The Committee on Bylaws, consisting of James Duggan, Janice Anderson and Mary Hood, chair, was asked to propose amendments to the section's bylaws to bring them into compliance with AALL's Bylaws.
The committee drafted and presented the following proposed bylaws to the Executive Committee. The proposed bylaws were published on the ALL website and published in the section's newsletter.
The proposed bylaws were presented to the section's membership at the annual business meeting held in Philadelphia on Sunday July 16, 2000. The bylaws were adopted by unanimous vote.
The proposed bylaws are set forth below.
Respectfully submitted,
Mary Hood
Chair, ALL Bylaws Committee Chair
PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE BYLAWS
Article I: NAME
The name of this special interest section of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) shall be the Academic Law Libraries Section.
Article II: OBJECT
The object of t The Academic Law Libraries Section is established: shall be:
It shall conduct its affairs in conformity with the Constitution and Bylaws of the American Association of Law Libraries.
Article III: MEMBERSHIP
Membership shall be open to any AALL member requesting affiliation with the Academic Law Libraries Section as provided in the AALL bylaws.
Article IV: MEETINGS
There shall be an annual meeting of the Academic Law Libraries Section, held in connection with, or during, the annual meeting of the AALL.
Article V: OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES
Section 1. Officers.
The officers shall consist of a Chair, a Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect, and a Secretary/Treasurer. The Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect shall automatically become chair one year after being elected Vice-Chair, and shall serve as Chair during the second year following that election. The Secretary/Treasurer shall be elected biennially.
Section 2. Duties of Officers.
The Chair, Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect and Secretary/Treasurer shall perform the duties usually pertaining to their respective offices, and such other duties as may be assigned by the Executive Committee of the membership.
Section 3. Executive Committee.
There shall be an Executive Committee consisting of the Officers named above, the immediate past Chair and one (1) elected member. The elected member shall serve a term of two (2) years. All officers and members of the Executive Committee shall serve until the adjournment of the annual meeting at which their successors are announced. The duties of the Executive Committee shall be those usually assigned to such committees in similar associations.
Section 4. Committees.
There shall be such standing or special committees as the Executive Committee, or the membership of the section, shall create. There shall be a standing Nominating Committee, appointed by the Executive Committee, to consist of three members, no one of whom shall be a member of the Executive Committee, and no one of whom shall be a candidate for office at the succeeding election. Each member of the Committee shall serve for a term of one year.
Article VI: NOMINATION AND ELECTION OF OFFICERS
Section 1. Nominating Committee.
The Nominating Committee shall submit the names of candidates for the office of Vice- Chair/Chair-elect, Secretary/Treasurer, and the elected member, together with their written acceptances, to the Chair by January 30. in sufficient time to enable the Chair to inform the members of the Section of the nominations prior to April 1, either by publication in the AALL Newsletter, the SIS newsletter, or by mail.
In the event that the Vice-Chair/Chair-elect cannot assume the duties of Chair, and such fact is known prior to January 15 March 1, the Committee shall also submit the names of candidates for the office of Chair for the term of one year.
Section 2. Notification.
The Executive Committee shall notify membership of the candidates proposed by the nominating committee by February 28. Notification to the membership can be by mail, ALL SIS newsletter or broadcast email as the Executive Committee decides.
Section 3. Nomination by Petition
Additional nominations may be made upon written petition of five (5) members of the Section. Such petitions, accompanied by written acceptance of the nominees, must be filed with the Chair by March 20.
Section 2. Nomination by Petition.
Further nominations may be made upon written petition of five (5) members of the Section. Such petitions, accompanied by written acceptance of the nominees, must be filed with the Chair not later than May 1.
Section 4 3. Ballots.
The Secretary shall prepare an official ballot, including nominations by petition. The professional position of each nominee shall appear on the ballot.
Section 5 4. Election.
The Officers of the Section shall be elected by mail ballot. The Secretary shall mail ballots to each member of the Section by April 1 prior to May 15. Ballots shall be marked and returned to the Secretary by April 25 prior to June 10. The candidates receiving the largest number of votes for each office shall be declared elected, and shall be reported by the Secretary at the annual meeting of the Section. All candidates shall be notified of the results of election by May 5 at the earliest possible time.
Section 6 5. Tie Votes.
In case of a tie vote, a run-off election shall be held at the business meeting of the Section at the annual AALL convention. Run-off elections shall be by secret ballot. The ballots shall be immediately counted, and the candidate with the largest number of votes shall be declared elected.
Section 7 6. Destruction of Ballots.
If there are no challenges to the results of the election, the ballots may be destroyed by the Secretary after the annual meeting.
Article VII: AMENDMENTS.
Section 1. Bylaws.
Bylaws of the Section may be adopted, amended or suspended at the annual meeting of the Section by a majority vote of the members present and voting. Or, bylaws may be adopted, amended, or suspended through a mail ballot. Whenever the by-laws are to be changed by mail vote, the Secretary shall mail ballots to every member in good standing of the Section. Such ballots shall state the text of the proposed change, the purpose of the change, and the date by which ballots must be returned to the Secretary. Proposed changes in the bylaws by mail must receive a majority vote of the ballots returned to the Secretary in order to pass. Tie votes shall be considered failure to pass.
Section 2. Effect.
Any amendment shall take effect after it has been approved by the AALL Executive Board.
Article VIII: PARLIAMENTARY AUTHORITY.
Robert's Rules of Order Sturgis Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure, in the latest edition, shall govern all deliberations of the Section when not in conflict with the bylaws of the Section.
The Education Committee urges you to attend the four programs being sponsored at the Philadelphia Annual Conference by ALL-SIS:
On Sunday at 10:00 a.m. we offer "Teaching Advanced Legal Research: Law Librarians as 'Leaders of the Pack.'" Ruth Levor and Stephen Sepinuck will discuss ways to create innovative lesson plans, and interesting and effective research exercises for advanced legal research classes.
Later, at 2:15 p.m., Kristen Cheney, Donald Dunn and Richard Hurt will provide new directors and middle managers with an overview of the reinspection process and offer strategies for readying the library for reaccreditation in "The ABA Reaccreditation Visit: Process and Preparation."
"Train Your Staff for the Institution as Well as the Job: The Gateway to a More Knowledgeable Staff" is our Monday program. At 4:00 p.m., Paul George, Phyllis Askey and Thea Robinson will show how the staff training model from the Caterpillar corporation might improve training in libraries by giving the staff member a better idea of how he or she fits into "the big picture" of the library and law school.
Our final program, "Gateway to Career Renewal: Paths for the Experienced Librarian," will occur Tuesday at 3:45 p.m. Roger Jacobs, Joan Howland, William Lindberg and Rosemary Richardson will explore how experienced librarians can retain enthusiasm and drive in their careers even after they've already "done it all."
Thanks go to 1999 Education Committee members Paul George, James Duggan and Patricia Cervenka for giving us this fine variety of programs in the areas of leadership, management and resources. Please support them with your attendance!
The members of the 2000 Education Committee are:
Marjorie Crawford, Paul George, Dwight King, Tobe Leibert, Gordon Russell and Caroline Susta.
Our committee was charged with developing program proposals for the Minneapolis Annual Conference in 2001, where the convention theme is New Realities; New Roles. We plan to submit ten program proposals on the following topics:
We hope that several of these proposals will be accepted by the Annual Meeting Program Selection Committee. If more than five are accepted, we will seek assistance from you, other ALL-SIS members, to act as coordinators, because it is difficult for each of us to coordinate more than one program. Let us know if you would like to be a coordinator.
We also want to remind you that we are still accepting program ideas from the membership. Proposals are due August 14th. Contact one of us if you have suggestions.
Thank you.
Anna Teller joined me on the Nominations Committee last year. We were fortunate to find four very high-quality candidates to run in the 2000 ALL-SIS spring election. Our candidates for Vice Chair/Chair-Elect were Paul George, Harvard University and Rosalie Sanderson, Emory University. Rosalie was elected. The candidates for Secretary/Treasurer were Beth Smith, Arizona State University and Carmela Kinslow, University of Notre Dame. Beth Smith was elected to that position.
We were very fortunate to have such well-qualified candidates agree to run and we want to again thank each of them for agreeing to participate.
We also worked closely with our newsletter editor, James Durham, who published the nomination solicitations, election announcements and the election-eve biographical and candidate statements. Our ALL-SIS webmaster, Beth Smith, also published nomination solicitations and election announcements. Our thanks to James and Beth for their assistance.
We also want to thank Marguerite Most, our 1999-2000 Secretary/Treasurer, and Tory Trotta, our 1999-2000 Chair, for helping us coordinate key dates for the election cycle and other committee deadlines and for overall committee guidance.
Susan Lewis-Somers
Chair: Sally Holterhoff
Members: Merle Slyhoff, Beth Gemellaro
The charge to this committee from ALL-SIS Chair Tory Trotta was "to plan and recommend an awards program for the ALL-SIS." The intent was for the program to honor appropriate achievements of section members and to be ready for presentation to the ALL-SIS Board by Dec. 1999, with the first awards to be presented at the 2000 AALL annual meeting.
The committee met in person at the 1999 annual meeting in Washington, D.C. We decided to concentrate on designing one award, for outstanding contributions to academic law librarianship. We also decided to give ourselves a much shorter deadline, with the hope that our award proposal would be approved by the ALL-SIS Board early in the fall, leaving plenty of time to advertise it and solicit nominations for 2000.
We worked on the proposal in August, modeling it on the Renee D. Chapman Memorial Award of the Technical Services SIS. We liked the idea of naming the award for a notable academic law librarian of the past. We thought that recognizing our roots could have an educational/inspirational purpose. We selected the name Frederick Charles Hicks from a list supplied at our request by Frank Houdek. Our completed draft proposal was sent to Tory and the ALL-SIS Board on August 30.
During the month of September, the Board considered the proposal and made some comments. The Awards Committee responded to these. Negotiations focused on such details as
It was decided to state that preference in selection would be given to section members, that a CV would not be required but suggested, that the award is not given for lifetime achievement but would likely go to someone whose career is well-established, that the Awards Committee makes the final selection,that the SIS Chair will present the award at the Academic Reception at the AALL annual meeting, and that it be stated that self-nomination is allowed. Agreement was reached by the end of Sept., and we proceeded to publicize the award through various channels. Deadline for nominations for the 2000 award was set for Feb. 1, 2000.
We were attempting to meet the Sept. 15 deadline for the fall issue of the ALL-SIS newsletter, for which we did get an extension. (Newsletter came out at end of November.) Other publicity included an announcement on the ALL-SIS listserv and on Law-Lib, as well as posting on the ALL-SIS website. Award information on the website included a link to articles about F. C. Hicks, excerpted from issues of Law Library Journal. Tory made an announcement at the AALS meeting in January, at the library directors' breakfast.
By the Feb. 1 deadline we had received 7 nominations. Some nominations were received with minimal documentation. Two of the people nominated were not ALL-SIS members. We created a nominee ranking form and rated each nominee on our own and then compared notes. We were able to reach consensus via e-mail by early March and we communicated the winner's name to Tory.
We informed Penny Hazelton of her selection as Hicks Award winner for 2000 by the end of March/beginning of April. We eventually thanked all who had submitted names for consideration.
I wrote a press release about Penny's selection and sent it to her for corrections at the end of April. I arranged for the announcement to be printed in the Awards brochure for the AALL annual meeting, contacted the AALL Awards Committee Chair, and AALL Headquarters.
Other tasks completed in May include: posting an announcement on ALL-SIS listserv and website (with a link to Penny's personal website), and deciding on the wording for award plaques (one for Penny to keep and a permanent ALL-SIS Hicks Award plaque to be passed along year to year). An article about the Hicks Award winner was submitted for the SIS News column in the June issue of AALL Spectrum. The same article was sent to the ALL-SIS Newsletter for inclusion in the Spring 2000 issue. An AALL Press Release/broadcast e-mail was submitted to Roger Parent for approval on May 23 and it was sent out in mid-June.
We contacted Penny's staff in May for ideas, photos, etc. We had a display about Penny and the Hicks Award at the ALL-SIS table in the AALL Activities Area of the exhibit hall in Philadelphia, using some of the photos and articles loaned to us by Penny's staff. We submitted an article for the convention newsletter, which appeared in the Monday issue.
Ideas for the future: