Membership

CoALL began this membership year with only 98 members. This number was down significantly, but twelve members have joined (or rejoined) since July; this brings us back to our 110 total of last year. 42 of the members (38%) work in private law firm libraries. This is an increase at law firm libraries of 1% from 1997/98. The number of people in academic libraries decreased from 27 to 25 members, 23% of the membership. Court and government library members increased to from 15 to 16 or 15% of the membership. The remaining 27 (25%) members are students, lifetime members and associate members, some of whom work for vendors.

21 new members had joined CoALL during 1998. We recognized those new members in attendance at our Holiday Party in December. New organizations represented by CoALL members this year include Media One Group (Melanie Ferguson and Michel McKenzie), the National Indian Law Library (David Selden), the Wyoming State Library (Kathy Carlson), and the Colorado Journal (Candy Herring).

Dues continued at $15.00 for institutional, individual and associate memberships and $5.00 for student memberships. The breakdown by type of membership is 83 institutional members, five associate members, thirteen individual members and four students. Life memberships are held by Francis Campbell, Al Coco, Oscar Miller, and Jean Tarbell. 

Many CoALL members also belong to other library associations. 54 (49%) belong to the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). 24 (22%) belong to the Southwestern Association of Law Libraries. Seventeen members (15%) belong to the Special Library Association (SLA) and twelve members (11%) belong to the Colorado Library Association (CLA). Five members (4.5%) also belong to ALA, two (2%) members belong to CCML, and two members belong to SCALL and WESTPAC.

The membership of CoALL is maintained on Microsoft Access software at the University of Colorado Law Library. From this database, the CoALL 1998-99 Membership Directory was produced by Mildred Burgermeister, former Administrative Assistant at the University of Colorado Law Library, and printed by Fred B. Rothman & Co.

CoALL membership data was transferred (via disk) from the Access list at the University of Colorado Law Library to Bill Knott, editor, who will merge the data with the other Colorado library organizations to produce the Joint Membership Directory of the CoALL, CCML, CEMA, CIPN, CLA, and SLA for 1999.

Placement

Placement services continued to be minimal for CoALL in 1998/99. I received notices of three available postions but only two of those were posted on the CoALL listserv. (The other one was filled before posting.) Although placement responsibilities are minimal, having one committee chair to contact for information serves the public and provides exposure for CoALL. I again recommend that Placement continue to be part of the Membership chairperson’s responsibilities.