From the Desk of Susan E. Fox

Executive Board Meets This Weekend

The Executive Board meets this weekend for what promises to be two and half days of lively discussion. We’re trying something new this year, preceding the meeting with two half-day Planning Day sessions facilitated by Cate Bower of Tecker Consultants. Cate began work with the Executive Board during last fall’s Strategic Planning Day that preceded the November meeting.

Since we have all but completed our 2000-2005 Strategic Plan (with great success), the board is now considering what type of strategic planning process will help us best fulfill our mission and goals. President Janis Johnston will tell you more about the process in the upcoming May issue of AALL Spectrum. She asks the right questions:

“We may be accomplishing many tasks, but are we working on the right things? We may be meeting our users’ information needs today, but are we thinking about how to do that in our technology-driven future? We might be succeeding with current goals, but are we training ourselves to be flexible and adaptive for a constantly changing future?”

Good questions all and ones that we all must ponder in order to serve ourselves, our institutions, and this association well.

On Friday afternoon and all day Saturday, the board will take up current issues of strategic importance for the profession. These include, the Career Development Task Force Final Report that analyzes the 700+ page Educational Needs Assessment AALL conducted last fall and makes recommendations about the future of educational programming for the association. The board will discuss a resolution on the USA Patriot Act, and the Cataloging Intranet Access to Electronic Resources Special Committee Final Report and Recommendations, among other equally pertinent items. Importantly, too the Board will assess FY2003 Budget Year-End Analysis and Results and recommend guidelines for the proposed budget for FY 2005.

It’s a full agenda and you will have much to look forward to reading in Secretary Catherine Lemann’s report of the meeting in the June AALL Spectrum.

Where in the World Did You Find That? Exploring Foreign and International Law Librarianship

As a law firm librarian, is foreign or international legal work brightening your horizon? As a law librarian who serves the public, are your patrons asking for foreign legal material to help them resolve family, estate, or immigration matters? Do you struggle to keep up with deciding what foreign and international legal materials to collect (or maybe to cancel)? Would you like to learn more about foreign and international law librarianship?

AALL will hold an online list discussion with expert Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Special Interest Section moderators Mary Rumsey, Jean Wenger, and several special guest moderators (Anne Burnett, Lyonette Louis-Jacques, Beatrice Tice, and Katherine Topulos) on foreign/international law librarianship April 12-25.

We hope that the forum will satisfy the following AALL Competencies of Law Librarianship: 1.1, demonstrate a strong commitment to excellent client service; 1.2, address the diverse nature of the library’s clients and community; 1.4, demonstrate knowledge of the legal system and the legal profession; 1.5, understand the social, political, and economic context in which the legal system exists; 1.15, recognize the value of professional networking and actively participating in professional associations; 1.16, actively pursue personal and professional growth through continuing education; 3.3, assist clients with legal research using both print and electronic resources; and 5.4, understand the acquisition and management of a diverse collection of legal and non-legal resources in multiple formats.

Most of all, we hope the forum will provide an interesting and informative discussion about foreign, comparative, and international law. You are invited to subscribe and join in. If you encounter a problem, kindly contact Pam Deemer.

The discussion will last only two weeks. After April 25, the list subscribers will be purged. Please note: Subscribers to past Career Development/Prodev forums, must re-subscribe for this new list.

The Houston Area Law Librarians generously pledged $5,000 to the George A. Strait Minority Scholarship fund. The contributions continue to come in at a rapid clip, a remarkable testimony to the law librarian community’s commitment to this most worthy scholarship. We are extremely close to reaching our goal, and expect to do so any day now!

We’ve just added the AALL 2002-2003 Year in Review to AALLNET. Here is where you will find the facts, figures and fantastic accomplishments realized under the leadership of Past President Carol Avery Nicholson. Congratulations to Publications Director, Julia O’Donnell for her superb work in bringing the annual report to fruition.