ALL-SIS Committee Annual Reports

2008–2009

Awards

Bylaws

CALI

Collection Development

Continuing Education

Continuing Status/Tenure

The Status/Benefit Committee was asked to conduct a Zoomerang Tenure and Status Survey to help investigate the general concerns of the ALL-SIS membership regarding their current employment, status, benefits and future. The objective was to provide the Board, and the general membership, with a general assessment of the members’ opinions and their concerns as to what issues the SIS should address in the future.

The creation of the survey, issuing it and accessing the results were conducted over the year with the assistance of the committee and national headquarters. The general results of the survey have been conveyed to the Committee and the Board, and are once again attached to the overall report.

The good news is that the membership is generally satisfied with the career of law librarianship and intends to remain in the profession. Perhaps the most valuable information is the priority that the membership gave to issues – first being salary, second status and third benefits.

Of course the economic situations of the country, our membership and the Institutions they serve have changed significantly since this project was first conceived. Perhaps the need to concentrate on the important role that academic law librarians serve in their Law Schools has become another vital effort for the ALL-SIS to document in any future White Paper or other statement.

I would like to thank the Committee for their good work, thoughts, suggestions and support through this effort.

We would suggest that if the Committee is to continue to work toward a White Paper, the issues, audience and final objective be reviewed and clarified.

Respectfully submitted July 2009,

Kathy Carrick
Law Library Director
The Judge Ben C. Green Law Library
Case Western Reserve University
Phone 216-368-6357
kathleen.carrick@case.edu

Directors' Breakfast

Faculty Services

Legal Research & Sourcebook

Local Arrangements

Membership

Middle Managers' Breakfast

New Academic Law Librarian's Meeting (NALLM)/Mentoring

The 2008 - 2009 Newsletter Committee consisted of Leah Sandwell-Weiss, Chair; Sue Kelleher, Texas Tech University School of Law Library; Yasmin Alexander, Deane Law Library, Hofstra School of Law; David Lehmann, Coleman Karesh Law Library, University of South Carolina; Connie Lenz, University of Minnesota Law Library; Steven Robert Miller, Indiana University School of Law - Indianapolis; and Beth Williams, The Arthur W. Diamond Law Library, Columbia University. Our Board Liaison was Marianne Alcorn. Our three regular issues this year were published on September 8, 2008, February 6, 2009, and June 3, 2009; the election issue was published on March 24, 2009.

Highlights of this year’s issues included:

Reviews of programs given and roundtables held at the annual meeting, committee assignments, an article on creating infrastructure for the ALL-SIS archives, a report on Team Nancy, and a memorial for Roy Mersky (Fall 2008);
The first of two new columns (A Librarian in the Dark and Survey Roundup) and articles publicizing several grants for the Annual Meeting and additional activities occurring in conjunction with the Meeting. There were also articles requesting award nominations, and on the attending non-law librarian conferences, the new SSRN eJournal and a professional delegation to China (Spring 2009);
Articles on ALL-SIS programs and activities scheduled at the upcoming annual meeting, collection development activities, Indiana interns, the AALL Price Index, and five love languages (Summer 2009).

I would like to thank all the committee members for their hard work and their articles. We held one conference call, on December 2, 2008, which led to several articles and new columns. We also started researching possible indexing software to use to index our archives. Sue again collected the Member News for all three issues. Yasmin wrote A Century in the Making: Researching Legal Ethics Today for the Fall 2008 issue and initiated a new column, A Librarian in the Dark, on DVDs of interest to law librarians. David wrote The Use of Technology and Web 2.0 in Law Librarianship for the Fall 2008 issue. Connie Lenz wrote The Librarian as Author: AALL/LexisNexis Call for Papers and The Library’s Role in ‘Educating Lawyers’: Considering the Carnegie Report for the Fall 2008 issue, and articles on collection development in the Summer 2009 issue; she also provided lots of editing/proofreading assistance. Steven wrote Library Internship Opportunities at Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis for the Summer 2009 issue.

I’d also like to thank I-Wei Wang for starting a new column, Survey Roundup, and writing for us even though she was no longer on the committee, as well as all the ALL-SIS members who submitted articles for publication, including Carol Bredemeyer, Pat Court, Jen Davitt, Randy Diamond, Galen L. Fletcher, Katherine Hedin, Christine I. Hepler, David Hollander, Darla Jackson, Richard Leiter, Terry Martin, Peggy Martindale, Jean Mattimoe, Steve Mirsky, Christopher S. O’Byrne, Patricia Harris O’Connor, Ann Puckett, Linda Rees, Anne Robbins, Courtney Selby, Roger Skalbeck, Sharon Wang, and especially Sally Wambold for sending information and pictures for our New Member Spotlight column. Finally, I’d also like to thank Filippa Anzalone and Marianne Alcorn for their support and advice.

Nominations

Programs

Programs Committee Report:

The 2008-2009 ALL-SIS Programs Committee members, Paul Moorman (Chair), Bob Nissenbaum, Camilla Tubbs, Darla Jackson, Kate Irwin-Smiler, and Kathleen McLeod worked closely together with program and workshop proposers to provide feedback and advice to help develop strong proposals for the 2009 Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. The Programs Committee selected 16 programs and two workshops for ALL-SIS sponsorship. The Committee then assisted AALL’s Annual Meeting Programs Committee (AMPC) by ranking the programs and workshop proposals we sponsored. Of these ALL-SIS sponsored programs, AMPC selected 5 programs and 1 workshop. Two additional programs were chosen by the ALL-SIS Board as Alternative Programs. The following is a list of the ALL-SIS sponsored programs and workshop at the 2009 Annual Meeting:

Workshop:

The Academic Law Library of 2015: Predicting the Future and Making It Happen

AMPC Programs:

Legal Research Questions on the Bar Exam: Preparing Our Students
Understanding the Mean: How the Average Law Librarian Can Encourage Empirical Research Initiatives
Latest Trends in Library Automation: Building Creative and Inspiring Discovery Platforms
What We Learned from our SAILS: Institutional Review Boards, Information Literacy Assessment, and the Future of Measuring Law Student Research Skills
Chat 2.0: Renovating Virtual Reference

Alternative Programs:

Beyond the Ivory Tower: Reaching Out to Practicing Attorneys and Law Firm Librarians to Improve Legal Research Instruction
Weed, Shelve or Store?: Making the Hard Decisions

Thanks to the Committee members, the proposers, and the Board for all their hard work and diligence and helping to make these programming options possible.

Paul Moorman
Law Librarian - Research Services
University of Southern California Law Library
699 Exposition Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90049
213/740-6482
pmoorman@law.usc.edu

Public Relations

The Public Relations Committee was chaired by Jill Fukunaga through January, with Meg Butler filling out the rest of the chair’s term. Other members of the Committee included Julie Graves Krishnaswami, Alan Pannell, Lisa Peters, Mila Rush, and Leslie Wong.

As they arose, the Committee publicized ALL-SIS activities throughout the year by submitting announcements for posting to the ALL-SIS website and to the SIS News section of AALLNET. The activities of academic law librarians as scholar were also promoted to the association membership through an article in Spectrum.

At the 2009 Annual Meeting, the Committee promoted ALL-SIS at the CONELL Marketplace and in the Exhibit Hall, with the distribution of program information, brochures, and reusable shopping bags imprinted with the ALL-SIS logo. The shopping bag give-away was very well received. ALL-SIS members volunteered and staffed the table in the Exhibit Hall for all hours that the Exhibit Hall was open.

This year was the 30th anniversary of ALL-SIS. The Committee commemorated the anniversary by writing a ‘pocket part’ to update the history of ALL-SIS, written at the ALL-SIS 25th anniversary. To celebrate the 30th anniversary, the Committee successfully solicited a donation from William S. Hein & Co., Inc., for a Blackberry Pearl cellular device. (The traditional 30th anniversary present is the pearl.) The winner of the Blackberry Pearl was selected by random drawing at the ALL-SIS table in the Exhibit Hall on the last day of the conference.

The Committee also met during the Annual Meeting to discuss the transition of new members and priorities for the upcoming year.

Meg Butler
Reference Librarian
New York Law School
212-431-2148
margaret.butler@nyls.edu

Statistics

Student Services

The 2008-2009 All-SIS Student Services Committee included Christine Demetros, Syracuse University School of Law; Ann Hemmens, Gallagher Law Library, University of Washington; Susan Herrick, University of Maryland School of Law; Deborah L McGovern, Nova Southeastern Shepard Broad Law School; Raquel M. Ortiz, Pappas Law Library, Boston University School of Law; Regina Watson, Hamline University School of Law; Colleen Williams, Young Law Library, University of Arkansas School of Law; Jessica de Perio Wittman, Lawton Chiles Legal Information Center, University of Florida and Leslie A. Pardo (Chair) Ross-Blakley Law Library, Arizona State University.

A productive meeting was held at the AALL Annual Meeting in Portland. Several projects were discussed and then implemented over the past year. Subcommittees were formed to address the various projects. The Chair would like to thank the members of the committee for all their hard work and participation this past year.

Project 1: Create a Sample Survey of Law Student Research Habits & Skills

The ALL-SIS Student Services Committee authored a Sample Survey of Law Student Research Habits & Skills. The survey was provided to the ALL-SIS membership as a tool for their own use via e-mail and it was posted to the ALL-SIS Student Services Committee web site. Student Services Committee members Ann Hemmens, Susan Herrick, Jessica Wittman, and Christine Demetros created the survey. The survey was well received by the ALL-SIS membership.

Project 2: Draft Sample Policies About Library Collaboration with Law Journal Staff.

The ALL-SIS Student Services Committee authored Model Policies for Services to Journal Staff. The document was provided to the ALL-SIS membership via e-mail and it was posted to the ALL-SIS Student Services Committee web site. Student Services Committee members Regina Watson, Colleen Williams, and Raquel Ortiz wrote the policies. The document was well received by the ALL-SIS membership.

Project 3: Arrange the Bank of Sample Academic Student Services Documents web site in subject order

The Bank of Sample Academic Student Services Documents web site was arranged in subject order to make it more user friendly. Special thanks goes to Deborah McGovern for her work on this project.

Project 4: Send out request to the ALL-SIS membership for content to post to the Bank of Sample Academic Student Services Documents

E-mails were sent to the ALL-SIS membership twice to solicit content for the Bank of Sample Academic Student Services Documents. The content that was received was posted to the site. Solicitations for content to the site should be an ongoing committee charge.

Project 5: Listserv discussion on specific services libraries have created for their law students, especially non-traditional ways to reach students

This project was not implemented but it is recommended it be implemented this year.

Respectfully submitted,

By Leslie A. Pardo, Committee Chair
Ross-Blakley Law Library, Arizona State University

AWARDS	BYLAWS	CALI
COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT	CONTINUING EDUCATION	CONTINUING STATUS / TENURE
DIRECTORS' BREAKFAST	FACULTY SERVICES	LEGAL RESEARCH & SOURCEBOOK
LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS	MEMBERSHIP	MIDDLE MANAGERS' FORUM
NALLM / MENTORING	NEWSLETTER	NOMINATIONS
PROGRAMS	PUBLIC RELATIONS	STATISTICS
STUDENT SERVICES	Previous Committee Reports	ALL-SIS Reports to AALL