The LLAM website has moved to http://llamonline.org/ . This page will redirect to the new LLAM website in 5 seconds.

Law Library Association of Maryland

Directory and Current Newsletter

LLAM Newsletter

Printable Version with Images (PDF)

Columns

Articles

 

 

President's Message

By Susan Herrick
Reference Librarian
University of Maryland Library

I am looking forward to working with all of you as LLAM President for 2010- 2011! We again have a great Executive Board. Sara Witman, as Vice President and Program Chair, has a variety of programs in the works, and is always open to suggestions for programs. I welcome Thea Warner as our new Secretary, and I commend her for her service to LLAM, especially since she just finished a term as Board member. Also, I welcome our new Board member, David Matchen from UB Law Library. And many thanks to Bijal Shah as Treasurer, and to Stacey Digan as Board member, who will continue their valued service to LLAM this year.

Also, I welcome the opportunity to work with all of you who will be chairing our LLAM Committees. We have some new committee chairs. Katherine Baer has agreed to chair the Archives Committee, and Catherine McGuire will be chair of the Public Relations Committee.  Continuing their hard work as committee chairs are Joanie Bellistri for Govt./Vendor Relations; Pat Behles for Membership; Janet Camillo for Mentoring; Tonya Baroudi for Placement; Maxine Grosshans for Publications; and Kurt Meyer for Technology.  

We currently need a chair for the Grants and Awards Committee, which is now a standing committee. This year LLAM qualifies for a grant from AALL to cover the registration fee for one of our members to attend the annual conference, to be held this year in Philadelphia. We will most likely also be awarding a similar grant of our own, funded as in past years by part of the proceeds of our Holiday Party Silent Auction. The committee will accept applications for these grants and select the recipients in Spring 2011. Please consider volunteering - contact me if you are interested.  

Last year marked several evolutions in LLAM procedures, most notably the adoption of a bylaw change allowing us to conduct our elections either electronically or by paper ballot. The election held last spring was conducted electronically and everything went without a hitch. 

Featured Member

Mary Jo Lazun

This quarter's featured member is Mary Jo Lazun. Mary Jo is the Electronic Services Librarian at the Maryland State Law Library. Her duties, however, are not limited to electronic services. She is jack-of-all-trades in her current position: in addition to managing electronic databases, she works the reference desk; teaches legal research to judicial employees; works on collection development; and can fix a temperamental public access computer with one hand tied behind her back!

Mary Jo earned her undergraduate and library school degrees at University of Maryland College Park. She is currently enrolled at Anne Arundel Community College in the Paralegal Certificate Program. If all goes as planned, Mary Jo will graduate with her Paralegal Certificate in May 2011. Prior to her current position at the State Law Library, she worked at a variety of other librarian jobs including; Towson University, NASA Center for Scientific and Technical Information, and the U.S. Treasury.

What's New

The Thurgood Marshall Law Library at the University of Maryland is happy to welcome two new librarians to its Library Faculty. 

Jill Smith has joined the library as Research and Instructional Technology Librarian.  Jill received her M.L.S. from the University of Maryland in August, and she has a M.F.A. from Syracuse University and a J.D. from the University of Maine.  Before returning to library school, she spent two years as a legal index editor at BNA and twelve years working in executive relationship management with the NASDAQ Stock Market and in corporate communications for NASDAQ-listed companies.

Rachel Hradecky is the new Public Services and Outreach Librarian.  She received her M.L.S. from Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois, in May, and worked for the past two years in the library at Vedder, Price in Chicago.  Rachel holds an undergraduate degree from Southern Illinois University.

 

Maryland State Law Library Digitizing Historical Task Force Reports

Task forces, commissions, and advisory groups play a huge part in a working government, and this is definitely true within Maryland. These entities are formed either by the Legislature, the Governor, or a state agency.  They focus on a specific task, research the issues involved, and then publish a report outlining findings and recommendations. These reports are often used as the basis for future legislation or regulations, making their accessibility and preservation crucial.

The Maryland State Law Library has just completed Phase II of a digitization project whose primary goal is to digitize older print task force reports.  In Phase I, the Library had all the reports related to the law and or the Judiciary scanned. Phase II involved the reports relating to government policy and other state agency operations. There are now over 700 scanned reports, ranging from the 1930´s through the 1990´s. These older reports join our web-born digital collection, The Chesapeake Project, and provide online access to most of Maryland’s task force reports.  They are accessible through our online catalog and via our web site’s digital collections page.  Our other digital collections include the Maryland Rules Committee Meeting Minutes & Agendas, as well as the Proceedings of the Maryland Judicial Conference. 

We are continuing in our digitization efforts and would be happy to hear any comments, questions and suggestions.  Feel free to contact us at katherine.baer@mdcourts or mjlazun@mdcourts

 

Rename LLAM News!

As LLAM News transitions to an electronic format it seems fitting to consider a new name for our association’s publication. Please submit suggestions for a new name for LLAM News by November 15, 2010. The Technology & Communication committee will review the submissions and make a recommendation to the Executive Board. The Board will then vote to approve or reject.

Please submit suggestion to: Susan Herrick or Kirstin Nelson

 

Committee Report - Technology and Communications Committee

It seems fitting that the first committee report of the 2010-2011 business year is from the newly formed Technology and Communications Committee. This committee was created to consolidate all LLAM communications in an effort to better, and more consistently, reach our membership. The LLAM webmaster, the listserv administrator and the newsletter committee are now a single committee. The committee considered numerous electronic options for LLAM News. After much discussion we concluded that a full-text electronic version of LLAM News would be posted on the LLAM website. During the 2010-2011 business year a PDF version will also be posted. We will assess feedback to the new electronic format for the next year, and hope for a complete transition to a web newsletter within the next year or two. We welcome comments or suggestions to improve the electronic format.

We invite and encourage you to submit content to the News. If you come across an interesting Web site or publication; attend a meeting or training session; or have some personal or professional news to report – please consider writing it up for inclusion in the News. Share your knowledge and experiences with your fellow LLAM members. Our publication is only as good as the content supplied by our members!

For the 2010-2011 year we will publish four issues (September, December, March and June). Article submissions for each quarter are due on the 1st of that month.

Announcements

AALL Announcements

AALL2go Pick of the Month

AALL's Continuing Professional Education Committee presents the AALL2go pick of the month: Information without Borders? Copyright, the Internet and Librarians.

This 54-minute MP3 recording features William F. Patry, author of Patry on Copyright and Patry on Fair Use. Beginning with an overview of his career path and the growth of his interest in copyright law, Patry relates how his experience of research—and specifically research for his books—has changed through the growth of the internet. His premise is that access to information is far greater now through the internet than through the physical law library, allowing differing perspectives on legal topics. He finds this increase of information from sources beyond the standard law library leads to more interesting legal writing.

Patry goes on to address the misconception that the internet is not bound by any country or any country's laws. He discusses how countries are able to regulate the internet by blocking access and enforcing local laws and even regulate outside their own borders by enforcing judgments over other countries. Copyright law is one example of how the internet as a borderless entity is an illusion.

Find this and more than 60 other free continuing education programs and webinars for AALL members on AALL2go!

Mark Your Calendar: Professional Legal Management Week October 4-8

Professional Legal Management Week (PLMW) provides a forum for recognizing those in legal management for what they do and the roles they play in the success of their organizations. AALL is one of 11 associations co-sponsoring the event with the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA).

AALL members are encouraged to plan and promote events for the week. The Professional Legal Management Week Web site includes resources to help you set up events, including a fact sheet, suggestions for planning events, a flyer, logos, and advertisements.

Events Calendar

October

John Connelly: “Guantanamo Lawyer
Thursday, October 14, 5 p.m.
Baltimore Bar Library
Mitchell Courthouse, Room 504
100 N. Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD
Free to LLAM Members

A contributor to “The Guantanamo Lawyers,” by New York University Press, John J. Connelly will provide an inside story of what conditions are like for the prisoners in Guantanamo, as well as the conditions for their lawyers – that is, conditions of representation. Come hear a personal account of the tribulations and occasional triumphs at a lecture on, and a discussion of, a topic that touches on “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The lecture will be followed by a wine and cheese reception in the Main Reading Room of the Bar Library, and it is free for LLAM members. If you would like to attend, please e-mail the Library at jwbennett@barlib.org or telephone at 410-727-0280.

November

Connections: Emergency Preparedness for Librarians and Emergency Management Personnel
Thursday, November 18, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
University of Maryland, Baltimore, SMC Campus Center, 3rd Floor
621 W. Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD
Free!

Keynote speaker Rebecca Hamilton, State Librarian of Louisiana, will speak about lessons learned from Katrina regarding emergency preparedness at this free educational event. Learn about what services emergency personnel need during disasters and how can you help provide them, discuss the different roles for medical, academic and public libraries in disaster preparedness and emergency management, and meet emergency personnel from your region and learn how you can work together. Attendees will also learn to create an up-to-date disaster plan. Mark your calendar and check http://www.hshsl.umaryland.edu/disaster/ for online registration.

December

LLAM's Annual Holiday Party
Thursday, December 9, 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
The Waterfront Hotel
1710 Thames Street, Baltimore, MD
Cost: $25

Save the date! This year's Holiday Party will be held on Thursday, December 9. Stay tuned to the listserv and your inboxes for more details.

 

Private Law Library Change As Opportunity Summit


Denver, Colorado: July 9-10, 2010

By Thea C. Warner
Librarian
Niles, Barton & Wilmer

I had the privilege of attending the Private Law Library Change as Opportunity Summit that preceded the AALL Annual Meeting this year. When I first learned of the Summit back in March, I thought that it would be a great learning experience and I was not disappointed. The Change as Opportunity Summit was actually part of a two-year initiative that began with a series of webinars. It will conclude with a one-day event preceding the AALL Annual Meeting in Philadelphia next year.

The Summit began on Friday with three sessions that focused on strategic skills. There were parallel tracks for each session, so unfortunately it was not possible to attend all six of these very informative talks. Luckily they have all been reviewed in the fall 2010 issue of PLL Perspectives. I attended "Managing Your Boss" (presented by Barry Strauss), "Expanding Your Role: How to Reach the C Level" (presented by Greg Lambert), and "Keeping Current: Tips and Tools for the Savvy Librarian" (presented by Steven Cohen). I volunteered to write the review of "Managing Your Boss", and found this process to be a great learning experience. The first day was concluded with a Margarita and Mariachi Fiesta at a downtown law firm, which was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and an excellent opportunity for networking.

Saturday began with sessions that focused on strategic thinking. Peter Zeughauser shared his assessment of the legal marketplace in his talk entitled "What Keeps Law Firm Chairs Awake at Night: Emerging and Long-Term Industry Trends". Susan Klopper followed with recommendations for success in today's business environment in her talk entitled "Surviving and Thriving: What Should Keep Us Awake at Night". Roberta Shaffer provided her insight on planning for the future in her presentation, "The Law Library of Congress: Strategic Planning for 20/20 Vision". Attendees had the opportunity to delve into these topics further in the panel discussion and Q and A with the three presenters.

The Summit concluded Saturday afternoon with a series of breakout sessions that focused on strategic action. Sessions included "The Business Side of Law Firms", "Staffing the Library for Success", "Library Space: Planning for the Future", "Collection Development in the Age of the Virtual Law Library" and "Becoming a Change Agent". These sessions provided attendees with the opportunity to discuss the topic at hand in greater depth and to share their knowledge with others.

In conclusion, I would highly recommend the programs remaining in the PLL Summit. They are certain to be well worth the investment!

University of Baltimore Breaks Ground for the New Law School

By Joanne Colvin
Assistant Director for Public Services
University of Baltimore Law Library

 

On August 26, the University of Baltimore celebrated the official groundbreaking for the new law school building: the John and Frances Angelos Law Center. UB President Robert Bogolmony and Law School Dean Phillip Closius hosted the event. As might be expected in an election year, the event was also heavily attended by politicians: Governor Martin O’Malley, Lt. Governor Anthony G. Brown, Senate President Mike Miller, (now former) Baltimore State’s Attorney Pat Jessamy, and Baltimore City District Court Associate Judge Katie O’Malley, a UB law alum.

The building was designed by an international architectural firm, Behnisch Architekten of Stuttgart Germany, in collaboration with Baltimore firm Ayers/Saint/Gross. It is a modern glass building with a central atrium designed to allow natural light to flow throughout the building. The librarians are especially enthusiastic about having windows in every office. The building is designed for at least LEED Gold certification, and possibly Platinum. It is sited on the corner of Charles Street and Mt. Royal, just a block away from Penn Station. The building will be 12 stories tall and should be quite striking to motorists who spot it when driving down I-83.

 

The law library will be located on floors 7 through 12. The overall square footage of the library is roughly the same as in the present location, but the architecture reflects how libraries have changed since the current UB law library was built. The square footage devoted to stacks will be considerably smaller than in the current building, reflecting the reduced role of the print collection.  As a result, library staff members are currently making hard decisions about which traditional resources will make the trip to the new building. A much greater portion of the floor plan is devoted to group study space, reflecting the shift in study styles from solitary to collaborative learning. The library will be more “porous,” with an uninterrupted flow between library space and the central atrium. Circulation of the collection will largely be done through self-checkout stations.

The building is scheduled for completion in January 2012.

Something Old, Something New: Interlibrary Users Association Helps Its Members Cope With Patrons' Heightened Expectations

By John D. Moore
Assistant Librarian for Public Services
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
At-large board member, Interlibrary Users Association

Sometimes the old ways are the best ways. A forty-four year old consortium called the Interlibrary Users Association (IUA) with a print union list helps its members cooperatively lend and borrow journals and circumvent costly document delivery services and impersonal electronic systems such as OCLC. Requesting and fulfillment between IUA members are frequently conducted by telephone or fax, or by email, which adds the speed and convenience of modern communications to a familiar library practice.

The Interlibrary Users Association (IUA) is a consortium of libraries dedicated to cooperative interlibrary lending and union listing. IUA originally started in 1964 with seven members and currently has 36 member libraries in the Washington, DC and Baltimore metropolitan areas. Members come from special, Federal, academic, corporate and law libraries. IUA is a non-profit governed by a board consisting of volunteers from member libraries.

IUA publishes the IUA Journal Holdings (ISSN: 0893-5386) every two years. It is now in its 18th edition. The union list includes 15,063 holdings statements and 1,518 cross-references. The list includes member profiles with contact information, addresses, phone numbers, policies and email addresses for libraries and their staffs. Journals listed include political science, economics, engineering, technology, general interest, and scientific titles.

Besides cooperative lending and borrowing, IUA has organized workshops and seminars on topics of interest to its members. Past workshop topics have included federated search and copyright law. Prof. Laura Gassaway, of the University of North Carolina School of Law, was the guest speaker at the copyright workshop.

IUA is open to new members holding a minimum of 30 journal titles who wish to post their holdings in the union list and who are willing to share them cooperatively. Members are expected to help edit their holdings information for each new edition of the IUA Journal Holdings union list. Non-reciprocating members may purchase the union list for a higher price, but do not cooperatively share or post their holdings.

The URL of the IUA is http://www.lib.umd.edu/Guests/IUA/iuahome.html, where interested persons can get more information. Those interested in membership can contact Merri Wolf of the Carnegie Institution of Washington Library, at 202-478-7962, or by email at mwolf@gl.ciw.edu.

 

LLAM's 2010 Annual Meeting Grant Recipient Reports on AALL in Denver

Mark R. Desierto
Systems Librarian
Venable LLP

The previous time I'd visited Colorado, I thought it would be fun to try cross country skiing for the first time, within a few hours of deplaning at DEN.  This turned out to be a bad idea.  I got altitude sickness and had to cut my trip short by several days.

So this time around, I vowed to stay closer to sea level, as well as to stay better hydrated.  Attending my first AALL Annual Meeting turned out to be an ideal way to accomplish both goals.  (Note to future attendees: Water pitchers were abundant at every program, so there was no need to haul a one-half gallon Camelback around the convention center.)  And I learned a great deal about law librarianship.

I'll admit that I was skeptical about the Annual Meeting.  I was concerned that as a systems librarian in a firm environment that the programming would be less than on-point for my business needs and that the subject matter would be overly oriented towards academic settings.  Happily, I was quite wrong.  I picked up some very practical advice from new-found colleagues from universities, firms, commercial enterprises, and government; met with vendors offering tools I actually need; and realized that law libraries of all shapes, sizes, and settings share similar goals and are subject to the same trends in access, pricing, publishing, and technology.

Here are some memorable moments from the AALL 2010 Annual Meeting and around town, in no particular order:

"I Read the News Today, Oh Boy!": 21st Century Lessons for Law Libraries from the Recording and Newspaper Industries

This ambitious (and PowerPoint-free) panel discussion, moderated by Tom Boone, brought together long-time Denver journalist Vikki Migoya and author Steve Knopper, among others, to narrate the ongoing decline of the print newspaper and music recording industries.  Both industries learned the hard way that the ability of digital technology to disseminate content instantaneously, and often for free, has profoundly changed users' expectations of content gathering.

What this means for libraries as content providers is that it is no longer sufficient just to provide answers to users.  Rather, libraries must learn to provide content quickly and with some added value that will compel users to come back.  Newspapers and record companies assumed that the business models that sustained them for decades would prevail.  Now print newspaper advertising revenue is nominal and readership has dropped precipitously over the past five years; and iTunes, not the recording industry, calls the shots in the retail music market.  If libraries fail to adopt a more service-oriented model, users will get their content elsewhere.

60 IP Sites in 60 Minutes

Some programs tell interesting stories about the big picture, and others simply convey lots of practical, current information. This aptly named presentation by Kim Martin (Goodwin Procter) and Jacqueline Grossman (Townsend and Townsend and Crew) fell into the latter category and was exceptionally thorough in its coverage of international patent resources (including Korean, Indian, Israeli, and even Soviet patents).  As the sheer volume of patents granted increases worldwide, the patent database universe will continue to evolve rapidly

Dinner with LLAM
Janet Camillo was kind enough to invite me to dinner with the rest of the LLAM crew.  A Saturday evening on Larimer Square over excellent nouveau Mexican cuisine was a great setting for putting names to familiar email addresses.  Despite the fact that we were a plane ride from the nearest ocean, most of us ordered seafood, which was quite good. As they say, you can take the LLAM out of Maryland...

Beyond Wayback: Preserving Born-Digital Ephemera
This panel discussion featuring William LeFurgy (Library of Congress National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program), Richard Leiter (University of Nebraska College of Law) and Jean-Gabriel Bankier (Berkeley Electronic Press) addressed the range of challenges involved in the preservation of born-digital materials ranging from state codes to secondary sources to blogs, reports, and meeting minutes.  The liveliest moment of the program was the discussion of identifying exactly which digital content merits preservation.
I recommend Library of Congress' digitalpreservation.gov site for further reading.

WestlawNext ad ubiquity
From billboards posted at the airport to the convention center, the wispy, mysterious, sideways-glancing WestlawNext models (are we to believe that they actually use WestlawNext?) seemed to follow me around every corner of the Mile High City.

The beginning of the end of library conferences 2.0
For the past two years, it seemed that every professional conference I attended was a debutante ball for all things Web 2.0.  I enjoy collaborative applications and social media as much as the next law librarian, but I was thrilled that none of the programs I attended at the Annual Meeting attempted to indoctrinate me on how Facebook can be a great productivity tool in my workplace.

How accessible are court records in Maryland? Daily Record reporter discusses the issue with LLAM

By Sara Witman
Research Librarian
Gordon Feinblatt Rothman Hoffberger and Hollander

"[Maryland court records] are available to the public, but getting them sometimes requires persistence."

The word "persistence" came up quite a bit when Danny Jacobs, legal affairs reporter for The Daily Record, spoke honestly about his experience obtaining files from Maryland courts with about 25 LLAM members in the Law Review Room of the Baltimore Bar Library on Thursday, September 16, at 12:30 p.m.

As a reporter, Mr. Jacobs has a lot of experience in Maryland court file rooms, particularly the ones in Baltimore County.  Additionally, he assisted with the research behind a July article in The Daily Record, "Access for all: A look at court record access in Maryland." For that article, reporters at The Daily Record visited district and circuit courts in twelve Maryland counties with the goal of finding out whether "regular citizens are able to gain access to public court records, which are presumed to be open." When they visited the courts, they did not identify themselves as reporters, and asked to see ten files.

The story began, according to Mr. Jacobs, when his colleague went to the Baltimore County District Court with a list of about 30 files that she wanted to research for a story. She was told she could only view five a day, which naturally limited her ability to research efficiently. The Legal Affairs Division of The Daily Record wondered, “Is this normal in Maryland?"

First of all, the answer to that question is "no." Most Maryland court file rooms do not place a limit on the number of files you can see in a day.  In fact, for the most part, the reporters found court clerks to be helpful. However, not all of the courts made things easy. Mr. Jacobs recalled that in Frederick County, for instance, another reporter was told that a file in judge's chambers was entirely inaccessible.  When The Daily Record brought this problem up with the Frederick County clerk Sandra Dalton, the clerk admitted that the court should not deny access to files.

If a file is with a judge, Mr. Jacobs suggested asking if the clerk can call up to chambers to see when it might be available.

During the program, attendees also made suggestions about getting access to files, most of which came down to not taking "no" for an answer. Attendees also brought up privacy issues -- both the privacy of the parties to a case and of the researcher, who often has to sign out the files. Some attendees noted that, while the clerks at many of the courthouses are nice, very little information is often given to a researcher about where the file is if it is not available.

Access to court records could be even better with e-filing and electronic case management. Mr. Jacobs described the electronic case management system that Maryland is looking to implement, with the assistance of Chief Judge Ben C. Clyburn. The system is set to be up and running in 2012 for Anne Arundel County and in 2015 for the rest of the state. The system would be similar to PACER, in that both docket sheets and electronic versions of case documents would be available to the public for a fee. The difference, though, is that electronic filing would not be mandatory, so lawyers without access to scanning technology would not be penalized. The ambitious project could cost up to $100 million.

Overall, Maryland's access to court records is on par or better than many states, according to Mr. Jacobs, who also mentioned that many were impressed with the courts. The Daily Record is not the first paper to do this type of research. In fact, there is a national initiative called Sunshine Week, led by the American Society of News Editors, to open a dialogue about "the importance of open government and freedom of information."  The next Sunshine Week is March 13-19, 2011. For more information, visit http://www.sunshineweek.org/Home.aspx.

For a copy of The Daily Record's article on access to court records, visit: http://mddailyrecord.com/2010/07/11/access-for-all-a-look-at-court-record-access/