VOLUME 19
ISSUE 3
The Saffron Issue

Inside this issue:

• ALL-SIS Officers
• Schedule for Philadelphia
• Academic Reception
• Proposed Amendments to Bylaws
• Who Wants To Be a Volunteer?!!
• ALL-SIS Educational Programs
• Convocation for Newer Academic Law Librarians
• Hicks Award Winner
• Roundtable on Legal Research
• Statistics Roundtable
• Working Group on Continuing Status/Tenure
• Directors' Breakfast
• Local Systems Testing
• News
• Remembering Nick Triffin
• New Editor
• Upcoming Deadline

By Victoria K. Trotta,
Director of the Law Library & Associate Dean
Ross-Blakley Law Library
Arizona State University

It is too hard for me to pick a favorite Yogi-ism for this, my final column as your Section chair. The one that cracks me up the most is when Yogi, discussing the Cincinnati Reds before some big playoff game said: "Tony Perez is a big clog in their machine." First and foremost, I have tried not to be too big a clog in this Section machine. My goal when I started my term of office was to try to expand the work of the Section beyond planning for the Annual Meeting, and to give more academic law librarians opportunities for involvement in the AALL, via the Section. We've succeeded in getting a few more people interested in contributing to the work of the Section, we have a couple of new initiatives started, our newsletter and website are among the best in the AALL, we've started a new awards program and we're adding an Executive Committee member to our Section board. In addition, we have some wonderful programs planned for Philadelphia. In all, not a bad year.

It's a start but we can do better. I would like to see this Section, representing a full third of AALL membership, and with a proud heritage of leadership and professional involvement, take more of an active role in identifying the crucial issues that affect our members and then go the next step in formulating and producing activities that further the interests of our members. We should take the lead in passing resolutions that affect our members, for example one that says we support full faculty status for our law library directors. We should be lending our expertise and knowledge in the crafting of continuing education programs on behalf of the AALL Professional Development Committee when asked. We should be crafting statistical instruments that would actually be useful as we attempt to benchmark and articulate first class academic service in this age of stagnating budgets and increased programmatic options and formats. It's our proper place in the law library universe, but we have to make it happen. Yogi Berra also said "It gets dark out here early." There's never enough time to accomplish all you want to, but little by little we can get where we want to go.

Lastly, I want to thank all the ALL-SIS members who pitched in to get various tasks and projects completed. There is a complete list of participants on the ALL-SIS web site. It is a huge job in and of itself preparing for an annual meeting. Everything always takes more time than you think it's going to. But the results are worth it. I urge each of you to volunteer to help our incoming chair, Ruth Hill, continue to develop the programs of our illustrious Section. It's been a fun year for me, I've enjoyed serving as your Section chair, and I thank you for the opportunity. As you know who said once. "We've had a good time together, even when we're not together." See you in Philadelphia!! VKT