The ALL-SIS Awards Committee reviewed two nominated articles for the newly created ALL-SIS Outstanding Article Award, and eight nominated candidates for the Frederick Charles Hicks Award for Outstanding Contributions to Academic Law Librarianship award. The winners are:
ALL-SIS Outstanding Article Award: Melissa M Serfass and Jessie L Cranford, "Federal and State Court Rules Governing Publication and Citation of Opinions," 3 Journal of Appellate Practice and Process 251 (Spring 2001). The co-authors both serve the William H. Bowen School of Law , University of Arkansas Little Rock / Pulaski County Law Library. Ms. Serfass is currently the Electronic Resources / Reference Librarian and Ms. Cranford is the Circulation Librarian.
Frederick Charles Hicks Award for Outstanding Contributions to Academic Law Librarianship: Richard A Danner, Senior Associate Dean for Information Technology and Research Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law.
Both awards were presented to the recipients during the ALL-SIS Academic Reception at the Barry University School of Law Library, held at the AALL Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.
There has been some confusion in the past about whether the Section Committee Chair or the AALL Executive Assistant in Chicago orders the award plaques. The Committee recommends that the Awards Committee Chair transmit the award recipient information timely to the AALL Executive Assistant so that the Section awards will be included in the AALL Awards and Recognition brochure that is distributed during the Annual Meeting. In addition, the Committee recommends that the ALL-SIS Awards Chair communicate with AALL Executive Assistant as to who will be responsible for arranging for the award plaques to be produced. The Awards Chair will be responsible for picking up the plaques at the beginning of the Annual Meeting. The Awards Chair will confer with the ALL-SIS Chair on the specifics of exactly where and when the awards will be bestowed.
Nominations for the awards were advertised in the ALL-SIS Newsletter, and on the ALL-SIS Listserv.
The Awards Committee recommends that the Executive Committee direct that additional awards be created. As a start, an award directed at innovations of middle managers [defined as any academic law librarian not a director] should be designed and implemented. Although the Hicks Award was not designed or intended to be awarded to a law library director every time, that is how it is turning out. While the Hicks Award is a very important award for the ALL-SIS Section, it is also important to acknowledge the contributions and innovations of those not in the director's chair.
CONALL Program at AALL's 2002 Annual Meeting, Orlando, Florida
Jim Heller, with William and Mary colleagues Chris Byrne, Jennifer Sekula and Fred Dingledy, and Kumar Percy from the University of Texas, created a program on legal research for CONALL. A synopsis follows:
Legal Research Meets Darwin: The Origin and Evolution of Research Courses at Two Law Schools
AALL 2002 Annual Meeting and Conference
Sunday, July 21, 2002
11:45 am - 1:00 pm
Orlando, Florida
Law librarians at William & Mary and the University of Texas law schools will explain the development of our basic and advanced research courses, how we work within the law school environment, and how we integrate new librarians into our teaching programs. Teaching and learning are dynamic processes: what you teach, how you teach, who you teach, and when you teach continually evolve over time. Hear how we use our experiences to implement change in the law school curriculum and our research courses.
Speakers:
William & Mary:
Jim Heller (coordinator and moderator)
Chris Byrne
Fred Dingledy
Jennifer Sekula.
University of Texas:
Kumar Percy
Submitted by Jim Heller, Chair, CONALL Committee
The members of the ALL SIS 2002 Education Committee were Marlene Bubrick, Lynn Hartke, Carole Hinchcliff, Charles Oates, George Pike, and Timothy Coggins, Chair. Rebecca Trammell joined the Committee later in the year, and Rosalie Sanderson, ALL SIS Chair, was an ex officio member. The Committee began its deliberations about programs for the 2002 Annual Meeting soon after it was appointed by Rosalie Sanderson.
The Committee solicited and reviewed many ideas/topics for programs and developed eleven program proposals. Following the guidelines from the 2002 Annual Meeting Program Committee and the Program Planner's Handbook, the Committee submitted six program proposals and one workshop proposal. Five of the six program proposals and the one workshop proposal were selected. The Committee also submitted several names for potential speakers for the SIS plenary session speakers. One of the recommendations, David Sobel, General Counsel with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, was selected. Mr. Sobel will address "Electronic Surveillance: Recent Legal Developments" at the ALL SIS plenary session (G-1, Tuesday, July 23, 2002, 10:15 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.).
The programs sponsored by the Academic Law Libraries SIS at the 2002 Annual Meeting are listed below with the names of 2002 Committee members serving as program coordinators.
Sunday, July 21, 2002, 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
A-1: E-Reference Services: Collaborating to Make the 24/7 Connection
(Carole Hinchcliff, Coordinator)
A-2: Technology Acquisition: Must the Library Budget Be Sacrificed?
(Rebecca Trammell, Coordinator)
Monday, July 22, 2002, 10:15 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.
D-1: Technical and Public Services Connections: Making the Most of
Your Online Catalog (Marlene Bubrick, Coordinator)
Monday, July 22, 2002, 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
E-5: From Town to Gown: Law Librarians Connecting in a New Workplace
(Lynn Hartke, Coordinator)
Unfortunately, the ALL SIS workshop, "Inverting the Classroom," was cancelled due to low registration. 15 individuals registered for the workshop, but the workshop was budgeted for 32. Another ALL SIS selected program, "Secure Connections," was withdrawn because proposer and coordinator George Pike is unable to attend the AALL Annual Meeting this year.
The Chair thanks the committee members for their valuable assistance in developing these proposals, soliciting speakers, and handling other coordinator responsibilities. The Committee hopes that ALL SIS members (and other AALL Annual Meeting attendees) enjoy these programs.
Respectfully submitted,
2002 ALL SIS Education Committee
Marlene Bubrick
Timothy Coggins, Chair
Lynn Hartke
Carole Hinchcliff
Charles Oates
George Pike
Rebecca Trammell
Three charges were given to the Newsletter Committee this year, and with the assistance of ALL-SIS executive board members, committee chairs and general membership, all three charges were or will be carried out. First, the Newsletter Committee was charged with producing three issues of the Newsletter. Fall 2001, Winter 2002 and Summer 2002 were published and distributed to membership. Second, the committee was to coordinate ALL-SIS news for the daily newspaper at the AALL Convention in Orlando. The Newsletter Editor has already obtained several items of interest from ALL-SIS membership and will gather additional information for submission to the Annual Meeting Newsletter during the convention. Finally, the committee was instructed to work with the Website Committee and the webmaster to make the Newsletter available on the ALL-SIS website. Newsletter Web Editor Leah Sandwell-Weiss ably and quickly reformatted all three issues and made them available on the ALL-SIS website. With continued support and interest from all of the ALL-SIS membership the Newsletter Editor and committee look forward to another year of publication.
Submitted by Shaun Esposito, ALL-SIS Newsletter Editor
Shaun Esposito, J.D., M.S.L.S.
Head of Public Services
Law Library, James E. Rogers College of Law
University of Arizona
P.O. Box 210176
Tucson, AZ 85721-0176
520 626-5551
FAX: 520 621-3138
e-mail: shaun.esposito@law.arizona.edu
In October 2001, Chair Rosalie Sanderson appointed Pauline Aranas (Chair, Vanderbilt University), Nancy Adams (Georgia State University) and Sally Holterhoff (Valparaiso University) and charged the committee to provide a slate of candidates for Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect and Secretary/Treasurer to the Executive Board by January 31, 2002.
The Committee sought candidates from all levels of academic law library experience, including those in administration, public services and technical services. Committee members reviewed the past slate of ALL SIS candidates [see attachment], personal recommendations of qualified academic law librarians and examined lists of board members of the Technical Services SIS and the Research Instruction and Patron Services (RIPS) SIS. In the case of RIPS and TS board members, we felt such leadership experience would greatly benefit the ALL-SIS. We found it very helpful that both RIPS and TS posted current executive board members on their web sites. We also found TS's list of previous executive board members particularly useful and recommend ALL do the same.
The 2002 list of candidates for ALL SIS Executive Board:
Beth Smith
Assistant Director & Head of Public Services
Arizona State University
Ross-Blakely Law Library
Sally Wise
Law Librarian
University of Miami School of Law Library
Carole L. Hinchcliff
Associate Director
Ohio State University
Moritz Law Library
Kit Kreilick
Associate Law Librarian for Technology
Fordham University Law Library
Leo T. Kissam Memorial Library
Respectfully submitted January 21, 2002
Pauline M. Aranas
Nancy Adams
Sally Holterhoff
Previous ALL SIS Candidate Slates [*denotes elected official]
Vice Chair/Chair-Elect
Ruth Levor [Associate Director, University of San Diego Legal Research Center]
*Merle Slyhoff [Delivery and Auxiliary Services Librarian, University of Pennsylvania]
Executive Board
Eloise Vondruska [Associate Director for Bibliographic Services, Northwestern
University Law School]
*Bonnie Koneski-White (Director of the Law Library, Western New England College)
Vice-Chair/Chair Elect
Paul George [Associate Librarian for Research Services, Harvard Law School]
*Rosalie Sanderson [Associate Director, Emory University]
Secretary/Treasurer
Carmela Kinslow [Head of Access Services, Notre Dame Law School]
*Beth Smith [Assistant Director and Head of Public Services, Arizona State University]
Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect
*Ruth Johnson Hill [Head of Reference Services, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles]
Dwight King [Head of Research Services, Notre Dame Law School]
The ALL-SIS Public Relations Committee spent the first half of the year revising and updating the membership brochure. With the help of Maya Norris, Director of Publications at AALL, an attractive new cover design was created, we added information about the ALL SIS awards and rewrote some of the previous copy. We had 500 brochures printed. Arturo Torres, chair of the Membership Committee, was given copies to send to potential new members of our Section. In addition, many of the brochures were distributed at the ALL-SIS table in the Activities Area of the Exhibit Hall during the annual conference in Orlando.
The committee also decided this year to create a festive atmosphere with our SIS table and decorated it in a tropical theme. We provided candy and other fun give-aways to those who stopped by to learn more about the Academic Law Libraries Special Interest Section.
I want to thank all the ALL SIS members who volunteered to help at our Activities Area table, but especially want to thank the members of the committee who served with me this year: Amy Osborne, Duane Strojny and Sheila Stone.
Sue Burch, Chair
Submitted by Mark Bernstein, Chair
The Committee consisted of the following members:
Mark Bernstein, Duke, Chair
Suzanne Cassidy, Mercer
Tom French, Syracuse
Gary Hill, Brigham Young
Larry Meyer, LaVerne
Leah Sandwell-Weiss, Arizona
Theresa Stanton, North Carolina
After receiving a charge from Rosalie Sanderson, Chair of the Academic Special Interest Section, and contacting the volunteer members of the Committee, the Committee met via conference call in December 2001. The Committee adopted the mission statement and preamble that had been written by an earlier committee in 1999. During the conference call, the Committee agreed to work in teams with three teams concentrating on the following areas: issues affecting law schools and legal education, issues affecting law libraries, and issues affecting the profession and law librarians. Each team was to meet and write goals and objectives for their particular areas.
The goals and objectives were submitted to me in the spring. In my capacity as Chair I synthesized the statements and organized them into objectives and strategies. I also tried to follow and adapt the language used in the AALL Strategic Plan. Once a draft was written, it was circulated back to the Committee for further comments.
In March, the draft was submitted to Rosalie Sanderson, Chair of the ALL-SIS. The draft was posted on the web site, and an e-mail was sent to the membership asking for comments and suggestions. Some suggestions were received and incorporated into the document. A revised draft was completed in June and sent to the Executive Committee for final comments. The revised draft is also posted on the web site and will be submitted to the membership at the Annual Meeting in Orlando.
This project has been underway since the summer of 2000. The group this year consisted of Kit Kreilick of Fordham University Law Library (chair), Nancy Johnson of Georgia State University College of Law Library, Sally Wise of the University of Miami School of Law Library and Jim Milles, State University of New York at Buffalo Law Library (ex officio as a member of the CALI Board of Directors).
We reviewed and approved eight proposals for CALI Legal Research Lessons, of which seven have been completed. The seven completed lessons will be issued by CALI in time for use in the Fall, 2002 semester. The eighth lesson will be completed sometime this fall. A list of the seven published lessons is appended to this report.
CALI has generally agreed to contract for 10 legal research lessons a year; this may change from year to year with their budget and other projects. To even out the workload through the year and encourage more participation, we have settled on using a rolling system of submission "rounds", each about 8 weeks long with a deadline for proposals and an established review period. If we fill our quota before the announced rounds have been completed, we will close the remaining rounds and suspend the process until CALI can accommodate more lessons. We have scheduled additional rounds of submission deadlines through the end of 2002 and will see how it goes.
Generally, the project has been well received. We anticipate an ever larger pool of proposals and look forward to the problems of having too many instead of too few! We also look forward to feedback from those who use the new lessons.
Respectfully submitted
Kit Kreilick, chair
CALI Legal Research Lessons Approved 2001-2202
1. Decision point: State or Federal? by Yolanda Jones
This series of exercises is designed to help the user recognize whether
an issue involves federal or state legal issues, and to select legal research
sources appropriate to the jurisdiction and the applicable law.
2. Researching Federal Legislative History by Nancy Johnson
This lesson introduces students to the federal legislative process
and the various congressional documents in a legislative history. Students
will be introduced to free legislative databases on the Internet. Through
various cases, students will see how the courts use congressional documents
to interpret laws.
3. Introduction to State and Federal Statutes by Mary Rumsey and
Suzanne Thorpe
This is an introductory lesson on federal and state
statutes, to acquaint first-year law students with this important form
of law. The lesson focuses on the basic structure of statutes and the sources
in which they appear.
4. Codification by William L. Taylor
This lesson will introduce how codes are created, how they're organized, how they're
published, and what it all means for your legal research. It is intended for first-year
law students, or anyone who needs a refresher on the basics of this topic.
5. Company Research by Connie Strittmatter
The goal of this lesson is to introduce the basics of conducting company and industry
research.
6. Researching Canadian Law: Case Approach and
7. Researching Canadian Law: Federal Statute Approach by Paul T. Murphy
These are introductory lessons on Canadian legal research. One treats research
techniques and sources for working with a statute based problem, and the
other addresses Canadian legal research methods for working with a case
based problem. The lessons assume no knowledge of the areas, but treat
basic research in Canadian federal statutes, administrative material, and cases.
Task Force Members as of 6/1/02 (Not all members confirmed for 2002-2003):
This Task Force will consider the various components involved in administering an advanced legal research course. In particular the Task Force will review and identify model course proposals, law school course descriptions, methods of evaluation, pathfinders, research guides, class exercises, and course syllabi. The Task Force will also review course content, and the wide variation in topics included in ALR courses. Finally, the Task Force will consider appropriate methods to devise a web sourcebook which addresses these various issues and cumulates sample materials.
Note: Progress has been slower than anticipated due to my extended medical leaves in Fall, 2001, and Spring, 2002.
The Task Force decided that the web site should incorporate the following elements:
1) identify and evaluate commonly used tools for selections (not just ads)
We have compiled a list of tools, but we have not evaluated them yet.
We are considering ways to get additional input on the list before we take
the next step.
2) identify and evaluate tools for collection evaluation (especially
important in the wake of the cessation of AALS Recommended Law Books &
RLG conspectus)
Sally has provided a lengthy evaluation of OCLC's Automated Collection
Analysis Service (ACAS). We have not identified other tools.
3) consider methods of making this material widely available to academic law librarians, e.g., via a link on the ALL-SIS website or some other method.
We are in agreement that we would like to have a collection development page on the ALL/SIS web site. As we progress on the rest of our charge, we will incorporate decisions on how to present the information to the membership through the newsletter, the listserv, and the web site.
In addition to the above, we have undertaken a survey of academic law libraries in an attempt to identify the individual in each law library who has primary responsibility for collection development oversight. Some of the things we want to examine over the next year will be easier if we have one contact in each library. This information also will be added to the website.
The group will meet briefly in Orlando to figure out where we are on our various projects, make some assignments, and set some timetables.
Margaret Maes Axtmann
Associate Director for Information Resources
University of St. Thomas Law Library
1000 LaSalle Avenue, TMH LL27
Minneapolis, MN 55403-2005
Voice: 651-962-4868
Fax: 651-962-4910
mmaxtmann@stthomas.edu
The Law Review Services Task Force was created in July 2001 and charged with identifying service issues faced by academic law libraries as they provide services to students serving on the various journals published by their respective law schools. Members of the task force are James Duggan, Southern Illinois University Law Library; Will Haines, Emory University School of Law; Kathleen McLeod, Fordham Law School Library; Miriam Ann Murphy, Indiana University School of Law Library at Indianapolis; Lisa Peters, Case Western Reserve University Law School Library; Merle Slyhoff, University of Pennsylvania Biddle Law Library; Duane Strojny, Thomas Cooley Law School Library; and Paul George, Harvard Law School Library.
The task force drafted a survey that was sent to members of the SIS via the SIS listserv and via thesis newsletter. In addition, task force members each personally contacted several librarians asking that they complete the survey. Completed surveys representing forty-three (43) libraries were received.
In many respects, the survey responses indicated some standard practices. The problems identified by respondents were also predictable to anyone with experience working with law review students. Unfortunately, few manageable solutions that could be applied universally were identified.
In terms of common experiences, twenty-five (25) of responding libraries have two or three student journals. Most (36) of the libraries work with journals that have office space outside of the library and most (27) do not provide their student journals with shelving space inside the library for cite-checking purposes and most (34) do not provide carrel space. In addition, the majority (34) does not provide the students with any sort of special access or after hours privileges.
The majority of libraries permits students to check out materials either to their office spaces or to the in-library spaces. Thirty-eight (38) circulate monographs to the student offices or spaces, 24 circulate primary materials, 20 circulate loooseleaf materials, and 14 circulate reference materials. Libraries tend to circulate these items in the name of the individual students (27 responses) rather than in the name of the journal (14).
Responding libraries provide a range of reference and instructional services to the student journals. These include research classes (29), cite-checking instruction (23) libraries guides and handouts (18), and web-based materials (13).
Just over half (24) of the libraries have some sort of liaison program with their student journals. There does not appear to be any correlation between the number of journals published at a school and whether or not the library has a liaison program. The role of the librarian liaison varied greatly from library to library, particularly in who served this function. The range of possibilities include the associate director for public services, head of reference, a reference librarian for all the journals at the school, a reference librarian for each journal at the school, a reference librarian assigned to help the journal with a specific article, the head of access services, the person responsible for interlibrary loan, or subject specialists in the library for subject-specific journals.
In addition to a variety of methods for assigning the liaison responsibilities, the role of the liaison seems to be varied as well. The liaison might be the key contact for the journal, the librarian responsible for training and handouts, the only contact through whom all requests must go, the staff member who does the trouble-shooting for cite checking, the individual who explains library procedures, and who coordinates relations with other university departments when necessary.
The survey asked libraries to identify particular problems they encountered in providing services to law reviews and their students. The responses confirmed what many of us have experienced in our own libraries. These include the following:
The survey also asked librarians to identify services they would like to provide that they currently do not provide. Almost all of the comments focused on the desire for better training for the students as well as more systematic orientation for them. Training includes both instruction on cite-checking as well as on actual research such as in the area of legislative histories. Several individuals mentioned providing more web-based materials.
Part of the task force's original charge was to define a set of service guidelines that libraries could adopt in providing services to law review students. This is somewhat difficult to do because of the wide variety of realities different libraries have: both the number of student-edited journals and the number of librarians available to provide service can greatly affect any given library's ability to adopt a standard of service. The realities of history of experiences greatly affect what is done or can be done along with physical arrangement of space. What works for a majority, such as restricted after-hours access, should not be used to tell those who provide this service to remove it. Likewise, the fact that the majority of respondents check out cite-checking materials in the name of individual students does not necessarily mean that an alternative method does not have its advantages for other libraries.
A possible alternative to a set of standards is a report listing the services that are provided by all academic law libraries. A possible model is the report for staffing of law school computing services maintained by the University of Georgia School of Law Library. The report for library services to student journals would list information from the present survey for all libraries, including the principal contact person.
The one area that does seems to call for a recommendation is in the area of library liaisons for the student journals. Only half of the libraries do have active liaison programs of some sort. It is recommended that libraries that do not have such a program explore this option. The task force will continue to investigate this area to determine what libraries find are the best successes they have with their current programs. We would like to identify the librarians who do work with the journals in some liaison capacity in order for them to share ideas and possibly help solve some common problems.
The SIS should sponsor a regular Round Table discussion for librarians working with student journals. Creating the forum for sharing a success story might be the best method for individual libraries attempting to solve problems such as those listed. Students not following rules or their failure to pass on information to the next set of students can't be solve by a report, but those of us who have found a good solution might be able to help others.
The SIS or the task force should work with the editors of the BlueBook and with the Uniform Citation Committee to address the student insistence of seeing paper copies of materials that were used by the author in electronic format.
The SIS's home page should serve as a clearinghouse for research guides written for assisting students with cite-checking and general research. The most significant additional service identified by respondents was the need for better instructional services for their students.
The appointment of the task force should continue for the coming year in order to explore and implement these recommendations.