Organizing and Participating in the “Open Access to Legal Knowledge in Africa” Workshop in Uganda

By Heather Casey

This past December, I had the privilege of traveling to Kampala, Uganda and assisting with a workshop on Open Access to legal knowledge in Africa. It was for law librarians in Anglophone Africa. The workshop was organized through the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), in cooperation with the International Association of Law Libraries (IALL). It was sponsored by IFLA, IALL, and HeinOnline.

I was one of several organizers – with me were Mark Engsberg (Emory University), Joe Hinger (St. John’s University), Caroline Ilako (Markerere University), Sonia Poulin (Alberta Law Libraries), and Bård Tuseth (University of Oslo). Over the course of several months, we worked to bring together a group of African law librarians that came from the following countries: Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and South Africa.

Our goals for the workshop were to empower participants to utilize the potential of open access legal sources in legal research. The workshop offered a method to build a network of law librarians across Africa in order to share knowledge and assist each other in solving practical legal research questions. Participation provided an overview of open access legal sources worldwide, the practical skills required to benefit from them, and an opportunity to establish contact with colleagues from different countries.

One essential component of the workshop was for every participant to give a presentation. Most were 5 minutes long and organizers spoke from 15 minutes to 45 minutes on various topics with Q&A sessions afterward. Our reasons behind having every participant give a presentation were several; first, it encouraged each participant to plan for the workshop and guaranteed active participation. Second, each participant shared information on the legal research environment in their jurisdiction, which allowed for other participants to learn more about jurisdictions outside their own. It also assisted with networking, as each presentation allowed participants to better acquaint themselves with one another. Getting up in front of their peers gave each participant a chance to exercise skills in public speaking that they may not have otherwise used over the course of the two-day workshop.

We also had three breakout sessions where participants were gathered into small groups to foster discussion. Organizers joined in at each group table to act as facilitators for the small group discussions. After 45 minutes to an hour of discussion, the entire workshop group would come together and people from each group would relay their group’s findings.

As organizers, we wanted to ensure that participants would continue to contribute to a network for African Law Librarians. To that end, we established several online forums after the workshop for participants and organizers to engage in virtual and practical collaboration with international colleagues. The forums included:

• an email group hosted through Google Groups (african-law-librarians-group@googlegroups.com),
• a website hosted through Google Sites (https://sites.google.com/view/africanlawlibrarians/home), where slide and paper presentations from the workshop have been uploaded,
• and a What’sApp group for commentary and discussion amongst participants on topics tangentially related to librarianship.

So far the email chain and WhatsApp groups have been very vibrant. Participants continue to reach out to one another to discuss resources and let one another know what is happening in their jurisdictions. The website has been good for exchanging slides from the workshop and members have discussed what they would like to further do with the website.

We are excited to see this group continue in its efforts to further the goals of the workshop and look forward to further collaboration with members of the workshop. The experience was unforgettable and one I personally was truly honored and humbled to take part in. It was also very enjoyable to visit Uganda and learn more about the vibrant culture there. I look forward to visiting again.

It’s Time For Chicago!

Registration is now open for the 2016 AALL Annual Meeting and Conference in Chicago!  In addition to member-discounted pricing, deeply discounted registration rates are available for students and retirees. Nonmember conference registration packages also include a complimentary one-year AALL membership – by joining us in Chicago, you’ll be joining AALL as well!

The FCIL-SIS looks forward to welcoming all attendees to its 2016 Schaffer Grant for Foreign Law Librarians presentation, which will take place on Monday, July 18, from 4:30 p.m. until 5:30 p.m., in Hyatt-Columbus GH. This year’s recipient, Ms. Rheny Pulungan, is Liaison Support Librarian at the University of Melbourne’s Law School Library. As Liaison Support Librarian, she supplies reference services, teaches legal research workshops, and completes collection development projects. Ms. Pulungan holds a Ph.D and Masters degree in International Law from the University of Melbourne, and a Master of Information Studies in Librarianship from the University of Canberra. Previously, Ms. Pulungan received her Bachelor of Laws from Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia, and served as Law Faculty Lecturer at Bengkulu University, where she specialized in international law. Ms. Pulungan’s experience in both Indonesian and Australian law, as well as law librarianship, will be reflected in her presentation, which will treat comparatively access to legal information in both countries.

In addition to the Schaffer Grant presentation on July 18, the AALL Conference will feature the following FCIL-related programming:

Sunday, July 17th

4:00 p.m. – Asian Legal Information in English: Availability, Accessibility, and Quality Control

Tuesday, July 19

8:30 a.m. – Roman Law, Roman Order, and Restatements

11:00 a.m. – Vanishing Online? Legal and Policy Implications for Libraries of the EU’s “Right to be Forgotten”

The FCIL-SIS is also working with the American Society of International Law to co-sponsor a pre-conference workshop to be held on Saturday, July 16 at 9:30 a.m. ($50 additional registration fee applies.)  The workshop, which is entitled Two Sides to the United Nations: Working with Public and Private International Law at the UN, is designed to equip all law librarians with foundational knowledge of the United Nations and CISG (both of which have recent significant changes to their online databases), and to increase their fluency with the major U.N. and CISG documents, information, research resources, and strategies.

If you are presenting on an FCIL-related topic in Chicago and would like your program to be featured on DipLawMatic Dialogues, or if you are interested in blogging about the conference programs listed above, please contact blog administrators Susan Gualtier (susan.gualtier@law.lsu.edu) or Loren Turner (lturner@law.ufl.edu). We look forward to seeing you in Chicago this summer!

Join the FCIL-SIS Electronic Research Interest Group!

Join the FCIL-SIS Electronic Research Interest Group! Make a valuable contribution to the profession and enhance your reputation!

The Electronic Research Interest Group meets to discuss both the web presence of the group and also new developments in technology or databases.  (FCIL Newsletter 2011)  This year’s tasks will include updating some of the items on the FCIL website like Lyonette Louis Jacques & Mary Rumsey’s Jumpstart Your Foreign, Comparative, and International Research and increasing the number of contributions to the Teaching FCIL Syllabi and Course Material Database.  Some of our past efforts included:

1. Exchanging information about FCIL-related commercial databases and other electronic resources;
2. FCIL-related digitization projects;
3. The revival of the FCIL blog, which became DipLawMatic Dialogues; and
4. China’s RC Supreme People’s Court’s creation of a repository of their cases in English.

To volunteer contact James Hart at hartjw@uc.edu or 513-556-0160.