CALGARY LAW LIBRARY GROUP
Mandate
1. To encourage professional development.
2. To promote the
activities and services of law librarian and legal information professionals.
3. To provide a forum for meetings of the membership.
4. To promote
cooperation among librarians interested in law and legal information professionals.
5. To cooperate with other organizations which tend to promote the mandate
of the C.L.L.G. or the interests of its members.
6. To provide information
and continuing education concerning matters of interest to the members.
7. To represent the interests of the members.
CLLG Guidelines (also known as By Laws to some)
History
There is no precise date when we can say that the Calgary Law Library Group was officially launched. We do know that, before 1975, the only staffed law library in Calgary was the Law Society Library. By 1977, however, the University of Calgary's Law Library had been ongoing since 1976 and there were enough law library personnel in law firms, the courthouse and the University that the national association entrusted the organization of the 1979 annual conference of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries to a growing and firmly established law library group. The idea of the national conference in Calgary was to showcase the new kid on the block, the U. of C. Law Library, but the end result was a very successful conference, made so through the efforts of a handful of young and energetic law librarians who met regularly through 1978 and 1979 under the stewardship of Georgia MacRae, Conference Chair, to plan the conference.
We met informally from 1978 on, sharing our expertise and the occasional social event. There were some workshops done together with the local librarians of CASLIS. The Law Society Library routed law library journals, published a list of names of individuals working in law libraries in the city, and circulated lists of their new acquisitions. The year 1980 saw the first formal executive named, together with a Program Committee of four people. A list of "Ideas for Workshops/Discussions" under the title Calgary Law Librarians' Association, was generated that year; and sometime between 1980 and 1981, a decision was made regarding the name of the group. We wanted the association to have an acronym unique from the national association, CALL, and we settled on the Calgary Law Library Group.
There is a letter
on file dated February 10, 1981, from Melody Hainsworth, then Law Society Librarian,
and Jane Hillard, then Librarian at MacKimmie Matthews, to the "Calgary Law
Library Group":
"There has been a strong interest in Calgary currently
in law library materials and their use. Several local law librarians felt that
perhaps our informal Law Library Group could perform a service both to our own
members and other area librarians by offering/sponsoring special workshops on
legal topics. To this end, we would like to suggest a meeting of the loosely formed
Calgary Law Library Group on February 16…At that time, we would like to discuss
the possibility of having more regular meetings with the view to forming (eventually)
an association similar to E.L.L.A. Also, we could discuss a possible list of seminars
which could be sponsored/offered to the Law Library Group and other interested
Calgary librarians…."
Right from the outset, programming and continuing education were a strong focus of CLLG. At the beginning, there was a policy decision in place that suggested five separate programs take place throughout the September to June association year. Topics ranged from substantive law areas through law library and publishing issues. Formats varied from luncheon discussion meetings to half-day revenue generating sessions opened up to the other library associations in the city. Speakers were judges, court officials, lawyers, and other librarians. Recent years have seen the group for the most part, settle into noon-hour "brown-baggers" at a hosting law firm office, often with special speakers and covering a wide range of topical issues. There was often a year-end wind-up social and annual business meeting. A tradition of a Christmas social was instigated early on, and it is one that has continued to the present day.
For a number of years, we produced a newsletter, called variously Calgary Law Library Newsletter (October 1989-1992) and Verbatim (1992-2002), until the advent of the Internet with its listservs and now, of course, association websites, made electronic publishing far more current and cost-efficient.
Past Executives