved by agreement, withdrawn, or FOI applicants and agencies about processing of closed at the discretion of the Commissioner. requests, both when complaints arise and through its day-to-day engagement with agencies in the Many IC reviews can be resolved through agree- processing of extension of time requests ment between the parties rather than through a formal decision by the Commissioner. The For those issues investigated, most were able OAIC has encouraged resolution by agreement to be resolved with the agency and finalised as between the parties. This is particularly useful adequately dealt with. Four complaints (which where the decision for which IC review is sought raised six issues) were finalised under s 86 and is a deemed decision or turned on the exercise the agencies were notified of the investigation of discretion to impose a charge. Many disputes outcomes. can arise from a misunderstanding between the parties, including about issues underlying the Principles on open public sector FOI request, and the IC review process can be a information catalyst for opening communication and resolv- The Australian Government faces many chal- ing the dispute. lenges in developing a coherent and effective Complaints to the Information information policy. These include: Commissioner • ensuring a coordinated approach to govern- In the eight months from 1 November 2011, the ment information management, given the OAIC received 88 FOI complaints and finalised variety of reforms, initiatives and proposals 262 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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currently at play in the federal public sector; national resource. If there is no legal • ensuring smooth interaction between key need to protect the information it should information policy agencies and committees; be open to public access. Information • keeping pace with international developments publication enhances public access. and innovations; and Agencies should use information • bringing agencies along with new information technology to disseminate public sector policy developments, and making sure they information, applying a presumption are well equipped to implement change. of openness and adopting a proactive publication stance. To assist agencies to navigate these issues, and 2. Engaging the community to facilitate a free flow of information between Australian Government policy requires government, business and the community, agencies to engage the community online the OAIC developed eight Principles on open in policy design and service delivery. public sector information.17 The OAIC will apply This should apply to agency information these principles when monitoring compliance publication practices. by Australian Government agencies with the 3. Effective information governance publication requirements of the FOI Act. The Australian Government agencies should principles are not otherwise binding on agencies, manage information as a core strategic and operate alongside legal requirements about asset. A senior executive ‘information information management that are spelt out in the champion’ or knowledge officer in FOI Act, the Privacy Act, the Archives Act 1983, the agency should be responsible and other legislation and the general law. for information management and governance. The OAIC developed the principles through a 4. Robust information asset management process of public consultation. They draw on Effective information management considerable work in Australia and overseas that requires agencies to take a range of defines standards and principles to shape govern- steps, including maintaining an asset ment information management practices.18 In inventory or register of the agency’s summary, the principles are: information, identifying the custodian of each information holding and the 1. Open access to information – a default responsibilities of that officer, training position staff in information management, Information held by Australian protecting information against Government agencies is a valuable inappropriate or unauthorised use, access
17 Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, Principles on open public sector information: Report on review and development of principles (2011). 18 That work, undertaken by government agencies, public inquiries and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, is discussed in an OAIC issues paper, Towards an Australian Government Information Policy (2010), and report, Principles on open public sector information: Report on review and development of principles (2011). Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011. 263
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or disclosure, and preserving information can be supported, within the agency’s for an appropriate period of time based information governance framework, by on sound archival practices. an enquiry and complaints procedure for 5. Discoverable and useable information the public to raise issues about agency The economic and social value of public publication and access decisions. The sector information can be enhanced by procedure should be published, explain how publication and information sharing. This enquiries and complaints will be handled, set requires that information can easily be timeframes for responding, identify possible discovered and used by the community remedies and complaint outcomes, and and other stakeholders. require that written reasons be provided in 6. Clear reuse rights The economic and social value of public complaint resolution. sector information is enhanced when it is made available for reuse on open licensing Conclusion terms. The default condition should be Australia’s FOI reforms have already begun to the Creative Commons BY standard. cause cultural change in Australian Government 7. Appropriate charging for access agencies. Most agencies have made good progress Agencies can reduce the cost of public in publishing and sharing information. Strong access by publishing information online, internal leadership on information management is especially information that is routinely vital for agencies to respond strategically to these sought by the public. Charges that may be imposed by an agency for providing reforms and, in several agencies, senior executives access should be clearly explained in are leading the pro-disclosure cultural change. an agency policy that is published and regularly reviewed. Government information is a national resource. 8. Transparent enquiry and complaints These reforms offer great potential to ensure that processes that information can be accessed, built upon and Agency decision making about information disseminated widely, to increase public participa- publication should be transparent. This tion in Australia’s democracy.
264 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
ALLJ Vol.19 No.4.indd 264 24/11/11 12:57:36 PM Leading the Way to Learning and Content – An Online Law Tutorial Julie Cartwright, Charles Darwin University
Introduction Background
Being a student in 2011 doesn’t mean physical Charles Darwin University (CDU) is a regional attendance at a local educational institution, university providing Higher Education, VET, or a being a certain age group or fitting a and Trades courses throughout the Northern certain demographic. In these days of fleximode,1 Territory, nationally and overseas. In 2010 distance learning, online learning and flexible external students at CDU accounted for 62% of delivery, students can study from anywhere at any HE enrolment.2 time, be any age and come from any sector of the population. A large majority of CDU students are under- taking some kind of online course using the For the student, and particularly a law student Learning Management System Blackboard, embarking on a degree externally (that is, they known as Learnline. All law units are offered via are not physically present at the University, this method. may be anywhere in the world and rely on the internet and emails for their learning materials), Of the 759 students enrolled in law units in 2010, there are barriers to accessing information that 83.9% or 637 of these students were studying are probably not encountered by an internal externally. The changing mode of educational student. Inherent in this is the varying demo- delivery across the university merited a fresh graphic and disparity in technological skills look at how external law students were served by and online expertise. The external law student, library law resources. aside from having to understand how to use and locate law databases and learn research concepts, Probably one of the most difficult tasks for also needs to navigate the labyrinth of Univer- external students studying online is discovering sity web pages in order to enrol, get timetables, the right sources with which to begin the core activate an account, and understand how to components of their law studies. With this in negotiate the Learning Management System, all mind the Law Liaison Librarian, in collabo- of which needs to be done prior to any learning ration with law lecturers and web designers, taking place. scoped out what first year students needed to know about law research. For example, where The LawOnline tutorial was designed specifi- to go to find sources and how to use those cally for first year law undergraduates at Charles sources successfully once they were located. The Darwin University to introduce them to and LawOnline tutorial provides access to all the identify the law databases they will need to access law research databases available on the CDU throughout their studies and also to learn how to website together with instructional exercises and use them productively. example videos.
1 Charles Darwin University, Self Assessment Portfolio (2011). 2 Ibid. Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011. 265
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The tutorial enables students to become familiar look was created using a graphics package to scope with CDU’s suite of online law databases. out colours, tabs and design and how students Students are shown how to construct a search, would navigate. This was then given to the web which databases to use to locate case law, legis- designer who created the web pages, and added lation, secondary sources and commentary and content and interactive features. Many hours were where to go to locate encyclopaedias and legal spent deciding on colours, font, navigation aids, dictionaries. Built in to each live search are legal and of course content. Content was provided by scenarios with suggestions on keywords, how to the librarian and final proof reading was done in search a citation and how to interpret the results. collaboration with the web designer. LawOnline was used as a primary information seeking tool throughout the Introduction to Legal The project from the very beginning was Studies unit with the lecturer directing students supported by a law lecturer who provided good to certain parts of the tutorial to undertake certain information on gaps in first year students’ knowl- types of research; for example citation searching edge. It was decided that the tutorial would be or finding legislation. embedded in the Introduction to Legal Studies unit. This would enable students to become The brief was to keep it simple, easy to navigate familiar with the tutorial during semesters 2 and 3 and to be used (embedded) throughout the Intro- of 2010. duction to Law Unit LWZ100A. The use of LawOnline has changed over time and Collaboration lecturers change. The lecturer using the tutorial Collaboration was a key factor in getting LawOn- for his Introduction to Legal Studies unit in line up and operational. In any project of this type semester 2, 2011 describes how it is being used, it is just as important to identify those who can “the first three assessments are based upon the support the project as it is to see it completed tutorial, and thus the students directly have 18% assessment on the LawOnline content”. He also A graphic representation of how LawOnline may goes on to say “So, law online is an incredibly
266 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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important component of the Introduction to • Home Law units”3. • Research • Legislation Keeping it simple • Case Law • Secondary Sources Simplicity and Web design principles • Referencing and Plagiarism The website uses minimal text, chunking of areas, plenty of white space, standard colours Learning styles and two font styles with large subject area tabs Learning styles is a concept that attempts to at the top of the page.4 The navigation design categorise learners into specific learner types, for allows students to follow a 3 way directional example, visual, aural, read/write and kinaesthetic/ path through the website. In simple terms tactile. Providing the learner with learning materi- students are invited to Read, (introductory text) als for their specific learner type may enhance their 5 Watch (Camtasia video) and Try it yourself potential to understand what is being taught.7 (live database). On each page the student will see some explanatory text, some instructional The design attempts to incorporate differences videos and is then able to choose to do a live in learning styles, for example a visual learner search in a database which also includes some may gain more from watching a video than from scenarios and what search strategies to use. The reading the text. Aural learners may benefit from design is flexible and student driven and does the audio incorporated into the video tutorial. not restrict in which order the student uses the The read/write learners may only wish to read the introduction and try the live database search. page; they may choose to go straight to the live Tactile learners will most certainly decide that the database search bypassing the other features on live search is for them. Using a combination of the webpage. interactive activities the site can cater for multi- modal learners or learners who use a combination The main page tabs are divided into subject areas of different learning styles.8 which law students should already know or will need to become familiar with fairly quickly. Each Who and why page is arranged in the same way using the same icons, font and colours, allowing for a sense of Audience consistency for the user.6 The tabs are named The primary audience that prompted the devel- according to law research areas: opment of the LawOnline tutorial were first
3 Email from Darryl Saunders (Law Academic) to Julie Cartwright, 21 September 2011. 4 Patrick J Lynch and Sarah Horton, Web Style Guide (Yale University Press, 3rd ed, 2008). 5 Screen Recording and Video Editing Software at
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year law students. However Higher Education Student perceptions and feedback business students are also required to take on The answers to three questions provided good several law units as part of their business degree. information about whether students found LawOn- The nature of law research can be confusing for line easy to navigate, whether the content level was non-law students so the site was designed with appropriate and whether they would use it again for these students in mind also. The tutorial provides future research. From 38 responses, 60.5% found simple navigation and instruction and all students the navigation to be “easy” and 31.5% found it to using the site have the same level of access to all be “somewhat easy”. On the question of content the databases used. level 34.2% found the content to be “easy”, 52.6% found the content to be “somewhat easy” and Learning outcomes 10.5% found the content to be “Not easy”. On the The primary learning outcome was introducing question of future use, pleasingly 94.7% students law resources together with building informa- said they would use the tutorial again. tion seeking skills and behaviours. Grafstein in McLaurin Smith advocates that “information Students were also asked a series of questions skills teaching should be contextualised within the designed to provide qualitative data. Responses structures and modes of thought of a particular to the question; “What did you like about the discipline”.9 Placing the tutorial in a law context site?” were divided into responses about content has the advantage of teaching general information and usability. seeking skills to law students in a meaningful way There were 46.1% responses about content and by using specific law resources. included comments such as; Measuring learning outcomes against student “liked the demonstration of relevant DB’s” , learning was done by gathering information “Video tutes (no better way of demonstrating during the course of two semesters in which searching)” LawOnline was introduced to students. Informa- “Clear and precise” tion on student perceptions and understanding “Descriptions of types of resources” of the content was gathered using the Feedback “Explained research well” form which sits on the home page of the tutorial. Students gained marks for filling out the form 53.8% of responses were about usability; and providing feedback and comments on their experience using LawOnline. The first phase of “Divided into clear subject areas” feedback conducted over second semester 2010, “Interactive” investigated student perceptions of navigation “Tabs/navigation clear” and content and what difficulties they may have “Simple step by step” encountered. “Clear layout”
9 Nicki McLaurin Smith and Prue Presser, ‘Embed with the faculty: legal information skills online’ (2005) 31(3) Journal of Academic Librarianship 248. 268 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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These results are encouraging and suggest that suggests most students had little difficulty discov- the balance between navigation, usability and ering the tutorial. The students who were unable content are at a satisfactory level for first year law to find it easily may have misinterpreted instruc- students. tions. Also, tellingly, the first comment suggests that it may be students new to navigation around Responses to the question “What didn’t you the CDU website who had the most difficulty like about the site?” were grouped into responses finding the site. Improvements can be made to about discoverability, technical issues and result the overall discoverability of the site both from interpretation. Library web pages and from online units.
19.2% of the responses were about problems with The technical issues were primarily the down- discoverability, loading of the Camtasia videos. The videos were created in a .mov file format which is often not “Not obviously available/accessible to new accessible without a Quicktime player. A link to a students”, download page of Quicktime or VLC (VideoLan)10 “ Hard to find on website”, would remedy the situation for students having “More links on library home page for intro difficulties. CDU Library has also recently set up students”, a YouTube account and it is planned to upload “Got lost” all the LawOnline videos to this account to allow easier access to the Camtasia videos. 11.5% of comments were about techni- cal problems and related to downloading the It is not surprising that the majority of difficulties Camtasia videos and broken video links? students faced were based around result interpre- tation. Legal databases are notorious for often The most problematic were the difficulties with returning confusing results for those not experi- result interpretation. enced in using them. Although the scenarios and 30.76% of students reported problems with search suggestions provided to guide students understanding the results they retrieved. were quite specific, databases and results change over time as new resources are added. As always “Bulky results how to narrow results”, practice and experience are part of the learning “Too much info at once”, equation, and students also need to understand “Overwhelming so many resources” their role in that respect. However, result inter- “To narrow search is time consuming get irrel- pretation and evaluation is a fundamental concept evant results”. for students to learn quite early on during their studies. LawOnline as it stands is primarily an 19.2% of students had difficulty discovering the introduction to law research. To address the site. This figure is a relatively low number which interpretation aspect of students learning it is
10 VideoLAN Organisation, open source multimedia project at
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probable that LawOnline could be extended in some exposure to the resources that are critical to the future to incorporate more activities relating their studies. LawOnline has attempted to provide to in depth evaluation and interpretation of law a pathway to core information for law students materials. and particularly the external law student.
The second phase of measuring students’ learning Considering there were no grants or funds was undertaken in semester 3 (summer) in 2010. provided for the initiative, with staff who worked A ten question quiz was provided for students to on the tutorial giving up their valuable time to complete, again garnering them extra marks on enable this tutorial to be built, it is very clear that completion. The questions were gathered from all without the assistance and support from collabo- subject areas of the tutorial and were designed to rators LawOnline would quite possibly not exist. assess how deeply the students used the activities and materials. Measures that were taken to assess students perceptions and experience with LawOnline, Of the 15 students who completed the form 33% serve to inform stakeholders what was success- gained full marks, 26% gained 8/9 marks and ful and what could be improved. Feedback also 6.6% did poorly (below 5).11 identified areas where content could be improved upon and developed further. These figures would suggest a good level of in depth understanding by students using the As a process of development LawOnline needs to tutorial. Hopefully having access to the tutorial be constantly updated as platforms and teaching has provided external law students a head start emphases change. In the not too distant future in locating and understanding the different data- Thompson’s Legal Online platform will be bases provided at CDU for law research. changing to WestlawAU, devolving much of the Westlaw Australia content onto the new platform. The feedback plays a critical role in the future New law resources are always being purchased by development of the tutorial. As with all websites the library, so it is crucial for LawOnline to be ongoing maintenance is needed such as fixing kept current. links, updating sources and making sure the explanations and instructions are up to date and The process of developing a resource like LawOn- correspond with database results. The feedback line has and will continue to create, challenges for also highlights areas that could be improved and the stakeholders involved; the librarian, the web expanded in the future. designer and the law lecturer. A process of contin- ual innovation must be applied to the resource to Conclusion allow students and lecturers to come to value the It is pleasing to see how embedding LawOnline resource’s quality, currency and relevance to law at unit level has allowed all first year law students studies and research.
11 About 30 forms were returned for this exercise; however many were incomplete and therefore unusable. 270 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
ALLJ Vol.19 No.4.indd 270 24/11/11 12:57:39 PM A Century of Information and the Challenge to Maintain Relevance By Daemoni Bishop, Director of Research Solutions, LexisNexis Australia
100 years of legal publishing Heavily influenced by UK practices, 19th and 20th century lawyers were avid users of printing and This year marks LexisNexis Butterworths’ cente- publishing communication technologies. Butter- nary in Australia and provides an opportunity to worths published books in Australia covering reflect on a long history of legal publishing and all major and emerging areas of law, ensuring librarianship while also looking to the future, and lawyers across the country were as up-to-date as the continued evolution of the librarian’s world. possible. Early examples were the annual volumes of New South Wales Statutes, Rules and Regula- While the underlying business model of the legal tions, published independently from 1917 until firm has not fundamentally changed over the last the Government produced an official series. As 100 years, how lawyers work and communicate the volume of legal material grew, editors were with clients; the practice of law; and the role required to decide which cases they deemed most of the librarian within that framework unques- important and of lasting value, using innovative tionably have. True to traditional values, the tools such as legal digests and citators. economic successes of firms remain dependent on sound business practices. Today’s increas- Butterworths forged a reputation of standing ingly sophisticated legal landscape is bringing at the forefront of developing new methods of with it several challenges – better educated disseminating information, matching the devel- clients wielding greater power and awareness than opment of Australian law with the latest available ever before, progressively specialised lawyers and technologies to publish it. For example, in 1937 the consistent requirement to minimise costs. Butterworths began publishing the New South Despite these challenges, lawyers will continue Wales and South Australian state statute reprints to be required to provide quality advice based in loose-leaf form. This was, at the time, a first on current, relevant research provided by their within the British Commonwealth and a precur- libraries. The role of the librarian continues as sor to the widespread acceptance of the loose-leaf paramount. as the format of choice in the 1970s. Looking back to look forward Through the publishing of locally created text- Australia was a very different place 100 years ago. books, periodicals and major works like the first King George was in his first year as the reigning edition of the Australian Encyclopaedia of Forms monarch, the Australian Capital Territory had and Precedents, published in 1955, the point of just been created through the Seat of Government reference for local lawyers began to move away (Administration) Act and the city of Palmerston from the UK as Australian precedents developed. in the Northern Territory was in the process of This was a watershed moment in the history of being renamed in honour of the scientist, Charles Australian law and Australian legal publishing, Darwin. In the midst of these events that would fully establishing the legal publishing process in shape our history, Butterworths, the company the country and beginning to rival other jurisdic- that would later become LexisNexis, opened its tions for both the quality and volume of available first office in Sydney, with just four employees. legal materials. Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011. 271
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During this period law firms were significantly Technological developments continued to drive smaller and legal materials were typically scat- the way in which legal information was consumed tered around an office building, within corridors, in the 1970s. Meeting the demand for materials cupboards and personal offices of partners. Prac- to be published quickly, cheaply and accurately, titioners had their own copies of materials, which computerised technology was introduced with the they used on a regular basis. Collections that were launch of Australia’s first online legal information shared were often maintained by secretaries or retrieval service, Lexis, in 1973. This would fore- other staff members rather than qualified profes- shadow the wave of e-publishing to come. sional law librarians. The private law firm library was virtually unknown. In 1991, Butterworths published the seminal Halsbury’s Laws of Australia, a loose-leaf series in 30 Legal librarianship was still in its early stages within volumes with over 90 subjects that became Austra- Australian society but as the volume of localisa- lia’s first legal encyclopaedia. It was also available tion grew with the increasing size and complexity on CD-ROM. Later in the nineties, the company of Australian society, the globalisation of the moved online and spent more than four years economy and international partnerships, there was converting all of its loose-leaf products for the an increased importance placed on legal material internet. LexisNexis AU, launched in 2004, allied management, and expertise in locating information. search functionality with a vast database of texts. In 1969, the Australian Law Librarians’ Group (ALLG), now known as the Australian Law Librar- Over the years the number of Australian Law ians’ Association, was established. Initially formed Reports increased with the growing number of by six librarians in New South Wales, their first courts and jurisdictions. The growth in the number meeting in December was attended by 24 librar- of law schools saw an increase in the amount of ians, only one of which claimed to work within a text books and academic journals. Specialised text law firm, reflecting how small the profession was books and loose-leafs were published in response at this time. It was not until a decade or more later to increased specialisation within the profession. when larger law firms appointed librarians. All of these materials led to the dramatic growth in size of a legal library. Recognising the need for The renewed focus on the promotion of local qualified legal librarians and systemised manage- authors reduced the reliance on imported mate- ment, the ALLG played an instrumental role in rials. Indeed, in 1973, Butterworths’ launch of the growth of the profession. Upon formation the Australian Law Reports was commended for of the Group, their most immediate task was the its unrivalled speed of reporting and coverage of compilation of a list of legal subject headings, federal courts. During this period the law was as the Library of Congress subject headings did changing so quickly that new editions of conven- not adequately meet the needs of a law library. tionally bound books were unable to cope with Since then the ALLG have brought awareness growth in legal material. LexisNexis Butterworths to the profession through various activities, the responded to this issue by pioneering loose-leaf exploration of professional development such as services in major areas of law, enabling lawyers to the establishment of legal librarianship courses, keep pace with change. national conferences, seminars and the esteemed 272 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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journal, the Australian Law Librarian. There is these vitally necessary, and therefore inevita- an increased standing and awareness of the role ble, developments, but this can await the time among librarians generally and within the legal of arrival of the ‘legal industrial revolution’.1 profession. It is publishing and librarianship that has been at Technology and publishing the forefront of these changes. From hard copy to loose-leaf, from CD-ROM to online databases, Over the course of the past century, it has become the legal publishing industry has been quick obvious that technological change and publishing to provide users with the most advanced ways to are inextricably linked. Even during tumultu- access information and it is the legal librarian ous times, such as those occurring at the time who has interpreted and educated clients on the of the observation below on the future of legal research from 1946, technology’s importance evolution. Whereas the number of textbooks to the legal profession was evident. During this available as recently as the 1980s numbered era, lawyers spent substantial time researching, around 250, today the available resources number finding relevant case law and preparing court in the thousands, spanning collective knowledge materials rather than applying judgement and across the globe. giving advice to clients. The library’s back office procedures have followed The lawyer will be freed to do his distinctively similar technological development. The move legal tasks. from manual to electronic cataloguing materi- als, accessioning materials, searching, and loans Thus freed from the insuperable burden of systems has meant the ability to access materials plodding from library to library, refresh- by computer and the ability to broaden the scope ing his recollection upon index systems of of what is available to a global level. In time, various books, pulling them out and plough- taxonomies will be refined to the extent that ing through them, and then making laborious people will be able to find exactly what they want, notes in longhand, the lawyer can devote almost instantaneously. his time and mind to the social, political, and economic aspects of law and justice. No In the past, reference tools for legal information longer will the true value of his wisdom be had been organised by editors and publishers lost to society. No longer will courts hand rather than lawyers and librarians. Available down unintentionally conflicting decisions. technology has made it easier for users to access No longer need lawyers give erroneous advice sources through full-text online electronic data- to clients and cause loss to them. No longer bases that lawyers can use themselves, rather than will legislators unwittingly confuse the law. depend on intermediaries such as law librarians. However, the advent of the internet has seen a Were the time available, it would be interest- vast range of legal materials become available. ing to speculate upon the economic effects of Lawyers must be discerning to use authoritative
1 Louis O Kelso, ‘Does the Law Need a Technological Revolution’ in (1945-1946) 18 Rocky Mntn L Rev 388. Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011. 273
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information – their reputation depends on it – Increasingly, librarians also have to be aware meaning a redefinition in the role of the legal of the impact of mobile technologies and the librarian. need for lawyers and students to have access to research and legal information wherever As the diversity of devices and formats grow, they are. On-demand access to statute and librarians have needed to be familiar with the case law through apps on smart-phones and features of each interface as well as the limita- tablets is bringing the librarian’s role closer and tions each provides. Collections are now managed closer to the courthouse – many lawyers have in both electronic and print formats meaning taken these devices into court for use where librarians have had to develop a broad mixture of appropriate. skills encompassing legal understanding, research and information technology to help clients find The two following examples underline why such relevant information quickly and easily. technologies are growing in popularity and use:
The legal librarian 2.0 I used the iPad yesterday in court and also last night; I found it worked well with Practical The duties of legal librarians have been heavily Guidance (a new LexisNexis web solution). I influenced by new technologies and, recently in was able to quickly locate the relevant cases, particular, the advent of social media. Outlets like the detail of which I otherwise would have Twitter, blogs, Wikipedia, Linked-In and even forgotten. I also found I could cut and paste Facebook are the next iteration in the progress of citations and parts of a couple of judgments legal publishing. Now more than ever, librarians out and email them to myself and for refer- have to be current awareness experts, particularly ence during submissions …”2 in competitive areas of law. Their customers need to be sure that they are using up-to-date materials … and receive timely information. Using the iPad with court WiFi in Queensland In the current internet age, use of the web for courtrooms makes life dramatically easier in research isn’t a corollary to the library, but is the court and offers liberation from the heavy first port of call for a majority of lawyers. Graduates briefcase holding the “just-in-case” materials. are technically savvy, having been brought up and iPads are already being used in court to make been trained with higher expectations of the speed searches to respond to judicial queries about and breadth of online capabilities. Social media cases and legislation …”3 like Twitter and Wikipedia aren’t just impacting upon the legal routine, but are increasingly being Further still, social media is an opportunity for actively included in day-to-day research due to the librarians – not only to be first with important instantaneous nature of updates and the depth of news and changes in law, but also to actively crowd-sourced collective knowledge. communicate and share best practices with their
2 Tom Reeve – Partner (Family Law Practice Group), Marsdens Law Group (Sydney). 3 Kate Greenwood – Barrister at Law (Queensland). 274 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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peers from around the world. The opportunity to The impact of information overload engage across traditional boundaries like physical Law librarians deal with information every minute borders, firms and even languages brings oppor- of the working day. The ability to translate what tunities to improve standards across the library lawyers and students are looking for, to bring industry. them the most relevant returns, is a well-known and essential part of the job. But current aware- Current Awareness v Reliability ness is both time consuming and costly, especially While the ability to stay up-to-date is held in when the amount of information available is being high regard in law libraries, higher value must be multiplied exponentially on an hourly basis. placed on ensuring the reliability of the informa- tion that is provided to lawyers and students. Information overload is a concern for many law librarians. RSS feeds are a useful tool, but for a Potentially the most pressing concern for law user, require significant management time if they libraries about the adoption of social media is subscribe to 1,000 sources, for example. Twitter the quality of the information they produce. can take a real-time snapshot of an issue and Twitter is a useful tool to monitor breaking news allows for news and trends to be instantly viewed, in a particular subject area or for a particular but following too many users makes it unwieldy. company, but the reliability of the information Wikis are intuitive and easy to add content to, but if many people are adding content you that is returned from searches has to be scrupu- could quickly be overwhelmed by the number of lously checked. The danger is that speculation, updates. rumours and hearsay are often presented as fact, and the reliable and the bogus sit side- A LexisNexis survey in 20104 found that 80 per by-side. This concern can be applied to many cent of legal professionals in Australia said that of the free tools available, including Google the amount of information they had to deal with Alerts and Google Blog Search, Wikipedia and on a day-to-day basis had increased significantly. many more. This issue will remain as long as However, on average, only half of the informa- information is being created on a collaborative, tion that they dealt with every day at work was crowd-sourced basis – which is to say it will always actually important to them getting their job done, be there. and 73 per cent admitted the quality of their work suffered because they can’t sort through the The impact of freely available legal content adds information they need fast enough. These figures another dimension to the role of librarians. They are indicative of the pressure that the deluge of must ascertain whether or not the free content is information is placing on librarians – the people factual, up-to-date and comprehensive and then at the front line of the problem. be able to quickly and clearly communicate to their users what information, free or otherwise, is Former Chief Justice of the NSW Supreme the latest, most useful and most easily accessible. Court, the Honourable James Spigelman AC:
4 LexisNexis International Workplace Productivity Survey 2010. Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011. 275
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The greatest change in legal practice in my “a continuous flow of information”. His concern time has been the accessibility of online legal was the legal mind’s ability to pick through the information. Basically the law is an informa- multitudinous areas of information, with the tion retrieval service. That’s what we do, constant updates acting as an organised mode 95% of the time. And online, the accessibility of distraction preventing serious time devoted to of online information has transformed all of thinking. our practices and ability to access informa- tion. Unfortunately it has meant that we For librarians, the fundamental barrier to social have more information than we want. If you media adoption is the shift in culture required type ‘information overload’ in quotes into from both the perspective of an individual using Google as I did this afternoon, you get about these tools and those in IT or management who 6 million hits.5 might be thinking how these tools could be used or regulated. This means transitioning from These tools all have the potential to add to what a culture of know-how, created and captured is already a very noisy world for law librarians. on paper and stored either on their own PC or However, managed properly, they could make within a knowledge management system, to a law librarians’ lives easier and provide value for more collaborative way of thinking where docu- both internal stakeholders and clients. ments are worked on both with your immediate colleagues and colleagues who may not even be in The culture club the same country.
While the benefits and challenges of social media The redefinition of the librarian’s role: are widely discussed, it’s also necessary to consider the wide-ranging changes to the underlying Librarians have always been, and are today, culture of legal libraries for such transformation the great translators of legal information. to occur. Law firms and legal libraries are often very risk-averse, and are stringently regulated What [librarians] have been about is provid- in terms of IT policy. This mindset is obvi- ing access to legitimate and stable information ously beneficial when dealing with confidential to the people who need it. Books as a format client information and the like, but needs to be now have to justify their existence: they make reviewed when using social media to collaborate sense and work for certain purposes, but now and share information. have to prove that they are the right format. Librarians, too, will persist: we will justify our Indeed, the immediacy and always-on nature of existence too. social media is worrying several legal thinkers. The Honourable James Spigelman AC, recently noted The legal field is on the verge of enormous that his issue with social media was “maintaining change, and librarians will need to be there the capacity to concentrate”, when presented with to hold people’s hands as … the format of all
5 Former Chief Justice of the NSW Supreme Court, the Honourable James Spigelman AC, quoted at the LexisNexis 100 Years event, 24 March 2011. 276 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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of these bits of information change – as the ments. We must therefore be sure to provide profession changes.6 the profession something in addition. Its “added value”, I believe is the term.7 The lessons of the past century show that techno- logical change is a constant in the legal industry. The challenge, and the opportunity, for legal The advances in publishing processes in particu- librarians is that the world has inalterably changed. lar have driven huge shifts in the way that The new publishing diaspora has ensured that librarians do their work. Speaking during the more information is available to lawyers and same Harvard Law event as the quote above, Joe librarians than they can almost ever handle. Hodnicki stated: “Print is just a technical accident However, that wealth of data means that the role that we’ve lived with for several hundred years, of the legal librarian too has changed – maintain- whereas text is not.” Legal text will subsist; even ing the duty of the “translator” of information by flourish through new social media formats. It is not simply providing more content, but providing management where librarians must specialise. more relevant content.
Former Justice of the Federal Court of Australia, As LexisNexis celebrates its centenary in Australia, Kevin Lindgren QC: we thank the Australian Law Librarians Asso- ciation for advocating the profession, bringing The challenge is to face the fact that, because awareness to the importance of the librarian’s role of technology, the profession has virtually and for guiding its members through the ever- immediate access to legislation and to judg- changing information landscape.
6 Robert Berring, Professor of Law, Berkeley Law, University of California, speaking at Harvard Law School, quoted on ‘Future of Law Libraries: The Future is Now?’. 7 Former Justice of the Federal Court of Australia, Kevin Lindgren QC, quoted at the LexisNexis 100 Years event, 24 March 2011. Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011. 277
ALLJ Vol.19 No.4.indd 277 24/11/11 12:57:41 PM A Winning Conference All Round Kristel Petrou, Mayer Brown, UK
42nd Annual BIALL Study Conference I was unable to attend the pre-conference seminar & Exhibition, 15-18 June 2011 at the on the Wednesday afternoon on US Legal SAGE Gateshead, Newcastle, UK Research. Instead, my colleague Katharine and I made our way by train from London Kings The theme of last years’ BIALL conference was Cross to Newcastle on Wednesday evening for the Risks and Opportunities: managing information Justis 25th Anniversary Cocktail Party being held at in difficult times, which I wrote about as being Alvinos Bar, where we witnessed our fellow law a prominent theme throughout each and every librarians compete in a cocktail making challenge, paper and conversation I had in Brighton in and celebrated Justis’ 25th anniversary beneath June 2010. a solar eclipse. It was a great initial opportunity to network, a chance to re-connect with 2010 While the “difficult times” for legal informa- Brighton BIALL delegates, and to make new tion professionals are definitely not over, this connections. The Justis-twist on the customary year’s conference, held in Newcastle, was much party-lolly-bag was to provide all cocktail party more positive and optimistic with the theme attendees with a “hangover party bag” filled with of Sharing experience; building value in legal aspirin, Alka-Seltzer, espresso and energy chews. information. Again the conference committee This party bag came in quite handy as the confer- provided all delegates with quality and relevant ence festivities progressed over the next three presentations, and networking opportunities days! from start to finish, and it was a great opportu- nity to see some of beautiful Newcastle and the I found choosing which sessions to attend this year many bridges along the Tyne (seriously, ask Lisa incredibly challenging, and I hope that some of the Capps, there are LOADS of bridges), includ- sessions I missed are somehow repeated as events ing one that looks like a mini-Sydney Harbour during the professional development calendar in Bridge! The SAGE Gateshead was the venue for London over the next 12 months. I also found the conference, and while it did look like a giant that this year’s conference felt quite significant glass beetle from the outside, it was beautiful in showing my overall professional development inside and out, and was an excellent choice for a and progress from last year when I was fresh off conference location. the plane from Australia, with no formalised contacts, looking for a library job, not knowing how much I did or didn’t know about the UK legal information industry. In complete contrast this year I consolidated contacts from 2010, made new network connections, and recognised most of the products and vendor representatives from the bright and open trade exhibition. Attending as an employed law librarian was such a nice feeling as I finally had an answer to the customary initial Kristel on one of the Newcastle bridges with the SAGE question at all networking events “Where do you Gateshead in the background work?” which I didn’t have an answer for at last 278 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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year’s conference. In fact, having a law firm listed also a stand-up comedian, and his ease on stage, under my name on the conference lanyard badge coupled with his generosity of giving all delegates was a huge success for me, as last year my badge a booklet containing the main points of his read: “Kristel Petrou, Australia”. Apparently I was presentation, meant that we could all just sit back representing the entire country there last year as I and absorb his wisdom and wit on how the onus was “of no fixed organisation”! is on trainers to engage with our trainees, through the use of relevant anecdotes, analogies and props I also had the luck of attending the conference to deliver a long lasting training session. The with a fellow colleague from Mayer Brown this outstanding quality of Nick’s presentation was year. While there is a great comfort in having a almost a curse for any presenter following, and fellow colleague, I was very conscious of the fact references back to Nick’s methods of making that I had been blessed with a ‘buddy’ contact training engaging, were made by delegates and at the 2010 BIALL conference, thanks to my presenters for the remainder of the conference. replacement ALLA SA president Lisa Capps, Although Nick advocated for training sans at last year’s conference. I felt the need to pay PowerPoint and lectern, he did acknowledge that that forward this year as Lisa’s contact was not it is fundamentally unnatural for most people only a godsend to have throughout the Brighton to do this without feeling exposed and uncom- conference, but has also gone on to be one of my fortable. His presentation, from the beginning great friends in London. I was therefore grateful anecdote on VPL (yes, it is an acronym for what for two ‘buddy’ opportunities that presented you think it is!) to a story about using a can of themselves to me in the weeks preceding the paint as a prop to explain why painting the Eifel conference with one international delegate from Tower one more time may make it collapse, was Jersey, and a first time delegate from Oxford, genuinely entertaining, memorable and absorb- who it turned out, recognised each other from an ing. My fellow delegates and I couldn’t help but introductory lecture for a legal foundation course judge all following presentations and presenters they had both attended in London (such a small on the effective methods Nick had displayed and world). The first morning of the conference my discussed, on engaging audiences in his presen- colleague, myself and our two new buddies met at tation. If you ever get the chance to see Nick the registration desk and, I have to say, provided present, do yourselves a favour and attend. excellent peer discussion throughout the confer- ence, and a great support to one another over the Other stand-out papers included a presentation course of the next three days, and will continue to by Mats Bergman, Information Architecture do so in the years to come I’m sure. Manager at Clifford Chance in London, on “Taxonomy Management at Clifford Chance”. Of the presentations I attended, the highlight for Mats’ presentation was excellent. He went into me, and many of the delegates, was a non-legal candid detail and provided great visual evidence based presentation by Nick Davies (The Really of the CC taxonomy in practice. Mats discussed Great Training Company, www.reallygreattrain- how essential it is to have senior buy-in for ing.co.uk/) on “How to make your training KM within an organisation, and how he, as engaging: presenting so people learn”. Nick is the centralised contact, was able to effectively Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011. 279
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coordinate the development of an effective supplier contracts) the end result appears to be a taxonomy base, using free text search capabili- success for Fiona and Baker Tilly. ties and enterprise search, across the major CC repositories (intranet, catalogue, newsletters etc). James Mullen (Field Fisher Waterhouse, and The results were impressive, and it was interesting BIALL President-Elect) embraced the conference to hear that the next challenge for Mats and the theme of Sharing information to build value by KM team at CC is to try to maintain the success taking delegates through “Using LinkedIn to share of their project during the firm’s inevitable transi- experience and knowledge”. This was a lively tion to the SharePoint platform, where it looks and informative session covering some of the like they will gain some advantages, but lose some ‘hidden’ (ie not very obvious or intuitive) features of the successful features of their current enter- of LinkedIn, such as the Question and Answer prise search functionality. function where connections can ask questions and post professional answers, share updates and links Another candid presentation was from a (Facebook style, but with professional content), or presenter I had the pleasure of seeing at the 2010 suggest a connection that may be able to answer BIALL conference, Fiona Fogden (National the question. It was also interesting to hear that Information Services, Baker Tilly,
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at the Brighton conference in 2010. At the time law, discuss and analyse legal problems, partake it was definitely an eye opener introduction to a in mock legal situations (including commercial new way of providing library services, and there client situations), and to learn to approach law appeared to be a real shift towards this practice from top-down (come up with an explanation/ in the UK. Given both outsourcing presentations theory for the problem first, then conduct legal were delivered by senior members of Integreon research to prove this) and bottom-up (start with there was definitely a bias, much more so with the assumed relevant text/area of law/case/legisla- this year’s follow-up paper. tion, then make it apply or ‘fit’ to the problem). Graham explained that both of these skills are The presentation in Newcastle this year was by important and by using both of these approaches, Michael Maher, Director of Information Services sometimes a gap is found in the law where change at Integreon, and Kate Stanfield from CMS and revision of the law can occur and evolve. Cameron McKenna who have outsourced their library function to Integreon. This year’s paper As always, with law library conferences, we explained the processes in place for Integreon to delegates were spoilt for opportunities to network provide library services to the CMS Cameron and make new contacts, as well as taking advan- McKenna firm (including reference, acquisitions tage of having suppliers at hand to ask questions and subscription review) almost ‘virtually’. The of and to view their new and enhanced product paper raised many more questions than it answered, demonstrations. The BIALL 2011 conference such as – Does a law firm using Integreon get had no shortage of these opportunities and the access to all online subscriptions that Integreon’s trade exhibitions proved a winning investment clients subscribe to, or just those relevant to their for me where I won an Amazon Kindle (for filling firm? And given the conference theme was about sharing experience, how does an outsourced library in an e-book survey), an iPod Shuffle (from a service build the all important relationship with lucky dip) a bottle of champagne (for guessing the firm staff, to be able to ensure they are provid- how many sweets in a large glass bowl), a bottle of ing a relevant and quality service? Jacobs Creek wine and a tin of pineapples (from another lucky dip), so overall it was a winning Another outstanding paper was one by Graham conference from start to finish. Virgo (Professor of English Private Law, University of Cambridge) titled “Why Study Law? The Rele- So I think I’ll take some time now to charge up my vance of Legal Information to the Law Student, new Kindle ™, chill my champagne and wine, so I Researcher and Practitioner”. In the UK it is can sit back and sip and read while contemplating possible to become a practitioner of law without what to do with my pineapple pieces. One thing’s having done a law degree. Instead it is possible to for sure, I won’t be asking my professional contacts qualify to become a solicitor by doing any degree on LinkedIn what to do with them as apparently then completing a ‘conversion’ course and practi- that’s a major LinkedIn “Don’t”! tioner training. Graham outlined the benefits and skills that students of the UoC law course gain Cheers from the UK, from the degree, such as the skills to interpret the Kristel Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011. 281
ALLJ Vol.19 No.4.indd 281 24/11/11 12:57:43 PM Letter from Oxford Ruth Bird, Bodleian Law Library, Oxford
Hello to my colleagues and friends ‘back home’. A new LII? The items in this letter are of a diverse nature, I think it is hard for Australians to appreciate and I have included a number of links even the depth of the (almost) recession in the UK though the publication will be in paper, because and Europe, and the hard times ahead for many. there are several sites that are mentioned which Unemployment is creeping up to the highs of are well worth visiting. 1993, and the prosperity of June 2008 seems like a mirage. The euro crisis does not help. And yet, As I write Australia is enjoying its 16th visit from on a recent work trip to Florence, in October, the Queen of Australia; one can only admire the I was amazed at the numbers of tourists still stamina and sense of duty she displays. At the crowding into the city. Oxford is also still full meeting next week of the Heads of Government of tourists. So it is a funny old economy that the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, will we are all dealing with, perhaps with a ‘have’ raise for discussion a proposal to reform the rules and ‘have not’ divide growing. The meeting I governing royal succession, which will need the attended was to discuss a possible development approval of all the realms in the Commonwealth. along the lines of AustLII for European legal As reported on the BBC: “The PM wants to scrap information to be freely available on the internet the ban on spouses of Roman Catholics ascend- from a range of official bodies. The meeting was ing to the throne and give girls the same right jointly arranged by Graham Greenleaf and the of succession as boys”. Although the Common- staff at ITTIG – Institute of Legal Information wealth is no longer a body of influence on the Theory and Techniques – which is part of the world stage, the Queen’s support for it gives it Italian Research Council. Ginevra Peruginelli, added gravitas. One wonders how it will survive Enrico Francesconi and others are doing some when the Queen is no longer the Head of the excellent work in pushing for free access to law, Commonwealth. and their website has many useful links for Italian legal documents – see
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arisen from the convictions, and the appeals by confused about the different names that are used some of the convicted rioters against the severity of for these four entities of which England is the their sentences, and the upholding of some of these largest. If you are talking about Great Britain you appeals. Politicians wanted the judges to be severe, exclude Northern Ireland, as GB covers England, and some were, but as the events faded in the press Scotland and Wales. If you talk about the United the appeal judges made their decisions in a different Kingdom, this encompasses Great Britain AND climate. The Home Office has called for a consul- Northern Ireland. These distinctions can matter! tation on public order policing – see
The ICLR (Incorporated Council of Law Reporting) Back at the Bod … launched its own website this week, at a function at Middle Temple which was attended by many We have started the academic year with a new ILS barristers, High Court judges, Appeal Court judges, (Aleph) and have integrated all the patron func- and the Chief Justice, Lord Judge, who made a brief tions onto SOLO, our tailored resource discovery speech. In it he repeated his oft stated belief that far version of Ex Libris’ Primo. There is a link to it at too many cases are being needlessly reported, and the foot of our website at
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The Bodleian has a wonderful exhibition until the 1850s, the Bodleian was the de facto national the end of December which can be viewed online library for England, and the Treasures reflect this – Treasures of the Bodleian at
BLL Main Reading Room
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ALLJ Vol.19 No.4.indd 284 24/11/11 12:57:44 PM Developments in Canadian Law and Law Libraries Nancy McCormack, Lederman Law Library, Faculty of Law, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario New Copyright Bill particularly from the United States, to update our copyright legislation. First of all I’d like to give a little background for Australian readers. On September 29, 2011, One of the ways the United States has leaned on Bill C-11, An Act to Amend the Copyright Act, us is by including Canada on the US Trade Repre- was introduced and given first reading in the sentative’s Special 301 report. This document Canadian House of Commons. This Act was a lists countries which the US believes to have a carbon copy of Bill C-32 in the previous legis- dubious record in terms of copyright protec- lature, a bill which was not passed despite the tions. When Canada found itself on the list in fact that it was the Canadian Government’s third 2007, Nancy Segal, Deputy Director, Intellectual attempt at amending the Copyright Act which had Property, Information and Technology Trade been unchanged since 1997. Policy Division (Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade), hit back quite forcefully There had been a history of attempts to overhaul during a Standing Committee on Public Safety this Act, all of which failed. Bill C-60, for and National Security: example, which was introduced in 2005 died on the order paper only a few months later when In regard to the watch list, Canada does not Parliament was dissolved. In 2008, Bill C-61 was recognize the 301 watch list process. It basi- introduced but again did not progress far before cally lacks reliable and objective analysis. government was prorogued a few months later. It’s driven entirely by US industry. We have In 2009, the government seemed determined to repeatedly raised this issue of the lack of objec- get the job done. It held public consultations tive analysis in the 301 watch list process with on the matter with a variety of interested groups our US counterparts. I also recognize that the including teachers, librarians, publishers, lawyers, US industry likes to compare anyone they musicians, authors, and individuals involved in have a problem with, concerning their IPR the software, music, video game and film indus- regime, to China and the other big violators, tries. One year later, Bill C-32 was introduced but but we’re not on the same scale. This is not once again died on the order paper when Parlia- the same thing. If you aren’t on the watch list ment was dissolved in March 2011. in some way, shape, or form, you may not be of importance. Most countries with significant This recurrent failure to pass copyright reform commercial dealings are on the watch list. has been problematic for Canada given that we signed the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and Despite that protest, in the two years that followed, the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty Canada again found itself listed in the Special (WPPT) in 1996. Fifteen years later, we have 301 Report Priority Watch List (see, for example, yet to ratify them. Ratification requires legisla-
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its previous commitments to improve its legal have been expanded to include educational users. framework for IPR protection and enforcement. Fair dealing is an exception to the usual rules Unfortunately, Canadian efforts in 2010 to enact accompanying copyright; it allows users in an long-awaited copyright legislation were unsuc- action involving copyright infringement to claim cessful. The United States encourages Canada that their use of the copyrighted work was for to make the enactment of copyright legislation the purpose of research, private study, criticism, that addresses the challenges of piracy over the review, or news reporting. The new bill expands Internet, including by fully implementing the this list to include education, parody and satire. WIPO Internet Treaties, a priority for its new government”. Another bit of good news is that libraries, museums and archives will be allowed to make All of this seems, on the surface, like harsh treat- copies of works in formats that are becoming or ment on the part of our US neighbours across which have become obsolete. Libraries may send “the longest, friendliest border in the world”. electronic documents to patrons (to fulfill Inter- Then came a revelation, indeed, a complete library Loan requests, for example) under the reversal in the form of some of those leaked condition that the patron does not forward the cables on WikiLeaks. They seem to suggest not document on to anyone else. One more thing: the that Canada’s being badly treated by her mighty electronic copy must be destroyed within five days! neighbour, but that the Canadian government worked hand-in-hand with the US to have its name Yes, I’m not joking. That five day requirement put on the list as an impetus to move through is part of the Bill. Indeed, this is not the only copyright reform (see
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or she owns. It would also be a violation to make a the day-to-day operations of libraries as well as back up copy of something legitimately purchased those of all other educational institutions. In this if it contains a lock. brave new world, librarians not only help locate information for their patrons; at times they also No one is expecting many (or indeed any) signifi- have to destroy it. cant amendments between now and the passing of the Bill. What we see is probably what we’ll Nancy McCormack get. This new legislation will dramatically change
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ALLJ Vol.19 No.4.indd 287 24/11/11 12:57:45 PM Developments in US Law Libraries Anne L Abramson, Foreign and International Law Librarian, The John Marshall Law School, Chicago
As mentioned in my last missive, summer is The Conference began with a session entitled ‘conference season’ for law librarians here in the “Ignite Plenary with Tweet Panel” which consisted US. I have been fortunate to go to two confer- of 10 speakers each presenting for 5 minutes each. ences this summer, one close to home and the I had never attended such a presentation before other not quite so close. and I loved it. The clever tweeting/commenting format reminded me of popular television shows My First CALI Conference (Computer like America’s Got Talent. Due to network issues, Assisted Legal Instruction), June, 23-4, however, the tweeters gave their comments orally. Milwaukee Will ironies never cease?
Those who attend the annual CALI conference My favourite comment of all followed the presen- are usually the ‘techies’ at their respective institu- tation of someone who wore the silly but familiar tions, including members of their law school’s IT Wisconsin ‘cheese head’ hat while talking about Department, Electronic or Computer Services the lack of illustrations in traditional casebooks. Librarians or faculty who are particularly adept at One of the commenters quipped that those adopting and using technology in the classroom. who are concerned about images should not I do not fall into any of those categories and have wear artificial cheese products on their heads! never considered myself a techie, although I, of The talent of the various presenters came to the course, use technology intensively to do my job. fore during these (sometimes longer than) five Therefore, I was certainly the proverbial “fish out minute ‘vignettes’. Deb Quentel of CALI, for of water” at my first ever CALI conference. example, has the delivery of a talented stand-up comic. If you have time to listen to only one That said, I cannot recommend this conference CALI program, I would recommend this one if highly enough. It is a refreshing opportunity to only to see some of the inspiring presentation meet colleagues who have a strong interest in law graphics that people are using with software like school technology, whether they are ‘techies’ or Presi. These are not your standard PowerPoint not. Beyond this invaluable networking oppor- slides. Unfortunately, the aforementioned audio tunity, one learns how the latest technologies are difficulties affected the recording of these short being used at law schools across the country. presentations, including the funny textbook one I mentioned above. Sigh again. As our school is embarking on an ambitious new distance education program this Fall, this exposure Other memorable moments included Gordon to new technologies is extremely relevant. Follow- Russell’s presentation entitled “Library Unbound: ing are some of the highlights of this year’s CALI the Convergence of eBooks and Electronic Access conference. If you have a CALI account, you and New ABA Standards are Transforming the can access many of these programs via the CALI Law Library”. Gordon Russell is the Library Conference website at
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with the provocative premise, “libraries have never I guess the line has to be drawn somewhere. The been about books”. At Duncan, his librarians are, innovations of mavericks like Gordon Russell as he puts it, “embedded with the faculty”. might lead one to exclaim “only in America!”.
His Library provides two types of Libguides, one I also found Victoria Symczyk’s presentation on for faculty and RAs and one for each course. “Taking your ILS on the Open Source Road” Such Libguides incorporate Audio case files and truly revolutionary. Vicki, as she is known, is the CALI lessons. Formative and substantive assess- intrepid director of the Brooklyn Law School ment (there’s that assessment word again) is part Library (and soon to be director of the University of every class. His Library has no Circulation of Hawaii’s Law Library). She explained how her Department. as students use self check out. Also, Library left Innovative Interfaces in favour of because the physical collection is so small and the an open source integrative library system called amount of cataloguing is, therefore, small as well, Kola. As an Innovative user from wayback at two his Library has no Technical Services Department. independent law school libraries, I had always They outsource their cataloguing to Cassidy. heard and believed that the “triple i” system was the ‘cadillac’ for law libraries. Leaving this system Gordon Russell’s Library embodies the ‘just in was something I never thought possible or desir- time’ as opposed to the ‘just in case’ model as able. But Vicki began her talk with a few of the illustrated by their ‘print on demand’ service. very valid reasons why her Library opted to take He described publishers like Springer which are this path. I was impressed with how carefully she also using this model by giving libraries the right and her Library staff researched and planned this to access and print from the repositories that major transition and the specifics of the migration they maintain. Another service, Aquabrowser, to this new platform. Brooklyn is the first law allows patrons to bypass the selector. He makes school library in the US to take this bold step. some cost comparisons between this subscrip- The idea that librarians could take back their inte- tion collection model to the traditional book grated system and break free of their dependency collection model. Note that it costs, for example, on expensive commercial products struck me as 25 cents per year to keep a book on the shelf, but both novel and liberating. if someone uses the book the cost goes up to $1. Libraries save this ‘hidden’ cost when they use Other excellent and thought provoking programs aggregators like iLibrary, EBL and Ebrary. included the following:
In addition to describing his ‘just in time’ Library, • “Online Resources for Managing and Provid- Gordon reviewed the changes to ABA Standards, ing Faculty Research Support;” Pam Brannon in particular, Standard 606 relating to Library of Georgia State University talked about the collections. He alluded to the debate about challenge of tracking and managing faculty the format of the ‘core’ collection. According research projects, something we are grappling to Russell, ownership or reliable access is now with; permissible but complete reliance on Westlaw • “Introducing CALI5: the New CALI Lesson and Lexis would likely violate the ABA standard. Viewer;” Austin Groothuis of CALI gave us Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011. 289
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a preview of CALI updates to come; those addition, they use QR codes to create ‘digital of us who use CALI exercises to teach will signage’. There are many advantages to this appreciate some of these changes; integration approach that any law school IT • “The Law School Educational Technologist Department might wish to consider. And Survey 2 Years Later;” Multiple present- clearly I need to get a ‘smart phone’! ers included Debbie Ginsberg of Chicago Kent and Lindsey Matts of William Mitchell. The program “Embracing Distance Learning Despite its lacklustre title, this session turned Methods to Improve Legal Education” featured out to be one of the most interesting. It the distance education programs at Dickenson/ described the explosion of the ‘educational Penn State, North Carolina Central and Boston technologist’ position in law libraries over University School of Law. Take a look at North the past two years. Libraries have been trying Carolina Central’s awe inspiring “telepresence to define the position as exhibited in their room” for example. See the new “video teaching answers to questions about educational stations” at BU Law School, which enabled the school to offer a joint class with students background, job duties, course management at Duke as well as simulation programs, virtual systems, distance education initiatives, insti- externships and lecture collaborations through tutional repositories, student technology, videoconferencing. The school even offers a mobile technology and training. The results ‘virtual practice’ seminar for instructors, lawyers, of the survey also indicated an increased other students and anyone else who wants to comfort level among faculty with technology learn how to use this technology. Consider the like Skype, Adobe Connect Pro or videocon- bi-campus program at Dickenson/Penn State. ferencing. We are certainly not alone; Matt Gardner of Penn State started his talk with a • “Law School Mobility;” Tim Devito and wonderful quote by one of the senior directors of Tom Ryan, Rutgers School of Law presented Educational Technology at his law school during another revolutionary idea. One might have an ABA site visit. “This is not distance educa- expected them to talk about how to get tion – the back row of a 300 seat lecture hall is certain applications or resources to work on distance education.” It should be noted that the a mobile device. Rather, they explained how school received a variance from the ABA so that they integrated the students’ mobile devices it could offer distance education to students at into their law school building. A key feature of its two campuses. Its ‘intellipresence rooms’ and this system is having the students register their paperless courtroom create a seamless experience devices with the school’s IT Department. In for students regardless of their physical location. so doing, they have ‘demoted the pc’ as Perhaps as a result of its remarkable new facilities, Steve Jobs predicted. Faculty and students applications to the law school have risen dramati- with smart phones no longer need to connect cally and the school’s faculty appointments have to their pcs. Tom and Tim eliminated that increased as well. software boundary with something called ‘airprint’ which enables students with smart I was proud to see two of my colleagues, phones to print from their mobile devices. In Jessica Wittman and Raizel Liebler, presenting 290 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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at CALI on “Developing Faculty Scholarship My First CAFLL Conference (Chinese Using Collaborative Web Environments.” They and American Forum on Legal described their quest for the perfect collabora- Information and Instruction), July 22-3, tive web environment. Dropbox, something I Philadephia, PA just learned about, was one of the featured I cannot be faulted for not attending a CAFLL technologies. Unfortunately, Dropbox, like most conference earlier, as this was only the second new applications, requires the creation of a new such conference! The first took place in Beijing account and password, which is one of the draw- two years ago. To learn more about CAFLL, see backs they mentioned. In addition, Dropbox has the organization website:
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the presentations related to law library education According to Blair, a good strategic plan should programs here in the US. Renowned law library have three things: mission (purpose); vision (dream) leader, Penny Hazleton described the superb and and goals (steps, objectives and strategies). The unique program at Washington University. At strategic planning process entails the appointment some point, perhaps during the translation or of a planning group, which undertakes an ‘envi- the Q & A following the program, a participant ronmental’ scan. This scan entails analyzing the referred to Penny Hazleton as “Professor Penny”. strengths and weaknesses of the organization, artic- I found this mode of address to be respectful and ulating the mission and vision and setting goals, endearing at the same time, so I opted to use it in objectives and strategies. He cited again to David addressing my own question to Professor Penny Van Zandt, “The Northwestern Law Approach to at the risk of a few chuckles from the audience. Strategic Planning” (1999-2000) 31 U Tol L Rev I asked about the qualifications of the instructors 761. In order to achieve its goal of breaking into who teach in the Washington program, thinking the top ten U.S. law schools, NU Law undertook that perhaps I could teach in such a program one a number of groundbreaking initiatives including day. Also, I’m thinking of having my students the creation of accelerated degree programs for JD, address me as “Professor Anne” this fall. LLM and joint JD/MBA degrees.
Advantages of a Good Strategic Plan The Yale Law Library’s vision is no less ambi- tious. It aims to be the “best academic law library Blair Kauffman, Director of the Yale Law Library in the world”. Its goals include maintaining spoke of his library’s efforts to develop a viable unparalleled collections, making the library the strategic plan. He compared these efforts to those place everyone wants to go, offering exceptional of David Van Zandt at Northwestern Univer- services and showcasing staff. In furtherance of sity School of Law (NU Law). This comparison these goals, the Library features new exhibits each piqued my interest, as NU Law is my alma mater. semester, such as its recent “Superheros in Court” In addition, my own library recently held a stra- exhibit which examines comics and the law. tegic planning meeting. Plus, I have a connection to Yale Law Library as well, as I interned there To make the library a welcoming place, it offers while I was in library school. the services of therapy dog “Monty,” who has been warmly received by the students. Monty While some might argue that strategic plans are has even been catalogued, so students can check a waste of time, per Blair, the value of planning him out! For those who are not into dogs, the cannot be underestimated. The whole notion of Library’s aquarium serves a similar purpose. strategic planning derives from military history beginning with Napoleon. In an era of scarce The Library spotlights authors in the Yale Law resources, a good strategic plan can have many School community including its own Fred benefits; it can give one credibility with manage- Shapiro, Associate Librarian for Collections and ment as to budgetary needs, bolster teamwork Access. Fred has authored a number of essential and target resources and provide the institution titles for any law library, including the Oxford with a competitive advantage. Dictionary of American Legal Quotations. 292 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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The economic downturn affects even top tier US this example may have been lost on the Chinese law schools like Yale. Blair cited to a recent article, audience members. which discusses this trend. See Femi Cadmus & Blair Kauffman, “The Recession Mounts the Ivory In fact, time and time again, I had the impres- Tower: How the Lillian Goldman Law Library at sion that comparing law libraries in the US and Yale has met the Challenges Posed by a Declining China is like comparing apples and oranges. Economy” (2010) 10 (4) Legal Info Mgmt 275. This impression was confirmed when I visited The ability of an organization to adjust quickly former Director of the John Marshall Law Library to such economic changes is the mark of a good and current Co-Director of our Asian Alliance strategic plan. Thus, when the Library had to cut Program, Dorothy Li, after the Conference. its budget by 15%, it was well positioned to do so. Dorothy observed that the law librarian profes- The Yale Law Library strategic plan is available via sion is relatively unknown in China. It was no the Library’s home page:
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able to see a qilin in person when we toured the the US legal system with plenty of images plus University of Pennsylvania Law School’s Biddle step-by-step explanations and hands on exercises Law Library. This mythical beast seems to have a on how to do basic statutory, regulatory and case symbology all its own at Penn, where it is consid- law research. I contrasted and compared free ered a student landmark. Even the law school websites like FDsys, Cornell’s Legal Informa- intranet is called “Goat”. tion Institute and Google Scholar as well as paid subscriptions like Westlaw. Lastly, I contrasted China July these general research tools with the specialised tools needed to do specialty legal research like If I had to characterise July 2011, I would dub patent law research. In so doing, I drew upon a it my ‘China July’. Just two weeks after attend- patent searching brown bag presentation that I ing CAFLL in Philadelphia, I gave a three hour had given four years ago. One never knows when presentation to a group of patent examiners from a prior project may be useful. China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO). My program was part of an eight day course Reminiscences: Back to the Future provided by John Marshall’s Chinese Intellectual Property Resource Center to members of SIPO. This combination of experiences at CAFLL, especially Penny Hazleton’s talk on law librar- My attendance at CAFLL was great preparation ian education and Blair Kaufman’s discussion of for giving my own program to our Chinese guests. strategic planning at the Yale Law Library, where In particular, youthful and completely bilingual I first worked as a law librarian in training, plus Eugene Hsue, Foreign, Comparative and Interna- the program that I gave to our Chinese guests tional Law Librarian at Temple Beasley School of upon my return, made me reminisce about my Law gave an outstanding presentation on teaching early years in the profession. I felt very fortunate legal research to visiting international students that I had found a path to this rewarding career and scholars. His presentation entitled “Personal, which gives me so many opportunities to utilise Visual, and Virtual: In Search of the Perfect my varied education and experience. Introduction to US Primary and Secondary Sources” was directly relevant to what I would be My first full time position as a law librarian was doing in just a few weeks. Eugene referred to Sam at William Mitchell College of Law’s Warren Jacobson, “Primer on Learning Styles: Reaching E Burger Library. William Mitchell, like John Every Student” (2001-2) 25 Seattle U L Rev 139 Marshall, is another one of the relatively few to describe the different styles of learners. He also independent law schools in the US. Thus, it provided us with another great cultural insight by feels a bit like I have worked in two ‘parallel’ delving into the meaning of the Chinese character universes. “chi”. The character chi represents learning as an image of wings in motion. When I started my career at William Mitchell, Ann Bateson was the Director of the Library. Inspired by Eugene, my presentation to our Ann fostered my professional development by SIPO visitors included a brief introduction to encouraging me to take part in our local chapter, 294 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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MALL’s (Minnesota Association of Law Librar- no accident that I saw Ann at the CALI confer- ies) Legal Research Institute back in 1997. As ence in Milwaukee. Even after decades directing part of this Institute, I prepared handouts and William Mitchell’s Law Library and now as gave presentations on the US legal system for an Director of the University of St Thomas School audience of paralegals and non-law librarians. of Law Library in Minneapolis, she seems to have This earlier project again proved useful for my as much energy and interest as ever in keeping up recent presentation on US legal research to a with the latest developments in US law libraries. Chinese audience. This tale of two conferences has given me a lot Ann also influenced my development by setting to report in my column on Developments in US the highest standards for service and professional- Law Libraries. I hope I may see you at one of these ism which I still try to emulate today. Thus, it was conferences in the future.
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ALLJ Vol.19 No.4.indd 295 24/11/11 12:57:48 PM New Zealand News Catherine Frew
On August the 24th and 25th the NZLLA hosted • Training issues its 2011 Symposium at Victoria University, • The new New Zealand Law Society. Wellington. This year the organising committee had as their working title for the Symposium “All In addition to running a successful Symposium about us”. The committee wanted to break the the National Executive was able to cross off the mould of having sessions about law, but rather list their three other goals that they set on their this year wanted to focus more on librarianship strategy day back in January. We have: issues, as they felt that it was an important part of our professional development. The commit- • Upgraded our website; tee also wanted to involve the membership of • Upgraded our wiki site and moved all our both the NZLLA and a sister organisation SLIS administrative documents and functions, eg (Special Libraries and Information Services) to notes on meetings, memberships lists, pres- give people the opportunity to exchange infor- entations, calendar of events etc, off the old mation and ideas with each other. The result was website on to the wiki; and a hugely enjoyable event which received over- • Surveyed our law-list users to establish what whelmingly positive feedback. We had a great areas our membership would like the National mix of speakers ranging from key note speeches Executive to focus on in the future. on ‘big picture’ topics such as: The current National Executive changes on the • Facing the future – technological trends and 9th November. We leave the organisation in good the information profession • Social media in business shape both financially and administratively, and • Workplace team building we look forward to seeing where the new National Executive will take the organisation in 2012. to topics which were more focussed on work process such as: Have a wonderful Christmas and fantastic New Year from everyone in the New Zealand Law • Library software management Librarians Association! • Managing current awareness • Capturing your research Catherine Frew • Library management strategies NZLLA President
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ALLJ Vol.19 No.4.indd 296 24/11/11 12:57:48 PM Pacific News Co-ordinated by Karyn Gladwish, Director Library and Information Services, Laura Davern, Pacific Co-ordinator from the Attorney-General’s Department and Kym Freriks, PacLII
Congratulations to King Ietera, Kiribati Office of so many interested in the Program and offering to the Attorney General and Johannes Fege, Papua provide resources and become twins. New Guinea National Court of Lae for winning the ALLA Pacific Awards for 2011. King receives Thank you also to those twins that completed the $1,500 for the purchase of a printer/scanner/ recent survey. Laura is analyzing the results. copier and for legal resources that are required for the AG’s library. Johannes is awarded $500 If you would like more information about the which will be used to purchase his Library a much Workshop or the Pacific Twinning Program needed laptop. please contact [email protected]
ALLA is to provide the Award each year so Pacific PacLII Online Survey 2011 law library staff should make sure they start We would like to say a very big thank you to thinking about their needs and brush up their those who were able to complete the PacLII business case writing skills that were developed at online survey in June, especially the members of the June Workshop. the Pacific Islands Law Library Community who are one of PacLII’s primary users. The survey ran A recommendation from the 2011 Workshop was for two weeks as part of the Independent Review the development of a PILLC email discussion list. of PacLII and during that short time 217 surveys This has now been created through an ALIA e-list. were completed. If you are interested in being a member of the list please contact [email protected] for the details.
Thank you to everyone who turned up for the Pacific Twinning Update at the recent ALLA Conference in Canberra. It was heartening to see
Johannes Fege, Papua New Guinea National Court of King Ietera, Kiribati Office of the Attorney General, Lae, recipient of an ALLA Pacific Award, with Justice 2011 recipient of an ALLA Pacific Award. Pierre Slicer from the Supreme Court in Samoa. Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011. 297
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Overall, the results showed that PacLII is address- Guinea Law Reports (volumes 2001-2005), 2011 ing a very real need in terms of accessing the law Consolidated Index for Solomon Islands legisla- for the Pacific region. As can be seen in the chart tion, and Palau Supreme Court decisions. below, 60.6% of survey respondents consider PacLII to be the most important resource in their Ongoing consolidation of legislation is rare in the work. The responses from the survey have also Pacific; however there are a number of jurisdic- been very useful for us to evaluate our service tions that produce an annual consolidated index and identify how it can be improved. We will be which is provided to PacLII for publication. compiling a summary of the survey’s quantita- These are available on the legislation database tive data that will be available through the PacLII pages and are useful for knowing what legislation website. is in force at the time of the Index.
New Pacific legal materials that will be available on the PacLII website soon are the Papua New
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Australian Capital Territory Hayley Waterhouse will be missed by the High Court Library as she has moved to Sydney. New The ACT division was pleased to host law starters at the High Court in recent months librarians from around Australia and beyond at are Barbara Avis, Helen Arch and Jennifer ACTioning the Law from 28 – 30 September in Surtees. Canberra. New South Wales Recognising the need for succession planning, the Australian Government Solicitor’s Library Service Carlo Iacono has recently commenced as Library has recently recruited two cadets to undertake Site Coordinator with Allen Arthur Robinson. a specialist legal reference program over the next five years to address in part, the planned Northern Territory retirement of staff. Frieda Evans made the long trip south to attend Gemma Creegan and Rachel York commenced the ALLA conference, ACTioning the Law, in working in AGS’s Canberra Library in August this Canberra. The division otherwise had a quiet year and have already been immersed in a rigorous quarter. training program. Gemma has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of London, Queensland a Graduate Diploma in Professional Writing from The Queensland division also reports a very quiet Deakin University and a Certificate in Magazine quarter. Writing and Production from RMIT. Rachel has had over ten years experience as a manager at South Australia Borders where she was responsible for managing over ten staff and worked with other managers The Committee are proud to announce that through the recent closure of Borders. During this the winner of the Bursary from ALLA (SA) was time she was their Magazine Coordinator, Multi Joelie Cook from Fisher Jeffries, who attended Media Specialist, Customer Service Manager and the annual ALLA conference in Canberra from Merchandise Associate. 28 to 30 September. The division trusts she had an enjoyable conference experience. Gemma and Rachel plan to enrol at the University of South Australia next year to complete library A post conference social get together was hosted qualifications part time by distance education. by the Federal Court Library on Thursday 13 October. At the Lionel Murphy Library, Attorney General’s Department, the Library Management System is The Pancake lunch on 10 August, supported by now implemented. Cathie Caldwell has finished a small but loyal group celebrated Patron Saint her contract and has moved on. Karen Collier of Libraries Day, whilst the wine tasting event on has returned to her usual role as Collection 26 August, was a welcome relaxing few hours off, Management Librarian. and we thank all for supporting the events. Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011. 299
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A PD event has been organised for Tuesday Tasmania 8 November at Thomsons Lawyers from 12 The ComLaw Seminar on Tuesday 19 July at to 1pm, entitled ‘Business Research’. The Hub, in the State Library of Tasmania was very well attended with participants from The division is planning to hold the 2011 AGM the library sector and the legal profession. Liz and Christmas lunch for ALLA (SA) on Friday O’Donnell gave an excellent presentation, high- 2 December. lighting the many new and enhanced features of ComLaw, and answering some quite detailed Daniel Capps has been appointed as the new questions. LN trainer for South Australia. On Wednesday 17 August Justice Benjamin, Kelly Gruenwald has left Finlayson’s heading from the Family Court, gave a talk to law librar- interstate – Kelly is pictured with the Haigh’s ians and court staff about his recent trip to bear presented to her by ALLA (SA) on her Zimbabwe, where he helped to draft new family departure. We wish her the very best in all her law legislation. It was a very insightful and at times future endeavours. sobering presentation on the conditions that exist in this African country, and what AusAid is doing through our foreign aid program.
Dorothy Shea was on long service leave from 22 August to 3 October and during that time Annabel Cox, from the AIC Library, was Acting Supreme Court Librarian.
A lunch time meeting of the Tasmanian Division scheduled for Wednesday 12 October at Rendez- vous Restaurant in Salamanca Square to present Kate Ramsay, one of the original members of the Tasmanian Group, with a Certificate of Appreciation for her long standing commitment and contribution to Tasmanian law libraries had to be cancelled because Kate was unwell. The Certificate will now be presented at the Christ- mas Lunch on Monday 12 December.
During October a number of law librarians were asked to trial the new online Tasmanian Government Gazette and report on its usability Kelly Gruenwald, with Haigh’s Bear. and search functionality. The development team 300 Australian Law Librarian. Vol 19 No. 4 2011.
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were very responsive to the detailed feedback A new Committee took control of the reins at the provided and made a number of modifications to AGM. We welcomed new Committee members, the design and search capability of the site which Justin Booker, Belinda Eisenhauer, Philomena is due to go live in mid November 2011, finally Humphries and Robyn Schofield. We fare- making Tasmanian Gazettes available online. The welled Anne Greenshields, Catherine Macgill initial coverage will be from 2008 onwards. and Kelly Underwood.
Victoria A CPD event was held at Blake Dawson on 31 August. Mary Anne Kenny, an Associate Pro John Guerrato has rejoined the corporate law fessor at Murdoch University, presented a session librarian fraternity, now working at Mallesons on migration law. Stephen Jaques as a Knowledge Consultant. On 7 September, a brown bag lunch was held A number of the Victorian Committee are at the Federal Court to discuss the proposed stepping down, after many years of service. National Membership Model and its implications Rebecca Dunbar, Josephine Murfey and for local members. Jannett Belfield will be stepping down at the On 21 September, a sundowner – Spring has next elections. They have all done a great deal Sprung – was held at Tottle Partners to welcome for the Committee over the years, and will be the change of season and to farewell delegates to missed! ACTioning the Law.
Western Australia Sally Martin has left ASIC and is now Team Leader, Technical Services at the Department of Following a unanimous vote, life membership the Attorney-General. of the WA Division was conferred on Anne Greenshields at the AGM on 3 August. This The majority of the Perth Office of Minter well-deserved accolade recognised the contribu- Ellison has become Squire Sanders and hence, tion Anne has made to the profession over two Kelly Underwood is now the librarian at Squire decades. Sanders.
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