Private Law Libraries Special Interest Section
American Association of Law Libraries

CONTENTS

What's New

 Minutes of PLL Business Meeting

July 15, 1998
Anaheim, CA

The meeting was called to order by Anne Ellis, Chair, at 10:07 a.m. Anne introduced the PLL/SIS officers sitting at the head table. Anne then acknowledged and thanked Global Securities and Phil Brown for sponsoring the breakfast being provided at the meeting, letting Phil Brown say a few words. Anne asked for a motion to accept the minutes of the last business meeting, as printed in PLL Perspectives; there was a motion and it was seconded and passed.

Anne asked for everyone to stand and observe a moment of silence in memory of our colleagues who passed away this past year.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE REPORTS

Anne Ellis, Chair, stated that, because this meeting was held later than it usually is, she is the longest standing PLL Chair, getting in a few extra days. She repeated the infamous saying, that we are "...the energizer SIS," and said she had the bunny ears to prove it, which she displayed, adding that she will pass those ears on to Glen soon. This year, CAPLL Alerts were started on the listserv, letting the larger law library community know what�s going on with publisher/librarian relations. It was in the fall of 1996 that our Strategic Plan was created, covering the years 1997-2000, and today, we are deeply immersed in its implementation, moving steadily into the medium and long-range goals. Anne then read off these goals, commenting on what has been done so far to accomplish them. Her vision for the future of PLL is that our population of members will be leaders in the private setting, and instill in others in our workplace a better understanding of what we do. We are a powerful force when it comes to shaping products and services that vendors provide, we are leaders in AALL and other organizations, and lead balanced and satisfying personal and professional lives. Anne noted that, with all the things that have happened to her over the year, the best one was being PLL Chair, and, as of August 3, she will be West Group�s Director of Library Relations. She closed by thanking the PLL Executive Board, and encouraged all to stay busy creating new challenges for members.

Claire Engel, Treasurer, reported that, as of April 1998, we had income of $4,247.00, and posted expenses of $7,676.65, leaving a current balance of $13,640.74. Claire stated that our treasury is shrinking significantly each year, due in part to the following recent expenses: (1) PLL/SIS helped to fund the AALL Tool Kit, (2) PLL/SIS members attended a meeting to create the Strategic Plan, and (3) there have been high losses on PLL Perspectives. Claire recognized the efforts of Rachel Jones and John Davey to obtain advertisers, which cut down on the losses incurred by PLL Perspectives. Other substantial expenses that we have each year include: (1) $5,000 a year on liaisons that we fund (for both ALA and ABA), and (2) $5,000 a year on grants to attend the AALL Annual Meeting. Claire let us all know that this issue needs to be addressed, and that the Executive Board is looking at ways to increase our income, but if anyone has ideas about how to do this, to please share them with her.

Jean O�Grady, Secretary, reported on the election results this year, first thanking the Nominations Committee and Martha Goldman, committee chair. It was reported that 1,400 ballots were mailed out, and 650 were received back. A motion was made, seconded and approved to destroy the ballots.

Michael Saint-Onge, Outgoing Past Chair, thanked everyone for the opportunity to serve as part of the PLL leadership. He said that there is a real need for PLL members to hold national leadership positions, and we are already there.

Glen Gustafson, Incoming Chair, mentioned the increase in his traveling this year, participating in a SOCALL program in Palm Springs as a panelist, attending Innovators Institute in San Diego, and being part of a symposium on disintermediation, sponsored by AALL, in Chicago. He then discussed the PLL-SIS listserv, which was created this past year as a closed list for one-way announcements. In setting up the list, he discovered that, of 1,400 members, 400 did not have any e-mail address listed with their AALL registration information. He urged everyone to take a look at their listing with AALL (which can be done from AALLNET) and submit any changes to AALL for updating. He announced that the Executive Committee meeting would be in Hilton Conference Room 14, and Committee Chairs, as well as other interested parties, are urged to attend. Also, following this meeting, the PLL luncheon will be held and everyone must have a ticket to get in. A limited number of tickets will be available for purchase after this meeting from Claire Engel.

PROJECTS REPORTS

Martha Goldman reported on the PLL Strategic Plan, who stated that there were five basic objectives, two of which got underway this year. The first included the following activities: (1) using the listserv to resolve publisher issues, (2) dealing with consumer/publisher issues through the CAPLL Committee, and (3) establishing a PLL liaison to CRIV, Chris Graesser. The second, targeting employers, included activities such as developing materials for employers (i.e. Resource Guides), and PLL members presenting programs at ALA this year and at ABA next year. Work was also begun on marketing the Tool Kit and researching the value of the law librarian (RIPLL). Martha reiterated that the Strategic Plan is a living document and she will help get it beyond the year 2000.

Glen Gustafson spoke about our strategic partnership with the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA), combining this with the Public Relations Chair�s Report. He announced that the Chairs of the ALA Committee for the past meeting in Boston were Joan Axelroth and Jane Huston and the Chair of the ALA Committee for the next meeting in Chicago is Jenny Kanji. He reported that last year PLL put on two excellent programs, one on space planning and one on managing library resources, which led many people to the PLL booth in the exhibit hall. He thanked Barbara Holt and Peter Beck for planning the booth. He mentioned that low attendance at the booth may have been due to scheduling problems and gridlock during the meeting (Red Sox game, Boston Marathon, and school being out). He emphasized that information posted on AALLNET, and that should draw legal administrators to us for information and resources. The committee is in place, but no information is available yet on whether any of our proposed programs have been accepted or rejected, and this is a liaison that we will continue to support.

Hazel Johnson reported on the strategic partnership with the ABA Law Practice Management Section, starting out by saying that there would be a drawing at the end of her report for door prizes. She stated that the year-old relationship with this section is thriving. AALL was the co-sponsor of the TechShow this past March, AALL members helped in the Internet area, and Tom Flemming will be presenting a program at the ABA in Toronto. The Law Practice Management Section will continue to evolve and grow and, as we continue to work with them, we will see the results. Activities that we have coming up include the following: (1) Hazel Johnson appointed to the TechShow Planning Board, which should increase the number of programs of interest to law librarians, (2) Jim goal for next year�s AALL meeting (in D.C.) to partner with others to present programs and do those programs at the ABA meeting next year (in Atlanta), and (3) several states have Law Practice Management advisors at the state level, through their state bar association, and a presentation will be made to them about how we could help with that program. Hazel also urged eligible people to join the ABA (ABA Membership: $100) and then the Law Practice Management Section (Section Membership: $40). Hazel then started the drawing for three ABA publications, but first presented a copy of Burgess� book, signed by the author, to Michael Saint-Onge. After giving out the three books, Hazel announced that Donna Heroy of Alert Publications offered up one-year subscriptions to three of her publications (Business Information Alert, Legal Information Alert, and Research Advisor) as door prizes and three more winners were chosen.

Holly Mohler reported on the PLL web page, combining this with the Technology Committee Report. The committee focused on the PLL web page this year, adding information for all of the PLL committees to the web page. Although some pages had basic contact information, other committee pages included documents such as: Private Law Librarians Standards, CFR CD-ROM Comparison, and the CAPLL Advisory Archive. The decision was also made to allow some articles from PLL Perspectives to be published on the web page. There were also more links added to places where privatelawlib-l gets archived. The web page is now one of the featured on AALLNET, thanks to Jason Hinkle, and people are contacting Holly more and more about putting their articles or publications on the web page. Holly will not chair the Technology Committee this coming year, but she will continue as webmaster and work closely with the committee.

Michael Saint-Onge spoke about the AALL Resources Guides, first clarifying that he is the editor of this series, not the author. The Resource Guides are a series of eight publications targeted towards managing partners and law firm administrators in order to inform and educate them. These guides were available at our booth at the ALA meeting and Michael has heard that administrators saw them there and came back to work and told their librarians to order them. The first three guides have already been published and the next two (Guide Four: Internet and Legal Research, Guide Five: Collection Rebalancing) will be available in October. The guides cost $10.00 each, but AALL members can subscribe to the whole series for $60.00.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Lee Carnes for the Bylaws Committee: Although there were no changes proposed or made to the bylaws this year, there will be changes and work coming up this year for the committee.

Gayle Lynn-Nelson for the Mentoring Committee: This committee was busy and worked in conjunction with AALL. The committee sent out 17 new member kits this past year and assisted with CONELL at the annual meeting, where there were 88 attendees, along with Anne Ellis and Michael Saint-Onge, who staffed the PLL table at the CONELL marketplace.

Jan Brown for PLL Perspectives: Anne Ellis asked for a round of applause for Jan for her two year of service as PLL Perspectives editor, and announced that she will be staying on during the search for a new editor. Jan urged people to let her know about either articles that they have written, or topics that should be written about. The next deadline for the newsletter is August 1. Anne presented Jan with a gift as a token of appreciation.

Joan Jarosek for the Newsletter Advisory Committee: Joan started with the financial information, stating that PLL Perspectives had income of $3,200 last year in advertising revenue, due to more advertisers generated by Rachel Jones and John Davey. Joan and Anne Ellis spoke with Peter Beck at AALL headquarters and were told that our costs were in the norm for a newsletter of our caliber. Anne Ellis secured the West Group to do the layout and design for the newsletter, which will save about $700-$900 an issue. Electronic dissemination of the newsletter has been discussed, but no conclusions have been drawn yet since, although it is a viable alternative, ensuring access to everyone is an issue. Joan thanked Jan Brown again for all her work, as well as all her committee members. Joan closed by stating that PLL Perspectives is a vital and outstanding newsletter for our members.

Druet Klugh for the Grants Committee: Druet said that she got to know lots of people through chairing this committee and was thankful for the opportunity to do so. This committee is two years old now, and she thanked Ralph Monaco for starting it. She then thanked her committee members. They had a great application and review procedures and applicants could get the form from AALL fax on demand of from her directly. There was no geographical bias in the scoring system and April 10th was the deadline. There were five recipients this year and she read off their names. She thanked Travel Technology, who they worked with through AALL, members of the Executive Board, and her firm.

Martha Goldman for the Nominations Committee: This year, the committee, which was composed of herself, Mary Forman and Aimee Ruzicka, found candidates for three positions -- Executive Board Member, Secretary, and Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect. Martha thanked everyone that allowed their name to be put on the ballot, as well as those who even considered running.

Anne Ellis for Research/Information in Private Law Libraries (RIPLL) Committee: Anne reported that this committee is focused on preparing a practical, how-to-do book for private law librarians. Glen Gustafson has assembled a large committee for the coming year and they will work on getting this initiative going.

Kathie Sullivan for the Consumer Advocacy for Private Law Libraries (CAPLL) Committee: Kathie explained that this committee was formed as an initiative of the Strategic Plan and the goals of the committee are outlined therein. Their immediate goals were: (1) to create a link with CRIV, which they did with Chris Graesser, who has been a successful liaison, (2) publish articles in PLL Perspectives, which they did with two articles this year, as well as other items in the newsletter, and (3) publishing product reviews in PLL Perspectives and, although they did not publish anything in the newsletter, they did publish a CFR CD-ROM comparison on the web page. Their medium and long-range goals are: (1) publishing articles geared towards the practicing bar, which might be accomplished by reprinting some PLL Perspectives articles in other publications, (2) put consumer information and product reviews on the web page, which they have started and will continue to work on, and (3) encourage links to our web page from other organizations, which is something that was not proactively pursued this year. Kathie participated in panel discussions at both ALLUNY and the Canadian Association of Law Libraries on publisher/librarian relations this year. The work the committee did was very visible this year, and Kathie thanked her committee members, stating that their work will continue next year with incoming Chair Jean O�Grady.

Nancy Adams for the Education Committee (Anaheim): Nancy started her report by saying that, "...the hard part�s over." The committee, co-chaired by herself and Tom Duggan, communicated during the year by phone and fax, starting with 50 ideas for programs, and working to get to 15 proposals for educational programs. Nine programs were selected, as well as one workshop. After these were selected to be presented, the committee worked to coordinate the programs by doing things such as locating speakers, doing paperwork, etc.

Donna Purvis for the Education Committee (Washington, D.C.): Donna said that her committee, co-chaired by Connie Dickson, would follow the same model as this year�s committee. The committee started their work in January and met again here. She reminded everyone that August 17th is the deadline for program submissions for the next meeting, whose theme is "At the Crossroads of Information Management, Technology and Policy." Some of the program proposals they are working on are: Year 2000, Collaborative Knowledge Sharing, and 60 Sites in 60 Minutes. They also have 3 workshop proposals, including ones on Integrated Library Systems and Part 2 of McQueen/Intranets. Donna said they are still looking for ideas, and the committee will help to work on preparing the program proposal, or people can do it themselves.

Anne Abate for the SLA Liaison: Karl read the report submitted by Anne Abate. This liaison is important to both groups, and during the year, Anne sent a long listserv message about why she maintains memberships in other associations. The SLA Legal Division has had explosive growth, and now has 1,000 members, however Anne believes that this does not at all influence the strength or leadership of AALL. AALL presented a program at the SLA meeting in June, and Anne Ellis interjected here that, in addition to that, there were five PLL members that were speakers at SLA this year. In the future, Anne wants to work towards joint programming opportunities between the two associations.

Alice McKenzie for the Standards and Guidelines Committee: Alice McKenzie spoke for the committee, co-chaired by herself and June Mac Leod, stating that the standards were part of the AALL Tool Kit in 1996, and have also been included on the PLL web page. However, the standards never got the exposure that SLA�s competencies did, since SLA had the widest possible dissemination. These standards provide guidelines when hiring a law librarian and, like any job description, they need annual review. As they stand now, there has only been a limited use of the standards, and the content, as well as the format, should be looked at.

Mark Estes for the Task Force on Research on the Value of the Law Librarian: Appointed by Michael Saint-Onge, the members of this task force were Mark Estes, Kay Todd and Anne Ellis. The purpose was to create a research product that shows the value of law librarians to our employers. The committee has a proposal out there for a study and are looking for new opportunities for funding this year. Mark stated that the committee is looking forward to being able to present the actual results in the future.

GROUP REPORTS

Aimee Ruzicka for the Corporate Group: Aimee reported that Judith Krone will update their directory this year. She thanked PLL for helping her get here.

Joanie Cassidy for the Independents Group: Joanie said that she was assisted this past year by Vice Chair Ruth Balkin, who will chair the committee this coming year, and the new Vice Chair is Susan Rubenstein. Dorothy McCarthy kept up the membership directory and it will either be published this year or available on the PLL web page, with Becky Davis working to accomplish this. There were two articles by members published in PLL Perspectives and another currently being written. The group also presented a program here, entitled Business Ethics for Librarians.

Jeanne Reynolds for the Records Group: Jeanne reported that this group met last year in Baltimore and plans were made then to propose a workshop, which was eventually approved and presented at this meeting with two great speakers, Lee Nemchek and Beth Chiaiese. At their business meeting this year they discussed the legalrec-l listserv and decided to keep it going for now. They are working on liaisoning with ARMA and sharing programming with them, submitting the workshop they presented this year to ALA, and beefing up their presence on the PLL web page. Jeanne noted that three of their members contributed to the second Resource Guide.

Bette Roeske for the Technical Services Group: Bette announced that, although their listserv had technical difficulties this past year, they joined Washburn University in November, and their new listserv, ts-sis, was created. At their meeting here, the discussion centered around what to do with CD-ROM and disk updates or web updates and they had a good exchange of ideas.

Anne Ellis for the Multilocation Libraries Group: This group, for librarians managing multiple branches or regional offices, had 15-20 people in attendance at their meeting this year. They have started a listserv and information on how to subscribe will be posted on the PLL web page. Anne also announced that there is an RFP out from the Professional Development Committee of AALL for a program or roadshow on the topic of multilocation libraries.

Michael Saint-Onge for the One-Person Library Group: Michael stated that at the group�s first meeting, held earlier this morning, there were 43 people in attendance with some great ideas. This group has also recently set up a listserv and information on how to subscribe will be posted to the privatelawlib-l listserv. There is also a Managing the Solo Library program in the planning.

There was no old business.

Anne Ellis introduced the new officers: Kathie Sullivan, Vice-Char/Chair-Elect; Holly Mohler, Secretary; and Lee Nemchek, Board Member.

Anne Ellis then did the passing of the ears, giving the bunny ears she displayed earlier to Glen Gustafson, who put them on and wore them. Glen then thanked the outgoing Chair, Anne Ellis, and gave her a gift. He also thanked Jan Brown, Editor of PLL Perspectives, and presented her with a gift as well. He then thanked outgoing Board Member Karl Gruben, Secretary Jean O�Grady and Past Chair Michael Saint-Onge, and also presented them each with a gift. Glen then read off the names of the incoming PLL Committee Chairs. He then invited everyone to attend the PLL luncheon following this meeting and the meeting was adjourned.