The American Association of Law Libraries: A Century of Leadership, 1906-2006

One Hundred Years of AALL History
1946–1955

Prepared by Frank G. Houdek
Spring 2006

1946 | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 | 1950 | 1951 | 1952 | 1953 | 1954 | 1955

previous Previous Decade | 100 Years Home | Next Decade next

1946

April 24 . . . Kay Moller Todd, who will serve as a member of the Executive Board (1988–91) and as AALL president (1993–94), is born. A tireless worker for the Association, Todd will serve as president of the SEAALL chapter, and chair the Special Committee on the Future of AALL, the Committee on the Organizational Structure of AALL, the Professional Development Committee, and the Fair Business Practices Implementation Task Force.

June 24–26 . . . AALL holds its 39th Annual Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, at the Chase Hotel. Fifty-seven attend the meeting (39 LLJ 239–40).

June 24 . . . Just a few days short of the 40th anniversary of AALL's founding, Columbia University's Miles O. Price concludes his president's report by declaring:

During the war, we had a hard time, but I am not going to harrow the souls of our G. I.'s who have been in the foxholes and on the fighting decks, and in the Pentagon, with our troubles, but we had troubles and they were real troubles. We have come through and we are ready to start ahead where we left off, and I think we can continue to be proud of the American Association of Law Libraries. (39 LLJ 77–78)

June 25 . . . Former president and renowned scholar-librarian Frederick C. Hicks, recently retired as librarian of the Yale Law Library, is elected as a life member of the Association.

November 19 . . . Albert O. Brecht, who will serve as AALL president in 1987–88, is born. Brecht, director of the University of Southern California Law Library from 1975 to the present, will also serve as chair of the 1983 Annual Meeting in Houston, as president of the Southern California Association of Law Libraries, and as chair of the Recruitment, Nominations, and Placement committees of AALL.

1947

June 23–26 . . . The Association holds its 40th Annual Meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico, headquartered at the La Fonda Hotel, on the southeast corner of the city's Plaza. Eighty-two individuals are listed on the meeting's attendance register (40 LLJ 226), of which seventeen have served (or will do so in the future) as AALL president.

June 24 . . . A highlight of the conference is a trip to Bandelier National Monument, which includes dinner at the Bandelier Lodge in Frijoles Canyon. The trip and dinner are courtesy of the West Publishing Company.

June 25 . . . Formed earlier in the year by seventeen librarians meeting informally at the Chicago Bar Association, the Chicago Association of Law Libraries (CALL) is approved as AALL's third chapter. William R. Roalfe, instrumental in the formation of the Carolinas Association of Law Libraries, AALL's first chapter, and, since 1946, director of the Northwestern University Law Library, is chosen to serve as CALL's first president.

June 26 . . . The AALL Constitution is amended to provide for election of officers and executive committee members by mail ballot, instead of by vote at the Annual Meeting; and to provide for three-year terms for members of the executive committee (now known as Executive Board), instead of two-year terms.

Also during the year, three future AALL presidents are born. . .

1948

April 16 . . . The Special Committee on Advisability and Practicability of Establishing the Office of Executive Secretary-Treasurer on a Full Time Basis, chaired by William R. Roalfe, reluctantly refrains from making such a recommendation because the Association lacks the “fairly substantial amount of additional regular revenue” that would be needed to “provide an appropriate salary” and “clerical assistance, equipment and supplies and perhaps even rent for suitable headquarters” (41 LLJ 119). As a “temporary expedient,” it instead suggests an amendment to the Constitution to divide the duties of the present executive secretary-treasurer position into two elective offices, executive secretary and treasurer, “thus leaving more time [for the former] to actively promote the program of the Association in the manner that is so urgently needed” (41 LLJ 122). This amendment is subsequently adopted at the Annual Meeting in New York.

June 21 . . . “The forty-first annual meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries convene[s] with an opening luncheon on the Penn Top [of the Pennsylvania Hotel, New York City], at 12:30 p.m., . . . with Julius J. Marke, chairman of the local arrangements committee presiding at the luncheon” (41 LLJ 161). The Annual Meeting, which runs from June 21 to 24, will turn out to be the largest in the history of the Association to date, with 252 individuals listed in the attendance register (41 LLJ 339).

June 24 . . . Following nearly two years of informal development beginning in October 1946, the Law Librarians of New England is officially approved as AALL's fourth chapter. Two days earlier, a discussion panel on “Chapter Problems and Programs” is presented at the Annual Meeting, “the outstanding feature” [of which] was Mr. [Dillard] Gardner's vivid, enthusiastic description of the cooperative law library activities developed through the efforts of the Chapter in contiguous communities in North Carolina” (41 LLJ 320).

December 22 . . . Frank G. Houdek, who will serve AALL as president (1996–97) and editor of Law Library Journal (1995–present), is born in Long Beach, California. Houdek will also chair the Academic Law Libraries SIS (1987–88) and later be awarded its Frederick Charles Hicks Award for Outstanding Contributions to Academic Law Librarianship in 2001. As president of SCALL, he is instrumental in the formation of the Council of Chapter Presidents in 1981, and is elected its first chair.

1949

January 2 . . . Eldon R. James, former AALL president (1934–35) and long-time editor of the Index to Legal Periodicals (1925–42), dies at the age of 73 at his home in Gloucester, Mass. James's distinguished career included service as dean of the University of Missouri Law School, Adviser on Foreign Affairs for the government of Siam, professor of law and librarian at Harvard (1923–42), and law librarian of Congress (1943–46). In 1942, he was elected a life member of AALL and later, at a dinner in Washington, D.C., presented with an Appreciation for his outstanding service to the law library profession and to the American Association of Law Libraries (36 LLJ 91–93).

June 27–30 . . . The 42nd Annual Meeting is held in Detroit, Michigan, at the Book-Cadillac Hotel, with 181 in attendance (42 LLJ 243). The Thursday excursion is a visit to Cranbrook, Greenfield Village (a reproduction of an early American village, established in 1933 by Henry Ford, as part of the Edison Institute), and the Ford Motor Plant, courtesy of West Publishing Company.

June 30 . . . After existing as an independent organization for eleven years, the Law Library Association of Greater New York is approved as AALL's fifth chapter. In responding to this action, LLAGNY President Julius J. Marke reports that the organization's “most important event of the year was a round-table analysis of the proposed ‘K’ classification for the Library of Congress,” and that the “group now consists of about 100 members, with an average of 25 to 50 attending each . . . quarterly meeting” (42 LLJ 208–09).

November 20 . . . Robert C. Berring, who will serve as AALL president in 1985–86, is born. He also will chair the Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals Committee and the Special Committee on Law Librarian Compensation. In 2003, he will receive the Frederick Charles Hicks Award for Outstanding Contributions to Academic Law Librarianship from the Academic Law Libraries SIS.

1950

April 11 . . . James S. Heller, who will serve as AALL president in 1998–99, is born. Heller will chair several AALL committees, including Copyright, Awards, and Education; serve as program chair of the 1995 Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh; and serve as president of both the Virginia and Southeastern chapters. To date, he is the only individual to receive both the Law Library Journal and AALL Spectrum article of the year awards.

July 18 . . . Mark E. Estes, who will serve as AALL president in 1992–93, after chairing the program of the 1989 Annual Meeting in Reno and the Private Law Libraries Special Interest Section, is born. He will also chair several AALL committees, including Membership/Recruitment, Constitution and Bylaws, and Government Relations, and serve as president of the Southwestern Association of Law Libraries.

July 24–27 . . . The Association holds its 43rd Annual Meeting in Seattle, with headquarters at the Olympic Hotel.

July 24 . . . A highlight of the opening session of the Annual Meeting is a presentation by Gilson G. Glasier, state librarian of Wisconsin and a charter member and past president of AALL, titled “Beginnings of the American Association of Law Libraries.” He details the need for organization and the first meeting at Narragansett Pier, R.I., in July 1906, and states emphatically that “Mr. [A.J.] Small is entitled to credit for originating the idea of a law librarians' organization and for pushing the idea to realization by writing the letters that resulted in the organization meeting” (43 LLJ 150). He goes on to describe the second Annual Meeting in 1907 and the Association's involvement in the area of indexing legal periodicals.

July 25 . . . The second day of the Annual Meeting is devoted to a trip to Victoria, British Columbia, via Canadian Pacific Steamship, Princess Line. After a four-hour cruise, lunch is served in Victoria at the Crystal Garden's Flamingo Room. In the afternoon, participants have the choice of a tour of the city or a tour of its English shops. Dinner is served aboard the steamship on the return to Seattle.

July 26 . . . Instead of the Hein Fun Run (yet to be invented), attendees of the AALL Annual Meeting in Seattle take part in a “fishing derby” from 4:00 to 8:30 a.m., followed by “breakfast at the boathouse.”

1951

June 25 . . . Included in the educational program of the 44th Annual Meeting in Boston is a panel discussion titled “Relation of Work of Law Book Dealers and Publishers to Law Librarianship.” Speakers include Wayne Davies, West Publishing Co.; Robert Brown, Carswell Company; and Fred B. Rothman, Manager, Fred B. Rothman Co. The panel generated enough interest that, with questions and comments, it did not adjourn until 11:25 p.m. (44 LLJ 146–75)

June 27 . . . At the closing banquet of the Annual Meeting, George A. Johnston, law librarian of the Law Society of Upper Canada, Osgoode Hall, Toronto, Canada, assumes the office of president, the first (and to date, only) individual from an institution outside the U.S. to so serve.

September 20 . . . Victoria (Tory) K. Trotta, who will serve as AALL president in 2004–05, after a term on the Executive Board (1994–97) and chairing the Program Committee for the 2002 Annual Meeting in Orlando, is born. Trotta also holds the distinction of being the only person to chair both the Private Law Libraries (1992–93) and Academic Law Libraries (1999–2000) special interest sections.

1952

February 1952 . . . A brief note in the “Current Comments” column of Law Library Journal announces that “Mr William D. Murphy has resigned his position with the University of Chicago Law School Library to become Librarian with the firm of Kirkland, Fleming, Green, Martin and Ellis, 33 North LaSalle Street, Chicago, Illinois” (45 LLJ 21). Later known to many as “Mr. AALL,” Murphy, who will serve as librarian for the firm eventually known as Kirkland and Ellis for nearly thirty years (1952–81), will become the second law firm librarian to hold the office of AALL president in 1967–68.

July 7–10 . . . For the only the fifth time in its history, AALL goes outside the U.S. to conduct its Annual Meeting. Nearly two-hundred individuals are listed (45 LLJ 499) as attending the 45th meeting in Toronto, at the Royal York Hotel. This is the third time AALL has met in Toronto, following meetings in 1927 and 1940; it will meet there once more, in 1977, the sixth and last (to date) conference held outside the U.S.

October 24–25 . . . A Workshop on Law Library Problems (described at 46 LLJ 35–36), sponsored by the Chicago Association of Law Libraries, is held at the Northwestern University Law School. Presenters include William R. Roalfe, Elizabeth V. Benyon, William D. Murphy, A. Elizabeth Holt, and Robert Q. Kelly. Its success encourages AALL to develop its own institutes, the first of which is offered at UCLA in 1953.

December 5 . . . The organizational meeting of the Southern California Association of Law Libraries is held at the University of Southern California with fifteen librarians in attendance. Charles W. Armstrong of the Los Angeles County Law Library is chosen as the group's first president. The Association will be granted chapter status at the 1953 Annual Meeting in Los Angeles.

1953

April . . . Current Publications in Legal and Related Fields begins publication as a supplement to the “Current Publications” section of the Law Library Journal. Fred B. Rothman acts as business manager for the new nonprofit publication.

May 31 . . . AALL's membership passes the six-hundred mark for the first time, reaching an “all time high” of 607, as reported by Treasurer Elizabeth Finley (46 LLJ 297). This total includes 19 life members, 54 associate members, 194 active members, and 340 institutional members.

June . . . AALL's Scholarship and Grants Program is initiated with contributions from law book publishers for awards to assist recipients in attending AALL institutes and annual meetings. By 2006, funds provided by vendors, AALL, and AALL individual members will have been used to help more than a thousand librarians attend AALL educational activities. Additionally, the Association will award scholarships in significant amounts to assist individuals in achieving their goal of becoming a law librarian.

June 30–July 3 . . . The first AALL Institute ever to be held apart from an Annual Meeting is offered on the campus of UCLA under the directorship of Miles O. Price of Columbia University. The topic is “Fundamentals of Law Library Administration.” There are fifty-three registrants.

This gave us seven months to prepare, a process akin to fighting our way out of a featherbed. No one knew who or how many would come, or what they would want in the way of a curriculum, or who the “faculty” would be. . . . [After surveying the membership] it was soon evident that, dictated by the character and accomplishments of the “pupils” . . . , the Institute was to be in effect a continuation school for experienced librarians. — Miles O. Price (49 LLJ 168–69)

July 6 . . . The Southern California Association of Law Libraries is approved as AALL's sixth chapter.

September 1953 . . . William R. Roalfe's Libraries of the Legal Profession is published for the ABA's Survey of the Legal Profession. The book represents the fulfillment of one of the few recommendations of the Roalfe Plan yet to be achieved: conducting a nationwide survey of all law libraries. The accomplishments and prospects of AALL are discussed in a chapter on “Cooperation Through Organizations.” Among the suggestions Roalfe makes in the book is the publication of a newsletter by AALL for the prompt communication of information of current interest.

1954

March . . . Matthew Bender and Company notifies President Lucile Elliott, librarian, University of North Carolina Law Library, that it will sponsor four scholarships, in amounts of $100 each, to assist members who might otherwise be unable to attend the upcoming Annual Meeting in Miami. The company's only restriction is that those chosen by the Association's Committee on Matthew Bender Awards (Frances Farmer, chair; Elizabeth Finley and George Johnston, members) be individuals “in the category of younger librarians just starting up the ladder.” And thus is the tradition of “Bender babies” born. Grant winners in 1954 are Eileen Murphy, Mary Oliver, Bertha Rothe, and Elaine Teigler.

July 1 . . . The Report of the Special Panel on New Horizons, known less formally as the Breuer Plan after the chair of the panel, Ernest H. Breuer, is presented to members during a session of the 47th Annual Meeting in Miami Beach, Florida. Building on the foundation of the Roalfe Plan, the report focuses on organizational items such as chapters and regional groups, the importance of increasing membership, standards for law librarianship, educational panels outside the Annual Meeting, public relations, and, in Marian Gallagher's characterization, “the first serious recommendation for an executive secretary.” The panel terms “the establishment of the office of Executive Secretary, on a full time, paid basis” as its “most important recommendation, the one with the greatest merit and value to [AALL] in our endeavor to achieve our projected wider horizons” (47 LLJ 366).

August 24 . . . The American Bar Association introduces a package subscription plan for most of its serial publications (excluded are the ABA Journal, the advance programs of the annual meeting, and section and committee publications that are distributed only to members). The cost is $50 per year.

November . . . President Marian Gallagher, librarian of the University of Washington, initiates publication of a monthly President's Newsletter. It will be published until 1970 when it is replaced by the AALL Newsletter.

Our Associate Member Dorothea Blender [of Commerce Clearing House] is responsible for this experimental newsletter, having suggested, in September, that our members should have more frequent reports on Committee and Board activities than they can gather from the quarterly Journal and the annual meeting. My September stopover within range of Dorothea's remarks had as one of its purposes bringing the Chicago Association of Law Libraries up to date on AALL activity, an assignment which might have been handled more effectively by some member of the Board less covered with travel dust and salt spray than I, but an assignment which I relished. — Marian G. Gallagher, President's Newsletter (Nov. 1954, at 1)

1955

April 20 . . . Gilson G. Glasier, charter AALL member and past president (1921–22), is honored by the Wisconsin Legislature when it adopts a resolution commending him for fifty years of faithful public service. Glasier will resign as librarian of the Wisconsin State Library at the end of 1955; he began the same year that AALL was founded, 1906.

June 28–July 2 . . . More than seventy attend AALL's second “Law Librarians' Institute” at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago with William R. Roalfe, librarian at Northwestern, and Erwin H. Pollack, librarian at Ohio State University, as codirectors. The Institute begins by exploring the selection and collection of law books, followed by “two full days . . . devoted to analysis and discussion of the problems involved in cataloging legal materials” (48 LLJ 284–85).

July 5–8 . . . AALL holds its 48th Annual Meeting in Chicago, headquartered at the Drake Hotel, with Marian G. Gallagher presiding.

July 5 . . . The Minnesota Association of Law Libraries is unanimously approved by vote of the membership as AALL's seventh chapter (48 LLJ 289). Its first president will be Margaret S. Andrews, librarian of the Minnesota State Law Library, elected at MALL's organizational meeting on December 1, 1955.

July 6 . . . More than sixty persons, including representatives from the ABA Section on Foreign and Comparative Law and the American Society of International Law, attend a special meeting in Chicago to discuss the indexing of foreign legal materials. Chaired by Forrest Drummond, librarian of the Los Angeles County Law Library, the meeting leads to the formation of a special AALL committee, chaired by Sidney B. Hill of the Association of the bar of the City of New York, to cooperate with other interested groups in establishing an index to foreign legal periodicals and seeking a grant to help achieve this goal.

 

Centennial Celebration Committee Home | Site Map | AALLnet