The following article appeared
in the
Fall 1998 edition of our newsletter
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE LAW LIBRARIES ASSOCIATION OF ALABAMA, LOOSELY BASED ON FACT
On July 22, 1991, the American Association
of Law Libraries approved a resolution increasing SIS (Special Interest
Section) dues from $5 to $12, the first such increase since their inception.
On the same day, the Law Library Association of Alabama is approved by
a vote of the membership as the 30th AALL chapter. Coincidence? Who are
these new, deep-pocket interlopers, and how did they get here? What can
we do about it now?
The origins of the LLAA, as they now
refer to themselves, are lost in the mists of time, or perhaps alcoholic
haze, but this much we do know: the President of the new organization (then
called the Alabama Law Library Association) was Virginia Hare and the Vice
President was Lorie Feld. The "BLLA BLLA BLLA Birmingham Law Library Association
Newsletter" of Nov. 1, 1990, reveals that an account was established in
the name of the Alabama group by October 1, 1990, an early indication of
the financial clout the organization would have. Under the shrewd management
of Linda Hand, the membership rolls, which listed thirty-five members in
November, 1990, grew to forty-three by February, 1991, but still were nine
short of the twenty-five AALL members needed to qualify as a chapter.
Local Birmingham law librarians had
some reservations about the new organization, fearing that it would displace
the old BLLA. As one librarian wrote, prophetically, "I am afraid BLLA
would cease to exist and that no local purpose would be served." My favorite
response to a letter voicing these fears stated, regarding a problem with
intermingling of funds, "The BLLA funds were used purely for social functions
and the remainder of the money was spent Christmas of 1989 in a Christmas
party."
Having swept away the competition in
a blaze of Yuletide excess, the new state organization got down to its
Real Purpose, enhancing the profession of law librarianship in Alabama
(all right, it probably is really world domination and good parties, not
necessarily in that order, but I am trying to stick to verifiable facts
here). By March, 1991, the ALLA was issuing a *SPECIAL ALERT* that prorated
memberships to the AALL were available; by April 19, 1991, the new organization
was sponsoring a seminar on computer assisted legal research with representatives
from WESTLAW and LEXIS, free to ALLA members, $5 to hoi polloi.
By September 3, 1991 (the anniversary
of the declaration of World War II--think about it), the new Law Library
Association of Alabama (there was only one then) proclaimed the achievement
of chapter status, limited only by the requirement that the President of
the LLAA must be a AALL member and membership of LLAA would not be limited
to the state of Alabama. In spite of the dilution of talent that could
result from this, the organization prospered. The Fall Program that year
already revealed some of that talent offered by the members; speakers included
Pat Levine, Lorie Martin, and Tim Lewis, and future projects to facilitate
cooperation between members were announced.
Finally, in June of 1992, a meeting
was held outside of the Birmingham area. In Montgomery, an informative
program included talks on the Alabama Legislative Reference Service by
Anne Adams and on computer viruses by David Lowe (possibly the first, but
definitely not the last time this resource has been used by the LLAA).
In November, Virginia Hare hosted another meeting at the U.S. Court Library
in Birmingham which was described as "well-attended." New officers, including
Lorie Feld, President, Julie Sinclair, Vice President/President Elect,
Alma Surles, Secretary, and Linda Hand, Treasurer, were elected. For brevity's
sake, future mentions of officers will omit reference to Treasurer, as
this office remains with Linda to the present day.
Nineteen ninety-three brought a program
in March featuring Michie's Jim Shroyer demonstrating that company's Alabama
Law on Disc product and Beth Laughlin speaking about various medical databases
available. Steve Dante of Butterworth's provided lunch. Already, someone
sufficiently paranoid could have foreseen the machinations of the publishers,
as both those companies have been absorbed by the Dutch Despoilers (as
opposed to the Conniving Canadian and the English-Dutch Alliteration-Defiers).
In those golden days, publishers had representatives with faces, not just
voices, and one had to issue more than three checks each month for book
bills (all right, even now the various satrapies demand separate checks,
but we know better). Oh, and those representatives knew their companies'
product line, and could get a billing problem straightened out the first
time. But, enough of this, one shouldn't be bitter.
By Fall, 1993, Julie Sinclair was President,
Tim Lewis was Vice President and Lorie Feld was Newsletter Editor. With
this much energy at the top, the LLAA had a banner year, beginning with
a November meeting at EBSCO and then a Winter meeting in Tuscaloosa in
February, featuring a seminar on the Internet coordinated by Hazel Johnson.
The Spring, 1994 meeting in April was again held in Montgomery, and was
described as "primarily a social gathering" (see Real Purpose, supra).
Despite this amazingly candid admission, and testifying to the membership's
ability to keep stuff away from their firm administrator/dean, there was
a good turnout for this meeting.
Unfortunately, the momentum could not
be sustained (I blame leaks), and the organization entered a dormant period,
sinking so low as to elect this writer as Vice President/President Elect,
which turned out to have less to do with vice than expected. In response
to the firing of the library staff at Baker & McKenzie, and trying
to compensate for the void in the Presidency, Herculean efforts were expended
at the Supreme Court and State Law Library, where Tim and his staff hosted
the October, 1995 meeting, and at Cumberland's Lucille Stewart Beeson Law
Library, where Becky Clapp and her staff hosted a program presented by
LEXIS's Kathy Crosslin on "Marketing Your Library Resources" (a.k.a. "Don't
Get Outsourced"). Sensing an opportunity, Lawyers Cooperative (obviously
an oxymoron) Publishing Company underbid the Michie Company for the right
to publish the Official Code of Alabama, with all the glory that comes
with that. Michie, having assumed no one was interested, decided to wait
them out, and continued to publish their own version of the code, leaving
us in the new position of having a choice. Naturally, we panicked. Cool
heads, one with a face rather similar to Tim Lewis's, suggested that the
LLAA could help sort things out by getting representatives from the two
companies, as well as a representative from the State of Alabama, to explain
what was happening. The forum was well-attended, and Michie's promise to
meet them on price was legally accurate, if short-lived. Even though I
have to step on my punch line, I do want to recall the entertaining speech
given by Carol D. Billings, past president of AALL, and to mention the
tremendous job Tim Coggins and his staff did hosting the meeting.
Penny Gibson ascended to the Presidency,
and I stopped doing nearly so good a job of saving my LLAA Newletters,
so this account becomes even less accurate, if possible. In April, 1997,
Penny declared that we are the Law Libraries Association of Alabama, recognizing
that we do indeed have more than one and bringing us more in line with
the national organization, which proposed raising SIS dues again (sure,
you think it's unrelated). Judy Hughes invited us to her beautiful new
Jones School of Law Library building (in Montgomery), which remained beautiful
even after we held our May, 1997 meeting there, which featured an out-of-state
speaker (Nancy Johnson of Georgia State and AALL), so we had on our company
manners. Despite our gratitude, we still made Judy be President for the
next year, with C.J. Jones serving as V.P.
Judy presided over the October, 1997
meeting at Jacksonville State University, which included a panel discussion
on "The Law Library in the Year 2000" with Lori Martin, Laura Covington,
Robert Marshall, and Virginia Hare and ended, I'm sure just coincidently,
with a presentation by Terry Psarras on "How to Build a Home Page." It
is possible that the last sentence will not appear in its entirety in the
final, edited version of this piece, since Terry is the editor. A meeting
held at the Birmingham Museum of Art, chock full of interesting computer-related
stuff, somehow does not appear in any of my newsletters, but it was informative
and a great effort to expand our horizons to new venues, foreshadowing
our next big effort. First, however, we held a meeting at the Federal Courthouse
in Birmingham, with programs on the Internet (David Lowe and Peggy Kain)
and "Change Management," and to install C.J. as President.
So, on to Gulf Shores we go. Joining
with the Special Libraries Association, the LLAA plans to have even better
meetings with "meatier" programs, beginning with this one conducted by
Kendall F. Svengalis, the guru on library economics (or, "How to Beat the
Dark Tower at Its Own Game") and the author, really, of the Legal Information
Buyer's Guide. This should be a no-brainer for firm administrators to approve
attendance, so there may even be attendees from Baker & McKenzie. Don't
miss it.
