Chair Sara Robbins called the meeting to order at 9:10 a.m.
The minutes of the 1996 Business Meeting were approved as published in the Newsletter.
Secretary/Treasurer's Report -- Ellen Platt
The May financial statement from headquarters shows a balance of $6032.10.
The Reception planned for this meeting will cost approximately $4000. The ALL-SIS will contribute $2500, and the University will contribute the remainder, leaving a balance of approximately $3532.10 in our account.
Newsletter Editor's Report -- Grace Mills
Three issues were published in the past year. After three years as editor, she is glad to pass the job on, but reminds people to send information by email, disk or fax to the new editors.
Report of the Chair -- Sara Robbins
In reviewing the past year, which passed very quickly, Sara is most proud of the increased communications opportunities available to SIS members with the creation of the listserv and the home page in the past year. These new forums, along with the newsletter, give members many opportunities to seek and offer advice. All members face similar issues, so let's use these means to seek advice, to offer advice, to have substantive discussions on important issues, and to take advantage of each other's experiences. She hopes we will begin to use these means and talk more.
In the past year communications between the national board and headquarters to SIS members and all AALL members have been inconsistent. Members need to know the decisions that will be made and have been made to play an effective role in the organization.
Discussions with Judy Meadows -- During the Mayflower meeting, a group that deals with legal education, Judy introduced discussion of the difficulties of allocating resources between formats -- print, electronic and hardware, and also the competing needs of users (faculty v. students). There was also discussion of who should take responsibility for training and technology and how basic the levels of training should be. In addition, there was a feeling that more than the 6 people on the AALS committee on libraries should be involved in these discussions in the future.
Finally, Sara thanked all committee members and the executive board for their work and suggestions during the past year.
Public Relations -- Beth Smith
Due to flight connection problems, she was unable to attend CONELL. She invited all interested persons to stop by the SIS table for information on the listserv, volunteer forms and other information. She invites all members to send her news for her PR column in the Spectrum.
Education -- Richard Leiter
The committee received 18 program proposals, 10 of which were forwarded to the national committee. Four of those ten programs were accepted for this meeting.
Nominations -- Margie Axtmann
Thanks to Merle Slyhoff and Kathy Carrick for their work this year. All business was conducted by email or phone, so please volunteer, it's not a difficult job.
Membership -- Keith Ann Stiverson
Membership continues to grow. The committee primarily used email to communicate. Please try to get your colleagues involved in the SIS.
Roundtables -- Wes Cochran
The committee (George Pike, Diane Murley and Phyllis Marion) met "virtually" all year. Thanks to all members for their efforts, the following Roundtables followed the business meeting, and were led by committee members:
ABA Site Evaluations -- George Pike
Reasonable Accommodation Under the ADA -- Diane Murley
Distance Learning -- Wes Cochran
Newsletter -- Gail Winson
She thanked outgoing committee members Charlotte Bynum, Karen Beck and Grace Mills. Next year's newsletter will be co-edited by Lucinda Harrison-Cox and Mary Cornaby. This year's committee tried to bring in information about SIS members' activities outside AALL. Next year the plan calls for more substantive articles and a discussion of the function and form of the newsletter, which could be carried on on the listserv.
Website Team -- Beth Smith and Mike Dahn (Beth reporting)
Beth invites all members to visit the website and offer suggestions on form and content that would make our SIS's site unique. Please write, call or email your comments or suggestions. (Secretary's addition to the minutes, the address: http://aall.wuacc.edu/sis/allsis)
The salary survey is in the hands of directors. Please remember the surveys are due back by August 8.
The Library Committee of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar of the American Bar Association has begun to work on site inspection forms. Sara read the memo from Roger Jacobs summarizing the committee's activities:
"Beginning two years ago, with the adoption of the American Bar Association of new standards relating to libraries, standards which provided added emphasis on library services, a more elastic vision of legal information ownership/access issues and delivery formats, a more liberal view of appropriate study spaces and library seating, and finally, a greater emphasis of qualities rather than quantitative measure, the Library Committee of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has been examining the site evaluation questionnaire.
Moreover, the committee was attempting to address the proliferation of documents going to the inspector and inspected that contained various forms of library questions.
We completed our work this past April, making recommendations to the Council that would revise the site questionnaire, asking questions of a more general nature that could be supported by references to factual data in the annual questionnaire. We eliminated the appearance of questions in other documents, particularly documents that did not go to the inspected law school. Finally, we recommended that the Consultant, with the cooperation of the Library Committee would review the effectiveness of the revised questionnaire after three years of use.
The Council of the Section referred these recommendations to its ad hoc questionnaire drafting committee, which, I have been told informally, incorporated the library committee recommendations into new questionnaires that will be approved by the Council at its August meeting and hopefully put into use for site inspections in the 1997-98 academic year.
The Committee, through the consultant's office, anticipates receiving comments from both inspected librarians and library inspectors about the new site evaluation questionnaire."
Sara added a few comments on her own since she is also a member of the ABA committee which worked on the questionnaire. The questions are very open ended, allowing each library to discuss its specific nature, goals, plans, etc. The new questionnaire will put more responsibility on the library to substantively, and qualitatively, review, analyze and describe itself. Please let the ABA committee or the SIS leadership know what you think of the new questions.
Bylaws revision -- Nothing was done this year, but work will continue in the coming year.
Thanks to Sara Robbins for her job as Chair. He also thanked the people who agreed to be incoming chairs and called for volunteers to chair committees or be on committees. Contact committee chairs, Scott, or send in a form to volunteer.
1997/98 Committee Chairs and Committee Members:
Scott is still seeking chairs for the following committees: Membership, Bylaws and Publications.
The general meeting schedule in Anaheim will be a little different next year with all SIS meetings and meals on Wednesday. This new format will give the SIS many opportunities to meet. He also reminds us that we need to speak in "one voice." In discussions with many SIS members and other SIS members and leaders (specifically the TS and RIPS SISs), there is interest in all lunching together. The executive committee is exploring the possibility of an all ALL-SIS lunch as well as the regular middle managers and directors meetings.
Other activities of interest to our SIS may be the formulation of a strategic plan. The PLL-SIS has just completed one and we should consider emulating this exciting idea. It could allow us to articulate our goals and policies, as well as give the SIS continuity and greater group cohesion. He will set up a committee to look into the details of developing a plan, perhaps in conjunction with other SISs. He asks for volunteers to come forward to work on this SIS business.
Various announcements were made for other meetings and luncheons planned, particularly of the two groups of SIS members who were getting together for the "Let's Do Lunch" meeting and the extra program which featured a panel discussing High Profile Trials.
The prize drawing for a Baltimore hat (which had a picture of a crab on it, of course), was won by Bob Doyle.
Respectfully submitted,
Ellen Platt
ALL-SIS Secretary/Treasurer