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

One Hundred Years of AALL History
1976–1985

Prepared by Frank G. Houdek
Spring 2006

1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985

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1976

February . . . The first in a “planned, annual series of price indexes for legal publications” (69 LLJ 1) is published in Law Library Journal. “Price Index for Legal Publications” is prepared by Bettie Scott of the University of California at Davis Law Library, who will continue to prepare it for annual publication in the Journal for twenty years, until it is published as a separate booklet in 1996 under the authorship of Margaret Maes Axtmann. It is now available only in electronic form on AALLNET.

May 1 . . . According to the annual report of the Membership Committee, AALL has now surpassed the two-thousand plateau, having reached a total of 2232, “the highest yet” (69 LLJ 420).

June . . . Alice J. Murray is announced as the winner of the “AALL Logo” contest (7 AALL Newsl. 12), receiving as a prize a free registration for the 1976 AALL Annual Meeting in Boston. This is not an insignificant contribution, since the stylized double A's and L's still remain as the Association's basic logo design (used on Law Library Journal) to this day.

June 19 . . . The Executive Board unanimously approves a resolution expressing its appreciation to Connie E. Bolden who is resigning as editor of Law Library Journal at the completion of volume 69, having served “for an unprecedented term of ten years” and supervised “the publication of an equally unprecedented 5,000 pages” in the Journal (Exec. Board Minutes, p.485). Bolden will later say that “[p]robably my most satisfying experience was the ten years I served as editor of the Law Library Journal, even more than my term as president of AALL” (98 LLJ 312).

June 21 . . . In his oral report to attendees of the first business session of the 69th Annual Meeting in Boston, Treasurer Eugene M. Wypyski states that the “Executive Board has adopted a budget that for the first time [exceeds] $100,000” (69 LLJ 509).

June 23 . . . After considerable debate, bylaws are adopted to implement the previously approved constitutional amendment allowing for the creation of special interest sections. The new bylaws establish procedures by which SISs can be formed and governed.

December 28 . . . The Executive Board approves petitions for the creation of the Association's first seven special interest sections: Contemporary Social Problems; Law Library Service to Institutional Residents; Government Documents; Private Law Libraries; Automation and Scientific Development; OCLC Law Libraries; and State, Court, and County Law Libraries. It also decides that committees which overlap with an SIS (such as Contemporary Social Problems, Government Documents, and Private Law Libraries) will be continued for at least one more year (1977–78).

1977

February . . . The first issue of Law Library Journal is dedicated to Connie E. Bolden, editor of the Journal from 1966 to 1976. In his tribute to Bolden, President Jack S. Ellenberger writes: “Throughout this remarkable period [of Bolden's editorship], Connie instituted numerous changes in editorial practice that by themselves provide a ready standard for his successors to follow, but none seems to be more self-exemplary than what he called his ‘10-year rule’: To publish . . . only that which would be of continuing utility ten years hence. . . . [I]ts regular application has given the Law Library Journal both lasting perspective as well as a long line of reliable writing that will probably survive any temporal limitation” (70 LLJ I).

June 26–30 . . . The Association holds its 70th Annual Meeting in Toronto, Ontario, the sixth time it has convened in Canada (including Ottawa in 1912, Montreal in 1934, and Toronto in 1927, 1940, and 1952), and, to date, the last. In comparing AALL in 1952 to its present state in 1977, President Jack S. Ellenberger notes that then it had less than 600 members and a total worth of less than $50,000; now it has about 2600 members and a total worth of slightly more than $500,000.

June 29 . . . Alfred J. Coco, librarian of the University of Denver College of Law Library, takes office as AALL president, becoming the first and, to date, only individual to be elected president as a write-in candidate. He has previously served as president of the Southwestern Association of Law Libraries and chair of local arrangements for the 1969 Annual Meeting in Houston. Coco will later receive the Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award in 1995.

December 29 . . . At its midwinter meeting in Atlanta, the Executive Board authorizes the formation of AALL's eighth special interest section by approving the petition submitted on behalf of the Technical Services Special Interest Section.

1978

January . . . The first issue of Publications Clearing House Bulletin, the forerunner of today's CRIV Sheet, is issued by the Committee on Relations with Publishers and Dealers. To be published three times a year, the Bulletin includes summaries of correspondence concerning questions, complaints, constructive criticisms, and suggestions between librarians and publisher/dealers.

June 26 . . . At the first business session of the 71st Annual Meeting in Rochester, New York, two new chapters are approved: the Greater Hartford Law Library Association (later renamed the Southern New England Law Librarians Association) becomes the fourteenth chapter, and the Western Pennsylvania Law Library Association is recognized as the fifteenth.

June 28 . . . Faced with an actual deficit of $40,000 in 1977–78 and a projected deficit of $32,000 in 1978–79, brought on primarily by “sharply increased printing costs” for Law Library Journal and the AALL Newsletter (71 LLJ 550), the membership approves an increase in dues of $30 to $40 for active and associate individual members.

September . . . By mail ballot, the membership approves the adoption of an AALL Code of Ethics, along with the establishment of an Advisory Commission on Ethical Standards Charter.

October 1 . . . Public Law 95–261 (codified at 44 U.S.C. § 1916), in which Congress authorizes the Public Printer to designate the library of an accredited law school as a depository library, takes effect.

1979

January 3 . . . At its midwinter meeting in Chicago, the Executive Board approves the petition of the Reader Services Special Interest Section, thereby authorizing it as the Association's ninth SIS.

March . . . Marian G. Gallagher, librarian and professor, University of Washington School of Law, is reappointed to the Advisory Committee to the White House Conference on Library and Information Services. She originally was appointed to the committee by President Gerald Ford.

June 19 . . . AALL enters into a contract with Information Access Corporation (reprinted in 11 AALL Newsl. 4–7) for the development of a new legal periodical indexing service, under the sponsorship of AALL. The products developed under this contract, Legal Resources Index and Current Law Index, will begin publication in 1980.

July 1–5 . . . Three individuals who will eventually serve as AALL president attend their first Annual Meeting in San Francisco: Richard Danner, Carol D. Billings, and Barbara Bintliff. Danner will later say of his experience: “What was really great [about the meeting] . . . was seeing all those famous law librarians firsthand and up close. . . . [T]here seemed to be gods and goddesses of law librarianship everywhere I turned” (88 LLJ 27). Billings: “I remember being dazzled at the banquet by free California wine (the Tom Reynolds touch) and the distinguished President Myron Jacobstein. I knew that I could not bear to miss the Annual Meeting ever again. These were my people” (88 LLJ 16–17). Bintliff: “I was surprised that seeing so many law librarians in one place made me feel part of a profession. It was a good feeling. Many things have changed about AALL's Annual Meetings, but there is one constant. I still feel like a part of the profession when I am at AALL. And it still feels good” (88 LLJ 18).

July 5 . . . A petition signed by eighty-nine members seeking the formation of an Academic Law Libraries Special Interest Section is approved by the Executive Board. The group formed at the Annual Meeting in San Francisco elects Andrea Roberts of the UCLA Law Library as its first chairperson.

August 27 . . . Writing about a “Proposed Executive Director for AALL” in the AALL Newsletter, President Connie E. Bolden reports that “[a]s of August 27, 1979, AALL membership totaled 3,002, generating annual dues income of approximately $114,000” (11 AALL Newsl. 41). Thus, a little more than three years after reaching two-thousand members, it now surpasses three thousand; and in just six years, it has nearly doubled in size.

1980

January 2 . . . Fifteen former AALL presidents submit a letter to the Executive Board in support of the proposal by the Ad Hoc Committee on the Office of Executive Director, chaired by William Murphy, to create a new position of executive director. The Board votes to affirmatively recommend the establishment of the position to the general membership at the 1980 Annual Meeting in St. Louis, as well as the passage of a dues increase of $25 for the express purpose of funding the position.

We are writing to . . . express our support for the current proposal to create a new position of Executive Director . . . and to institute a dues increase to finance that step. . . . Having served as the executive officer of the Association and having suffered keenly from the lack of an Executive Director, we feel that our testimony might have a unique relevance. . . . The time required for our immediate efforts to keep the Association functioning . . . left virtually no time for the larger concerns which would affect or threaten the Association and law librarianship in the next years. . . . Daily attention to the trees left little chance to tend the health of the forest. . . . The present proposal for a full-time professional director can now fill that need. (11 AALL Newsl. 79–80)

June 23 . . . Chapters from Atlanta, Michigan, and Northern California are approved by a vote of the membership at the St. Louis Annual Meeting, bringing the total number of chapters to eighteen.

June 25 . . . The Executive Board's recommendation to increase membership dues by $25 (for a total of $65 for an individual active or associate member) in order to finance the office of executive director is adopted by a vote of the membership. In describing the fifty-year history of AALL's efforts to establish the executive director position, former president William Murphy states:

Sixteen years ago here in St. Louis in this same hotel—and I think maybe in the same room—we established Headquarters. It has been a good sixteen years for the Association. Now, in the same location the [Ad Hoc] Committee recommends that we take the next big step and establish the office of Executive Director (73 LLJ 803).

August 15 . . . Life member Elizabeth Finley, librarian at Root, Clark, Buckner & Ballantine in New York (1921–42) and Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. (1942–63), dies. In 1961–62, she became the first private law librarian to serve as AALL president. She also served as AALL treasurer for eight years (1948–56) and authored a ground-breaking contribution to the AALL Publications Series, Manual of Procedures for Private Law Libraries (1966).

November 12 . . . AALL Archives is established with the execution of an agreement between the University of Illinois and AALL for the organization and maintenance of Association archival material. The Archives will be housed in the library of the University of Illinois College of Law, under the direction of University Archivist Maynard Brickford.

December 1 . . . Production is completed on LAWNET COM 1, the initial phase of AALL's effort to create a unified law library database. It contains 262 microfiche which hold 176,533 records from 53 participating libraries.

1981

June 28–July 1 . . . Beginning its 75th year, AALL holds its 74th Annual Meeting in the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. The record crowd of nearly 1900 registrants is treated to a remarkably rich educational program organized by Program Chair Betty Taylor around the theme, “Legal Information in the 1980s: Meeting the Needs of the Legal Profession.” For the first time, audiotapes of the recorded educational programs are available for purchase during and after the meeting.

June 29 . . . Chapter status is approved by a vote of the membership for the South Florida Association of Law Libraries and the Houston Area Law Libraries. They become the nineteenth and twentieth chapters, respectively.

June 30 . . . The Council of Chapter Presidents is formed at a breakfast meeting of chapter presidents attending the Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Though such a group has met informally in the past, this is the first time that a formal structure and administration is adopted. The group identifies two primary goals: improving communication between chapters on issues common to all, and providing a mechanism for the expression of chapter concerns and opinions to the national AALL leadership. Frank G. Houdek, president of SCALL, is chosen as the group's first coordinator. In August, he will begin publishing Council News as a communications mechanism for chapters.

July 2 . . . Upon the joint recommendation of the Contemporary Social Problems and Law Library Service to Institutional Residents special interest sections, the Executive Board approves the dissolution of the latter and the transfer of its membership and assets to the former. Law Library Service to Institutional Residents will become a standing committee of the CSP-SIS, along with two other new committees: Status of Women (coordinated by Ann Puckett) and Status of Minorities (coordinated by Marvin Anderson).

July 29 . . . A dedication ceremony formally marks the renaming of the University of Washington School of Law Library in honor of the recently retired Marian Gould Gallagher, law librarian and faculty member at the university since 1944 and former AALL president (1954–55).

August . . . In an effort to improve communications that have “become strained by the increases in membership, the development of strong special interest sections, and the overall growth of [AALL] programs and activities” (13 AALL Newsl. 2), President Roger F. Jacobs announces that beginning with volume 13, no. 1, the AALL Newsletter will be published ten times a year (instead of quarterly as has been the case up to now).

September 8 . . . William H. Jepson, formerly assistant secretary for operations of Kiwanis International, assumes his position as AALL's first executive director. Jepson is chosen from an initial pool of 192 applicants as of the closing date for applications, April 15, 1981, in a search conducted by a special committee appointed by President Francis Gates and chaired by former president Jane L. Hammond.

1982

Spring . . . The Law Library Journal celebrates its 75th anniversary (1908–82) with a special symposium issue that is highlighted by a delightful three-part reminiscence from former presidents Marian Gallagher, Julius J. Marke, and Arthur A. Charpentier, titled “I Remember Them Well” (75 LLJ 270). The issue also includes a twenty-five year history of Law Library Journal by its editor, Charles Dyer (75 LLJ 187); “Tradition and Change in Law Library Goals” by Morris L. Cohen (75 LLJ 192); “An Analysis of Academic Law Library Growth since 1907” by Roy Mersky and J. Myron Jacobstein (75 LLJ 212); and a special edition of the “Questions and Answers” column in which guest editor John Heckel focuses on AALL history (75 LLJ 299).

June 13–17 . . . AALL's 75th Annual Meeting in Detroit is the first for Valparaiso's Sally Holterhoff, who will become the Association's president in 2006–07. Sally remembers being “very impressed with the effusive greetings that nearly all AALL members seemed to exchange as they ran into each other. I wondered if I would ever know any of these people well enough to participate in the exchange of embraces and exclamations that were going on around me” (88 LLJ 48).

June 14 . . . Chapter status is approved by vote of the membership for the Dallas Association of Law Libraries, the Law Librarians Association of Wisconsin, and the Law Library Association of Maryland. There are now twenty-three chapters affiliated with the Association.

June 16 . . . Margaret Moody, cataloger and assistant librarian for publications and planning at Harvard from 1942 until her retirement in June 1981, is honored with a special certificate recognizing her editorship of Harvard's Annual Legal Bibliography from 1969 to 1981 and her distinguished contribution to law librarianship.

September . . . The educational proceedings of the 74th Annual Meeting at Washington, D.C. in 1981 are published as number 17 of the AALL Publications Series under the title “Legal Information for the 1980s.” Heretofore, such proceedings have been published in Law Library Journal but concurrent programming and increased offerings by special interest sections have made that economically untenable.

Also during the year . . .

1983

January 7 . . . At its midwinter meeting in Cincinnati, the Executive Board creates a new scholarship to be awarded for graduate study leading to an M.L.S. degree, with preference given to individuals with previous service to, or interest in, law librarianship, and eligibility limited to minority group members.

January 7 . . . The Executive Board determines that publication of Annual Meeting educational proceedings is now economically prohibitive in hard copy form. Business meeting proceedings will continue to appear in Law Library Journal but henceforth educational programs will be available in audiotapes only. An Index to Annual Meeting Recordings by Frank Houdek and Susan Goldner is later included in the AALL Publications Series produced by the Fred B. Rothman Company (1989).

March . . . Paid advertisements appear for the first time in the AALL Newsletter after the Executive Board's approval of sale and billing procedures in January. First-time advertisers include Federal Document Retrieval, William S. Hein & Co., Allen Smith Co., and Carswell Legal Publications. Under the leadership of Newsletter editor Gayle S. Edelman, income from the sale of advertising will total more than $3800 for 1982–82 (Exec. Board Minutes, p.842).

June . . . The headquarters of the Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals is moved from London to the University of California Law School at Berkeley, and Tom Reynolds, associate law librarian at Berkeley, succeeds Willi Steiner of the University of London, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, as the general editor of the index.

June 25 . . . The AALL Executive Board votes unanimously to recommend honorary membership for Mr. and Mrs. Harvey T. Reid, longtime supporters of the Association. Harvey Reid, former chairman of the board of the West Publishing Company, and his wife have made regular and substantial donations to the AALL Scholarship Fund for many years.

June 26 . . . The Houston Daily, under the editorship of Frank Houdek and John Hasko, makes its appearance as AALL's first ever daily convention newspaper at the 76th Annual Meeting in Houston.

June 27 . . . The New Orleans Association of Law Librarians and the Phoenix Area Association of Law Libraries become the 24th and 25th chapters of AALL by unanimous vote of the membership in attendance at the Annual Meeting in Houston.

September 1 . . . Introducing the American Association of Law Libraries is published for AALL with the assistance of Lawyers Co-Operative Publishing Company. Under the editorship of Frank Houdek, the handbook describes the history, organization, components, procedures, and activities of the Association. A second edition is published in 1986.

1984

January 5 . . . The Executive Board approves the abolition of both the Ethics Commission and the Certification Board as a result of a study indicating that such activities might jeopardize AALL's tax exempt status and because of a concern that properly conducting such activities is not currently feasible.

March 9 . . . The Final Report of the Task Force on Nominations Procedures, formed in June 1992 with Laura N. Gasaway as chair, is issued. Among the recommendations later adopted by the Association: expansion of the Nominating Committee from five to seven members, expansion of the term of service to two years, and a direction to nominate at least two candidates for each office.

May . . . The Special Committee on Financial Planning, appointed in 1982 by AALL President Leah Chanin and chaired by Lorraine A. Kulpa, issues its final report (published at 77 LLJ 386–404), which analyzes the fiscal condition of the Association and makes a number of recommendations, including the formation of a permanent financial advisory committee, the creation of a permanent endowment fund, and the development of policy guidelines to ensure fiscal integrity.

July . . . The fourth edition of the Biographical Directory of the American Association of Law Libraries is published for AALL by the West Publishing Company. Edited by Gail M. Daly and Suzanne Nevin of the University of Minnesota Law Library, it contains some 1800 entries.

July 2 . . . The Colorado Consortium of Law Libraries becomes AALL's 26th chapter after a vote of the members attending the 77th Annual Meeting in San Diego. The group's name is soon changed to Colorado Association of Law Libraries (CoALL).

July 4 . . . Two new AALL awards are presented for the first time at the closing banquet of the Annual Meeting in San Diego . . .

1985

January 6–9 . . . The first ever AALL Winter Institute is held in Washington, D.C., following the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools. Ninety-one librarians attend the Institute on “Managing for Improved Results: A Seminar in Personal Effectiveness,” codirected by Robert Oakley and Michael Gehringer. Although former President Jacque Jurkins will later write that “[o]ne of the most successful achievements during my term was the initiation of the winter institute” (98 LLJ 318), the midyear educational program eventually will be discontinued after 1996, but not before covering such topics as law library design (1986), in-house databases (1987), business and government information (1990), emerging technologies (1989, 1992), foreign legal systems (1993), and teaching research skills (1995).

July 7–10 . . . With a grand total of 2336 attendees, the 78th Annual Meeting in New York City is the largest AALL convention to date, breaking the attendance mark set in Washington, D.C., in 1981. Chiefly responsible for the meeting's success are Diana Vincent-Daviss, program chair, and Jack Ellenberger, in charge of local arrangements. It's Ellenberger's second stint in the role—he also chaired local arrangements for the 1970 Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

July 9 . . . At the Annual Meeting in New York City, Dan Dabney (78 LLJ 5–40), Fred R. Shapiro (73 Cal. LR 1540–54), and Arturo L. Torres (78 LLJ 404–424) present their winning papers in AALL's initial “Call for Papers” competition. Judges are Roger Jacobs, Margaret Leary, and Donald Ziegenfuss.

August . . . Commencing with vol. 17, no. 1, the AALL Newsletter, under the editorship of Mary Lu Linnane of DePaul University Law Library, is typeset for the first time in its history.

November . . . The Special Committee on the Future of AALL, formed in 1983 by AALL President Kathleen Price and chaired by Sarah Wiant, completes its final report (78 LLJ 351–61) examining the law library profession and the ways in which AALL can better serve it.

December 15 . . . Executive Director Bill Jepson reports to the Executive Board that AALL has reached yet another milestone in its record-setting increase in membership: 3800 members (1,731 institutional, 1,619 active, 67 associate individual, 68 associate business, 184 life, 130 student, 1 honorary).

 

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