International Association of Law Libraries

The primary objective of the International Association of Law Libraries (IALL) is “to promote the work of individuals, libraries, and other institutions and agencies concerned with the acquisition and bibliographic processing of legal materials collected on a multinational basis, and to facilitate the research and use of such materials on a worldwide basis.” Members, who represent some sixty countries, are employed in a variety of law library settings, including academic, corporate, parliamentary, national, and court. The Association is incorporated and legally domiciled in Washington, D.C.

History

In 1958, the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) created a Committee on an International Association of Law Libraries. An organizational meeting was subsequently held on June 24, 1959, at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (now the New York City Bar Association). Attended by about sixty delegates, the gathering formally established IALL and adopted a constitution.

IALL’s first elected officers were William R. Roalfe (Northwestern University School of Law, Chicago), President; K. Howard Drake (Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London),Vice-President; Dr. William B. Stern (Los Angeles County Law Library), Secretary; and George A. Johnstone (Osgoode Hall, Toronto), Treasurer. Along with the aforementioned officers, the IALL inaugural Board of Directors included Dr. A. C. BreychaVauthier (United Nations, Geneva); Dr. Bartholomeus Landheer (Peace Palace Library, The Hague); Sadao Matsuyama (Ministry of Justice Library, Tokyo); and Dr. Jorge B. Vivas (Argentine Library of Congress, Buenos Aires). IALL’s inaugural meeting, with fifty-three attendees, was held at Harvard Law School, June 24–25, 1961.

Mission

IALL’s mission statement lists the following programs:

• Promote the work of legal information professionals;
• Advance the education of law librarians and legal information professionals;
• Support educational and professional opportunities for newer legal information professionals, especially those from developing nations;
• Disseminate information through the IALL website and publications;
• Promote exchanges and networking among national, regional, and international library and legal information organizations;
• Encourage the development of national and international legal information policies and promote free access to legal information on a worldwide basis.

Governance and Committees

Article VI of IALL’s constitution describes the duties and other characteristics of the Association’s four officers (President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer). The offices of Secretary and Treasurer may be combined in the same person, who is entitled to one vote. Each officer serves a three-year term and may serve for two successive terms in the same office. Article VI also mandates that only U.S. residents may serve as Treasurer, except under extraordinary circumstances.

In addition, Article VI addresses the composition of IALL’s Board of Directors, which consists of the organization’s officers and seven additional board members, along with the immediate past president and the editor of the International Journal of Legal Information (IJLI). Both of the latter serve as nonvoting ex-officio members. The immediate past president is a board member for one year, while the IJLI editor and seven nonofficer board members serve for three years. Article VI mandates that the board members who are not officers be limited to serving two back-to-back terms. A roster of current and past officers and board members is posted on the IALL website under the “About IALL” tab.

Article VII of IALL’s constitution stipulates that a nominating committee of three members is responsible for compiling a slate of candidates to run for IALL’s officer positions and board membership. Per Articles VI and VII, IALL members belonging to the “Individual” class of membership elect both the officers and board. IALL’s five classes of membership are described in Article V.

Article VIII empowers the IALL President to appoint committees. In addition to the Nominating Committee, which is assembled prior to each election year, IALL maintains five committees: Communications, Conference, Education, Finance, and Scholarships. The charges and membership lists of each are listed under the “About IALL” tab on IALL’s website.

Annual Courses

One of IALL’s primary attractions for law librarians is its educational programming in the areas of foreign and international law. IALL offered courses irregularly from 1966 to 1993 at various locations around the globe; however, since 1993, courses have been offered on a yearly basis. Annual Courses, for example, have been held in Mumbai (2007), Buenos Aires (2014), and Berlin (2015). The 37th Annual Course was held in Luxembourg in October 2018, and the 38th Annual Course will be held in Sydney, Australia. In addition to substantive sessions that focus on the legal system of the host jurisdiction, the Annual Courses traditionally include a cultural event and an optional sightseeing day. IALL’s website lists the sites and topics of all of the previous and forthcoming Annual Courses (see the “Annual Conference” tab).

According to one recent attendee of an IALL Annual Course (Luxembourg), “The term ‘annual course’ is fitting, because unlike other law library conferences, the IALL course is basically that—a course on the substantive law of the host country or local jurisdiction. This makes perfect sense for an organization such as IALL, the focus of which is international law. The courses are taught by legal academics and practitioners, not librarians.”

Scholarships

IALL grants bursaries to members and nonmembers to help defray the costs of attending its Annual Courses. The IALL website indicates that three nonmember and four member bursaries are awarded each year. The Scholarships Committee administers the bursaries. Recipients of financial assistance from IALL are generally required to write a summary of their experience at the Annual Course; in the past, these summaries were published in the IJLI, but more recently, they have been posted on the organization’s blog.

Publications and Awards

IALL’s flagship publication is the International Journal of Legal Information (IJLI), which is published three times per year by Cambridge University Press. Content includes research articles, materials presented at each Annual Course, and book reviews. Prior to the IJLI, the Association published the International Journal of Law Libraries (March 1973–December 1981) and the International Association of Law Libraries Bulletin (September 1960–December 1972). Back issues of the Bulletin, the International Journal of Law Libraries, and the IJLI are available in HeinOnline. Selected years of the IJLI are also available in Westlaw and LexisNexis to subscribers. IJLI issues, starting with 2017, are accessible online with a subscription through the Cambridge Core online platform. IALL members receive print copies.

Mark D. Engsberg (MacMillan Law Library, Emory University School of Law, Atlanta) has been the editor of the IJLI since 2005, and he is assisted by an editorial board. Members of the ILJI Editorial Board may serve two successive three-year terms. The ILJI also has an Advisory Committee on Communication.

In addition, IALL periodically publishes a newsletter, which is available on the Association’s website. As well, IALL maintains a blog with members’ entries on research resources, international academic competitions, and organization news, which is also posted on the IALL website. IALL itself has published a handful of articles and books, including The IALL International Handbook of Legal Information Management (Richard A. Danner and Jules Winterton eds., Ashgate, 2011). For bibliographies of works by and about IALL, see the “Further Reading” list below and the Association’s website (select “About IALL,” then “Articles & Publications”).

From 2002 to 2013, IALL bestowed a yearly “Website Award,” which was announced at each Annual Course. The 2013 winner was Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes (RIS) (Austrian Legal System). A full list of the nominations and winners is posted on the IALL website (“About IALL,” to “Archives,” to “Website Award Winners”).

Initiatives

Under the aegis of the Education Committee’s workshops held in Barcelona (2013) and Buenos Aires (2014), IALL formulated “Guidelines for Public International Law Research Instruction” to promote information literacy. The guidelines, which were last amended on November 10, 2014, are meant to promote best practices in teaching international legal research. Competencies were established for international conventions, customary law, general principles of law, judicial opinions, doctrinal writings, and citation methods.

Another noteworthy initiative involving IALL was the “Workshop for Law Librarians in Anglophone Africa.” The event’s English-language version was held in Kampala, Uganda (2016) and the French-language version in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire (2017). These workshops assembled local curators, librarians, archivists, and IALL members who discussed such topics as free access to legal information, legal research, legal education, collection development, and professional development.

See Also

• Betty Moys
  
• HeinOnline
  
• List of Library Associations
  
• Richard Danner
  

Further Reading

• Dahlmanns, Gerhard. “The International Association of Law Libraries.” The Law Librarian 4, no. 3 (Dec. 1973/March 1974): 40–41.
• Dahlmanns, Gerhard. “The International Association of Law Libraries: An Interim Account.” International Association of Law Libraries Bulletin no. 28 (June 1972): 7–12.
• Dahlmanns, Gerhard. “Serving Legal Information: Twenty-Five Years of IALL.” In Courts, Law Libraries, and Legal Information in a Changing Society: 25th IALL Anniversary Meeting 4–23 (Freiburg, Germany: International Association of Law Libraries, 1984).
• Kavass, Igor. “International Association of Law Libraries.” International Library Review 9, no. 3 (July 1977): 363–68.
• Landheer, Bart. “Ten Years International Association of Law Libraries.” International Association of Law Libraries Bulletin XXIII (June 1969): 5–6.
• Schwerin, Kurt. “The International Association of Law Libraries: Its Beginnings.” International Journal of Legal Information 12, nos. 1 & 2 (Feb.–April 1984): 1–6.
• Sprudzs, Adolf. “The International Association of Law Libraries and its Twenty-Five Years of Activities.” The Law Librarian 15, no. 3 (Dec. 1984): 50–53.
• Sprudzs, Adolf. “Thirty-Five Years of International Cooperation: the Case of the IALL.” The Law Librarian 26, no. 2 (June 1995): 321–26.
• Wenger, Larry. “Adolf Sprudzs and the International Association of Law Libraries.” Law Library Journal 95, no. 3 (2003): 326–28.
• Wenger, Larry B. “IALL at 40.” International Journal of Legal Information 27, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 1–2.
• Winterton, Jules. “IALL: Law Libraries in an Era of Globalisation.” Novaya Justitsiya no. 2 (2009): 114–17.

External Links

Official Website
Current Officers and Members of the Board
Past Officers and Members of the Board (1959 to date)
Facebook Page
Twitter Account
Blog (open to both members and nonmembers)
International Journal of Legal Information
DipLawMatic Dialogues “IALL Conferences”
“The IALL Guidelines for Public International Law Research Instruction”
The IALL International Handbook of Legal Information Management (partial content in Google Books)
IALL Members’ Publications

References

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