One Hundred Years of AALL History
1986–1995
Prepared by Frank G. Houdek
Spring 2006
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995
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1986
January . . . The Directory of Law Libraries, published for AALL by Commerce Clearing House since 1941, celebrates its Silver Anniversary with the publication of the twenty-fifth edition. Its editors are Anne H. Butler, Randall T. Peterson, and Bardie C. Wolfe, Jr.
April 28 . . . Mario Goderich, former librarian at the University of Miami Law Library and now a Florida circuit court judge in Dade County, is featured in a National Law Journal article discussing how Hispanic lawyers have achieved distinction in Miami. Goderich was the first editor (1970–74) of the AALL Newsletter.
May 15 . . . The AALL Occasional Papers Series is inaugurated by the Publications Committee with the issuance of the SIS Handbook, compiled by Melody Lembke and edited by Shelley Dowling. The series is “intended to disseminate works which do not fit the guidelines for other Association publications but which will be of value to members” (17 AALL Newsl. 171). Its general editor is Anne Myers of the University of Virginia.
July 5–9 . . . With a grand total of 2642 participants (including members, special guests, speakers, and exhibitors), the 79th Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., breaks the attendance record established the previous year in New York. The attendees aren't disappointed because the conference is chock full of events, activities, and special people. It begins with the keynote speaker at the Association luncheon, Congressman Major R. Owens of New York, the first professional librarian ever elected to Congress. It ends with “Father Guido Sarducci” (actor Don Novello) of “Saturday Night Live” fame as master of ceremonies of the closing banquet. In between are opportunities to purchase the new AALL Member Pin (featuring the official AALL logo in an attractive gold and royal blue enameled finish); attend sixteen different company product demonstrations; frequent the conference theatre (which shows such films as The Day the Earth Stood Still, All the President's Men, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington); and participate each morning in aerobic dance classes.
Having Guido Sarducci as master of ceremonies of the closing banquet [was memorable]. Almost everyone used to come [to the banquet] in those days. We had said that the Vatican law librarian was our guest emcee. Many folks were surprised. He was great. His introduction of Babe Russo is a moment that I will never forget. — Robert C. Berring (98 LLJ 320)
July 5 . . . Under the leadership of Ann Puckett, the Academic Law Libraries SIS establishes a Mentor Project at the Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., pairing first-time attendees with experienced members. The project is so successful it soon becomes an Association-wide activity conducted under the aegis of the CONELL program and, eventually, the Mentoring Committee.
July 5 . . . The Executive Board approves for the year 1986–87 the largest budget in the Association's history: $881,687.
July 7 . . . Julius Marke, past president of AALL (1962–63), receives the second Distinguished Service Award presented by the Association.
1987
April . . . In response to a recommendation of the 1984 report of the Task Force on Nominations Procedures, for the first time two candidates are nominated for the position of vice president/president-elect on the 1987–88 Executive Board: Carol Billings, director of the Law Library of Louisiana, and Margaret A. Leary, director of the University of Michigan Law Library. In June, Leary will be announced as the winner. Billings will be later elected president for 1994–95.
July 4 . . . The Executive Board approves the recommendations (summarized at 19 AALL Newsl. 19–21) contained in the report of the Special Committee on Committees, chaired by Vivian Campbell of Georgetown University Law Library. Among the wideranging recommendations are ones concerning terms of office for committee members, adequacy of procedures, committee charges, appointment process, committee size, and selection criteria.
July 6 . . . The New Jersey Law Librarians' Association is approved as the twenty-seventh chapter of the Association by vote of the membership at the 80th Annual Meeting in Chicago.
July 8 . . . Judy Dimes-Smith, law librarian and associate professor, Howard University School of Law Library, becomes the first African American to serve on the AALL Executive Board when she takes office at the conclusion of the Annual Meeting in Chicago.
July 9 . . . Acting upon the recommendation of the Ad Hoc Committee on an Education Director, chaired by Margaret A. Leary of the University of Michigan Law Library, the Executive Board approves a job description and hiring procedures for a new professional development officer position for the Association. In its draft report, the committee suggests that about “60% of the work [of the PDO] would be implementing and otherwise facilitating educational programs; the rest would be related to public relations, statistics, publications . . . , services to the SISs, and liaison with other professional associations” (18 AALL Newsl. 247).
October 8–10 . . . The first ever regional meeting of chapters is held in Albany, New York. Under the cosponsorship of six chapters (ALLUNY, LLAGNY, LLNE, MichALL, ORALL, and SNELLA), the theme of the Law Librarians Northeast Regional Conference is “Information: The Lawyer/Librarian Connection.” Margie Axtmann of Cornell University serves as Program Chair. On the social side, the regional includes a night at the Saratoga Harness Race Track and a performance of the musical “Carnival” at the Empire State Institute for the Performing Arts.
December . . . In its 27th edition, the AALL Directory and Handbook (1987–88) is more than double the size of its immediate predecessor (186 pages in 26th ed., 466 in 27th). Under the editorship of Anne Butler, Randall Peterson, and Bardie Wolfe and, as always, published for the Association by Commerce Clearing House, the expanded scope indicated by the revised title includes a separate alphabetical list of members with job titles and contact information in addition to the traditional geographical listing of law libraries, a list of the members of each committee and special interest section, and an annotated list of AALL publications.
1988
January 1 . . . The AALL Career Hotline becomes operational, allowing callers to receive recorded messages featuring descriptions of available positions. Any employer, whether or not an AALL member, can use the service to publicize an opening for a two-week period. Positions can also be advertised in the placement section of the AALL Newsletter as before. The Career Hotline will later be replaced by the AALL Job Placement Hotline on AALLNET, the Association's website.
January 6 . . . At its midwinter meeting in Miami Beach, the Executive Board approves Legal Information Service to the Public as the twelfth special interest section. The new group replaces the committee of the same name which was formed in 1980–81 as a special committee with Judith Foust as chair to address a growing concern about providing access to legal resources in public libraries.
February 22 . . . Martha S. Brown begins work at AALL Headquarters in Chicago as the Association's first ever professional development officer, a newly created position designed to focus exclusively on the educational programs of AALL.
June 1 . . . Mary Sworsky becomes the first professional editor for the AALL Newsletter, taking over from member volunteer editor Mary Lu Linnane of DePaul University Law Library, who has served from 1984 to 1988.
June 26–29 . . . With a total paid registration of 1849, and a grand total of 2501 attendees, the 81st Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, represents the second largest in the history of the Association. The opening day plenary session features Nina Totenberg speaking on the “Supreme Court Nominating Process” from her unique perspective as legal affairs correspondent for National Public Radio. The Opening Reception is held at the High Museum of Art and features a concert by noted jazz and pop singer Nancy Wilson.
June 27 . . . The Virginia Association of Law Libraries is approved by vote of the membership as the twenty-eighth chapter during the General Business Meeting in Atlanta. While new to AALL, the group has existed for seven years and has nearly eighty members.
September . . . The Criv Sheet, formerly issued as a separate newsletter called the Publications Clearing House Bulletin by the Committee on Relations with Publishers and Dealers, is published for the first time as an insert in the AALL Newsletter. Beginning with volume 11, no. 1, the CRIV Sheet will be edited for the newly named Committee on Relations with Information Vendors by Kendall F. Svengalis of the Rhode Island State Law Library.
September 1 . . . With the resignation of William Jepson as executive director, William D. Murphy, a former AALL president and treasurer and librarian emeritus of Kirkland and Ellis in Chicago, assumes the position of interim director until the position is filled. Former president Laura Gasaway chairs the search committee.
1989
February 1 . . . Judith Genesen, formerly director of information services at the Chicago Transit Authority, becomes the new executive director of AALL, replacing William Murphy who has served as acting director since the resignation of William Jepson in fall 1988.
March 11 . . . At its spring meeting, the Executive Board merges the functions of the Education Committee and the annual meeting program chair; henceforth, the committee will develop and coordinate programs, institutes, and workshops, with the committee's chair also serving as annual meeting program chair.
June 17 . . . The Legal History and Rare Book Special Interest Section is approved by the Executive Board. Former AALL president Erwin Surrency, a noted historian who is the author of History of the Federal Courts (2d ed. 2002) and A History of American Law Publishing (1990), is elected as the first chair of the Association's thirteenth SIS.
June 19 . . . Almost twenty-five years to the day on which the Headquarters Fund Drive is established at the conclusion of his presidency, Harry Bitner is honored for his contributions to the Association with the AALL Distinguished Service Award during the 82nd Annual Meeting in Reno. Other recipients for 1989 are Leon Liddell and George A. Strait.
June 20 . . . Antonette (Babe) Russo is feted with a special celebration in her honor at the Reno Annual Meeting upon the occasion of her retirement after twenty years as administrative secretary of AALL. A year later in Minneapolis she will be made an honorary member by a unanimous vote of the membership. In 1994, Bob Berring will memorialize Russo with a post to the law-lib discussion list:
Ms. Russo was the whole staff of AALL for years and she held us together with baling wire and library paste. She was devoted to the membership and always looking out for our best interests. Words can never capture the spirit of a person, and Babe Russo was a woman of great heart and spirit. She was a person who was part of our past and who ushered towards our future with grace and style.
June 20 . . . Five AALL chapters and nine individuals participate in the first-ever Law Librarian “Talent Search,” sponsored by West Publishing Company and held in the Grand Ballroom at Bally's Reno, the same room where Frank Sinatra performed the evening before. In the Inter-Chapter Competition, SEAALL edges out MALL's “Corps de Loons” for first place by portraying life at the Long Branch Law Library.
June 21 . . . Faced with a potential deficit budget of more than $150,000 resulting from an expanding program of services and activities, the membership approves a substantial dues increase at the business meeting in Reno, the first such increase in nearly ten years. Effective with the 1990–91 dues year, the dues of individual members is increased from $65 to $115.
September . . . Following an AALL resolution supporting Senate action calling for the use of permanent paper as a national policy, the AALL Newsletter begins publication on acid-free paper.
October 5–6 . . . The Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C. celebrates its fiftieth anniversary with a two-day conference entitled “New Frontiers at 50,” highlighted by an address from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
October 26–28 . . . “Navigating the Nineties: Resource Strategies” is the theme of the Midwest Regional Conference of Law Librarians held in Chicago, with John Edwards and Lori Hunt as program chairs. It is the second such multichapter regional meeting to be held, following the Northeast Regional Conference in 1987.
October 28 . . . At its fall meeting, the Executive Board approves a new Association award for the Law Library Journal article of the year. Bruce M. Kennedy of the Georgetown Law Library will later be announced as the award's first recipient for “Confidentiality of Library Records: A Survey of Problems, Policies, and Laws” (81 LLJ 733).
1990
March 10 . . . At its spring meeting, the Executive Board makes the Association's minority stipend a permanent part of the AALL scholarship program and names it in honor of George Strait, a law librarian at Harvard, Northeastern, Antioch, and Iowa. The Board also redesignates the Distinguished Service Award; henceforth, it will be called the Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award in honor of its first recipient in 1984. It is appropriate that one of the two recipients of the newly named award at the 1990 Annual Meeting in Minneapolis is Viola Bird, Gallagher's longtime assistant at the University of Washington and a former president of AALL (1971–72). The other is Hibernia Turbeville, for many years the director of Southern Methodist University's Underwood Law Library.
May 31 . . . The Special Committee on National Information Policy (1988–90), appointed by Margaret Leary and chaired by Robert Oakley, issues its final report. At its meeting in June, the Executive Board will approve the committee's recommendations, including the adoption of a “Government Relations Policy” (later published with the report at 83 LLJ 177–94) and the creation of the office of Washington representative.
June 17 . . . Acting upon a recommendation in the Special Committee on National Information Policy's interim report (later published at 83 LLJ 149), a legislative update program is held at the Annual Meeting in Minneapolis. The program will thereafter be presented annually under the joint sponsorship of the Washington Affairs Office and the Government Relations Committee.
June 18 . . . With more than ninety members, the Law Librarians of Puget Sound is approved by a vote of the membership as the twenty-ninth AALL chapter. Within four years, the new chapter will take on the task of hosting the 87th Annual Meeting, in Seattle in July 1994.
June 20 . . . The Northwood News convention newspaper announces that the 83rd Annual Meeting in Minneapolis is the largest ever, with 2645 participants and 145 exhibitors.
November 3 . . . At its fall meeting, the Executive Board approves AALL's first-ever Strategic Plan (published at 22 AALL Newsl. 201–11), prepared by the Long Range Planning Committee chaired by Kay Todd and outlining the direction to be taken by the Association for the next four years.
1991
July 22 . . . The Law Library Association of Alabama is approved by a vote of the membership as the thirtieth AALL chapter at the business meeting held during the 84th Annual Meeting in New Orleans. The membership also approves a resolution increasing SIS dues from $5 to $12, the first such increase since the inception of special interest sections in 1976.
July 22 . . . At the Opening Luncheon in New Orleans, past presidents Connie Bolden and Morris Cohen are honored along with Anthony Grech, first winner of the Andrews Bibliographical Award in 1967, as the 1991 recipients of the Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award. In addition, a special Presidential Award is presented to Patrick Kehoe in recognition of his service as Law Library Journal business manager from 1975 to 1991.
July 24 . . . In true Mardi Gras fashion, the closing banquet in New Orleans commences with music by the Treme Brass Band and features a procession of floats and masked riders led into the room by Casa Samba, a Latin percussion ensemble. At its conclusion, Carolyn Ahearn, librarian at Shaw Pittman Potts & Trowbridge in Washington, D.C., becomes the fourth private law librarian to take office as AALL president. She follows in the footsteps of Elizabeth Finley (1961–62), William Murphy (1967–68), and Jack Ellenberger (1976–77).
1992
April 25 . . . At its spring meeting, the Executive Board, acting upon the recommendations of the Special Committee on Public Relations chaired by Edgar Bellefontaine, creates the position of Public Relations Coordinator, to be supported by a standing advisory committee and a substantial budgetary allocation, as a means of undertaking a formal public relations program for the Association. Frank G. Houdek of Southern Illinois University is subsequently appointed as the first coordinator.
May . . . The National Legal Resources Committee, chaired by Claire Germain, publishes a plan approved by the Executive Board in April titled “Training Foreign and International Law Librarians: The Next Generation.” It calls for conducting a sequence of five institutes over a three year period, covering all areas of foreign and international law. On February 3–6, 1993, “Introduction to Foreign Legal Systems,” codirected by Richard Danner and Marie-Louise Bernal and presented at the Library of Congress, will be the first institute offered in this sequence.
July 19 . . . Phyllis C. Marion, cited as a “role model for an entire generation of law librarians in technical services,” is awarded the first Renee D. Chapman Memorial Award for Outstanding Contributions in Technical Services Law Librarianship at the business meeting of the Technical Services SIS, a group she helped found in 1978. Renee Chapman, for whom the award is named, was an outstanding technical services law librarian at Drake, Iowa, SUNY/Buffalo, and Cornell, and former chair of TS-SIS who was killed in an auto accident in 1990.
July 20 . . . In her annual report to the membership, Executive Director Judy Genesen announces that AALL has recently surpassed five thousand total members, a new milestone. It is later reported that the 85th Annual Meeting in San Francisco is the largest single gathering of AALL members in history, with nearly 2100 registered for the convention.
July 22 . . . In San Francisco, President Carolyn Ahearn introduces a new means for members to communicate with AALL leadership—the Open Forum. Conducted at the conclusion of the general business meeting, the forum allows anyone to present an item of interest to the assembled members without the usual constraints of parliamentary procedure. President-Elect Mark Estes moderates the initial forum, a transcript of which is published in Law Library Journal (84 LLJ 866).
December . . . The fifth, and to date last, edition of the Biographical Directory of the American Association of Law Libraries is published for the Association by West Publishing Company. Edited and produced by Shackelford & Associates-Systems Design, it contains more than 2500 listings.
1993
April 18–24 . . . In conjunction with National Library Week and under the leadership of AALL's Research Instruction Caucus, law librarians throughout the country participate in a “Legal Research Teach-In” designed to celebrate legal research instruction and to demonstrate the importance of involving more law librarians in teaching these skills. In 1995, the caucus, primarily a private law libraries AALL membership group, will merge with the Reader Services SIS to form the Research Instruction and Patron Services SIS (RIPS), which will continue to conduct the Teach-In on an annual basis.
April 24 . . . At its spring meeting in Chicago, the Executive Board approves the Research Agenda (later published at 25 AALL Newsl. 92) submitted by the Special Committee on Research chaired by Richard Danner, as the first-ever official statement of AALL's research priorities. It also agrees to fund grants in support of research on the topics listed in the agenda and to create a standing committee to administer the research grants program and keep the agenda up-to-date. Nancy Carol Carter will become the first chair of the new Research Committee.
July 10–15 . . . With 167 exhibitors and 245 booths, the Exhibit Hall at the 86th Annual Meeting in Boston is the largest ever. Another first for meeting attendees is the availability of an “Internet Room,” organized and coordinated by Anne Myers of Boston University Law Library.
July 12 . . . In anticipation of her scheduled retirement and in recognition of her service from 1989 to 1993, Judy Genesen is made an honorary member of AALL by vote of members attending the final business meeting at which she will participate as the Association's second-ever executive director.
September 7 . . . Roger H. Parent becomes the Association's third executive director, joining AALL after fourteen years in various administrative positions with the American Library Association, most recently as deputy executive director/chief operator officer. With an MLS from Simmons College, Parent had held positions with Princeton University Library, the Mercantile Library Association, the City University of New York, and the Springfield (Mass.) Library System prior to working for ALA. Parent will go on to serve nine years as AALL's executive director, the longest stint to date.
Fall . . . The Statistics Committee, chaired by Eileen Searls of Saint Louis University Law Library, produces the first-ever salary survey to cover all parts of the AALL membership. Under a grant from LEXIS-NEXIS, the survey results are distributed free of charge to all members. AALL will continue to conduct the salary survey on a biennial basis, and in 1999 it will be expanded to include data on organizational characteristics such as the size of library budgets.
1994
March 28 . . . Antonette (Babe) Russo, AALL's administrative secretary from 1969 to 1989 and an honorary member of the Association since 1990, dies. Former president William D. Murphy will write of Russo: “To members of AALL for those twenty years, Headquarters and Babe were synonymous. It was she who organized Headquarters into an effective operation, often with a minimum of funds with which to work, and it was she who in a few years built Headquarters' reputation as the place where members could get the support they needed to do whatever job they had taken on for AALL” (25 AALL Newsl. 366).
April 7–8 . . . AALL President Kay M. Todd convenes a retreat on electronic information at a conference center outside of Chicago which is attended by eighteen law librarians, thirteen legal publishers, and two legal information technology scholars. Coordinated by Richard Danner, the retreat is designed to spark policy level discussions on a variety of issues of mutual interest.
May . . . AALL's first endowed scholarship is established with funding from Mead Data Central, the producers of LexisNexis. The John R. Johnson Memorial Scholarship Endowment honors John Johnson, director of the Legal Librarian group at Mead and a longtime law library supporter, who died in January 1994.
July 7 . . . “The Strategic Challenge 1994–1998” is unanimously adopted by the Executive Board as AALL's second long range plan. The Long Range Planning Committee responsible for its creation was chaired by Board member Margie Axtmann.
July 8 . . . The Executive Board adopts an AALL Preservation Policy (26 AALL Newsl. 239) proposed by the Preservation Committee, chaired by Patricia Denham. It will be revised in 1998.
July 9 . . . The State, Court and County SIS celebrates its 25th anniversary with a program at the 87th Annual Meeting in Seattle that honors its founding members. Richard E. Beer is presented with the first Bethany Ochal Award for Distinguished Service to the Profession, one of three Merit Awards established by the SIS in 1992. The other two are named in honor of Connie Bolden (scholarly publications) and O. James Werner (service to persons with disabilities).
July 11 . . . A special award is presented to Richard A. Danner at the Opening Luncheon in recognition of his ten years of service as editor of Law Library Journal (1984–94). His successor, Frank G. Houdek, will write: “His ten years as editor of Law Library Journal puts him in the AALL Record Book for career longevity. Actually it ties him with Eldon R. James . . . but not to denigrate the accomplishment of Mr. James, I am willing to guess that editing volumes 18–27 was not nearly as difficult a task as producing the nearly nine thousand pages that comprise the Danner canon, volumes 77–86” (87 LLJ 5).
November . . . A new unified Bylaws is overwhelmingly approved by a mail vote of the membership. The document combines the previously separate provisions of the Constitution and Bylaws, making stylistic changes but no substantive revisions.
1995
March 1 . . . The Task Force on Citation Formats, chaired by Lynn Foster, issues its final report (later published at 87 LLJ 577–633) addressing the controversial issue of vendor and medium neutral citations to legal authorities. At a special meeting on July 18, 1995, the Executive Board adopts the report's recommendations regarding public domain case citation form.
March 11 . . . At its spring meeting, the Executive Board adopts the Association's first-ever Financial Long Range Plan. Developed by a committee chaired by AALL Treasurer Judith Meadows, the plan covers the period 1995–1998 and documents the financial principles and policies adopted by the Association. These policies, as amended, will continue to guide the Association's financial activity to the present.
July 6 . . . Little, Brown and Co. pledges $50,000 to fund research grants to be awarded by AALL over a two-year period beginning in 1995–96. The first grant will be awarded in March 1996 to Bert Dempsey and Robert Vreeland of the University of North Carolina School of Library and Information Science to support the development of a new Internet search engine specifically intended for legal research. The software developed with the assistance of the grant will later be described in a Law Library Journal article (88 LLJ 469).
July 15–17 . . . The National Conference on Legal Information Issues is sponsored by AALL during the Association's 88th Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh. Under the leadership of President Carol Billings and Education Chair James Heller, the conference offers a wide range of programs exploring the theme “Connected for Justice.” The plenary session, “From Books to Bytes: A History of Legal Publishing,” features speeches by Robert Berring, Kathryn Downing, and Toni Carbo Bearman, while Paul Friedman, Deputy Associate Attorney General, confronts “Finding Justice in Cyberspace” during his keynote address. The proceedings of the conference are later published as no. 51 in the AALL Publications Series.
July 18 . . . President Carol Billings announces that the Bureau of National Affairs has pledged $40,000 over two years to support publication of the Law Library Journal.