New Law Librarians’ Institute 2011

I am very excited about the new offering from the Canadian Association of Law Libraries: the New Law Librarians’ Institute. This is a substantive learning opportunity that I wish I had as a new law librarian.

According to the flyer sent out by the Association:

the New Law Librarians’ Institute is an intensive, week-long, in-person course fostering key competencies in law librarianship, including knowledge and understanding of

• law-making institutions (legislatures, courts, administrative tribunals) and how law is created
• characteristics of, and differences between primary and secondary sources of law
• the principal substantive law publications (legislation, case reports, commentaries) in print and digital form
• how to locate and update the law

The faculty for this program looks outstanding.

The program is for anyone who is new to law librarianship, wants to go into this area, or wants to increase their knowledge of law for the purposes of reference service:

The Institute is aimed at individuals interested in practising law librarianship, typically in a law firm, courthouse, governmental department or academic law library setting. These could be persons at the beginning of their career, having completed their general library education (Master of Library and Information Science or diploma) and seeking additional law librarianship qualifications. Alternately these could be mid-career professionals seeking to make a change from another librarianship stream into law librarianship. The Institute would also be valuable to librarians employed in public libraries who are called on to provide legal reference service.

The Institute will be hosted June 5-10, 2011 at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. The fee of $1,495 (plus tax) includes lectures, technical sessions, supplementary materials, accommodation, breakfast and lunch, and an opening reception on June 5th. Class size is limited to 20.

If you know of someone who might be interested, please pass this along. Law library managers and other employers should consider whether any of their staff might benefit from this program. Additional details and application form are available from the CALL/ACBD website.