2001 ALL-SIS Election Information
The Nominations Committee is fortunate to have lined
up an especially well-qualified slate of candidates for this year's election.
Ruth Levor and Merle Slyhoff have
agreed to run for Vice Chair/Chair-Elect and Eloise Vondruska
and Bonnie Koneski-White will stand for the Executive
Board.
I would like to thank Ruth Hill and Tory Trotta for
their assistance in suggesting qualified candidates and everyone else who
sent or called in candidate suggestions. In addition, I would especially
like to thank Anna Teller for her work on the Nominations Committee. Finally,
thanks to the candidates for agreeing to run this year.
Susan Lewis-Somers
Chair, Nominations Committee
BONNIE KONESKI-WHITE, Candidate for Executive Board
Bonnie Koneski-White is presently the Director of the Law Library at Western New
England College in Springfield, Massachusetts. Bonnie began her career at Western
New England as a Reference Librarian in 1982 and has held several positions within
the library. She is a graduate of King's College, Southern Connecticut State College
School of Library Science, and Western New England College School of Law. Bonnie
has been an active member of AALL, including service on the Scholarships
and the Grants committees and also has co-chaired CONELL. She is presently
the chair of the Public Relations Committee of the ALL SIS. Bonnie also
actively participates in the Law Librarians of New England and was honored
to serve as the president of that chapter.
Statement: I welcome the challenge
of working with all constituents of ALL to further membership goals. I
understand a component of the duties of board member is to act as a liaison
between the board and the SIS committees. This presents an opportunity
to assist communication, keep to timetables, and to facilitate making things
happen. I believe that my work and volunteer experiences will enable me
to fulfill this role. I have benefited from my participation in the SIS
and I would like to repay that debt.
ELOISE M. VONDRUSKA, Candidate for Executive Board
Eloise M. Vondruska is Associate Director for Bibliographic Services at Northwestern
University Law School Pritzker Legal Research Center (NULS PLRC). Before accepting this
position in 1997, she was the Head of Cataloging at the NULS PLRC from 1989-1997.
She worked in the field of marketing research in the private sector before
working at Northwestern Law. Reference experience includes employment in
several other types of libraries, including Northwestern's University Library.
She earned a M.S. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and
a B.A. in history from Loyola University, Chicago.
Currently, she is a member of AALL Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals Advisory
Committee; TS-SIS Administration subcommittee; and TS-SIS Strategic Plan committee.
She chairs the TS-SIS Bylaws/Handbook revision committee. She has held a variety of
committee and leadership offices in the Illinois Library Association; several committee
assignments in the American Library Association, Association for Library
Collections and Technical Services; and interned on the American Library
Association's Committee on Professional Ethics. She has served as a Technical
Services mentor for several years to students in the Graduate School of
Library and Information Science program at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign.
Statement: Members of professional
membership organizations such as AALL and ALL-SIS are facing new challenges
and service demands. While academic law librarians have a core, constant
mission to serve the research, information, and education needs of law
schools, the methods for providing service and the formats of our collections
are undergoing rapid and evolving change. Members should look to their
professional organizations to provide them with the ongoing education and
information not just to respond to change but to shape change in libraries
and information services that are of benefit to our academic law library
users.
MERLE SLYHOFF, Candidate for Vice Chair/Chair-Elect
Merle Slyhoff started at the Biddle Law Library, University of Pennsylvania, in 1977,
as the Acquisitions Librarian. In 1985 she moved to Public Services as the Media
Services/Reference Librarian, and in 1990 became the Media and Document Delivery
Services Librarian. In 1997, she changed duties and became the Document Delivery and
Auxiliary Services Librarian. In addition to overseeing interlibrary loan, faculty
and external services document delivery, Merle is responsible for video
collection development, public relations and marketing (including library
publications), and grants.
Merle has served as the secretary/treasurer
for the ALL-SIS, has chaired the Technical Services and Micrographics/Audiovisual
SISs, and has been Chair of the SIS Council. She has served on many AALL
Committees and has served as Chair of the Education, Annual Meeting Local
Advisory, Publications, and Public Relations Advisory Committees. She is
also Chair of the ALL-SIS Frederick Charles Hicks Award Committee. Merle
is active in ALA and has served as Chair of various committees. She
has her BA from Rutgers University and her MSLS from Drexel University
School of Library and Information Science
Statement: The Academic Law Libraries
SIS, is, as its name implies, "home" to all academic law librarians.
Whether your title is director, associate director, department head, or librarian,
you should be able to turn to the ALL-SIS as a resource, a place to work
within AALL, and a networking venue. There is, however, a misconception
among many academic librarians that the ALL-SIS is for directors and associate
directors. We know that's not true, but we need to reach the nonbelievers.
The ALL-SIS needs to incorporate all aspects of academic librarianship
into the goals and mission of the SIS. To succeed, we need to work with
the "function" SISs, such as Public Services and Technical Services,
to create programs and projects that benefit all academic law librarians.
Establishing liaison relationships with other relevant SISs would promote
the sharing of information and work towards broadening our membership by
making academic non-members aware of the vital role we play. Networking
and the sharing of ideas are important functions of any SIS. A firm believer
in not reinventing the wheel, I see many opportunities to share the work
we do in our respective libraries via the ALL-SIS web page. Possible pages
include information on special projects underway in our libraries, a clearinghouse
to serve as access to academic law library newsletters, and the creation
of a "specialty" directory of ALL-SIS members willing to serve as resources
in particular areas of law librarianship. At the same time we must not
lose the momentum within the SIS to tackle issues such as the CALI/ALL-SIS
project, statistics, and tenure; to continue the long history of relevant
educational programs; and to perpetuate the energy of CONALL.
The ALL-SIS is a strong group of dedicated members. Having the opportunity to serve
as chair and to help shape the future of the SIS, to help expand the reach of our
membership, and to help create a continuing legacy of outstanding programming and
projects, would indeed be an honor.
RUTH LEVOR, Candidate for Vice-Chair / Chair-Elect
Ruth Levor has served as Associate Director of the University of San Diego Legal
Research Center since 1992. She was the Head of Government Documents at the University
of Cincinnati College of Law Library from 1989 to 1992 and the Head of Circulation in
1989. Before that, she practiced law for three years and clerked for an
Ohio appellate judge for a year. She earned a B.A. in Linguistics and a
J.D. from the University of Cincinnati and an M.S.L.S. from the University
of Kentucky. She has taught Legal Drafting, Information in the Social Sciences,
Law Librarianship and Advanced Legal Research and has given lectures on
many legal research topics.
As an active member of AALL, SANDALL, SCALL, and ORALL, Ms. Levor has chaired
committees, served on boards, participated in organizing educational and entertainment
programs and assisted in special projects. She recently completed a tenure as chair of
AALL's Law Library Journal and AALL Spectrum Editorial Board and
Advisory Committee, chairing two annual weekend meetings at AALL headquarters, and is
currently a member of the Membership and Retention Committee. She edited the newspaper
at the 1998 Annual Meeting in Anaheim and hosted the first Law Library
Journal and Spectrum authors' reception at last year's meeting
in Philadelphia. She has presented a roundtable and a program on teaching
Advanced Legal Research on behalf of the ALL-SIS.
Ms. Levor is also an ardent supporter of AALL's Mentoring Project. She has served
as a mentor at each of the last three Annual Meetings and co-authored an AALL
Spectrum article with her first mentee on the benefits of the project. She has
published several other articles and book reviews, as well as an essay in a book
about reparations for human rights injustices. She has served as Treasurer
of SCALL; was Secretary of SANDALL as a member of that chapter's founding
board; and has coordinated programs and events for both chapters.
She is a member of the Steering
Committee of the San Diego/Imperial Counties Library Disaster Response
Network. In the summer of 2000, she was one of three law librarians selected
to participate in the Stanford/California State Library Institute on 21st
Century Librarianship.
Statement: As academic law librarians,
our leadership opportunities are unique and rewarding. We work to support
and enhance access to legal information for leaders in legal scholarship
and for future leaders of the legal community. We are challenged to exhibit
knowledge and expertise in content, sources and tools of the trade and
to model professionalism as legal information experts in the law school
community to assure our profession's prominence in the legal community
of the present and the future. The SIS is a primary vehicle for moving
the enterprise of academic law librarianship forward. To lead and serve
the SIS, one must have a strong commitment to this endeavor, a clear vision
of the purpose and goals of the organization, and a dedication to carrying
out the plans and programs in which the membership has expressed interest
and support. I have already collaborated with a number of you on programming
designed to provide us with tools for fulfilling our classroom teaching
mission. I have networked with many of you informally on sharing curricula
and other resource materials, and I support proposals for development of
a teaching web site and other shared resources.
As a devoted Mentoring Project participant, I am committed to involving as many of
you as possible in outreach programs such as the highly successful CONELL for Academics.
I am also interested in brainstorming ways in which the SIS can support
the participation of academics in the many publishing opportunities available
through AALL. We have so much to offer in terms of knowledge, ideas and
writing ability, and yet it is so difficult to formalize commitments to
professional publishing as part of our work activities.
Our current SIS leadership has laid a solid foundation for moving forward with
these and other important initiatives. I would welcome the opportunity to work with
you in keeping the momentum going.