RLLC Committee Meeting Minutes
July 15, 2007, Noon to 1 p.m., New Orleans, Louisiana
Wrap-Up From Outgoing Chair, Ann Clifford Green
Ann began the meeting by distributing the RLLC's Annual Report for 2006–2007 to each committee member. She highlighted some of the most important activities of the year, including Diane Murley's addition of substantive content to the RLLC web pages and Sara Paul's representation of AALL and the RLLC on a webinar hosted by the International Paralegal Management Association last October. Ann also reported that our committee members responded to over 70 inquiries from individuals interested in law librarianship.
At the 2007 Annual Meeting, Ann and Barbara represented the RLLC at CONELL, and we also hosted a table in the Exhibit Hall's activities area. Ann created a card with the slogan “What's it like to be a law librarian?” with links to RLLC and AALL web resources and made these cards available at our Exhibit Hall table.
New Business Items: Barbara Traub, 2007–2008 Chair
Revised Mission/Charge
Barbara began the meeting by reminding committee members that the RLLC's charge was revised by the AALL Executive Board in March 2007. Our new charge reads as follows:
The Law Librarian Recruitment Committee shall encourage qualified candidates to enter the profession of law librarianship by:
- Acting as a clearinghouse of law librarianship education and career information for prospective law librarians; and developing and updating such materials for the clearinghouse;
- Acting as a clearinghouse of law librarianship recruitment resources for members and chapters to use for local recruitment and outreach initiatives, such as career day materials; and developing and updating such materials for the clearinghouse;
- Maintaining the Committee website as the Committee's primary clearinghouse site for law librarianship graduate education, career and recruitment information and resources;
- Answering questions from individuals who contact Headquarters or the Committee, and questions referred to the Committee, inquiring about the profession;
- Encouraging and supporting individual and chapter law librarianship recruitment and outreach efforts;
- Coordinating with the Diversity Committee to provide particular support for law librarianship recruitment efforts directed toward diverse populations;
- Coordinating with Headquarters to distribute information on law librarianship annually to library schools, law schools, paralegal programs, bar associations and other target groups;
- Educating the membership on the importance of law librarianship recruitment in their daily lives;
- Developing other methods to promote law librarianship as a career.
Webmaster Duties
Barbara reported that committee member Diane Murley has very kindly agreed to continue as RLLC Webmaster for the next year. Diane agreed to post our revised mission statement on our website and update our committee roster as well.
Possible Staffing of Exhibit Hall Table
Barbara reported that some Exhibit Hall SIS tables are staffed, but not all of them are. If any committee members want to sit at the table while in the Exhibit Hall, they are welcome to do so, but Barbara said that she wouldn't be assigning any formal staffing rotations for the table.
Outreach to AALL Chapters
Barbara would like to formalize outreach to AALL chapters and make it more systematic. Barbara had lunch with the incoming president of LLAGNY to gather ideas about potential Chapter-RLLC collaborative efforts. LLAGNY is involved in a number of recruitment activities already, including organizing law and library school student breakfasts, sponsoring a training day for library students at Westlaw headquarters, offering scholarships to library school students, giving grants to student members for AALL meeting attendance, and staffing a table at the Pratt Institute Internship Fair (Information School). When Barbara told the incoming president about the recruitment resources available on the RLLC website, he wasn't aware of our site. Most likely, other chapter presidents and regional associations aren't aware of the RLLC website resources, so publicizing them more aggressively is important. The incoming LLAGNY president is going to include Barbara in subsequent meetings with the area library school deans to discuss law librarianship as a career path.
Requests From the Incoming AALL President, Ann Fessenden
Barbara received an e-mail from incoming AALL President, Ann Fessenden, requesting some specific action from the RLLC this year. First, Ann would like the RLLC to assign a committee member to assess the accuracy of the list of library schools with law librarianship programs or courses, which appears on the AALL website at http://www.aallnet.org/committee/tfedu/list_1.html
She also asked that an RLLC member be added as a contact person for this page. Sarah Mauldin volunteered to take on this project and to be listed as the RLLC contact.
Ann Fessenden also asked the RLLC to develop a network of local contacts, who can work with library and law schools to boost recruitment efforts. If chapters already have library school liaisons or recruitment chairs, RLLC could request their support. Ann mentioned to Barbara that AALL has an extensive list of people who have volunteered for the RLLC or AALL's mentoring efforts who might be interested in becoming more active in this area. Barbara is also talking with the heads of other AALL committees to brainstorm ideas about possible collaborative efforts.
Working with Other Groups to Spread the Word About Law Librarianship
Barbara would like the committee to contact the International Paralegal Management Association this year to discuss the possibility of the RLLC's continued participation in the Association's webinar this coming year. Amy Wright and Sarah Mauldin volunteered to be part of the webinar. If it's important to the Association to have a law firm librarian participate, Sarah will volunteer. If the Association is not concerned about the type of law librarian who participates, Amy will volunteer.
Barbara emphasized the importance of expanding our networking activities even further and suggested working with some new groups, such as the ABA and the Legal Administrators Association, on recruitment efforts. Also, the RLLC should follow up with NALP to discuss adding a link from the NALP website to the RLLC website. We agreed that the link should go to the RLLC home page and decided not to create a special page just for NALP visitors. Barbara would also like the committee to have a presence at NALP meetings, where the law school career services staff congregate, so that law librarianship is more visible to career services departments as an alternative legal career.
We also talked about the need to reach out to all of the distance library school students who aren't visiting their campuses regularly by asking to gain access to our local library school listservs. We should report upcoming regional chapter business, educational, and social events on these listservs on a regular basis.
One attendee asked why AALL doesn't have student chapters. Sarah Mauldin reported that the SLA student chapters haven't been very successful, thus AALL has been reluctant to undertake this initiative.
We revisited the idea of obtaining funding from AALL for specific projects that could help regional chapters reach out to students (the coffee card idea was discussed). Ann reported that she began efforts to obtain funding from LexisNexis, but Lexis requested a specific dollar amount in order to consider a funding request from us. Because Ann wasn't sure of how many regional chapters would want to participate in our “Take a Law or Library School Student to Coffee” initiative, she did not pursue the funding.
Someone mentioned the need to recruit not only future reference librarians, but also tech services law librarians. Committee members noted that a program concentrating on recruiting for tech services librarian positions was proposed, but not accepted for the 2007 AALL annual meeting.
Barbara assigned each of the 31 regional AALL chapters to a committee member. She asked that we contact each chapter to ask them the following questions:
- What kind of recruitment efforts are they undertaking?
- Are there are any regional activities that our committee could assist with?
- Are the chapter officers and committee members aware of the RLLC website resources?
- May the RLLC place contact information for a regional chapter spokesperson who would be willing to speak with individuals from their area who are interested in law librarianship?
- Is there any other support that the chapters would like to see coming from AALL nationally or through RLLC?
Barbara requested that we each report back on the information that we gather from each chapter so that she can compile this information and post it to our listserv. Leah mentioned that we should all visit the chapter website before making phone calls or sending e-mails to ascertain if any of this information is already available on the website.
Our regional assignments are as follows:
- Sarah Mauldin
- Atlanta Law Libraries Assn.
- Law Librarians Society of Washington, D.C.
- Southeastern Chapter of AALL
- South Florida Assn. of Law Libraries
- Cheryl Niemeier
- Michigan Assn. of Law Libraries
- Ohio Regional Assn. of Law Libraries
- Chicago Assn. of Law Libraries
- Eric Brust
- Law Libraries Assn. of Alabama
- Mid-America Assn. of Law Libraries
- Southern New England Law Librarians Assn.
- Virginia Assn. of Law Libraries
- Sara Paul
- Law Librarians of Puget Sound
- San Diego Area Law Libraries
- Western Pacific Assn. of Law Libraries
- Leah Sandwell-Weiss
- Arizona Assn. of Law Libraries
- Southwestern Assn. of Law Libraries
- Law Library Assn. of Maryland
- Western Pennsylvania Law Library Assn.
- Anna Teller
- Dallas Assn. of Law Libraries
- Houston Area Law Librarians
- New Orleans Assn. of Law Librarians
- Hollie White
- Colorado Assn. of Law Libraries
- Minnesota Assn. of Law Libraries
- Greater Philadelphia Law Library Assn.
- Amy Wright
- Law Librarians Assn. of Wisconsin
- Northern California Assn of Law Libraries
- Southern California Assn. of Law Libraries
- Barbara Traub
- Assn. of Law Libraries of Upstate New York
- Law Library Assn. of Greater New York
- Law Librarians of New England
- New Jersey Law Librarians Assn.
Leah mentioned that the Government Relations Committee maintained a list of committee members and a list of the regional chapters for which each committee member was responsible. We agreed that it might be useful to take a similar approach on our website, and Barbara authorized Diane to add the above list to the website. If a regional chapter representative contacts one of us as a result of the list's inclusion on the website, Barbara asked that we report this contact to her.
Promotional Items
Barbara would like the committee to create some additional promotional items (beyond the business card that we developed this year) to distribute on a large scale. She mentioned that AALL used to do a pamphlet on various law librarianship careers (law firm, academic, and county and court law librarianship), and she would like to see this resource reprinted because it was a very handy takeaway. She will ask AALL to consider reprinting this item.
Reports From the Field
Guests from Franklin Pierce Law School and the University of Denver Law Schools reported on recruitment efforts and their work with library schools in their regions.
The committee adjourned at 1:05 p.m.
- 2006 RLLC Committee Meeting Minutes
- 2005 RLLC Committee Meeting Minutes
- 2004 RLLC Committee Meeting Minutes
- 2003 RLLC Committee Meeting Minutes
For More Information About Law Librarianship or the AALL Recruitment Committee, contact committee chair Sarah Mauldin.