Government Info Pro Podcast: Episode 12

During AALL, this summer, I had a chance to sit down with Andrea Muto, recently back from working on the Afghanistan Rule of Law Project (ARoLP) and interview her for the Government Info Pro Podcast.  

I know that you are going to enjoy hearing about some of Andrea Muto's experiences as an information professional working in Afghanistan.

MP3 File

You can listen to the podcast in three ways:

• right from the embedded player in this post
• download the mp3 from the link right below the player
• subscribe to the Government Info Pro Podcast on iTunes

 

 

SHOW NOTES:

Here is a short description of this project as provided to me by Andrea:

The Afghanistan Rule of Law Project (ARoLP) was funded by USAID, and implemented by Checchi & Company Consulting from 2005-2009. ARoLP was the US presence in the justice sector, first working with the Ministry of Justice (legislative drafting training, organizing and publishing laws), then later tasked with Supreme Court training and administrative reform (developing judges' training curriculum and materials, collaborating on writing the first Judicial Code of Conduct, publishing Supreme Court Cases). The development of the law library at the Independent National Legal Training Center (INLTC) rounded out judicial training and curriculum components.

The INLTC is located on the campus of Kabul University, situated between the Law & Political Science and Shari'a law faculties. It is a quasi-governmental organization, built by the Italian Embassy, administratively staffed by by the NGO International Developmental Law Organization and run by a Board whose representatives include the Supreme Court, Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and Attorney General's Office. USAID was invited to design and staff the first full-service law library in the country at the INLTC, since its Rule of Law project was heavily involved with both the Supreme Court and MoJ, and because its international staff included a law librarian (myself) who had joined ARoLP in February 2007.

The INLTC Law Library is actually full of firsts. It is the first library to catalog its collection in three languages (Dari, Pashtu and English) using Koha open-source software. It is the first law library to provide patrons legal research training, and a nascent version of first CALR courses. It is the first whose staff wrote the first Dari-Pasto legal research manual in the country in more than 30 years. It is the first to offer its resources via a web site in three languages (www.inltclawlibrary.org).

Here are some additional links of interest:

• The INLTC Law Library's web site (Icon for English is in the upper-left corner of the page) 
• USAID releases regarding the opening of the law library: http://afghanistan.usaid.gov/en/Article.386.aspx and  http://afghanistan.usaid.gov/en/Article.390.aspx
• USAID follow-up release regarding the library's progress
• USAID release describing ARoLP
• FCIL announces Masoud has won its scholarship
• The INLTC Law Library is part of a group of world-wide using Koha open-source cataloging software

Also, take a look at this post out on the Pace Law Library Podcast site: On Law Librarianship in Afghanistan. It has a good summary of the AALL Foreign, Comparative and International Law Special Interest Section (FCIL-SIS) program: The Past, Present, and Future of the Law Library and Librarianship in Afghanistan: The Challenges and Rewards of Building a Library After 30 Years of War. Among the resources listed there is a link to a podcast of the actual program. I attended this session and can tell you that it was one of the standout programs of AALL 2009. and that this podcast will be well worth a listen. Speakers were Mr. Ahmadullah Masoud, Andrea Muto, and Blair Kaufmann.