ALL-SIS Elections 2000: Our Candidate Statements

The ALL-SIS Nominations Committee has assembled a fine slate of candidates for office, who will serve during the 2000-2001 year. The election slate includes:

Vice-Chair / Chair Elect

Paul George, Harvard
Rosalie Sanderson, Emory

Secretary / Treasurer

Carmela Kinslow, Notre Dame
Beth Smith, Arizona State

Personal statements from each of our candidates follow. Election ballots will be mailed to ALL-SIS members in the near future.

Paul George, Candidate for Vice-Chair / Chair-Elect

Paul George has been the Associate Librarian for Research Services at Harvard Law School Library since 1994. He has earned his B.A. and M.S. from the University of Illinois, as well as a J.D. from Duke University. His recent activities include Co-Chair of the Citation Formats Committee from 1998 through the present; Chair of the ALL-SIS Nominations Committee from 1997 to 1998; and member of the Local Arrangements and Program Committee for the NELLCO / LLNE Joint Meeting of 1998.

Statement:

A successful Special Interest Section has two important functions; to provide opportunities for involvement for its members and to provide representation on important issues. After years of wondering what was the meaning of its life, the SIS has undergone a strategic planning process. At the same time, numerous volunteers have stepped forward to help form committees such as the education committee and the mentoring committee. Roundtables now provide opportunities for members to exchange ideas on legal research classes, and new members will soon be provided CONELL-type opportunities focusing on academic interests. The result is that we are now seeing a new and exciting SIS that can provide all of its members opportunities for involvement and for sharing interests. By creating an active SIS, we in turn create an SIS which is capable of having an important voice in issues of concern to academic law librarians and AALL itself. As someone who became involved with this process at its early stage by working on the education committee, I would be honored to continue the work of providing a wide variety of forums for member involvement and a strong SIS to represent its members.

Rosalie Sanderson, Candidate for Vice-Chair / Chair-Elect

Rosalie Sanderson is Associate Director of the Hugh F. MacMillan Law Library at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where she has been employed since August, 1997. Previously, she was Assistant Director for Information Services at the Legal Information Center at the University of Florida, where she held several different positions from 1979-1984 and later from 1987-1997. Ms. Sanderson has worked in a number of other libraries including the World Bank, the University of Arkansas, and Stanford University. From 1975-1979, she was a law firm librarian at Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco, where she was head librarian before she left in 1979. She received a B.S. in Education from the University of Central Arkansas at Conway, an M.A. in history from the University of Arkansas, and an M.L.S. from the University of California at Berkeley, and a J.D. from the University of Florida.

Ms. Sanderson has been active in the American Association of Law Libraries, SEALL, and COSELL, the consortium of academic law libraries in the Southeast, and is the immediate past Chair of COSELL. She also has served as Vice-Chair of that organization. She has served on several AALL committees and is past Chair of the Placement Committee (1992) and was Chair of the President's Task Force of Placement, Recruitment, and Mentoring (1993).

Ms. Sanderson shared with Jim Hambleton of Texas Wesleyan the West Excellence in Academic Librarianship Award in 1995. She has presented a number of programs at AALL, SEALL, and other organizations over the years, including most recently "The One Shot Training Session: Pedagogical Considerations and Strategies for Effectiveness," at the 1999 AALL annual meeting. For several years, she has coordinated the LEXIS-WESTLAW forum at the AALL annual meeting, sometimes as an ALL-SIS roundtable as in 1999, other times as part of the AALL program. She has written a number of articles relating to research and teaching as well as Beyond Legal Information: Searching DIALOG on WESTLAW: A Guide for Law Students (West Publishing Company, 1993) and The State Media Sourcebook, with Dolores Jenkins (Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, 1992).

Statement:

AALL provides a richer experience for all of us by exposing us to law libraries in all types of institutions: law firms, courts, corporations, law schools, and other organizations. However, as academics, we do have particular and unique interests, issues, and aspirations, and ALL-SIS is the perfect forum in which to address and advance these interests.

In this time of law library transition, I believe we should all strive to make the law library a central and vital force in legal education. ALL-SIS can be a positive force and a source of help for all of us. We can use this organization to help us find ways to deliver information resources more effectively, to provide the library technical and technology support we need, and to teach legal research skills more effectively. ALL-SIS can also provide leadership and guidance in our quest to find ways to integrate the law library into the fabric of legal education.

Fortunately, leaders and members of ALL-SIS have laid a solid foundation upon which to build. The Newsletter has become a vital and very interesting source of support. The roundtables at the last annual meeting were exciting, issue-oriented, and very well attended. The current projects, including CONELL for Academics, mentoring, awards, and education will serve our membership well. The Membership Analysis project and the Strategic Planning group have made major contributions to this foundation as well.

As a Vice-Chair / Chair-Elect, I would emphasize three areas:

Membership:

I would like to use the data generated by the Membership Analysis Project to revitalize our membership. We know who current members are; we have some idea of their interests and needs, and I would ask their help in bringing their colleagues into ALL-SIS. A broad membership with representatives of all library functions will only enrich us as a group.

Programming:

We should build on the work of the Education Committee to insure that the AALL program includes workshops and programs of interest to ALL-SIS. The Roundtables are another venue for programming. Last year, Roundtables were targeted to members' interests and well-attended. We need to build on this foundation and insure that each year we have strong issues-oriented roundtables which address current concerns of our members.

Strategic Plan Implementation:

I would also like to build on the work of the Strategic Planning group. Once the Strategic Plan is adopted, I think we should identify a limited number of strategies which will further the goals of the organization and work to implement them. I am sure that the Strategic Planning group is working diligently to develop a plan which articulates clear goals and objectives for the SIS, and workable strategies to reach those goals. I think that as an organization we should work to identify and execute useful, doable, strategies which will benefit academic law libraries and librarians.

For instance, an example of a strategy which might lead to improved legal research instruction is the development of a web site devoted to Advanced Legal Research Teaching. The site might be similar to Jurist, the Law Professors Network, at http://jurist.law.pitt.edu. The site would cover every aspect of Legal Research Instruction, such as Developing a Course Proposal, Course Development and Topics, Developing Research Problems, Evaluating Student Work Products, Pathfinders, Syllabi, Course Requirements and Teaching Methods. This type of web site would be of enormous benefit to academics teaching Advanced Legal Research courses. Many of us have our syllabi on the web, but we don't have a central site devoted to course development and administration issues. This type of project would be of great benefit.

My experience as Vice-Chair (1995-97) and Chair (1997-99) of COSELL, a consortium of 40-plus academic law libraries in the greater southeast, is my most relevant experience for this post. During the time I was active in COSELL, we worked together to implement our strategic plan and developed more structure for our annual roundtables, using them to identify potential cooperative projects for the organization. We identified programming needs and developed programs to meet them. We worked to increase purchasing agreements to benefit the consortium, renewing one agreement, initiating another, and examining several potential agreements without adopting them. We also increased our communications effort by setting up a web site. These initiatives were certainly not mine alone, but were all conceived and implemented with the cooperation and input of librarians in member institutions. ALL-SIS is an organization on the move. A great deal has been accomplished and recent leaders have laid the foundation. I'd welcome the opportunity to move forward with this organization, advancing the interests of academic law libraries and their role in legal education.

Carmela Kinslow, Candidate for Secretary / Treasurer

Carmela Kinslow has been employed as the Head of Access Services at the Kresge Library of Notre Dame Law School since 1990. She earned a B.S. and an M.L.S. from Indiana University, as well as an M.S.A. from the University of Notre Dame. She has been a member of ALL-SIS since 1990, and has participated in the Mentoring Program. She also is a member of the AALL Diversity Committee.

Statement:

I was pleased to be asked to stand for election for this position. I have been involved with AALL and ALL-SIS since 1990 and have participated in the Mentoring Program and I am currently serving on the Diversity Committee. I have also served as a local arrangements Chair for ORALL and understand the importance of maintaining good financial records and meeting financial obligations in a timely manner. In addition, I appreciate the importance of keeping the members of an organization well-informed of the business at hand. If I am elected, I will devote my time and energy to sustaining these important functions. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to continue to serve our professional organization.

Beth Smith, Candidate for Secretary / Treasurer

Beth Smith is the Assistant Director and Head of Public Services at Arizona State University Law Library. She formerly was employed as a Reference Librarian at the University of Nebraska Law Library. She received a B.A. from Centenary College of Louisiana. Later, she earned a J.D. and an M.L.S. at the University of Washington.

Currently, Ms. Smith is the ALL-SIS webmaster and the AALL Spectrum membership news editor. Previously, she served as Chair of the ALL-SIS public relations committee, the MAALL newsletter editor, and also served on the AALL placement committee.

Statement:

I have enjoyed working with ALL-SIS leaders and other ALL-SIS members over the past few years in my capacity as ALL-SIS webmaster and would love the opportunity to broaden my contribution by serving as your Secretary / Treasurer. One of the primary responsibilities of the Secretary / Treasurer is communicating with ALL-SIS members, something I've been doing for years as ALL-SIS webmaster and as a former two-term chair of the public relations committee.