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President’s Letter

by Kathryn C. Fitzhugh

SWALL President 2002-2003

Reference / Special Collections Librarian
UALR Wm. H. Bowen School of Law
UALR/Pulaski County Law Library 

As I write my last letter as SWALL president I would like to thank all those who helped me over the last two years. I learned a lot this year and met even more dedicated SWALL members. 

As I may have mentioned before, I started out in SWALL in 1981.  I was a new court librarian setting up Little Rock’s first staffed federal court library. After having dabbled in science librarianship and undergraduate cataloging, law librarianship stole my interest and kept it. SWALL offered a workshop on "Basic Law Librarianship" that helped me immeasurably. I hope that SWALL still does for others what it did for me, and is still doing for me:  offering inspiration and opportunities to keep skills current, learn about new tools and publications, make contact with vendors, and meet other law librarians who share information freely.

I look forward to the annual meeting in Kansas City.

I look forward to the annual meeting in Kansas City. I hope that you are making plans to be there. The Program Committee, headed by Sharon Wayland, has been working on what promises to be a great program. Mon Yin Lung has been diligently working as the Chair of the Local Arrangements Committee. 

The last time I was in Kansas City for a meeting I spent my evening hours pursuing jazz and blues. Every jazz musician I heard could scat-sing.  Some sang in Brazilian Portuguese, one of my favorite languages. Culturally speaking, there’s something special about a city that was once home to Count Basie, Charlie Parker, and boogie piano man Jay McShann.

I leave you in the good hands of the leadership of Sharon Wayland, presently Vice President/President-Elect and Program Chair. Also, we are fortunate to have the Nominations Committee members as follows: Barbara Bintliff, Chair, Jessie Cranford and Sharon Blackburn.

I’ll see you in Kansas City!