It Takes a Village
by Ruth Levor
The Law Library Journal and AALL Spectrum Editorial Board and Advisory Committee is responsible for recommending to the Executive Board editorial policies relating to the contents and formats of the Law Library Journal and AALL Spectrum. In the past two years, we have focused primarily on assessing reader satisfaction with the still new magazine AALL Spectrum. Approximately a year and a half after the conversion of the previous AALL Newsletter into a magazine, we worked with Editor Peter Beck and a professional consultant to design and conduct a reader survey. The purpose of the survey was to gather reliable data about how useful and enjoyable the magazine is to readers and chiefly to set direction for future issues and for the work of the editorial board.
The survey results have been invaluable in guiding our planning process. Nine hundred and ninety-nine survey forms were sent to AALL Spectrum readers. The sample set of magazine readers was random, except that the number of survey recipients was equally divided among the following groups: government and court librarians; academic librarians; and corporate and law firm librarians. Five hundred and eleven survey recipients completed and returned the forms for a return rate of 51%. The results were weighted to equalize the views of the three representative groups.
What we learned
On the whole, AALL Spectrum readers have received the new magazine favorably if not entirely enthusiastically. Most respondents read the AALL Spectrum on a consistent basis and immediately upon receipt. They find it easy to read, and they appreciate the design. They like the direction that the magazine has taken with respect to content and format, but even among the positive responses, most indicated qualified enthusiasm. Particular areas for growth are in providing lively and interesting items pertinent to job performance and in representing law librarianship as an interesting and important profession.
The most glaring need that respondents report is, not surprisingly, for information on technology and the Internet. They would like to see AALL Spectrum devote much more coverage to subjects like systems, hardware, software, electronic services personnel, technology planning, and electronic research and instruction. Court and government librarians report a significantly higher degree of satisfaction with the magazine's coverage of technology, and with the magazine's overall content, than do members of the other two groups.
The "publics" also rated AALL Spectrum more highly than the other groups did in its coverage of trends in law librarianship. However, most respondents rated the coverage of association activities and professional concerns highly. Most also rated AALL Spectrum highly, second only to e-mail, as an effective medium to inform them about award, scholarship, grant and volunteering application deadlines. Readers indicated that the best ways for AALL Spectrum to inform them of these deadlines are calendars with deadlines and explanatory articles, but 26% of respondents, evenly divided among library types, selected forms as the best instrument.
When asked about their favorite features in AALL Spectrum, most cited the cover story, the CRIV section, and the other feature stories. Other sections that were cited in the top three by over 60% of respondents are the "Washington Brief," "From the Secretary," and "Committee News." Readers asked most for more coverage of technology planning and products; the Internet; legal research; librarian and staff career development and training; and access to government information. Smaller majorities want more coverage of copyright and licensing; professional ethics; and vendor relations. Most readers would be satisfied with less coverage of financial records and management; cataloging and technical services; profiling of individuals; volunteerism; diversity and social responsibility; and professional and legal history. The board and the editor, however, have to keep in mind that coverage of some of the least favored topics is still relevant to significant and vital minorities within the association and is crucial to our mission.
The survey asked about "pass-along" practices, i.e., to what extent readers pass AALL Spectrum or specific articles along to other librarians and/or members of the legal community. Very few readers use the magazine in this way, and since librarians are notorious information routers, we deduce that readers do not view its contents as very useful or of great interest to those in companion professions
Why did we ask our readers if they pass their issues of AALL Spectrum along to others? The AALL Strategic Challenge for 1994 -1998 placed a strong emphasis on promoting the profession "to the public, the legal community, and the world." On March 27, 1996, an ad hoc advisory group, consisting of Anita Shew, Michael Saint-Onge, Sara Robbins, and Deborah Norwood, met with Editors Peter Beck and Frank Houdek, Executive Director Susan E. Fox, and AALL ad representative Larry Benson, to discuss the editorial direction of the new magazine, AALL Spectrum. The group agreed that, in order to support the above mission, the magazine should appeal not only to AALL members but also to "attorneys, law school faculty, government officials, judiciary, court administrators, publishers, para-professionals, and others."
Now that the magazine is in its third year of publication, the editorial board realizes the ambitiousness of the "global appeal" plan and believes that priority must first be given to addressing member needs, as expressed in the reader survey. We are gratified by the overall positive responses to the magazine, and we need to focus our limited resources on the ongoing task of recruiting talented authors and generating ideas for articles and columns. We would like to evoke an even higher level of member enthusiasm for the magazine and its contents. We do not believe, nor apparently do our readers, that "pass-along" appeal currently warrants our priority efforts until we have attained a greater variety and number of willing writers and a higher level of reader satisfaction. We do not know whether the present AALL strategic planning process will yield the same approach to promoting law librarianship globally as expressed in the 1994 - 1998 Strategic Challenge, so we must work with the survey data at hand and hope that our resulting plan will support AALL's next strategic plan. It is likely that, as we continue to work on enriching the content of the magazine and improving its appeal to the membership, readers' inclination to share it with others will grow anyway.
The survey questioned the appropriateness of articles that go beyond reporting information to the realm of opinion, critical analysis and humor. All were deemed appropriate for inclusion. To a great extent, the magazine was rated well on the quality of these articles, but there was considerable room for greater progress in recruiting articles critical of the profession and provocative articles in general.
Last of all, the "new look." Seventy-two percent of readers said that "innovative magazine design" is appropriate for AALL Spectrum, and a whopping 86% said that the magazine is doing a good job of including innovative design. Sixty-seven percent said that the magazine design enhances, rather than detracts from, the editorial content of the magazine. Court and government librarians were the most favorably disposed to the design.
The magazine's editor and editorial board are encouraged by the survey results, which indicate a growing, if not total, acceptance of the magazine's new look, style and content. Even more important, they offer us guidance in pursuing excellence, in fine tuning the format and content of AALL Spectrum, in enriching the content, and in recruiting and evaluating submissions for publication.
What we can do
The Law Library Journal and AALL Spectrum Editorial Board and Advisory Committee is charged with five specific responsibilities:
- To advise on long range editorial content and direction for the publications
- To suggest feature articles or other types of articles
- To assist the editors in identifying authors and other contributors
- To assist the editors in meeting the short term and long term needs and interests of law librarians
- To identify potential readers and studies and recommend ways to effectively reach the targeted audiences
For the past two years, the Association has funded a Fall working meeting in Chicago for the board to spend a day and a half developing and submitting policy recommendations, brainstorming ideas for future issues, and planning the implementation of these ideas. This year, we also took a look at how we could use the survey results to develop a strategic plan as a framework for future editorial board work. Please take a look at the plan to see how you can use your writing skills or other talents to help the magazine and the board fulfill these goals. In particular, peruse the list of topic ideas to see if anything there gives you an idea that you'd like to write about.
Goal 1.
Sustain and enrich content of interest to readers.
We need to increase reader enthusiasm by generating more and more articles that captivate their professional interests and imagination. We are convinced that many potential authors don't realize that they have ideas and experiences that would be interesting to their colleagues. In the same vein, they may believe that anything that is submitted must be a full-length feature article. One of the advantages of the more flexible graphic format is that it can accommodate even a worthy paragraph or two in an eye-catching box. Publication in AALL Spectrum does not, therefore, require a full feature-length article, although those, of course, are gratefully welcomed.
The key to content appeal is to develop topics that readers have told us they want to read. Read on for ideas that may kindle a creative spark in you.
It is no surprise that the survey told us that we need to be persistent in recruiting authors to write about technology and the Internet. While we have discussed targeting the Computing Services and Micrographics/Audio-Visual SISes for potential authors, we think that there are also many others in the organization who have stories to tell and tips to share. Some especially timely subjects are:
- Comparisons of format versions of information resources, such as the software and web versions of Lexis/Nexis or looseleaf and web versions of BNA & CCH products
- An "Ask the Computer Guy" column
- Technology planning
- Updates on relevant technology trends
- Descriptions and evaluations of hardware and software
- Support for web-based resources
- Web design and publishing
- Technology personnel and positions in law libraries
- Qualifications for technology jobs
- Internet skills
- Law libraries before and after the Internet's rise to dominance
- Web-based library functions
- The web version of Innovative Interfaces, Inc.
- Technology training
- Training staff
- Training students, faculty, attorneys or judges
The latter set of bullets above is also related to the category of legal research topics, another highly rated subject field. Corresponding topics are:
- Multimedia teaching
- Sample legal research exercises
- Legal research-Why bother with books?
- Student access to Lexis/Nexis and Westlaw: First or second semester?
- "How I teach ..."
- "How I find ..."
- Hyper-linked path-finders on the web
- Legal research courses: Graded or pass/fail?
- Unique searching techniques
Many of you have thoughts and experiences to share about librarian and staff career development and training. For example, you might have thought about:
- Videotaped orientation training for new employees
- Alternative dispute resolution
- Conflict management training
- Mediation training
- Creating innovative organizational structures
- Expanding on topics that are addressed in professional programs
- Closing a library
- Solo librarians in remote locations
- Planning for career development
- Career goals
- Serving as and/or with Acting Directors
- Going into business for yourself
- Changing jobs to a different type of law library
- Changing jobs from law librarianship to work for a vendor
- Compensation for electronic services librarians, competing with higher paying jobs outside the profession?
- Para-professionals in library school
- Professional Development Committee listserv discussions
Goal 2.
Make the magazine attractive to talented authors as a venue of choice for publication.
By the nature of our work, law librarians are almost all talented writers. That, and your intimate familiarity with the profession, makes you, our own membership, the richest (although not the only) source of authors for the magazine about our profession. However, time is scarce, and recognition for the work of writing is limited to the joy of seeing your name in print and a few pats on the back from colleagues.
We can't help you find more time, but we certainly can do a better job of thanking authors and column editors for their hard work. To begin, there will be a special reception for the editorial board, the authors and editors of Law Library Journal and AALL Spectrum, and AALL Spectrum column editors at the 2000 AALL Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. We hope that this reception will become an honored tradition-an opportunity to recognize the valuable work of AALL's authors, to allow writers and editors to share experiences and ideas, and just to relax and socialize.
Thanks to the generosity of CCH, there will also be a more tangible incentive to publish in Law Library Journal and AALL Spectrum. CCH has generously offered to fund two substantial AALL Annual Awards, one for the presently unfunded LLJ Article of the Year Award and the other for a similar new award for contributions to AALL Spectrum. A subcommittee is presently drafting proposed criteria and procedures for these awards. We hope that competition for these awards will spark more interest in writing and add more substance to our publications.
Goal 3. Continue to enhance the delivery of the content with innovative design and format.
AALL Spectrum vies with a lot of other publications and media for your attention. Design has become a key factor in attracting readers. The fresh, bold and creative look of the magazine has won the approval of a large majority of our survey respondents. The design represents the association as professional and contemporary, and thus is an important public relations and recruiting tool. It also allows readers to skim more effectively and focus more quickly on the features of interest to them. In response to survey feedback, we plan to apply similar creativity to designing an enhanced calendar of AALL deadlines and events for future issues. This and other design innovations will continue to make reading the magazine a visually interesting and exciting activity.
vies with a lot of other publications and media for your attention. Design has become a key factor in attracting readers. The fresh, bold and creative look of the magazine has won the approval of a large majority of our survey respondents. The design represents the association as professional and contemporary, and thus is an important public relations and recruiting tool. It also allows readers to skim more effectively and focus more quickly on the features of interest to them. In response to survey feedback, we plan to apply similar creativity to designing an enhanced calendar of AALL deadlines and events for future issues. This and other design innovations will continue to make reading the magazine a visually interesting and exciting activity.
Goal 4. Ensure that the magazine contributes to the achievement of the goals of the Association's Strategic Plan.
Although it is self-evident that an organization funds and distributes its publications to further its mission, it is not redundant to include that standard as one of the goals of this strategic plan. Our association is dedicated to a profession that is constantly confronted with new challenges and that responds to those challenges by revising its strategic plan every four years. The plan under which the magazine was originally conceived, the 1994 - 1998 Strategic Challenge, is currently undergoing revisions. We do not know whether the new plan will include changes that affect the content or operations of the magazine. However, we do now have three years of experience and the results of the reader survey to guide us as we set course for the future of the magazine.
When the magazine began publication in September of 1996, the projected focus was "external." The external focus was intended to go beyond association business and news and to concentrate about 67% of the content on "legal information issues." This concept was consistent with AALL's vision, which was, in part, "to become a strong leader in the library, information and legal communities; to become an Association whose opinions are sought and valued; [and] to play a primary role in the education of law librarians, help members to understand and keep pace with rapidly changing technologies."
Our experience and the survey results lead us to redirect the external focus in some respects, most glaringly to the need and desire for information on the Internet and technology as they relate to our professional endeavors. While we do not plan to abandon efforts to recruit articles on legal information issues, the survey results afford us guidelines for defining those issues more narrowly, and perhaps somewhat differently than the task force envisioned (see box about reader desires). In so doing, we are in no way disparaging their work, but rather we are building on what they began.
How we can do it
... not without your help. Each and every AALL member is a potential author. You all know something that the rest of us would like to know, whether it's a small tip on how you've learned to do something or to do it better, a longer report on something of interest, a polemic on a topic that really ticks you off(!), or something that will make us laugh.
Librarians and other legal information professionals, by the nature of our training, work and/or inclinations are known for our writing skills. Writing for the magazine is an excellent way to gain name recognition, to enhance credibility when interviewing for a job, to meet colleagues who are interested in what you have to say, to entertain and to keep those creative juices flowing! For the magazine to appeal to and serve the membership, "it takes a village," and the inhabitants of the AALL village are YOU! YOU have something to say that is of interest to us all. Whenever you're ready to "say" it, please contact:
Editor Peter Beck
American Association of Law Libraries
53 West Jackson Blvd.
Chicago, IL 60604
(312) 939-4764 ext. 19
FAX (312) 431-1097
or
Ruth Levor
Chair, Law Library Journal & AALL Spectrum Editorial Board & Advisory Committee
University of San Diego Legal Research Center
5998 Alcala Park
San Diego, CA 92110
(619) 260-4604
FAX (619) 260-4616
rlevor@acusd.edu
or
any member of the Law Library Journal & AALL Spectrum Editorial Board & Advisory Committee. We look forward to working with you and to seeing your name in print!