Lowe v Auckland City Council [1993] NZHC 238

For those who haven't read this rather droll New Zealand High Court  judgment concerning an unregistered German shepherd called Ben - here it is: http://www.nzlii.org/nz/cases/NZHC/1993/238.html.

The last few sentences are particularly fine:


"The late Professor Davis campaigned tirelessly in his years as a law professor and Dean of Law at Auckland to end discrimination between cats and dogs. In his view (expressed in the august pages of no less than the Modern Law Review) dogs are rigorously controlled, whilst, if I may be permitted the expression, cats are entitled to ponce about town, completely unregulated. Was there something in the new New Zealand Bill of Rights which would end this shameful discrimination and assist Mr Lowe?


I began formulating an oral decision in my mind. Then I realised that I was mumbling aloud, and the Registrar was looking at me strangely, or perhaps more strangely than usual.


Pragmatism, some will say fortunately, took over.

The decision of the learned District Court Judge is quashed, and I substitute therefore a fine of $20.00. I urge upon the appellant the wisdom of the registration of Ben.


Cave canem (again, for the uninitiated, beware of the dog)."

R G Hammond J

But what if I can't find it on the internet?

Pauline Westwood in the Canberra Times


Libraries have lost more than books - research service standards have fallen too. 

Jack Waterford's article ''The library of discarded books'' (May 5, p19), about the destruction of paper-based books by librarians highlighted a disturbing trend largely ignored by mainstream media. With the growth in the use of information technology, many new tools have potentially increased our access to knowledge.



But because of cost-cutting policies and the mantra of ''digitisation at all cost'', we are in danger of decreasing rather than increasing our access to information over time. Nowhere is this trend more evident than in libraries. It is driven by an over-reliance on new technology, in turn propelled by the forces of managerialism and economic rationalism.

Read more here

Libraries - do we really need them?

Looks as though my previous post which reported Judge Spigelman's observations about legal research, is now being born out by even bigger events in 2012 in Queensland. Government libraries are disappearing altogether. 

A few newspapers have been fighting a rearguard action on our behalf:, but my guess is they're going to need advocates themselves soon enough.

The Huffington Post

The Brisbane Times

QWeekend - Nov 10-11 2012 pp 10-11 (can't attach this as blogger doesn't allow the attachment of documents)

Chief Justice has history on his side (The Australian 4th Feb 2010)

IF his record is any guide, those who fail to take Jim Spigelman's predictions seriously are heading for trouble.

The NSW Chief Justice has an uncanny knack of making sure he is always on the right side of history.

He was the first to blow the whistle on the feeding frenzy that used to characterise personal injury litigation. Tort reform followed.

Spigelman also got it right seven years ago when he exposed the moral hazard of billable hours. Smart law firms of all sizes are now including fixed fees and other alternative billing schemes in their pitch to clients.

Spigelman's endorsement this week of the outsourcing of legal work to low-cost jurisdictions is also clearly on the money.

click here

---

It's hard to ignore a sense that the bell could soon be tolling for law librarians too.

Qld Floods

The past two months with natural disaster occuring at our footstep has reminded us of what is important in not only our business but more importantly our personal life. The flood chaos which hit the northern area of Qld seemed for Brisbane firms miles away with devastation and destruction throughout Rockhampton, Bundaberg and inland towns including Emerald. What we didn't appreciate at the time we were offering assistance to those in the northern area, is the onset of issues that we would personally face. Toowoomba with its inland tsnumai, Ipswich with the main centre under water, and Brisbane CBD with areas totally flooded and some unaccessible. Over the past week, the ALLA(Q) Committee has been assisting where possible any firm or member who has been affected by the floods. If you know of anyone who requires help, please ask them to contact the committee and we will endeavour to provide anything required, especially a person to talk to about the experience. As of 18 January, the following firms/organisations were known to have been affected in Brisbane with office closures. Most of the resources appear to be unaffected as the libraries were placed in strategic positions in the buildings. Mallesons Blake Dawson Hopgood Ganim Minter Ellison Norton Rose Clayton Utz QUT Corrs McCullough Robertson Allens Arthur Robinson Anti-Discrimination Commission We are planning on hosting a talkfest for Qld Members to come together and speak about their experiences both in the work place and personally. This will be planned for February. The next edition of the Qld Newsletter will also include stories relating to the flood and we encourage any member to submit their story and photos. Take care and stay safe. Lisa Sylvester ALLA(Q) President 2010-2011

Medium Neutral Citation and the elusive paragraph number

Has anyone noticed that some judgments from the Queensland Supreme Court have been published online with appropriate medium neutral citations but without paragraph numbering?  This makes pinpoint citation in these instances impossible. The judgments in question seem generally to be given ex tempore.

I had some interesting feedback on this topic from both the Victorian Supreme Court Librarian and the Tasmanian Supreme Court Librarian. In both of these courts an Associate will add paragraph numbering where it is required.

It would be useful for us to follow the full recommendations of  the AIJA Guide to Uniform Production of Judgments too.

Forthcoming LexisNexis AU enhancements

At the Cross Currents conference last week LexisNexis gave a presentation on new features that are soon to be coming to the platform. Here's an overview of what you can expect from them in the next couple of months.

Explore by Topic

• This is essentially an implementation of a 1200 word subject taxonomy across LNAU content.
• It will allow you to combine searches on free text with selections from the taxonomy to narrow results by topic.
• It will be launched in November 2010.

 Search Assist

• Essentially a word wheel system for autocompletion of party names and legislation titles.
• Designed to make it quicker and easier to search for a particular case or piece of legislation.
• Works like Google's autocompletion - you start typing your case name or Act title and it brings up a list of possible options to select to search on.
• Due for release before the end of October.

Legal Express

• Legal Express is back!
• Provides manually selected current awareness of new case law and legislation.
• Can be delivered via email, RSS, iphone/ipad app, or on the new legal express website.
• Options to select content from 32 practice areas.
• At this stage content is coming only from Casebase and Law Now, but will include other content such as journal articles in the future.
• The Alerts themselves are free to all LNAU customers.
• Due for launch 1st week of November.

Practical Guidance

• Pitched as existing content presented to match the work flow of a legal practitioner.
• A number of areas of law will be rolled out over time such as Family Law, Business Law and Succession Law.
• It amalgamates news, legislation, cases, and commentary under one practice area.
• Roll out of this starts Q4 2010.

International Content

• Over 1000 overseas titles will now be available through the LNAU platform.
• To access the content use the source directory and browse by jurisdiction.
• Includes content from UK, New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong, Malaysia and other countries.
• You can also search for overseas and Australian cases at the same time if you subscribe to the relevant products.

LexisNexis also advised that they are working on releasing new products for mobile platforms (i.e. iphone/ipad). The next offering is likely to be a Casebase app.

So, plenty of interesting new stuff coming from LNAU. For more details we would recommend contacting you local LNAU rep.

Re-energise, Re-Connect Podcasts

Podcasts from four of the sessions from the Re-Energise, Re-Connect Seminar held in August are now available from our website.

Have you tried Qudoc ?

Interesting new development in the search engine space - Qudoc.

A legal search engine just for Australia. Still very much in beta, but very promising. Take a look, try a few searches and let us know what you think!

Library to Twitter

Did anyone else see this - rather amusing is it not?

"Dear Twitter:

We’ve been seeing each other for about a year now, and there are a lot of things we really like about you. You can be funny and charming, and you’ve shared a lot of interesting things with us during our time together. In fact, it would be fair to say that if we’d never hooked up, the library would’ve missed out on a lot of good times.

Lately, though, we’ve been thinking about our relationship with you, and as difficult as this is for us to say, we just don’t think it’s going to work out between us on a long-term basis. We hope you understand, and we wish you the very best of luck in the future with all your other relationships — in fact, you have so many other people in your life, we have a feeling you probably won’t miss us at all. "


Library alchemy

Podcast: Legislation CPD Event

Podcast of the Legislation Workshop CPD event held 2 June 2010.

Calling all current and previous ALLG / ALLA Q members!

Celebrate our 30th Anniversary with us!

You're invited to Twilight Drinks at Melange Cafe, Roma Street Parklands

• enjoy some tasty antipasto and delicious canapes
• sip on your wine, beer or soft drink
• reminisce and catch up with other members
• or simply enjoy the ambience of this lovely venue
  

Time: 5.30 - 7pm
Date: Wednesday 28 July 2010.

If you're in touch with any previous members, please extend this
invitation to them as we'd love them to attend

Only $25 for ALLA members (and for this special occasion, that includes
previous members!)

The registration form for the Twilight Drinks, and for the earlier CPD Event
"Re-energise, Re-connect ALLA Q 2010" is now available on our
website

On Senate Committees - words from the unrepresentative swill

It’s the 40th anniversary of the Senate Committee system this year and I was lucky enough to be caught in a traffic jam (Ipswich Motorway, Friday night) long enough to hear the whole of Peter Mare’s interview with the new Clerk of the Senate (Dr Rosemary Laing) as well as his interview with Senators Troeth, Collins and Siewert about their own work on the different Senate Committees.

On the evening of 11 June l970 the Australian Senate passed an historic resolution to establish two groups of committees - the Legislative and General Purpose Standing Committees and the Estimates Committees. Although parliamentary committees have existed since 1901 the system of Committees established in 1970 brought into being for us the kind of parliamentary oversight enjoyed by the US Committee system.

I learned a number of interesting things from these two interviews not least of which was the role of Senator (as he was then) Lionel Murphy in building the Committee system we have today. Another was of our turning away from Westminster to follow the US style of governance as being deemed more useful to us. Of course our constitution and federal style of government were drawn from the US model to some degree, and lacking a House of Lords (although of course we do have a monarchy) it’s not surprising we would devise the more democratic and less party dominated scrutiny that our Senate committee system provides.

Both of these conversations are available as podcasts –
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/nationalinterest/

Listening to these discussions made me wonder whether we might have a representative from our own fledgling Committee system to talk to us about the work of the Queensland Parliamentary Committees.


There is also a July Conference - http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/conferences/ctte-40th-anniversary/conference_flyer.pdf which looks really excellent. Perhaps the great Harry Evans will speak there.

Latest ALLA Q Newsletter

Another fascinating issue

• Barbara Flowers profiles a fascinating special libary - the School of Oriental and African Studies Library in London, where she once worked and which is about to undergo a huge makeover
• learn the basics of making a podcast
• Editor Allison Jones has summarised the recent thread on our national list (ALLA-ANZ ) regarding training of students in legal research skills, and lists some useful resources on the topic
• Member Anne Collins explains "cloud computing"

And we've all the latest law related news for law librarians, and our regular columns, including CPD roundup, S*x and the Librarian, and the Travelling librarian.

As usual, the newsletter is sent out to our members-only e-list initially, but will shortly be available on our website

Government's FOI reform legislation passed through the Parliament

The Government's FOI reform legislation, the Australian Information Commissioner Bill 2010 and the Freedom of Information Amendment (Reform) Bill 2010, passed through the Parliament on 13 May 2010.

The Government moved amendments to both Bills in the House of Representatives on 12 May, which were agreed. Details of those amendments and the final Bills as passed by both Houses are available from the Parliament of Australia ParlInfo website: see

Australian Information Commissioner Bill 2010 http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22legislation%2Fbillhome%2Fr4164%22

and Freedom of Information Amendment (Reform) Bill 2010 http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22legislation%2Fbillhome%2Fr4163%22

Following Royal Assent of the Bills, the majority of the measures (including the establishment of the new Office of the Australian Information Commissioner) will commence on a day to be fixed by proclamation, or six months after Royal Assent. The Government will make an announcement on this matter.

As you may be aware, the Government announced on 26 February this year the engagement of Professor John McMillan AO as the Information Commissioner Designate. Preparations for the establishment of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner are continuing. This includes work on new FOI guidelines so that they are ready in sufficient time for commencement of the changes to the FOI request regime.

The new Information Publication Scheme will commence six months later than the other reform measures.

New Report: “Net Generation” Guide Released by U.S. Department of Defense

The U.S. Department of Defense announced the release of the Net Generation guide, a 128-page report by the Federal Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council that focuses on preparing for change in the Federal Information Technology (IT) workforce.

Although this report focuses on workplace and IT issues, two chapters might be of interest.

+ Chapter 5 Norms and Characteristics of the Net Generation (Begins on Page 37)

+ Chapter 9 Shaping the Workplace Through Web 2.0 Technologies (Begins on Page 63)

Full Text access to the 128 page document can be found here (PDF).

Source: U.S. DOD

The future of IRIS industrial relations database

As a result of the changes to the industrial relations system, information about employment and industrial relations will be available from Fair Work Australia.

Historical data in the IRIS database will be relocated to the QIRC website and available for free from 1 July 2010

More information from Wageline

Commonwealth Budget process explained

It's Budget night tomorrow (Tuesday 11 May). Do you know enough to answer any questions from your clients? Will you be able to source relevant documents? Do you understand the role of the Estimates committees? If you're a bit rusty, you may find this document rivetting reading!

Roy Jordan, ALLA member and Senior Law Librarian at the Parliamentary Library posted about this useful document on the national ALLA-ANZ list : The Commonwealth Budget: Process and Presentation [PDF]

It contains an overview of the process, the main stages, budget documents and even reporting requirements. A great primer!

Government response to Gov 2.0 Taskforce report

The Government response to the Government 2.0 Taskforce report Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0 has been released.

The Government has agreed to most of the recommendations from the report, deferring or questioning a few. As in the U.S they will adopt a "declaration of open government" and the Department of Finance and Deregulation will be the lead agency ( their new blog AGIMO will be providing a forum for issues surrounding Government use of ICT, well worth a look).

Implementation of the recommendations hinges on some other factors and is related to the passage of the freedom of information legislation currently before parliament, so will take at least 18 months to become a reality. No doubt this direction will continue to provide law librarians with challenges as well as opportunities in accessing government information in the future.

April CPD event cancelled

Due to low attendance numbers, this event at the University of Qld has been cancelled.

Next event coming in May!