Chair Tory Trotta opened the meeting at 7:15 am with a rap of the Section's new gavel and a thank you to all attending. Tory introduced the Executive Board, Past Chair Ed Edmunds, Chair-Elect Ruth Hill, and Secretary-Treasurer Marguerite Most, and asked for officers' and committee reports.
Secretary-Treasurer Marguerite Most
The minutes of the 1999 Business Meeting were approved as posted on the website.
The balance in the Section's account as of July, was $13,871.00.
The election for new officers was held by mail ballot in the spring. Rosalie Sanderson was elected Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect and Beth Smith was elected Secretary-Treasurer. Marguerite thanked Susan Lewis-Somers and Anna Teller, who served on the Nominations Committee this year, and our candidates - Paul George, Rosalie Sanderson, Carmela Kinslow and Beth Smith.
Chair Tory Trotta
After thanking the many SIS volunteers for their work this year, Tory outlined
the goals of the SIS for the year: to strengthen the infrastructure of
the Section; and to identify and develop leadership opportunities and initiatives
that could involve more members in the Section, beyond planning for the Annual
meeting program.
Tory thanked the Biddle Law Library for hosting this year's reception, and recognized Lexis/Nexis, Law.com and the West Group for their financial support for meeting events.
Tory reported that the SIS now numbers approximately 850 members, but that there are still many academic law librarians who are not members and that the Section should continue its efforts to expand membership.
Tory highlighted some of this year's achievements: the creation of the Hicks award and the selection of its first recipient; the first CONALL program for newer academic law librarians; the acceptance of 4 program proposals for the annual meeting; the expansion of the SIS webpage and the continued publishing success of the newsletter; the preparation of an annual meeting archives table exhibit; and ALL-SIS contributions to the AALL Millennium time capsule.
Local Arrangements
Chairs Larry Meyer, Joyce Janto and Elizabeth Schneider arranged a variety of
SIS activities including the formal business meeting, a Directors' meeting,
a Middle Managers Breakfast and an all Section luncheon. In addition, the annual
evening reception was held at the Biddle Law Library under the direction of
Ed Greenlee.
Education
Dwight King reported that the Section submitted 10 program proposals for this
year's annual meeting. Four of these were accepted:
Publications and Advertising
Tory thanked Beth Smith for her work as webmaster. The website has expanded
and now includes the newsletter archives and other documents of interest to
SIS members. Beth reported that David Burch has agreed to take over as webmaster.
Tory thanked James Durham for another terrific year as editor. The newsletter was published three times this year, and has greatly expanded in content under James' editorship. She announced that Shaun Esposito will assume the editorship for the upcoming year.
CONALL
Barbara Bintliff, who conceived of and chaired this new program as part of a
larger association mentoring program explained that CONALL was an orientation
program for new law librarians, but was open to all. The program was divided
into two parts: Alice in Law Library Land, a skit designed to introduce
the cast of characters a new librarian might meet on the job; and a panel discussion
and break out sessions with editors in the legal publishing community.
Awards
Sally Holterhoff, ALL-SIS Awards Committee Chair, explained the charge to the
Committee: to create an ALL-SIS award to honor outstanding contributions
to academic law librarianship by an individual or group. The award will be called
the Frederick Charles Hicks Award after the first great American law librarian/scholar.
Professor Hicks was the first academic law librarian to be President of AALL.
Penny Hazelton (Professor of Law and Law Librarian at the University of Washington's Gallagher Law Library) is the first recipient of the new Hicks Award. The 2000 Frederick Charles Hicks Award was presented at the ALL-SIS Reception at the University of Pennsylvania's Biddle Law Library, during the AALL Annual Meeting.
Nominations
Tory thanked the Committee and formally introduced new officers: Rosalie
Sanderson and Beth Smith.
Tory reported that the Section is sponsoring a variety of Roundtables during the annual meeting.
ABA Statistics
Chaired by Bruce Johnson. ABA gurus and Bruce will lead a discussion on the
nature of revised Part 3 of the questionnaire and how staff reporting has changed.
The latest edition is available on the ALL-SIS website.
Statistics
Chaired by Mila Rush. Discussion centered on identifying statistical parameters
(beyond those required by the ABA) that would be useful for law librarians to
compile and share.
Continuing Status/Tenure
Chaired by Susan Phillips. The Working Group identified a number of questions
for discussion at this Roundtable including:
Legal Research
Chaired by Faye Jones. Depending on the interests of those attending, this Roundtable
discussion addressed a number of topics related to teaching legal research.
Dialog with Vendors
Chaired by Rosalie Sanderson. This session is designed to give attendees an
opportunity to talk with key persons within the West Group and Lexis.
Mary Hood, Committee chair, reported that the Committee was asked to bring the current bylaws into conformity with AALL bylaws, and more specifically to examine the current election process and to add a member at large. After some discussion a motion was made and seconded that the changes be accepted; the motion passed unanimously.
Kit Kreilick, Fordham Law Library, reported on a newly formed Task Force for Interactive Legal Research, which is talking with CALI about the development of web-based legal research exercises. These exercises would be interactive "Lessonettes" which would focus on the use of one particular tool.
Ruth thanked everyone for coming at such an early hour. Her special thanks went to Dwight King and his Committee for their work preparing program proposals for next year's meeting in Minneapolis. She noted that there are many Committees in the Section and urged everyone to volunteer.
She introduced Shaun Esposito, the new editor of the Section newsletter, and Rosalie Sanderson, incoming Vice Chair/Chair-Elect. Rosalie urged everyone to submit program proposals for the next annual meeting to Tim Coggins who has agreed to serve as Education chair for the 2002 meeting.
Ruth announced that Paul George has been appointed to serve a one year interim term until the election of a member to fill the newly-created member at large position on the Executive Committee.
Ruth congratulated ALL-SIS members Barbara Bintliff and Sally Holterhoff on their election to positions within AALL at the national level. Sally has been elected to the Executive Board and Barbara will serve as Vice President/President-Elect.
Among the goals she mentioned for the upcoming year are: continuing the Awards program begun this year and establishing additional awards; continuing the Roundtables; and strategic planning.
Respectfully submitted,
Marguerite Most