Marianne Alcorn is the Head of Reference and Faculty Services at the Ross-Blakley Law Library, Arizona State University, where she has been since 1981. Prior to that she was a Reference Librarian at the Marian Gallagher Law Library at the University of Washington. Ms. Alcorn taught legal research in the Center for Executive Development, College of Business at Arizona State University for five years. Ms. Alcorn received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington and her master’s degree in library science from the University of Southern California.
I have spent many of my years as a law librarian involved in my local chapter, AzALL, the Arizona Association of Law Libraries. I’ve been Chair of the Membership Committee 1983 - 1984, member of the Executive Board 1984 - 1985 and again 2002 - 2003, Chair of the Nominations, Awards & Grants committee 1995 - 1996 and again in 2004 - 2005 and 2005 - 2006, Chair of the Placement Committee in 1996 - 1997, Co-Chair of the Program Committee in 1998 - 1999, and President in 2001 - 2002. During that time I also authored an article for Legal Reference Services Quarterly comparing Pac Ten and Big Ten law libraries, and co-authored the Arizona legal research guide.
With the advent of Tory Trotta as our director, I was able to become more active in AALL. For the Philadelphia annual meeting, I proposed a program for librarians about retirement, and that program tied for first in attendance that year. I’ve been on the AALL Placement Committee and participated in the Legal History and Rare Books special interest section. When I heard there was to be a faculty services committee of ALL-SIS, I emailed so often that they finally put me on the committee.
The nominating call caught me off guard - I thought I’d been nominated to the “Above the Law” online Law Librarian Hotties Contest. After thirty years as a law librarian, this is a true honor.
This past year Margaret Schilt of the University of Chicago and I have been co-chairs of the Faculty Services Committee of ALL-SIS. We had great participation in the listserv I planned with our committee and moderated, “Boundaries in Faculty Services” (there weren’t many). As a member of the Executive Committee I’d like to encourage an increase in the use of these discussion forums. I’d like to bring my interest in comparing our services in academic law libraries, and sharing our ideas on improving them to the Executive Board. I will work on the executive board as an active participant, assist the Chair, and hopefully bring some new ideas. My mentor and first boss, Viola Bird, former Associate Director of the law library at the University of Washington, former president of AALL and its oldest member at 101, would say “If it needs to be done, just do it” and would start dusting shelves. That’s my philosophy. Of course in the emails she and I still send, she will sometimes say, “Get back to work,” and I agree with that too.
