Spectrum PR Column
November 1996
PR Potpourri: (Promoting the Organization)
Carol Bredemeyer, Salmon P. Chase College of Law Library, Northern Kentucky University (Highland Heights, KY).
AALL Spectrum, Volume 1 No. 3 November 1996, p. 25.
In my last column, I wrote about public relations within an organization. This month, I’d like to focus on promoting the organization itself. The organization can be the library, the university, the law firm, an association or one of its chapters.
In recent years, law librarians have made many efforts to work with related organizations. We have broadened our horizons by looking to related professions - practicing attorneys, computer specialists, educators, and non-law librarians - as speakers for our annual meeting. Many of our chapters have exhibited at bar association and legal assistant meetings. (AALL has a traveling exhibit that can be borrowed; call Steve Serpas at Headquarters for information).
Last year’s National Conference on Legal Information Issues was an opportunity for AALL to showcase our profession to our colleagues outside the library. Carol Billings shared with me some of the responses she received from the delegates. By reading some of these comments, you can see what a success the conference was.
- "I want to thank you for inviting me to speak and giving me the opportunity to be part of such a stimulating program. If everyone learned only half as much as I did during the Conference, you will have advanced discussion of important legal information issues a great deal."
- "I congratulate ... the AALL leadership for this innovative approach to build a critical mass of concerned professionals from different walks of life to meet together, to discuss together, and to learn together."
- "I am partially ashamed to admit that prior to the AALL conference I regarded law librarians as more of a hindrance than a help ... However, I am pleased to say that what I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears was a group of dedicated professionals who have quite obviously been dealing with the onslaught of technology and the plethora of legal issues ... that we lawyers have been getting bloody on for a fairly significant period of time."
Chapters can promote themselves by holding joint meetings with related organizations (e.g., MLA, SLA, ASIS, local bar associations), writing congratulatory letters to library and legal professionals in their area who have been recognized for professional accomplishments, and by submitting news releases to local business and legal newspapers announcing new officers and their affiliations. We need to realize that our accomplishments are important enough to be recognized in these sources. Our employers read these publications and are proud to see the name of their organization. Former AALL President Mark Estes allowed me to share this story. One of his firm’s partners was traveling to an international conference and sat next to a vice president from a legal publisher. During their conversation, the firm’s name came up and the vice president mentioned knowing Mark. Mark says that the partner came back very proud that someone knew of "his" firm and spoke so highly of one of its employees. Just to test how this idea works, how many of you had ever heard of Northern Kentucky University before seeing my affiliation at the end of this column?
How many firm librarians have worked with the librarians at your firm’s corporate clients? Do you know someone you can call personally at the Government or Business department of your public library? Do you attend meetings where you can meet these people and get to know them away from their library setting? Have you invited them to speak at monthly lunch or dinner meetings?
It would be negligent to talk about external public relations efforts without mentioning the work of Bob Oakley and Mary Alice Baish as AALL’s Washington Affairs representatives. Their work enhances the reputation of law librarians as professionals who are knowledgeable in many areas. Although public relations is not their reason for existence, the benefits our profession reaps from their work are great.
Last Updated: January 20, 2003
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