The
staff and I send each one of you our warmest
wishes for this holiday season and we
look forward to our work with you in the
coming New Year.
There
will be no From the Desk Of for the next
four weeks. I will be in Boston with my
family during Christmas and New Years,
then attending the Association
of American Law Schools annual meeting
followed immediately by the ALA
Midwinter meeting.
Look
for the 97th
Annual Meeting and Conference Program
Announcement in your December
issue of AALL Spectrum! In
the past we mailed the announcement to each
member. This year, to economize, we have
inserted it in AALL Spectrum. Look
there for information on what we have planned
for the Annual Meeting in Boston, including
programs on collection care and management,
information technology, core competencies
and many others!
Preliminary
Programs (with registration forms) will
be mailed to AALL members in March. Nonmembers
should contact AALL to be placed on the
mailing list to receive the Preliminary
Program.
Want
free AALL dues for a year? Want to help
recruit new members to AALL? Here’s
your chance!
Simply
forward the name of all new potential members
to Steven
Oberhoffer, AALL Support Services Specialist.
The Membership
and Retention Committee will then call
these potential members to describe benefits
of membership. For each new member recruited
who joins AALL between February 15, 2004 and
April 15, 2004, we will enter the name of
the recruiting member into a drawing. Three
lucky winners will be announced in May.
Why join
AALL?
- You
will be able to connect with a national
network of law library professionals dedicated
to advancing and improving the profession.
- You
learn about current trends and research
topics through your subscription to AALL
Spectrum and Law
Library Journal .
- You
will receive discounts on AALL’s
Annual
Meeting registration fee and on other
educational programs that will help you
anticipate and initiate change.
- You
will have access to special benefits in
the AALLNET Members Only Section, including
free access to the 2003
Biennial Salary Survey.
First,
we have just created the Discussion
List on AALL Member Publications. Suzanne
Thorpe, Chair of the Special
Committee on Member Publications , tells
us that:
At
the beginning of her term, President Janis
Johnston appointed the Special Committee
on Membership Publications to examine
and clarify the purpose, scope and frequency
of the AALL Spectrum, AALLNET and
Law Library Journal as the Association’s
major vehicles for communicating with its
various constituencies.
As
a part of its work, the committee would
like to hear from AALL members. The committee
will be holding an online discussion about
AALL publications January 10-17, 2004.
We
would like you to tell us how well these
publications serve your information needs.
How and when do you utilize each publication?
Should certain types of information be added
or deleted? Are there other ways you would
like to get AALL information? These and
other questions will be discussed.
Please
join in the discussion. To do so, just click
here. You will not be subscribing to
a permanent listserv. At the end of our
discussion, the list will be purged.
Second,
Pat Kehoe recently set
up a Discussion List for AALL’s
retired members. He says:
AALL
recently established a discussion list entitled
"AALL Retired". Its purpose is
to serve as an easy means for many of us
who have known each other during our active
professional years to stay in touch after
retirement and for others to stay in touch
with our group as well.
Membership is open to all. Although the
list is a service of AALL, one need not
be a current AALL member to become a member
of this list.
It is expected that the kinds of communications
sent via this list will be different from
those commonly made on our other professional
discussion lists. We envision this list
for personal kinds of communications and
for the solicitation of advice and answers
to questions that retired law librarians
may pose.
One
use of the list could be the distribution
of personal newsletters such as the types
many of us send out during the December
holiday season. The list might also be useful
as a forum for questions and responses on
topics such as where to stay and what to
see while traveling or even about how to
sort out the rules of navigation of today's
social security and health care insurance
systems.
Click
here if you would like to join!
 While
we are very sad to see her leave, Rachel
Shaevel just announced her
resignation as AALL’s Membership
Coordinator so that she can pursue
her career as a librarian. As Steve
Ligda said in announcing this transition
to staff, “Rachel worked long and
hard to secure her Master of Library Science
degree and now plans on putting it to use
on the staff of the Richard
R. Daley Library at the University of
Illinois at Chicago. We wish her continued
success in her new career and thank her
for her many contributions over the past
four years at AALL.” Her last day
will be Friday, January 9. We will miss
you, Rachel!
At
the same time, I am very pleased to announce
that we have promoted Steven
Oberhoffer into the Membership
Coordinator position. Steven initially
came to AALL as a temporary employee last
May to help us prepare for the annual meeting
and did so in such an outstanding manner
we brought him on full-time as Support Staff
Specialist last October. He has a background
in executive recruiting, he has excellent
database management skills, and he is one
of the nicest people you’ll ever meet!
Sincerely,
Susan
E. Fox, CAE
Executive Director
American Association of Law Libraries
53 West Jackson Blvd., Suite 940
Chicago, IL
60604
312-939-4764, ext. 11
Fax 312-431-1097
AALL:
Maximizing the Power of the Law Library
Community Since 1906.
“There
is a theory which states that if ever
anyone discovers exactly what the Universe
is for and why it is here, it will instantly
disappear and be replaced by something
even more bizarre and inexplicable. There
is another theory which states that this
has already happened.”
Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)
|
