One Hundred Years of AALL History
1906–1915
Prepared by Frank G. Houdek
Spring 2006
1906 | 1907 | 1908 | 1909 | 1910 | 1911 | 1912 | 1913 | 1914 | 1915
1906
Spring . . . A.J. Small, curator of the Law Department of the Iowa State Law Library, issues a call to other state librarians, suggesting that they get together at the upcoming meeting of the American Library Association “to consider the advisability of a separate organization of law librarians.”
May 26 . . . Dillard S. Gardner, future Marshal-Librarian of the North Carolina Supreme Court and president of AALL (1956–57) is born in Reidsville, N.C. He will also serve as editor of the “Golden Jubilee” issue of Law Library Journal (Vol. 49, No. 2), published on the occasion of the AALL's fiftieth anniversary in 1956.
July 2 . . . AALL is formed at Narragansett Pier, R.I., during the annual conference of the American Library Association. Although no official proceedings of the first meeting are ever published, according to the recollection of one attendee, Andrew Mettee of the Library Company of the Baltimore Bar, it “lasted all day long and until one o'clock in the morning” (23 LLJ 48). Small is elected as AALL's first president. Unanimously adopted bylaws set the annual dues for regular and associate members at $2.
1907
May 24–28 . . . AALL conducts its second Annual Meeting in Asheville, N.C. Twenty-seven members attend the first session at the Battery Park Hotel.
May 24 . . . Secretary-Treasurer Franklin O. Poole of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York reports that AALL's 1906 charter membership of 24 has now grown to 77, of whom 61 are regular members, 15 are associate members, and 1 is an honorary member (Stephen B. Griswold, formerly Law Librarian, New York State Library).
May 24 . . . Frederick W. Schenk recommends on behalf of the Committee on Indexing Legal Periodicals that “the Association undertake the publication of a quarterly journal, to be published on the first of January, April, July and October, to contain one article of interest to law librarians, reviews and notices of new legal publications, wants and exchange lists, and quarterly index to current legal periodical literature . . . ; the funds for publishing this quarterly to be secured from advertisements and subscriptions, the subscription price to members $3 per year, and to non-members $4. . . .” (1 LLJ 22)
May 27 . . . A.J. Small is elected to serve a second term as president, in 1907–08.
1908
May 9 . . . A flyer announcing the upcoming meeting at Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, indicates the following rates at the headquarters Tonka Bay Hotel: 2 in a room, $2.50 each ($3 with bath); 1 in a room, $3 ($4 with bath). Rates are slightly less at the cottages available on the hotel grounds.
June 22–24 . . . AALL holds its 3rd Annual Meeting on the shores of Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota. Forty-seven persons are present at the several sessions, conducted in the “Billiard Room” and the “Club Room” of the Casino at the Lake.
June 22 . . . Margaret Klingelsmith of the Biddle Law Library reads a paper on “The Management of a Small Law Library” in the absence of its authors, Miss Claribel Smith and Miss Hettie Gray Baker. A motion is approved directing the secretary-treasurer “to telegraph to Misses Smith and Baker the thanks of the Association for their interesting paper,” (1 LLJ 35) which is later published in Law Library Journal (1 LLJ 56).
June 24 . . . Ernest A. Feazel of the Cleveland Law Library Association is elected president for 1908–09.
December . . . Though dated January 1908, the first issue of the Index to Legal Periodicals and Law Library Journal (published under one cover) is not published until December. An editorial in the Journal declares that “there will appear in each issue at least one original leading article on a subject of especial interest to law librarians, bibliographies of special legal subjects, and a list of new text books, statutes, and digests published during the quarter. Space will be devoted to errata discovered in legal publications, queries, and replies.” (1 LLJ 31)
1909
June 25 . . . Marion O. Boner, first director of the Texas State Law Library (1972), AALL secretary (1970–73), and AALL president (1974–75), is born in Cleburne, Texas. She will be posthumously presented with the Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award in 1991.
June 28–July 3 . . . AALL holds its 4th Annual Meeting at the Mt. Washington House in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in the heart of the White Mountains, in conjunction with the conferences of the American Library Association and the National Association of State Libraries. Forty-eight individuals attend the various sessions, although the published proceedings list 35 “members present” (2 LLJ 21).
June 28 . . . Secretary-Treasurer Franklin O. Poole reports that “[t]he Association ends its fourth year with a membership of 114, made up of 89 regular members, 24 associate members and 1 honorary member, a gain, during the year just ended, of 9 regular and 3 associate members.” (2 LLJ 11)
June 30 . . . Gilson G. Glasier, Wisconsin State Library, is appointed managing editor of the Index to Legal Periodicals and Law Library Journal, replacing Frederick W. Schenk of the University of Chicago. Glasier will edit volumes 2 and 3 (1909–10).
June 30 . . . Gertrude E. Woodard, librarian of the University of Michigan Law Library, is elected vice president for 1909–10, becoming the first woman to serve as an AALL officer. In 1910, she will become the first woman elected to the AALL Executive Board, and will then be reelected vice president for 1911–12.
1910
March 12 . . . William B. Stern, future AALL Executive Board member (1955–58) and president (1969–70), is born in Würzburg, Germany. After several years at the University of Chicago Law Library (1937–39), Stern will join the staff of the Los Angeles County Law Library, where he becomes a renowned foreign law librarian (1939–70). He will be instrumental in the creation of the Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals.
June 30–July 6 . . . The 5th Annual Meeting is held at Mackinac Island, Michigan. The maximum rates at the Grand Hotel are $3.50 per day (one in a room, with bath); minimum rates, without bath, are $2.50 per day. The hotel has 435 rooms, of which 200 have baths.
July 2 . . . Secretary-Treasurer Franklin O. Poole reports that there are now 125 members of AALL, a gain of eleven over the previous year. He also reports a balance on hand at close of the fiscal year of $321.96.
July 6 . . . George S. Godard, State Librarian of Connecticut, is the third person elected president of AALL. He will serve two terms (1910–12).
1911
May 18–24 . . . AALL holds its first conference “west of the Rockies,” convening the Association's 6th Annual Meeting at the Hotel Maryland, in Pasadena, California.
May 19 . . . During the meeting, “[a] paper on vaseline treatment of leather bindings, prepared by G.E. Wire of the Worcester County Law Library, [is] read by E.J. Lien, State Librarian of Minnesota.” (4 LLJ 22)
May 20 . . . By a standing vote, members approve an amendment to sec. 9 of the AALL Constitution, thereby abolishing the office of secretary-treasurer and replacing it with two separate positions, secretary and treasurer. Franklin O. Poole, secretary-treasurer from 1906 to 1911, is elected secretary for 1911–1912; E. Lee Whitney, State Library of Vermont, is elected treasurer (and will serve from 1911 to 1914).
1912
June 26–July 2 . . . AALL's 7th Annual Meeting is the first to be held outside the United States, with members convening at the brand new Château Laurier Hotel in Ottawa, Canada. Rates at the hotel, which opened on June 12, 1912, are $1.25 to $3.50 per day, European plan.
June 27 . . . Forty-four attend the first session of the Annual Meeting, at which Treasurer E. Lee Whitney reports a balance of $306.48 in the Association's bank account.
June 28 . . . The second session of the Annual Meeting features a discussion of the “Tentative list of subject headings for a law library catalogue” recently prepared by the Library of Congress. A committee of three is appointed to confer with the Library of Congress on the matter, and a resolution thanking LC for “this valuable guide, which will tend to make uniform law library catalogues, a condition much to be desired,” will be approved the next day. (5 LLJ 16)
June 28 . . . Charter member Franklin O. Poole, Association of the Bar of the City of New York, having already served AALL as secretary-treasurer (1906–11) and secretary (1911–12), is elected president for 1912–13. He will serve a second term in 1913–14.
Also during the year, a “List of Law Libraries in the United States and Canada” is published in Law Library Journal (5 LLJ 35–51). Arranged alphabetically by state and province, it includes public law libraries, court and bar libraries, state and government libraries, law libraries of public officials, and libraries of universities and schools for the study of law. The name and address of each library is given, as well as an estimated volume count.
1913
Jan. 12 . . . Julius J. Marke, whose work in law libraries will span more than sixty years (1942–2003), is born in New York City. A prolific scholar, noted copyright expert, and gifted raconteur, Marke will serve as AALL president in 1962–63, and receive the Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award in 1986.
June 24–26 . . . The 8th Annual Meeting is held at the Hotel Kaaterskill, in the Catskills, New York.
June 25 . . . At a meeting of the Association's Executive Committee, it is agreed to turn the business management of the Index to Periodicals and Law Library Journal over to the H.W. Wilson Company “as soon as satisfactory arrangements can be made. It [is] hoped that the circulation [can] thereby be increased and the periodical put on a better working basis” (6 LLJ 52), since at this point “it only partially pays for itself,” with AALL defraying a part of the cost (6 LLJ 23).
Also during the year, Frederick C. Hick's Aids to the Study and Use of Law Books is published. Not really a legal research manual, but rather a concise bibliography of books about law books, Hicks will supplement it by contributing a column in Law Library Journal, “Notes on Legal Bibliography,“ from 1915 to 1921.
1914
April . . . Beginning with volume 7, the printing and business management of the Index to Legal Periodicals are taken over by the H.W. Wilson Company. The editorial work is still done under the direction of AALL, with Eldon R. James of Harvard Law School serving as editor.
May 25–26 . . . AALL holds its 9th Annual Meeting in the Red Parlor of the Ebbitt House, in Washington, D.C. A program on law librarians discusses the question, “What should be their training in business efficiency, knowledge of library science and of law?” (7 LLJ 42–47)
August . . . Marian Gould is born in the small town of Everett, Washington. She will be one of just three female graduates, in a class of about a hundred, when she receives her LL.B. degree from the University of Washington in 1937. As Marian Gallagher, she will build a renowned law librarianship program at UW while serving as director of the law school library from 1944 to 1981. An Executive Board member (1947–48, 1950–52) and president (1954–55), Gallagher will be the first recipient of AALL's prestigious Distinguished Service Award in 1984. It subsequently will be renamed in her honor in 1990.
1915
February 1 . . . Frederick C. Hicks is formally appointed law librarian of Columbia University, a position he will hold until 1928 when he will become librarian at Yale University Law School. In 1919–20, Hicks will become the first academic law librarian to serve as AALL president. In recognition of that milestone, in 2000 the Academic Law Libraries Special Interest Section will name its new award, to be presented annually to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to academic law librarianship, in Hicks's honor.
April . . . Commencing with the first issue of volume 8, Gertrude E. Woodward of the University of Michigan Law Library becomes the fifth editor of the Index to Legal Periodicals and Law Library Journal. She will continue through volume 12 (1919), and later return as editor of volumes 15–17 (1922–24).
June 3–5 . . . According to the list published in Law Library Journal (8 LLJ 65), twenty-four individuals attend the 9th Annual Meeting, held at Boalt Hall, University of California, Berkeley.
June 5 . . . M.J. Ferguson reads a paper on “The Law Library of the Future,” prepared by Arthur C. Pulling of the University of Minnesota Law Library. Pulling predicts that the rapidly growing “annual output of both reports and textbooks” will mean that soon “a lawyer will not have even the reports of his own state on his shelves,” and thus “lawyers will use the bar libraries, state libraries, and university law libraries for most of their work.” (8 LLJ 73–74).