A lawyer from another county could not find an article they needed – until a courthouse librarian worked her magic.
He didn’t know the date it was published.
He didn’t know where it was published.
But he knew it was written by a a lawyer in Frontenac, so he made the excellent choice of approaching Jackie Hassefras, the librarian for the courthouse library in that county. She recognized the author as a retired member of the Frontenac Law Association. Having had a great relationship with the author, Jackie reached out to her. She answered immediately, stating that she wasn’t sure if it was in print anywhere, but that she had presented it at one of the earlier FLA Kingston and the 1000 Islands Legal Conferences.
Library staff are often known to be curators of in-house programs, and the FLA has maintained the original papers from the inception of the legal conference, which was in 2007. Jackie dug until she found the 2007 paper, sending it to a happy and grateful lawyer in Ottawa.
This is just one example of how courthouse library staff can and do make a difference for lawyers and their clients every day.