Opening Address by Brian Martin, Chief Justice of the NT: Recording history - burning books and the digital age

• The opening address was about the preservation (and destruction) of the historical record in both traditional and modern formats.
• Law Librarians provide a background to a life in the law, often without the recognition we deserve.
• Law librarians very helpful in his legal eduction, the law library was also a place of refuge.
• System of legal references were unintelligible to a young law student - legal learning is very different now.
• With the evolution to the digital age - lawyers and students have become impatient, used to the 60 sec grab of information, no longer willing to learn by browsing books, want instantaneous answers.
• Libraries are in a period of transition, as are judges - Books are being decommissioned.
• With the explosion of material available online comes censorship.
• Censorship has played a significant role in shaping society.
• History is filled with stories of people who've tried to kill free thought.
• Anecdotes about the burning of books:

Destruction of Alexandria library;

burning of 20,000' un-German' books in Nazi Germany;

May 1946 Time magazine article about Allies pulped all "pro-Nazi, militaristic and undemocratic books" books;

Serbian forces attack on in National Library of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s

Church burning Wycliffe and Tyndale translations of the Bible;

Harrry Potter and Star Wars products burned in modern US.

• The advent of the digital age makes censorship difficult, but not impossible.
• How safe are records in digital forms.
• There are risks and pitfalls that are involved when dealing with long term preservation of information in digital formats.
• There are real concerns about preservation of digital material.
• Hardcopy is safeguard against the loss of our history. 
• Libraries remain an essential feature in the legal landscape
• Judges and practitioners find guidance in the past, and librarians are custodians of this history.
• Libraries are essential to preservation of historical material.