The Library Without Walls: Striving for an Excellent Law Library Service Post-Earthquake

Abstract

This paper is adapted from a presentation given by Sara Roberts at the 2015 BIALL Annual Conference. On September 4th 2010 Christchurch suffered the first of a series of catastrophic earthquakes which continued over the next two years and damaged much of the city. During this time the University of Canterbury suffered greatly, both through physical damage to the campus and from a loss of students willing to come and study in Christchurch. Subsequently, the dedicated Law Library on campus was closed and it was necessary to reassess the service in the light of severely reduced resources. More than four years on from that first earthquake, the law collection is situated in the central library on campus, and the number of professional law librarians supporting the service has reduced from four to two. Yet despite the changes the service has not diminished and, indeed, is stronger in some areas.

Do University Libraries in Australia Actively Plan to Protect Special Collections from Disaster?

“…Recovery from this incident of a few hours took more than a year and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, yet it was 'a minor incident, hardly noticeable on the scale of major library disasters over the years ' Fullerton (2004, p. 178). Roberts (2015) describes how an earthquake affected the delivery of services at the University of Canterbury, which was closed for three weeks following an earthquake in 2012.…”