Canadian Association of Law Libraries call for conference proposals

A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate to speak with members of the Toronto Association of Law Libraries about the synergies between knowledge management, law librarianship and process improvement.  I hope to speak on similar issues at the CALL Conference in May 2016.

Do you have a particular innovation or area of competence to share with your colleagues? Sharing is VERY rewarding.  Perhaps you should consider the next call for proposals that crosses your desk like this one:

2016 Conference Call for Proposals

We are currently accepting conference programming proposals that reflect the CALL Professional Development Pathways.

Even if you are part of a special interest group or committee, you are welcome to independently pitch your own idea! We look forward to reviewing submissions from across the spectrum of our membership until Saturday, October 31st.

Conference Session Submission Form

Lightning Talk Submission Form

We will notify you by December 1, 2015 if your program is selected.

Conference Website

More about the CALL Professional Development Pathways: First proposed in response to the 2014 member needs survey, CALL’s Board approved the Professional Development Pathways in August 2015 after extensive consultations with CALL members. Accompanying the PD Pathways is a Board-approved plan of action to implement this framework for professional development throughout CALL conference planning and regular educational offerings.

  
#CALLACBD

Conducting Business and Industry Research

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries is advertising some upcoming webinars that will be useful for anyone who has a market research need:

Conducting Business and Industry Research - September 29, 2015, 1:00pm to 2:30pm EST

Summary:This webinar provides an introduction to conducting research on business and industry information. The session will provide tips and tricks for:

• Defining business and market research

• Sourcing company lists and finding information on specific businesses

• Finding and using industry level information, including statistics, financial data, market trends and more

The session explores both free and fee-based sources within Canada 

Speaker:  Heidi Schiller is the Manager of InfoAction, Vancouver Public Library’s fee-based research service. Originally from the U.S., Heidi worked as a business reporter at the Bellingham Business Journal before getting her Masters in Library and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia. 
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Having attended CALL webinars in the past, I can highly recommend them as having great content and presenters.

Celebrating achievment

I have been a very quiet blogger lately with a reasonably good excuse.  Since the beginning of August, 2014, I have been working to achieve certification in Lean Six Sigma. As of last Sunday, the formal part of my education in this discipline is now complete.

Why is Six Sigma certification so important to me? That is a question I have been asking myself - most often when working on a statistics question.

The answer is that it is important to me to perform at a high level. I want to advise my colleagues on the best way forward for their process improvement initiatives.  I want to work with teams who get to that high functioning sweet spot of maximum  output.  When I suggest a path, I want my colleagues to trust that I am not sending them on the pot-hole filled, meandering,  gravel side road, but ahead of the line of vehicles on that freshly paved, multi-lane, freeway that has great merge lanes, off ramps, and rest stops.

For me, achieving a Master Certificate in Six Sigma is the road map and the compass and the GPS.  The tool box of tested methodology to find the best way forward. 

It was also a lot of fun!

Edmonton Law Libraries Association

I believe in active participation in professional organizations. Despite this firmly held belief, until recently I have only held appointed roles for the Edmonton Law Libraries Association. For the next two years I will fill the post of Chair of the Edmonton Law Libraries Association.  I am joined by the team of Gina Linden (Dentons) as Secretary-Treasurer, Julie Olson (Alberta Law Libraries),  Member at Large, and Melissa Hathaway (Dentons) our Web Manager.

September to October each year is our annual membership drive. I hope to see many familiar faces at our September 25th business meeting where we will be discussing an initiative to identify the 'last' local print copy of legal resource material and our newly relaunched website and blog.

Words to live by

Alberta is celebrating Arts Days, and as part of the festivities, my community - Onoway has some events planned on Saturday October 1. I am participating by giving a blogging workshop at the Onoway Public Library from 10 to 11:15 a.m.

I have been thinking about reasons to blog this week. What is it that blogging provides? Is it the adrenaline rush of fear that someone will give a negative comment when you press "publish post"? Is it the satisfaction from sharing? Is it pure self motivation?

Jennifer M. shared a great quote this morning which could be a reason for blogging:

Don't raise your voice, improve your argument. Desmond Tutu

CALL Conference 2011

Look out Calgary, the law librarians are descending.

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries conference and annual general meeting is being held May 15-18. Because the conference is in our backyard, all of the Field Library Staff will be attending, and thus we will not be in the office.

The Receptionists have my cell if you get stuck.

CALL Conference coming up soon

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries Conference is quickly approaching. The Conference is in Calgary this year and the Conference Planning Committee, of which I am a member, has been working diligently to make sure that attendees will have a enjoyable education and networking experience.

The conference website is a worthy visit for anyone interested in law libraries, law librarianship, or legal information generally. Special thanks to all those who have agreed to sponsor the conference.

See you in Calgary May 15 to 18th, 2011

For Fielders: all library staff will be attending this event so library service will be limited.

Good ideas to share

Sharing...the cornerstone of librarianship and knowledge management. There are some excellent sharers in the legal community! I have a couple of sharing sites to share that you should know about.

Slaw Tips
tips.slaw.ca

advice you can use — short and to the point — every Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday

Slaw Tips offers a technology tip each Tuesday, a research tip each Wednesday and a practice tip each Thursday.
I edit the Research Tips section of this blog and am very happy to accept suggestions. If one of your 2011 goals is to build a social media presence, a short tip submission on this site is a great place to start.

Attorney at Work
www.attorneyatwork.com

"Attorney at Work promises you one really good idea every day."

The Daily Dispatch from this site is available by email. Examples of good ideas include this post from February 28, 2011 on starting your Outlook in a for followup folder.

Both of these sites offer a regular dose of professional development. Think of it as a desktop vitamin. It is a quick way to learn new things, or be reminded of good practices that will make your work life a little healthier.

AALL webinar on KM for law librarians

Continuing education is very important. Unlike lawyers, law librarians do not have a professional regulatory body requiring professional development credits or intention. Law librarians do face a continual learning cliff. Changes in technology, library best practices, economies, publishing, and all of the changes that affect our lawyers have impact on our jobs and our success in them.

For all of the good reasons to "keep up" the Field libraries staff practice continuing professional development regularly. We try to attend annual law or library association conferences, we take in seminars from local legal and library associations and we attend webinars for the Canadian Association of Law Libraries and other organizations.

Yesterday, the American Association of Law Libraries Private Law Libraries Special Interest Section offered the 2nd in a 4 part webinar series titled "Moving Beyond the Library Walls to Support Strategic Knowledge Management". This session happily affirmed the approach that I have taken with the marriage of Libraries and KM at my firm.

Benefits of KM that I was reminded about in the session included the idea that KM "Improves client/customer service by streamlining response time". The session reminded me that even though KM uses library jargon, what we are really dealing with from the organizational perspective is categories, directories, and synonyms to help our lawyers work smarter. 'New to me' ideas that were addressed included using intelligent computer analysis software to help wade through the terabytes of information that we have at our fingertips.

The session was moderated by Greg Lambert, Library and Records Manager, King & Spalding and Steve Lastres, Director of Library & KM, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP and presented by Julie Bozzell,Chief Research and Knowledge Services Officer, Hogan Lovells US LLP and Toby Brown, Client Teams/Alternative Fees/KM Manager, Fulbright & Jaworski LLP. Thanks to all of them for the excellent presentation.