Alberta legislation status

I  gave the fantastic Field Library Assistants the task of watching Alberta legislation for this fall session.  Our team keeps a spreadsheet of what bills people are interested in for Alberta, Federal and other jurisdictions as well.  In the past, for Alberta, I checked the Daily Bill Activity Report. 

As soon as I assigned this task to others it became more difficult to carry out. The guilt is horrible.

There is still a relatively straight forward method for monitoring the status of an Alberta bill - at a glance.  Visit the Bill Status Report for the current session and perform a 'find on this page' using your web browser tools for the numbered day.  With Internet Explorer 9, the search terms are highlighted so that you can see which bills have been changed.

This is not as convenient as having the bill activity report updated as the session progresses, but for a daily watch, it works OK.

No more Interlibrary Loan from LAC

This is a recent message from Canada's National Library:

End of ILL Services

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) services at Library and Archives Canada (LAC) will end in December 2012.  Users of LAC’s current services should note the following dates:

·         November 13, 2012: End of loan requests from international libraries.

·         November 16, 2012: End of renewals. All items loaned after this date will be non-renewable.

·         December 11, 2012: End of loan requests, location searches, and ILL-related photocopying services.

LAC’s ILL listserv (CANRES-L) and Canadian Library Gateway also will be archived in December 2012.

LAC will continue to facilitate interlibrary loan activities among other institutions through the ILL form in AMICUS, and through ongoing administration of Canadian Library Symbols. 

Through our modernized service channels, LAC will emphasize increased digital access to high-demand content.  LAC is working with Canada’s ILL user community in order to inform this approach to accessing the institution’s unique holdings.  

As a librarian and a Canadian, I am very disappointed that the institution that is responsible for holding copies of all Canadian publications in existence will no longer provide interlibrary lending services.