Academic Law Libraries Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries

ALL-SIS Committee Annual Reports 2003-2004

PDF version of Annual Reports 2003-2004


Committees

ALL-SIS Listserv

Mark Folmsbee, List Manager

An article on the workings of the list was written for the Newsletter.

Archives Committee

Nancy L. Strohmeyer, Chair

The Archives Committee did not advance in its charges this year. As Chair, I never spoke with Committee member Shaun Esposito or completed drafting an Archives Policy. I apologize for this to Shaun, to the SIS and to Chair Sally Wise.

Awards Committee

James Duggan, Chair

The 2003-04 ALL-SIS Awards Committee (James Duggan, Chair, Pamela Deemer and Sally Holterhoff) solicited nominations for both the Frederick Charles Hicks Award for Outstanding Contributions to Academic Law Librarianship and the ALL-SIS Outstanding Article Award in the ALL-SIS Newsletter, AALL Spectrum, and the ALL-SIS and law-lib listervs. The committee considered all nominations received by the March 1, 2004 deadline, and ranked the nominees using committee-developed scoring forms. Both awards had a number of well-qualified nominees. After careful consideration (and a conference-call), the committee selected the following award recipients:

Frederick Charles Hicks Award for Outstanding Contributions to Academic Law Librarianship
2004 Recipient
Timothy L. Coggins
Director & Professor of Law
University of Richmond School of Law Library
Richmond, Virginia

ALL-SIS Outstanding Article Award
2004 Recipients
Nancy Carol Carter
Director & Professor of Law
University of San Diego
School of Law & Legal Research Center
San Diego, California
The Special Case of Alaska: Native Law and Research, 22 Leg. Ref. Servs. Q. 11 (no. 4, 2003)
Matthew Cordon
Reference Librarian & Associate Professor of Law
Baylor University Law Library
Waco, Texas
Beyond Mere Competency: Advanced Legal Research in a Practice-Oriented Curriculum, 55 Baylor L. Rev. 1 (2003)

Members of the Awards Committee are preparing displays highlighting the award recipients for use at the 2004 Annual Meeting Exhibit Hall Activities Area, and the ALL-SIS Reception at Harvard Law Library.

The Awards Committee also proposed the establishment of and drafted procedures for a new award, tentatively called the ALL-SIS Outstanding Service Award, which would honor outstanding contributions to the SIS in areas of section activity and professional service. The award, if approved by the ALL-SIS Board, would be presented for the first time in 2005.

I would like to thank Sally Holterhoff and Pam Deemer for their hard work this year as committee members, and Carole Hinchcliff, who was an excellent ALL-SIS Board liaison to the committee.

Bylaws Committee

Pam Williams, Chair

The Bylaws Committee prepared a proposed Bylaw amendment concerning the elections process.

Continuing Status/Tenure Committee

Brian Huddleston, Chair

The Continuing Status/Tenure ("CST") Committee has primarily spent the past year gathering information from law schools in order to make its ongoing survey/summary a thorough "state of the profession" resource about the employment status of non-director academic law librarians. The web page is now located at the ALL-SIS home page http://www.aallnet.org/sis/allsis/cst/

We currently have information for 125 law schools, or 66.8% of all ABA accredited schools. As a brief summary, of those schools the employment status for non-director law librarians are:

For historical comparisons, a survey conducted in the mid-1980s found that 33.3% of law school libraries had a tenure track for their rank and file librarians, and 66.0% had some other employment arrangement (they didn't break down the non-tenure schools into continuing status and employment at will, and one responding school left that question blank, which is where the other 0.3% percent went).

In 1987 the SIS proposed a resolution in support of tenure that was passed by the association at its annual business meeting that year. A survey comparable to our had been conducted at about the same time. The statistical trend since then has led to fewer law libraries that offer tenure to their rank and file librarians. Fifteen law schools have been accredited since this resolution was passed, twelve of which are on the survey. Of those twelve, five are tenure track, two are continuing status, and five are employment at will schools. The association can't do much more than encourage schools to consider tenure for their librarians but, given the seventeen years since the association passed this resolution and this statistical trend, perhaps it is time to revisit the issue.

If it is the will of the SIS, and we have a motion to do so, I suggest the CST committee be charged in the forthcoming year to 1) draft some "model" policies on tenure and employment status based on the best of what we have collected, 2) consider concrete steps that the association can take to encourage law schools to consider tenure for their rank and file librarians (which probably includes coordinating with other associations like the ABA and AALS) and, 3) draft a new resolution, incorporating these concrete steps, for the SIS to propose to the association at its 2005 business meeting in San Antonio.

CALI Committee

Nancy Johnson, Chair

The CALI Committee serves as the Advisory Board for the CALI Legal Research Community Authoring Project. The committee solicits, reviews and selects proposals for CALI legal research lessons.

CONALL/Mentoring Committee

Marian F. Parker, Chair
Lauren Collins [University of Miami]
Melanie Dunshee
Paul Moorman [Pepperdine]
Jennifer Murray
Mila Rush
Victoria Williamson

Charges:

  1. Set up event for 2004 – This year's committee discussed what to do and decided that patterning our event after the very successful one in Seattle would be appropriate. We are hosting CONALL during the hour before the ALL-SIS Reception at Harvard. All new academic librarians, whether they are mentees or not, plus any mentors, are invited to this session. Buses will be provided by BNA for early transportation to HLS for this event. We will be performing the skit from last year and having time for a Q&A. session as part of this one-hour event.
  2. Set up mentoring opportunities for 2004 – see #3 for full discussion. In addition, we are encouraging the mentors to meet their mentees at the AALL Opening Reception, rather than wait until our ALL-SIS Reception, so that they have more time together over the course of the annual meeting.
  3. Work with AALL Mentoring Committee on appropriate activities – This year, the AALL Mentoring Committee proposed to the library-type SISs that all applications for mentoring be handled at one central place, rather than the variety of applications and locations that existed. That application location would be the website for the AALL Mentoring Committee. We all agreed to this new plan, with the AALL Mentoring Committee agreeing to forward all applications to the appropriate library-type SIS. This was done and the new approach was communicated to everyone by AALL and encouraged by the SISs [we had a short article in the newsletter with links to the forms]. People applied as mentees or volunteered as mentors, once the website and application forms were finalized. All three library-type SISs agreed to match after the deadline for applications, which was May 31st. Our SIS committee received 40 applications from mentees and 56 volunteers to be mentors. The remaining seven members, who volunteered to be mentors and were not matched with an individual mentee, had agreed on the form to be available as needed on-call, with referrals coming from the AALL Mentoring Committee. This collaboration with the AALL Committee was very successful and will make it easier for people to be notified about the program and to find the applications in the future, as it was this year.
  4. Work with Membership Committee on appropriate activities – We have received the information about new members to the SIS and will be contacting them this month, encouraging them to attend our programs and reception at AALL, even if they did not sign up for the mentoring program.
  5. Work with Public Relations Committee to promote event and mentoring opportunities – All of the event promotion was done through AALL, by their specific requests for event information, and through the newsletter column. We did not work directly with this committee. Since the Board Liaison was the same person for our two committees, she kept us informed about what was happening, so maybe this obviated the need to work directly together.
  6. Submit one column to the Newsletter – A short column was submitted, publicizing the CONALL event and encouraging people to sign up for the mentoring program. It appeared in the Spring 2004 issue and was submitted to the SIS Chair for inclusion in the Spectrum article regarding the SIS.

Recommendations for next year:

  1. Institute the practice of having some carry-over committee members and appoint the chair from this group.
  2. Continue the practice of appointing some committee members that are new to the profession.
  3. Encourage the Chair to have the committee split to work on CONALL and Mentoring.
  4. Encourage the Committee to continue the format for CONALL established by the 2003 Seattle group, having a skit and a Q&A session.
  5. Encourage the Committee to establish a work-group of at least one experienced and one new member for matching the mentee/mentors. Because the turnaround time was so short this year, he chair did all the matching – a group process would enhance the results. The AALL Mentoring Committee is trying to establish a way of sharing the forms that will make it easier for group participation in the matching activities.
  6. Continue the practice of contacting new SIS members.

Collection Development Committee

Margie Axtmann, Chair

The Collection Development Committee completed work on a Training Outline for New Collection Development Librarians and submitted it to the SIS webmaster. Two other projects are nearing completion: an annotated bibliography on workflows and procedures for collection development, and an annotated list of selection tools.

The Committee will sponsor a roundtable discussion at the annual meeting in Boston on Sunday, July 11, 5:30-6:30 p.m. This forum will focus on how academic law libraries are coping with static and reduced budgets, and it will provide an opportunity for librarians to brainstorm about possible solutions to the budget crisis that most law libraries are facing. The roundtable is coordinated by Doug Lind (Georgetown) and Shaun Esposito (Arizona).

Directors' Breakfast

Filippa Marullo Anzalone, Chair

At AALS in January, folks expressed interest in having a forum about the status of the law library director. In fact, the question of director status seems to have become more complex during the course of this academic year. For example, there is the tenure issue, the title issue (dean, whether assistant or associate, professor, both, director), and the chain of command or reporting issue (does the director report to the law school dean, a CIO, or the dean of university libraries). Other questions, such as whether the library director is part of the law school's senior management team; does the library director teach; or whether the library has one associate director, more than one, or none, are also out there for consideration along with the proposed revisions of the ABA Standards for Law Libraries.

At the Directors' breakfast we will be having a panel and a moderated discussion on some of these issues. Here is the panel line-up: Dick Danner will be the panel moderator and commentator. Lolly Gasaway, an experienced Professor and Director, will speak on the Law Library director's status. Linda Ryan will review the results of her Director's survey. Judith Wright will provide an explanation of the ABA's proposed revisions for Law Libraries. Finally, Barbara Bintliff will be the moderator of the ensuing discussion.

Please come and participate in this exciting program. Listen to others and let your views be heard. The Directors' Breakfast at is scheduled for Tuesday, July 13, 2004 at 7:00 a.m.

Legal Research Committee

Beth DiFelice and Wendy Scott, Co-Chairs

Committee Structure and Members
At the 2003 Annual Meeting in Seattle, Committee Chair Beth DiFelice proposed that the full Legal Research Committee be merged with the Advanced Legal Research Task Force, chaired by Wendy Scott. This proposal stemmed from their major joint objective to develop a legal research web resource on the ALL-SIS web site. The proposal was accepted and Wendy Scott joined Beth DiFelice as Co-Chair.

Current membership:
Beth DiFelice, Wendy Scott, Co-Chairs
Members: Sibyl Marshall, Rob Truman, Sara Kelley, Christopher Vallandingham, Mary Ann Neary, Deb Person, Diane Murley, Jennifer Murray, Rosalie Sanderson, Gary Hill, Erin Murphy. Board Liaison: Kit Kreilick

Legal Research Web Sourcebook
In 2003, the Committee launched an electronic survey to gather data about advanced legal research courses taught in academic law libraries. The initial survey results were posted to the ALL-SIS Legal Research Committee web page. Another announcement about the survey was posted in September, 2003 to the ALL-SIS and LAW-LIB listservs to solicit additional responses.

One of the major goals of the survey was to assess interest in the creation of a web 'Sourcebook' of legal research materials to reside on the ALL-SIS Legal Research web page. The goals of the Sourcebook are: 1) to make legal research syllabi and course materials available to members of AALL who teach legal research; 2) to stimulate the creation of new legal research courses and new methods for teaching legal research, and 3) to support legal research training programs in non-academic law libraries.

Jennifer Murray volunteered to organize and post Sourcebook materials to the ALL-SIS Legal Research web page. The committee drafted guidelines for materials submission. We agreed that materials should be password protected and available to all AALL members. We then emailed the ALL-SIS listserv to solicit materials for the site. To date, there have been few contributions. More information about the Sourcebook and how to contribute will be available at the ALL-SIS Public Relations Table at the 2004 Annual Meeting in Boston. The Sourcebook will be a topic for discussion at the legal research workshops scheduled for July 12th.

Advanced Legal Research Instructor's Workshop
AALL Boston: July 12, 7:00am - 8:45am
The informal workshop will be a two-hour roundtable discussion for instructors of advanced legal research. The goal of the workshop is to discuss common issues and problems that arise in teaching advanced legal research and to share our ideas, offer suggestions, and identify topics for future workshops. Beth and Wendy will lead the discussion. Questions and talking points will be distributed in advance through the ALL-SIS listserv.

Wendy Scott submitted a brief article describing the sourcebook and announcing the upcoming workshop for inclusion in the 2004 summer issue of Spectrum.

Committee Activities, 2004-2005

LIAISONS

ABA Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, Committee on Law Libraries

Pauline M. Aranas, Liaison

This year, the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, Committee on Law Libraries focused its attention on three areas: the ABA annual Questionnaire, the ABA Site Evaluation Questionnaire and the library section of the ABA Standards for Approval of Law Schools and Interpretations.

The Committee, chaired by Judith Wright (University of Chicago) met at the AALS annual meeting in Atlanta on January 3, 2004 and discussed these issues:

1.     2003 ABA Annual Questionnaire
The Committee held a follow-up discussion regarding changes in the 2003 Questionnaire. The ABA Questionnaire Committee had accepted all the recommendations proposed by the Law Libraries Committee except for a question relating to identifying electronic resources acquired via consortium agreements. The Questionnaire Committee suggested that we collect this information via the law library directors' listserv. Judith agreed to post this question to the listserv.

  1. Judith noted several questionnaire issues that were raised in the 2003 AALL Program on ABA Statistics and on the ALL-SIS Statistics Committee's professional development discussion list (conducted September 2003). Small workgroups were charged to explore the following:
    1. Definition of a serial: one group will examine ARL Questionnaire definitions to see if they can provide some guidance
    2. Presentations and teaching data: one group will explore whether to add ARL Questionnaire questions on presentations to the ABA questionnaire
    3. Electronic and print collection use: one group will try to collect information from our various integrated library systems and web pages that might provide.

2.     ABA Site Evaluation Questionnaire
The Committee reviewed and discussed our recommendations for changes to the Site Evaluation Questionnaire. The Committee's recommendations were forwarded to the ABA Questionnaire Committee.

3.     ABA Standards for Approval of Law Schools and Interpretations.
The ABA plans to review the library standards next year and solicits recommendations from the Law Library Committee. The Committee decided to also include the Technology and Facilities Standards in our review. The Committee seeks to make the review process as broad based as possible and resolved to do the following:

  1. Propose a Hot Topic program at AALL
  2. Suggest a discussion at the ALL-SIS Directors' breakfast at AALL
  3. Conduct an AALL Discussion forum
  4. Organize discussions on Teknoids, Law Library Directors, ALL-SIS and TS listservs.

Following the AALS meeting, Committee members have organized and gathered responses from the listserv discussions, including the AALL Discussion forum, held May 18-31, 2004, on ABA Library Standards. The Committee will meet again at AALL in Boston and participate in a number of ABA Library Standards and ABA Statistics AALL events. A discussion relating to the Library Standards will be conducted at the ALL-SIS Breakfast and Business Meeting; the ALL-SIS Directors' Breakfast will host a forum regarding directors' status (Standard 603); and Program D5 covers "ABA Statistics: Tackling Topical Questions – 2004 Update."

Association of American Law Schools

Dick Danner, Liaison

Local Arrangements Committee

Terry Martin, Chair

The annual SIS reception was held at the Harvard Law Library.

Membership Committee

Erika Wayne, Chair

1. MEMBERSHIP
Erika V. Wayne, Chair
Marjorie Crawford
Mahnaz K. Moshfegh
Victoria Williamson
Sally Wise, Board Liaison
The Committee members did a great job – they did all that was asked of them and more. It was a great committee. Thank you all!

2. CHARGE:
A. Establish liaisons to TS-SIS, CDS-SIS and RIPS-SIS

For 2003-2004, the following committee members served as liaisons:
VICTORIA WILLIAMSON, Liaison to: RIPS-SIS
MARJORIE CRAWFORD, Liaison to: TS-SIS
MAHNAZ K. MOSHFEGH, Liaison to: CS-SIS

B. Put together a Welcome Kit for new members to the SIS and work with AALL Headquarters to identify new members to the SIS. Investigate a way with Headquarters to welcome potential new members to the SIS.

  1. The committee drafted a new brochure to mail to new members of AALL. The brochure is short and contains key information on the benefits of ALL-SIS membership. The committee worked with AALL Headquarters to polish the brochure and we received lots of feedback from various other committee chairs.
  2. The committee contacted AALL Headquarters to acquire contact information for new members of ALL-SIS. We contacted (via e-mail and/or phone) all new members – to both welcome them to the SIS and to find out about our newest members. Many of these new members were profiled in the new members section of the ALL-SIS Newsletter – many thanks to our committee for drafting these new member profiles and welcoming the new members.

C. Other projects that the Committee has identified as useful

The big project for our committee this year was the online membership survey. The survey was posted at www.zoomerang.com and we received 139 responses. Committee member Marjorie Crawford is working on a few charts representing the findings, and we will submit these results to the ALL-SIS Newsletter. However, a few brief results are listed below:

  1. 57% of respondents have been a member of the SIS for more than 5 years
  2. Over the past two year, approximately 50% of the respondents have attended the ALL-SIS breakfast and approximately 70% of respondents have attended the ALL-SIS reception.
  3. Of those members who attended CONALL, 45% rated the program as 'excellent'.
  4. 47% of respondents rated the ALL-SIS website as 'above average'
  5. Networking was considered the most valuable benefit of membership with 55% of respondents agreeing
  6. 82% of respondents are either 'somewhat satisfied' or 'very satisfied' with ALL-SIS

Again, the 2003-04 ALL-SIS Membership Committee's accomplishments were only possible because of the hard work of its members: Marjorie Crawford, Mahnaz Moshfegh and Victoria Williamson. Great work everyone!!!

Middle Managers' Breakfast

Anne Myers, Chair

The Middle Managers' Breakfast, sponsored by LexisNexis, will be held during the AALL Annual meeting on Tuesday, July 13 from 7:00-8:45 a.m. This year we will address the practical issue of how middle managers should position themselves now to move to the next job level, either through searching out a new position or as their existing job evolves. Even those not interested in a new position themselves will be interviewing others for jobs at their own libraries, and it will be helpful to know what is considered expected levels of expertise for various positions that may be outside of their own specialty.

Those attending will be encouraged to sit at tables with librarians from different job categories so that discussion will provide a wider perspective. Three speakers, representing different areas of library management, will open the program with introductory comments. Following these remarks, each table will discuss practical applications and action strategies.

Speakers will be:

Pauline Aranas
Associate Law Librarian
UCLA School of Law

Scott Childs
Assistant Director for Research and User Services
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Joe Thomas
Head of Technical Services
Notre Dame Law School

We hope this provocative topic will inspire middle managers from every time zone to attend the 7:00 am Tuesday morning breakfast.

Newsletter Committee

Shaun Esposito, Chair and Editor

This year we once again produced 3 issues of the ALL-SIS Newsletter. Thanks to the contributions and assistance of many section members, a variety of articles on many different topics appeared in these issues. The transition had begun for Leah Sandwell-Weiss to become the Newsletter Editor for the 2004-2005 academic year.

Nominations Committee

Anna Teller, Chair

Michael Slinger was elected Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect and Susan Lewis-Somers was elected Secretary-Treasurer.

Program Committee

Ajaye Bloomstone and Joanne Dugan, Co-Chairs

Committee members:
  Lee Peoples
  Eric Young
  Emerita Cuesta
  Susan Lewis-Somers
  George Pike
  Kristen Cheney

Fourteen program proposals were submitted to AALL and three were selected for presentation at the 2004 annual conference
  A-1 Law library research assistant program: institutional jewel in the crown (Sunday, 11 July 2004)
  D-5: ABA statistics: tackling topical questions, 2004 update (Monday, 12 July 2004)
  E-2 Create powerful web presentations without an internet connection (Tuesday, 13 July 2004)

Public Relations

Amy B. Osborne, Chair

  1. The primary activity of the committee this year has been to organize the section's table in the vendor hall at the Boston Annual Meeting. Additionally, publicity has been done to promote both the programs and reception which the Academic Special Interest Section will sponsor in Boston. At the request of the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Committee arrangements have been made to provide space on the table for a display commemorating this event. Additionally, the table will be the site of a tribute to Tim Coggins winner of this year's Hicks Award. Also available at the table will be brochures regarding the section, handouts featuring Academic Section programs and instructions regarding transportation to the reception.
  2. An announcement regarding the reception in Boston was placed in the section's newsletter. Announcements regarding programs and the reception will be posted to the ALL-SIS listserv during the first week of July.
  3. The Academic Section will be represented at the CONELL Marketplace. Members of the committee will be available to answer questions and give brochures to new law librarians.

Relations with CALR Vendors

Nancy McMurrer, Chair

The Roundtable is a joint meeting of law librarians who are responsible for the CALR products taught to law students and vendors who produce these online products. Historically, the meeting has focused on relations with vendors who have the largest ongoing presence in law schools: LexisNexis and Westlaw. In recent years, as other vendors have produced online services with special access for law students, these vendors have been invited and encouraged to attend as well. The Roundtable discusses issues raised by vendors or librarians and attempts to work out solutions that will serve the best interests of law students.

After a general discussion about the scheduling of the roundtable, which this year overlapped slightly with programs, we talked about usage reports. Librarians are interested in receiving broad, summary information about the amount of online research students are doing and what sort of databases are most used. Such information would be helpful in determining if students were learning to use products effectively. Vendors indicated that they thought such information could be provided.

The next topic was password distribution. Each vendor shared how access will be provided in the coming school year and librarians raised concerns particular to their schools. Westlaw has a new system that permits authorized librarians to get passwords for faculty and staff online. LexisNexis permits librarians to request new faculty and staff IDs via email. Both services also have telephone service. Other vendors, Fastcase and Loislaw, described a variety of methods for assigning and/or registering new users. Summer access for law students was also covered.

Westlaw and LexisNexis have student representatives. The vendors provided a general overview of the type of training the students receive and what role they are to fulfill. Both said that students had enough training to serve as resources for law students who wanted extra help with their products.

Training for first-year (and other) students is a perennial subject of interest. We talked about when students are trained, the extent of the training, and the range of products covered in the training. Both librarians and vendor representatives may be involved in the training. Someone asked about effective ways to ensure that students learn about the costs for online research. Several options were suggested by librarians. Vendors noted that there are a lot of pricing options available to meet practitioners' needs so that providing realistic information is difficult. There is also a concern on the part of vendors that rumors of how expensive online research can be will discourage use of their products in instances where its efficient use would actually save money. Some vendors provide pricing information on their websites.

This year, as background for a discussion about training, the chair created a survey about first-year and advanced training, how many sessions are offered, who participates in creating the script for the training sessions, and who does the training. Results will be presented at the 2004 Roundtable meeting. The survey results will also be shared with the Advanced Legal Researchers Workshop, which meets on the same day as the Roundtable.

Committee members, Barbara Brandon, Stephanie Davidson, Diane Murley, and Jane Underwood, have worked with Chair Nancy McMurrer to devise an agenda for the upcoming meeting. Different members have volunteered to gather information for presentation at the meeting; other members will take notes.

Statistics Committee

Darin Fox and Leonette Williams, Co-Chairs

Members of the Statistics Committee 2003-04 are Kim Clarke, University of Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, Linda Fariss, Indiana University School of Law Library At Bloomington, Marguerite Most, Boston College of Law Library, Margaret Schilt, University of Chicago D'Angelo Law Library, Barbara Szalkowski, South Texas College of Law Library, Gary Yessin, Florida A & M University College of Law, and Sally Wise, University of Miami Law Library (Executive Board Liaison).

During the time period September 15 - September 26, 2003, the Statistics Committee sponsored an AALL Professional Development Listserv on the ABA 2003 Annual Questionnaire. The listserv was intended to serve as a forum for discussion on the new changes made to the ABA 2003 Annual Questionnaire. Darin Fox and Leonette Williams, both from the University of Southern California, Barnett Information Technology Center & Call Law Library, and co-chairs of the Committee, acted as moderators of the listserv. In their introduction to the listserv, the moderators offered the following categories to participants as issues for discussion: (1) the new changes to the questionnaire; (2) whether the instructions for filling-in the questionnaire are selfexplanatory or need revision; and (3) whether the changes match the goals of the association. During the two week life span of the listserv, approximately two dozen of the 174 participants who had signed up for the listserv actively engaged in the discussion.

The two most heavily discussed issues on the listserv concerned title counts and alternative measures of law library quality. There were two separate threads of discussion relating to title counts: (1) whether web-based resources should be counted in Question 4 relating to a title count of non-book titles; and (2) a suggestion that a count of "unique titles" provided by a law library is one important measure of library quality. The second major thread of discussion involved alternative measures of library quality. There were three separate areas of discussion: (1) what can we learn from other questionnaires used by other library organizations; (2) what is the purpose and what are the uses of the Annual Questionnaire; and (3) should staffing and expenditure ratios to the size of the faculty and student body be emphasized instead of emphasizing volume and title counts.

A report on the listserv discussion was published in the ALL-SIS Newsletter, VOLUME 23 ISSUE 1 Fall 2003.

At the 2004 AALL Annual Meeting and Conference in Boston, the Committee will sponsor a program entitled: ABA Statistics: Tackling Topical Questions – 2004 Update. Moderated by Ajaye Bloomstone, Louisiana State University, Paul M. Hebert Law Center Library, the program's speakers are Pauline Aranas, UCLA School of Law, Hugh & Hazel Darling Law Library, Darin Fox, and Leonette Williams.

Support for Law Journals Committee

Lisa Peters, Chair

This year the committee continued working on the web pages created by the original committee. Liaisons lists were updated. Additional guides were added. And, the pages were moved and linked off the SIS page.

The committee sponsored a roundtable discussion at the 2003 Annual Meeting. And, will be doing so again this year.

Website Committee

David Burch, Chair

TASK FORCES

25th Anniversary Celebration

Merle Slyhoff and Ellen Platt, Co-Chairs

The Task Force has been planning a 25th anniversary celebration for the AALL Annual Meeting in Boston.

Activities will include:

Article on the history of the SIS in the ALL-SIS Newsletter and (hopefully) Spectrum; Ribbons denoting the SIS's 25th anniversary that will be distributed to members; A display at the SIS's table in the activities area showing historical information and photos;

Appropriate anniversary regalia at the table, such as 25th anniversary balloons; Anniversary celebration at the Tuesday evening reception at Harvard, to include a celebration cake provided by BNA, introduction of past chairs present at the event, display of historical information.

Special invitations were extended to AALL Executive Board and the AALL headquarters staff. The Task Force worked closely with Amy Osborne.

Task Force members:
Dan Freehling
Phillip Johnson
Ted Potter
Ann Puckett

Education

Steve D. Hinckley, Chair

I can report that we talked about and researched ideas pertaining to our charge "to investigate alternative education resources other than attending AALL meetings," but note that these same issues have been worked on by a much larger and better positioned AALL Task Force – the Career Development Task Force (CDTF) chaired by Phyllis Marion. I think it is wise for the ALL-SIS to take note of the work done by the CDTF and provide the following comments, relevant to their findings.

The CDTF has prepared a lengthy and detailed report, now available on AALLnet.org, considering every alternative education idea that we have been looking at, and more. In particular, both my Task Force and the CDTF have been looking into AALL's increased use of web-based instruction, feeling that web-based educational opportunities that are available at no, or relatively-low cost, and that can be viewed "on demand" by each individual to suit their needs is the wave of the future. Indeed, AALL is conducting an experiment with web based video and audio "on demand" broadcasts of selected educational programs from annual meetings, hosted by the West Legal Ed Center. The problem currently is cost; these West sponsored web programs cost $ 60 to view and, while that might be practical for one or two programs, the cost would certainly inhibit members in need of a variety of educational programs from viewing them. As recommended by the CDTF, our Task Force certainly feels that a portion of membership dues and annual meeting income should be reserved to support the creation and hosting of a wide variety of on-demand, web-based video/audio educational programs; starting with the entire slate of programs offered at AALL annual meetings, and followed by the production of specialized workshops for concentrated examinations of both basic and advanced educational topics. Certainly, we don't begin to know what kind of staff or computer resources AALL would have to provide to jump this aggressively into web-based educational programming, but we ought to endorse the CDTF's suggestion that the AALL Board look into this the feasibility of this at the earliest opportunity.

The Education Task Force also agrees with the CDTF that greater use of regional and local workshops and educational programs would be useful for those AALL members whose schedules and budgets don't allow them to travel to the lengthy and expensive annual meeting. Frankly, we are less sure that this idea will be as effective as the web-based courses could be, particularly because AALL Chapters already provide a wide variety of regional/local educational opportunities. But, as the CDTF suggests, greater financial and logistical support by AALL to the Chapters and local organizations could ensure a richer slate of regional programming. Our SIS could be instrumental in suggesting a slate of programs that could be "offered" to Chapters and local organizations that, with AALL logistical support, could bring a richer educational experience to those members who cannot attend the AALL Annual Meeting.

Marketing Toolkit

Barbara Bintliff, Chair

The Marketing Toolkit Task Force was formed in May 2003, by then-SIS chair Merle Slyhoff. The Task Force was charged with developing the content for an academic law library marketing initiative. The plan was that the toolkit materials would supply the substance for a marketing program, and law librarians would use the ACRL marketing toolkit or some other plan for the mechanics. The information developed by the Task Force would be offered freely to academic law librarians. We thought it beneficial to have materials that could be used by law librarians around the country to deliver basic, coordinated content to law school administrators and the public, while making it easy to engage in a marketing program customized to their individual library's needs. We chose to make the information available on the ALL-SIS web site to ensure ease of access.

The Toolkit's articles were written over the course of the year by the members of the Task Force. The entire Task Force read each other's works, made suggestions, and worked together to produce strong pieces. Once internal reviews were completed, we asked five "outside reviewers" to read and comment on the papers. Their comments were incorporated into the final products, and we extend our thanks to them for their time and thoughtful responses.

The ALL-SIS Marketing Toolkit contains the following substantive articles: The Law Library Mission Statement, by Virginia Kelsh; Annual Reports in Academic Law Libraries, by Kristin Cheney; Using Statistics to Market Academic Law Libraries, by Susan Lewis-Somers; User Surveys: Libraries Ask, “Hey, how am I doing?” by Dwight King; The Unique Role of the Academic Law Library, by Ruth Levor; Why Print and Electronic Resources are Essential to the Academic Law Library, by Michelle Wu; Why we Need Academic Law Librarians: Adding Value to the Law School, by Virginia Kelsh; and a series of Frequently Asked Questions, answered by Carol Bredemeyer and Ruth Levor. Barbara Bintliff served as general editor.

Each article is accompanied by an extensive bibliography of library literature; there is also a general bibliography on library marketing in the 21st century. The production of the bibliographies was coordinated by Leonette Williams. Compilers were Patrick Meyer, Timothy C. VonDulm, Tobe Liebert, George L. Wrenn, June Kim, John Wilson, Diana C. Jaque, Jennifer Murray, Paul E. Howard, Renee Y. Rastorfer, Brian M. Raphael, and Pauline S. Afuso. Their contributions make the toolkit an outstanding research source in addition to a valuable practical resource.

Each article is accompanied by an extensive bibliography of library literature; there is also a general bibliography on library marketing in the 21st century. The production of the bibliographies was coordinated by Leonette Williams. Compilers were Patrick Meyer, Timothy C. VonDulm, Tobe Liebert, George L. Wrenn, June Kim, John Wilson, Diana C. Jaque, Jennifer Murray, Paul E. Howard, Renee Y. Rastorfer, Brian M. Raphael, and Pauline S. Afuso. Their contributions make the toolkit an outstanding research source in addition to a valuable practical resource.

The articles and bibliographies were delivered to the ALL-SIS webmaster for posting to the site in May, 2004, one year after the project was approved by the SIS. It is the Task Force members' hope that this will become and important and often-consulted resource for academic law librarians.

ALL-SIS Marketing Toolkit Task Force
Barbara Bintliff, Chair
Carol Bredemeyer
Kristin Cheney
Virginia Kelsh
Dwight King
Ruth Levor
Susan Lewis-Somers
Leonette Williams
Michelle Wu
Sally Wise, liaison

Visiting Librarian Project

Richard Leiter, Chair

The Task Force presented a proposal to the Executive Board.

Web Content & Redesign

Gregory Laughlin, Chair

 

 


 

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