The BIALL Blog

At the BIALL 2012 conference in Belfast the outgoing President Susan Scorey presented the award of Lifetime Membership;  She told the Conference;

"It gives me immense pleasure to present lifetime membership to one of our members this evening. This member has had a long and distinguished career within law librarianship, working in a range of university and special libraries including the Middle Temple, before moving to the Law Library of the Bar Council in Dublin.

They were a key member of the BIALL Irish group from its inception, including several years as convenor; served on a number of BIALL committees, Council and judging panels; as Chair between 2007-8; and as guest editor of Legal Information Management in 2011. She has also been Second Vice President of the International Association of Law Libraries. She was associated with the Irish Statute Book and the development of the Irish Reports on CD Rom as well as the Irish content of BAILII.

She is actively involved in a wide range of initiatives relating to the management of legal information, both in Ireland and internationally - largely in a voluntary capacity. In particular, she has worked tirelessly to represent the interests of BIALL in copyright law development, and has provided training for members and other librarians in this complex area.  Colleagues I am very pleased to announce that lifetime membership is awarded to Jennefer Aston."

Susan also presented the award for the Wildy BIALL Law Librarian of the Year award  telling the Belfast gathering;

"Our winner has made extensive use of technology and learning media to provide information in bite size chunks, using videos, audio, images and slideshows in An inventive way that engages the students. I'm sure we are all aware that students and trainees don't always find legal research as engaging as we do, so providing a learning experience that is more appealing can only be regarded as a good thing!

Our winner has also demonstrated a commitment to our profession in engaging in all sectors, not just academia, and has shared these tools and learning methods widely. They also share their experiences, writing articles and chapters for legal research texts, presenting papers at conferences and leading training events. Further commitment is shown by their long standing and active support of BIALL, being a regular participant in Council and committee work. A quote on the nomination form, by their line manager is worth repeating:

"their commitment and work has really been responsible for bringing together the law school as a community ... This person is perceived as someone who can change things, by students, and who can work collaboratively with the students to create resources for the wider world."

I suspect by now that for many of you this will come as no surprise that our Wildy BIALL law librarian of the year for 2012 is Emily Allbon."

To see details of the sponsors, the prizes and the winners, please visit the conference pages.

Working as a Legal Librarian - Helen Marshall provides an insight into a career in Law Librarianship.

Helen considers what the role of a legal librarian involves, she looks at the route she travelled into law librarianship and provides information on building professional links and developing a career in librarianship.

Helen also offers advice to anyone considering this career path; "I’d say to anyone starting out, be enthusiastic and eager to learn. And don’t be afraid to approach people, for work experience or later on. Most people are willing to help.".

Look no further.  Niamh Burns of the Conference Committee and city resident has compiled the following short guide.

Generally it does sound like a blast;

Justis tells us;

"Where – Ten Square, 10 Donegall Square South; when – from 6.30pm, Wednesday 13th June; what's on offer – an experience that a Prosecco-supping Willy Wonka would struggle to match."

The invite goes on to offer  "a decadent night of chocolate making".
To RSVP you need to email  sheila.kerai@justis.com at Justis. 

If you don't want to feel like Conference started without you this is clearly  the place to be...