2 October 2009 - Coffs Library Scoops Excellence Award

Coffs Harbour City Library staff have been awarded a Centre of Excellence Award by the Legal Information Access Centre of the State Library of NSW for the outstanding contribution they made to this year's Law Week.

"This is yet another well-deserved accolade for the Council and its staff," said Coffs Harbour Mayor, Councillor Keith Rhoades.

"But we shouldn't lose sight of what awards represent. Each of them highlights an aspect of the work that we are doing to help the community. Whether that's providing major infrastructure or helpful information, we are always focused on improving the well-being of our community," he said.

The Legal Information Access Centre (LIAC) Centre of Excellence Award recognised the work that library staff, in particular Special Collection Librarian Liz Thomas, had undertaken for Law Week 2009.

During the week, Coffs Harbour Library ran a series of public, free question and answer sessions with local experts on:

• 'Older people and the law'. A talk by Sally Bryant from Legal Aid that covered a range of topics relevant to older people including wills and powers of attorney, guarantees, Centrelink, housing and family law. 
• 'Strata Living: know your rights'. This session, which featured Alison Stewart from the Department of Fair Trading and local solicitor Sam Cooper, was aimed at anyone living in, or interested in purchasing a strata title property. What does strata title mean? How do you resolve a conflict? What are your rights?

"We deliberately contacted local agencies to find speakers so that we could establish links with those organisations here in Coffs. The idea is that having those links, and a better understanding of the work of those agencies, will help us assist people coming to the libraries looking for information on legal matters," said Library Manager Enzo Accadia.

"It also works both ways as we introduced both Legal Aid and the Office of Fair Trading to the 'Find Legal Answers' service run by the Legal Information Access Centre of the State Library and they are now using those pamphlets in their branches here," he said.