From the Desk of Susan E. Fox

From Cocoons to Beehives

Last Sunday’s Chicago Tribune carried an article in the real estate section that bodes well for the future of associations. Titled, "Forget the Cocoon; Now Your Home is a Beehive," it describes research from Yankelovich Partners that identifies a "new" (or newly identified) trend in our concept of home.

"Homes today are not a retreat, not defensive, not self-indulgent,” the article says. “They're not just homes, either. They're 'homes-plus.' There's a quest for connectedness, an embrace of others in a safe setting abuzz with activity and engagement."

"This is a fairly significant change in consumer attitudes...and it didn't happen overnight, or with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and ensuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It began seven or eight years ago...so the dynamics were in place long before Sept. 11.

"This is more change than we've seen since the 1970s," the analyst says. "Previous values have run their course. Now consumers have a whole new set of first priorities. It's less about material values and more about family, spirituality, and mortality.

"We're in a world in which we value quality over quantity, intangibles over tangibles, and time instead of money...we're in a world in which we want density of connections, vibrancy of experiences and authenticity of relationships."

“When asked to describe their ideal home in a recent poll of 630 people, an admittedly small but still nationally representative sample, two-thirds said it resembles more of a beehive, while just one-third said it was more like a cocoon.

More so than cocooners, the hivers believe they have an obligation to make a contribution to their communities, see a greater advantage in being part of a community, and say volunteering is worth the effort."

To which I say, hear, hear! Cheering news indeed. Of course, law librarians have always valued quality, authenticity, and intangibles in a life well lived. I hope that you consider volunteering for AALL well worth the effort and an important intangible in the quality of your life. Look for Vice President Tory Trotta’s call for volunteers to be issued in the very near future.

And speaking of vibrancy of experiences, the AALL Annual Meeting in Seattle was a resounding success. We welcomed a total of 1,843 registrants with 103 delegates from 14 countries outside the U.S. and Canada. Thank you to all who participated and to all who helped to make this a most memorable occasion. Look for full details in the September/October issue of AALL Spectrum.

Boston to Mumbai: The World of Legal Information… while the New York Times, the Associated Press and the Mumbai municipal government web site still refer to the city in India as Bombay, in the spirit of global kinship and respect, the 2004 Annual Meeting Program Committee has decided to change the 2004 Annual Meeting theme to reflect the city's official name, Mumbai. This change should not affect the nature or quality of any programs submitted for consideration, particularly since the committee strongly recommends that all program planners avoid incorporating words from the theme in the title of their program proposals.

It’s not too late to send in your 2003 salary survey questionnaire -- the deadline has been extended to Aug. 8.

The questionnaires were mailed to library directors and heads of libraries on June 20 in order to prepare the AALL 2003 Biennial Salary Survey and Organizational Characteristics report. Only about 20 percent of the salary survey questionnaires have been completed and returned. As with any confidential survey, results will be suppressed and not reported if there are too few responses in any category. To achieve a salary survey report useful to all members, AALL strongly urges all library directors to complete and return the questionnaires by Aug. 8. All law librarians are asked to encourage their directors to participate in the survey.

The AALL 2003 Biennial Salary Survey and Organizational Characteristics is the only source of comparative salary information for law librarians who work in academic libraries; private firms and corporate libraries; and state, court and county law libraries. The survey is customized to provide information unique to the needs of these three types of institutional libraries, including position, region, gender, education, years in current position, years of experience and membership in AALL

Please complete and return the questionnaires by Aug. 8 to Association Research, Inc., the independent research firm in Rockville, Md., that that AALL has employed to carry out the survey in complete confidentiality. For more information about the 2003 salary survey, please contact Bob Gray of Association Research, Inc.

The 2003 Biennial Salary Survey and Organizational Characteristics will be available for purchase and shipment in October; $110 for AALL members and $175 for nonmembers. The final report will also be available online at AALLNET in the Members Only section free of charge. The Association is accepting advance orders by e-mail, by fax at 312/431-1097 or by calling AALL Headquarters at 312/939-4764, extension 12.

Carleton Kenyon, a 1950 graduate of the University of South Dakota School of Law, former California State Law Librarian and Law Librarian of Congress, died Friday, July 11, in Salem OR of complications due to Parkinson's Disease.

Law Library Professor and Oregon Librarians Win $5,000 in LexisNexis™ Research Grants

The AALL Research Committee has awarded $5,000 to a law librarian professor and an Oregon law library to conduct research on topics challenging the profession of law librarianship.

Samuel E. Trosow, assistant professor with a joint appointment at the law school and the library school of the University of Western Ontario in Canada, will use his $2,500 research grant to analyze how the World Trade Organization’s General Agreement on Trade in Services may affect public law libraries. He will provide a roadmap for the law library community to grapple with this emerging policy issue. Trosow will examine whether public law libraries can rely on the GATS exemption from potential GATS challenges. While there is an exception to GATS for services supplied in the exercise of government authority, the exemption is inapplicable for services supplied commercially or in competition with private service suppliers. Because many public library services often overlap with offerings from private vendors, the exemption may be very fragile, especially in areas of Internet-based services, as well as in services pertaining to communications, research and databases.

Laura Orr, law librarian at Washington County Law Library in Hillsboro, Ore., and the Washington County Law Library will use their $2,500 research grant to investigate the privacy, confidentiality and access issues that arise when they digitize Oregon’s appellate court briefs. The law library currently produces the state’s only microfilmed copy of the briefs. As part of the research project, library staff members will scan and index the briefs that correspond to one volume each of the Oregon Supreme Court Reports and the Court of Appeals. They will examine whether the value of an electronic briefs database can be enhanced when law librarians participate in its creation and if it is possible to provide desktop access to briefs while also minimizing the privacy concerns associated with public access to court records. Demonstrations of the completed database will be presented to interested lawyers and librarians.

Both projects are financed with grants from the AALL Research Fund: An Endowment Established by LexisNexis™, which is administered by the AALL Research Committee. Created with a $100,000 pledge from LexisNexis™, the grants subsidize projects that create, disseminate, or use legal and law-related information that advances the profession of library science. For more information about the AALL Research Grants, please click here.

The AALL Research Committee, AALL and its corporate partner, LexisNexis™, extend their congratulations to this year's recipients of the AALL Research Grants.

AALL: Maximizing the Power of the Law Library Community Since 1906.

"Maximize Today - Envision Tomorrow" - the 96th AALL Annual Meeting and Conference July 12 - 16, 2003, in Seattle. For more information go to www.aallnet.org/events