Thursday, September 1, 2005
Hurricane Katrina Relief Efforts
Dear Colleagues,
I am writing on behalf of my Executive Board colleagues to express our deep concern about the situation of law librarians and law libraries in New Orleans and other affected areas in Louisiana and Mississipi following the devastating Hurricane Katrina. We want to express our deepest sympathy to all colleagues whose lives and jobs have been affected. We share your suffering and worries, and we keep you in our thoughts and prayers. We also want to offer as much assistance from AALL as possible. Please let us know how AALL can help.
Our first priority, of course, is physical safety of all our colleagues. AALL Headquarters has set up a blog so that our members in the affected areas and elsewhere can report on their well being and the well being of those in our community. This new blog, AALL LawLib Assist will help us gather information from and about our community.
We need everyone's help in brainstorming on how best we as an association can help and partner with others. We are waiting to let our colleagues tell us what they need most once they are able to return to their institutions -- which at this point appears to be months from now.
The following suggestions have already been offered, if they can be of any help:
- Some law libraries are offering office space to law librarians from the affected areas until they can go back to their offices.
- Some libraries are offering free ILL and document delivery.
- Some libraries are offering to expand faculty and student research assistance to aid faculty and students wherever they might be.
These offers can be posted in the same place as other information is gathered. AALL will create a central clearing house of information if there is a demand for it.
Our motto is "Maximizing the power of the law library community." Let's put this maxim into motion to help our colleagues in any way we can.
If you'd like to donate:
Red Cross
United Way
Many thanks in advance for your participation in this major effort,
Claire M. Germain
AALL President