Both presenters were unable to attend the Annual Meeting in person and recorded their program. 

In this program, we will discuss strategies and lessons learned from British Columbia’s LawMatters Program, Canada’s longest running legal-public library partnership. Established in 2007 and enhanced in 2019 with increased funding, our partnership leverages the strengths of law and public librarians, specifically law librarians’ legal reference skills, collection expertise, and familiarity with the legal community and public librarians’ in-depth knowledge of their communities: their needs, challenges, and strengths.

Through grant funding, staff training, curated lists, 1:1 collection advice, and community relationship building, LawMatters supports public libraries in providing local access to legal collections, basic reference services, and referrals to legal help programs. Specifically, we distribute annual grant funding from the Law Foundation of BC to all 71 public library systems, representing 247 branch locations. This money enables them to build and maintain small legal collections, something many—especially small, rural, and remote libraries—would be unable to do otherwise. We also create annual recommended readings lists (for all ages) to ensure funds are spent on reliable, current, and relevant materials. We provide legal reference training to front-line staff, and help build connections between local legal intermediaries and public library staff. In recent years, we have broadened spending parameters to support print-based programming initiatives proposed by our library partners, including community events held on National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, reading clubs focused on social justice and EDIA topics, and satellite collections embedded in community spaces.

Our focus is on building trusting relationships that allow us to elicit genuine feedback and input from our partners to ensure our program changes as needed to meet the changing needs of BC’s geographically dispersed and culturally diverse communities. By working together, we bring relatable, reliable, and engaging legal information to BC residents at the local level.

We will share these demonstrably successful and practical strategies that have helped us bring legal information to a wider audience beyond law libraries, including training contextualized in storytelling, legal collections with relatable and plain-language resources for all ages, and programming on timely topics like truth and reconciliation, decolonization, and social justice issues. Participants will leave with ideas they can adapt and apply in their own jurisdictions.

TARGET AUDIENCE:

Law librarians at all levels interested in partnering with public libraries to expand their reach, share their expertise ,and support local access to justice.

Library directors and managers interested in creating or supporting similar initiatives in their own jurisdictions would also benefit.

TAKEAWAYS:

1. Participants will be able to apply successful LawMatters’ strategies in their own library’s outreach initiatives.
2. Participants will be able to create successful teaching strategies and collection development support materials for public librarians.
3. Participants will have concrete proposals to help them feel confident in reaching out to public libraries in their own jurisdictions to collaborate and increase access to justice in their communities.

SPEAKERS:

• Rachel Carlson, Courthouse Libraries BC

COORDINATOR:

• Megan C. Smiley, Courthouse Libraries BC

AALL BODY OF KNOWLEDGE DOMAINS: Professionalism + Leadership At Every Level, Marketing + Outreach

CANCELLATION AND OTHER POLICIES:

No refunds will be given for any purchased AALL conference recording. This applies to non-AALL members only as the recordings are free for AALL members.

The opinions shared during this program represent the views of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect those of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). Recording, capturing, or using AI tools to duplicate, transcribe, or otherwise reproduce an AALL program in any form is strictly prohibited without prior written consent from AALL. This includes, but is not limited to audio, video, or any other content shared. By accessing an AALL recording, you agree to adhere to this policy.