Carall History

In June of 1982, a Meeting of Librarians of the U.W.I. Faculty of Law and the Council of Legal Education Law Schools, was called by the Director of Legal Education, Mr. H. Aubrey Fraser, following on a proposal from the Sub-Committee on Legal Literature in Small Jurisdictions. The Executive Committee of the Council of Legal Education, whose primary Members are the Attorneys-General of the participating Caribbean countries, subsequently gave its approval for two (2) Librarians from each of the two (2) Law Schools to be in attendance at this Meeting.

October 5, 1982 was the date set, and seventeen (17) Law Librarians, Officers-in Charge and Library Assistants-in-Charge of Government Law Libraries from Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Guyana and Jamaica, gathered at the Faculty of Law in Barbados, together with a Technical Assistant and a Recording Secretary.

It was the first time that Law Librarians of the Commonwealth Caribbean had met to discuss common problems relating to law information collection and organisation, viz. the distribution of legal information within the region, acquisition policies and problems, and ways in which greater co-operation amongst the libraries could be achieved, and the treatment of unreported cases.

Out of that two-day Meeting arose certain recommendations, not least of which was that a Commonwealth Caribbean Law Libraries Association should be formed.

A Working Party was set up, chaired by Mr. John Dyrud, the U.W.I. Faculty of Law Librarian, with Mrs. Velma Newton as Secretary, and Members Mrs. June Renie, Librarian of the Hugh Wooding Law School, Miss Paula Jordon of the University of Guyana, and Sir Clifford Hammett as Legal Advisor. Sir Clifford was in charge of the West Indian Legislation Indexing Project (W.I.L.I.P.) at the Faculty of Law.

Inauguration

In May 1984, the Caribbean Association of Law Libraries was inaugurated in a two-day Meeting at the Hugh Wooding Law School. The Meeting was attended by nineteen (19) representatives, from five (5) countries, and was a gala affair, with displays and demonstrations from several library firms who were in Trinidad to attend the ACURIL (Association of Caribbean University, Research and Institutional Libraries) XV Conference. The finale was a Banquet at the Trinidad Hilton sponsored by the visiting firms. Mrs. Norma Glaude, of the Supreme Court Library, CARALL’s first Secretary, made presentations of her book on law libraries in Trinidad, and Dr. Claude Denbow, a Tutor at the Hugh Wooding Law School, presented copies of his book on life insurance law in the Commonwealth Caribbean.