|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
| HOME_ _BUSINESS_ _CALENDAR_ _DIRECTORY_ _GRANTS_ _JOBS_ _NEWSLETTER_ _RESOURCES | ||||
|
Committee Reports, 2002-2003
TO: SANDALL President Tracey Pardo It has been my pleasure to serve as the chapter contact on government relations and advocacy activities for the third straight year. This consisted primarily of serving as a liaison for SANDALL with the AALL Government Relations Committee and the other two California chapters. There were several legislative advocacy activities in which we participated in this year: 1. During the summer of 2002, the SANDALL Board joined with the boards of NOCALL and SCALL, in opposing AB 2648, a bill which if passed, could have severely impacted the future operations of the county law library, by relieving the county of its obligation to provide facilities and maintenance of those facilities for the law library. The major thrust of the opposition was that those in support of AB 2648, including the lobbyist for the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, had provided misinformation to the author of the bill, local Assemblyman Mark Wyland. Although the bill was passed through the legislature, it was subsequently vetoed by the governor, in response to the strong opposition and letter-writing campaign by law librarians throughout the state. 2. In early 2003, we also participated in planning a program with the SCALL and NOCALL GRCs at the Joint Chapter Institute held in March, "Law Library Advocacy Map on Highway 101: Practical Tips." Laurel Moran and Joan Allen-Hart prepared the program bibliography for attendees. 3. I am thrilled to report that SANDALL's members are becoming increasingly interested in advocacy training. Our chapter will have 3 members attending the AALL Legislative Advocacy Training Workshop at the annual meeting in Seattle: Jane Bentley from USD, and Pat Lopez and Judith Lihosit, both from the county law library. 4. In this current legislative session, the Board has decided to support of AB 1095, which would establish a task force under the auspices of the Judicial Council to study the condition of the county law libraries. The task force will prepare a report documenting its findings with recommendations on funding sources and financing mechanisms for the future. As the bill is currently written, the task force would consist of 3 representatives from the judicial branch to be appointed by the Administrative Director of the Courts, 3 representatives of the counties to be appointed by the California State Association of Counties, and 3 county law library administrators to be appointed by the California Council of County Law Libraries. In closing, I would like to recommend that the 2003-2004 Board consider
amending Article 7, Section 2(a) of the SANDALL Bylaws to establish a
standing Government Relations Committee. Although we are a small chapter,
I believe it is time for SANDALL to take this step, given the importance
of coordinated activity when issues affecting law libraries and access
to legal information arise. The chapter is increasingly being asked to
participate in advocacy efforts, with its sister chapters in California
or in coordination with AALL. A standing committee with an appointed
chair and several members would better be able to discuss the appropriateness
of such requests for chapter action, prior to referring them to the Board
for its consideration and final approval. Archives Committee Report The Committee Chair continues to gather and organize SANDALL materials. Items added to the archives include meeting minutes, agendas, newsletter issues, handouts from the brown bag luncheons, information on the proposed changes to the SANDALL bylaws, the Board's letters in opposition to AB 2648, sample bid sheets from the Spring Social, letters from SANDALL's unsuccessful bid to host the 2008 AALL annual meeting, statements from members running for the 2003-2004 SANDALL Board, and conference materials and tote bag from the March 2003 Joint Institute co-sponsored by NOCALL, SCALL and SANDALL. The Archives chair also supplied the Board with a copy of SANDALL's 1998 letter offering to host the 2003 AALL annual meeting. Submitted by Margaret McDonald, University of San Diego Legal Research
Center Report from the Constitution & Bylaws Committee
The committee examined the bylaws of SLA, AALL and its 31 chapters. A report w/ spreadsheet was drafted then submitted to the Executive Board. The spreadsheet detailed the membership categories available to other AALL chapters and referenced corresponding rights & privileges potentially available to each membership category. Each category was studied for strengths and weaknesses and language of each membership was considered. The Executive Board reviewed the By-law's Committee report / spreadsheet and responded. The Executive Board determined that certain categories of membership would not be suitable for the SANDALL membership. ex: (honorary / retired members) They recommended that SANDALL bylaws & membership categories be modeled to resemble the SCALL & AALL structure. The By-laws Committee revisited the original report and made changes to it. There were challenges in revising the original report to model SCALL & AALL structure. One challenge is that AALL has two membership categories and SCALL has five. Another challenge that the By-Laws Committee examined is how to model the Article 5 of the SANDALL bylaws on Officers to reflect the changes that AALL instituted to their By-Laws. The SANDALL bylaws state "The president and the Vice President of SANDALL must be individual members or designated institutional members in good standing of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). " Individual & designated institutional memberships are no longer categories of membership for AALL. On 11/8/02 SANDALL President Tracey Pardo initiated a "By-Laws revision open comment period" list discussion. The discussion showcased the views of the membership. Some members wanted to exclude paraprofessionals and students from executive leadership positions and some did not. Some members wanted to exclude vendors from executive leadership positions and some did not. The open comment period ended on 11/22/02. On 12/10/02 the Executive board distributed a document to ALL SANDALL Members entitled "Proposed Changes to Article 3 of the SANDALL By-Laws Concerning Membership Status." The Boards' suggested changes were submitted to the membership & voted
on at the 1/10/03 meeting. After the first vote, there was no clear consensus.
It was suggested that the changes be redrafted and voted on again. The
membership attending the 1/10/03 meeting voted to allow this. The committee
and board worked together to redraft the ballots and submitted them again
for a vote at the June 6th meeting. Once again, no clear consensus emerged
and therefore the original The Bylaws committee is currently in the process of redrafting Article 10 of the bylaws to allow remote voting via e-mail and fax. Here is the SANDALL Grants Committee Report for FY 2002/2003. 1. Tri-Chapter Seminar - one program fee grant was awarded to Tracy Krumbine from the Legal Research Center at USD to attend the seminar held in San Louis Obispo. Tracy was the only member to apply for this grant. The grant was offered via the listserv, and the award was announced on the listserv, in an article in the SANDALL newsletter and on the SANDALL website. 2. AALL Conference - at the Town Hall meeting in the fall, a number of members indicated interest in SANDALL sponsoring at least one AALL grant every year. The members present indicated that the treasury was large enough to accommodate this expense. It is my understanding that at least part of the reason why SANDALL held a silent auction in the spring was to raise additional money to help sponsor the grant. As Grants Committee Chair, I attended a SANDALL Board meeting in April, I believe, where the proposed AALL grant was discussed further and approved by the Board. To that end, I advertised the grant in the next SANDALL Newsletter, as well as on the listserv. Three SANDALL members applied for the grant, including a staff member from SDCPLL. I recused myself from the initial decision, and the other two committee members decided (separately but unanimously) to award a program grant registration to Amy Hale. This was announced on the listserv, at the SANDALL Business meeting in June and on the website. Jean Willis, Chair Newsletter Sheila Corman, Chair During the past year, Nominations Committee Chair Mary Sexton left the San Diego area and John Adkins took on the chairmanship. The other committee members were Karen Reilly, Loren Stamper, and Linda Weathers. The committee arranged and proposed a slate of candidates, which was approved by the Board and sent to the membership. All procedural deadlines were met, and the results of the election were announced in May. The ballot return percentage was 57%. Respectfully submitted, John Adkins San Diego Area Law Libraries (SANDALL) Programs Committee Report
I want to thank my committee members, Carmen Brigandi, Amy Hale-Janecke, and Ruth Levor, for their invaluable assistance throughout the year. Also, thank you to the California Western School of Law, the City Attorney's Office, San Diego County Public Law Library, Sheppard, Mullin, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, and the University of San Diego, for volunteering to host the various programs and meetings. I also want to thank our speakers, especially SANDALL members, Loren Stamper (for his February brown bag presentation) and Nancy Carter (for her Joint Institute presentation) for sharing their expertise with the rest of us. Last, but not the least, I want to thank our vendor members. Without their financial sponsorship some of these programs would be unaffordable. Thank you to the West Group for the Holiday Party, the Daily Journal for the Spring Social, and LexisNexis for today's lunch. Many vendors also contributed to the success of the Joint Institute. Two of our programs made money for the chapter. We collected $966.54 as our share of the Joint Institute proceeds and $561.50 from the sale of silent auction items. The latter will be used to fund grants for professional development programs. Together with NOCALL we sponsored Barbara Bintliff as our AALL VIP visitor at the Joint Institute. Thank you all for your support, for attending the programs, for donating items for the silent auction and purchasing them. Thank you West, Daily Journal and LexisNexis. I look forward to working on the committee with Laurel next year. If you are looking for a committee to work on, I recommend the programs committee; it is a lot of fun and you get to meet and work with a lot of great people. SANDALL Programs Town Hall Meeting: Held: August 8, 2002 Presenter: Jim Phelts from the S.D. County Office of Disaster Preparedness Brown Bag: Get Organized Presenters: Jana Hartwell and Marcia Mann, Professional Organizers and
members of the San Diego Chapter of the National Association of Professional
Organizers. Brown Bag: Estate Planning Presenter: Sandra Locke, attorney specializing in Estate Planning, Wills,
Trusts, and Probate Holiday Party (Partially Sponsored by West Group): Held: Dec. 10, 2002 Presenters: Penny Coppernoll-Blach and Mary Linn Bergstrom *The first half hour of the meeting was used to conduct a vote on the
proposed revision to the SANDALL Bylaws. Presenter: Loren Stamper, Head of Technical Services at the USD Legal
Research Center Joint Institute of the 3 California Chapters NOCALL/SANDALL/SCALL: Held: March 14-15, 2003 Spring Social and Silent Auction (Meal Sponsored by the Daily Journal): Held: April 15, 2003
Presenters: Jody Hubbard from General Electric Financial assisted by
Joanne Holden Long Range Planning Committee Report Pursuant to the document 'SUMMARY OF RESPONSES TO SANDALL MEMBERSHIP SURVEY, 2002', SANDALL held its First Town Hall Meeting, August 8, 2002 hosted by Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Twenty seven members attended. Four major topics were discussed, as follows. As liaison to the Board, I've also included a brief synopsis of the Board's response to addressing/implementing a number of these issues. All four points are open-ended for next year's Committee and Board to address. 1. Bylaws: After discussion of the need to revise the existing bylaws, the Board charged the Constitution & Bylaws Committee to look at the document and first address Article 3. Membership, so the Nominations Committee would have guidance for the upcoming elections. Its report and proposals were issued and member comments were solicited. The Article 3 proposals were voted on 1/10/03. Since no proposal received the required 2/3s vote of members present, revised ballots will be voted on at the June Annual Business Meeting. 2. Hosting AALL: Members were strongly in favor of SANDALL pursuing the bid to host the 2008 AALL Annual Meeting. A committee was formed and preliminary investigations were made. Unfortunately, we did not prevail in our efforts. 3. Finances: Although clear consensus on a number of issues regarding SANDALL's finances was not achieved, there was strong support on the expenditure side for funding grants for educational and professional development and quality speakers and programs. To that end, the Board approved funding two registrations for the Joint Institute, and SANDALL's first program registration for AALL. Funding was also approved for the Brown Bag 'Getting Organized' presented by professional organizers. On the revenue side, as generally agreed by the membership, the Board actively pursued vendor support for various activities and projects and SANDALL held its first Silent Auction/Spring Social. 4. Publicity: Even though the need seems clear to the members, we were not as successful in addressing this point. The monthly SANDALL articles for the San Diego Commerce dwindled, then ceased. A call for volunteers for KPBS (and on-air recognition of SANDALL) went unanswered. Discussions for implementing more professional SANDALL publications did not proceed to fruition. The Board did approve jointly funding a VIP at the Seattle AALL Convention with SCALL and NOCALL to promote law librarianship to a larger, influential audience, and we continued to have a SANDALL representative at LEAP. Respectfully submitted SANDALL Internet Committee
Internet Resources group head Mary Sexton did an excellent job of link checking and gathering new links for the siglinks page. Unfortunately she left in January & position has not yet been refilled. We started using the Xenu link checking shareware to identify problem links on the website. Over the course of the year we identified & corrected over 350 broken & redirected links. Maintaining the SANDALL web site was complicated this year by the difficulties experienced by our web host. At least twice last summer and fall they were hit by hackers and security became a serious issue. New passwords were issued twice - the second time by telephone. A secure FTP client became required for uploading files. It took several weeks to identify and obtain one that would work for us. Then in early April the entire aallnet migrated from Washburn University to a server at AALL headquarters. FTP and SSH file transfer methods were replaced by a web-based transfer system. We had an initial learning curve but it is working smoothly now. Mail List
Carol J. Hyne SANDALL Treasurer's Report for June 6, 2003 MISSION FEDERAL BANK ACCOUNT Savings Balance $ 10,033.71 Funds Available $ 14,739.91 SANDALL Membership Report for June 6, 2003 |
||
|