Academic Law Libraries SIS--Business Meeting Minutes
Sunday, July 13, 2003 in Seattle, Washington

Chair Merle Slyhoff called the meeting to order at 7:30 a.m. and introduced Paul Wojcik, President of BNA, Inc., the sponsor of our business meeting breakfast, for a brief word of welcome and introduction of other BNA staff in attendance.

The Chair then called upon the membership to join in recognizing the “big three” vendors who have continued to support the activities of the SIS, and offered framed certificates of recognition to Mr. Wojcik, Cindy Spohr of LexisNexis and Joni Marra from Thomson/West.

Next the Chair introduced the rest of the Executive Board. Outgoing Executive Board member Bonnie Koneski-White was not able to attend the meeting, but all of the incoming board were present: incoming Chair Sally Wise, Secretary/Treasurer Kit Kreilick, newly elected Vice-Chair Carole Hinchcliff and Executive Board member Suzanne Thorpe.

The Secretary/Treasurer called for approval of the minutes from the Orlando business meeting, noting that they had been posted on the SIS website and copies were available in the room. The minutes were approved.

3. Treasurer’s Report – Kit Kreilick

The Secretary/Treasurer reported that copies of the SIS financial statement from the end of May, 2003 were also available in the room. The May statement shows a healthy balance of $22,114.43, not including election expenses and the expenses related to the Seattle annual meeting.

4. Election Report – Kit Kreilick

Approximately one-third of the membership voted in this year’s election. The Secretary/Treasurer requested and received approval from those present to destroy the ballots.

5. Chair’s Report – Merle Slyhoff

The Chair then reported on SIS activities and accomplishments for the year, including the following items:

1. The newsletter has become an exclusively electronic publication on the SIS website.
2. The BNA Task Force met with BNA during the AALS meeting and their report is available on the website.
3. The Board has agreed that the section will make another $1000 donation to the George Strait Scholarship Fund in the coming year and will issue a challenge to the other SIS’s to contribute as well.
4. The Board has approved guidelines for section liaisons to the CS-SIS, RIS-SIS and TS-SIS.
5. Some problems with getting prospective ALL-SIS member data from AALL for the CONALL/ Mentoring committee this year are being pursued at the AALL Board level.
6. The ALL-SIS listserv was moved to AALLNet in less than half a day with the assistance of list manager Mark Folmsbee, to whom we owe many thanks.
7. The Board approved the Vendor Relations Committee’s Statement of Principles, QUALITIES OF AN IDEAL CALR VENDOR-LIBRARY RELATIONSHIP--WITH BENCHMARK SIGNS OF SUCCESS, which now appears on the section website.
8. Both Directors and Middle Managers breakfasts received a record number of registrations this year and the number of attendees had to be limited due to room size, so regretfully, some members have been turned away.
9. The Chair appointed a Website Redesign Task Force this year and asked Dan Campbell to chair
10. In conjunction with the PLL-SIS, we now have a Visiting Librarian Task Force chaired by Rich Leiter working on visits between academic and private law librarians.
11. The Chair has asked Frank Houdek to chair an Anniversary Task Force, to plan a celebration of the SIS’ 25th Anniversary next year. This group is expected to work with the new Archives Committee to provide a display for the Exhibit Hall display case in Boston. In addition, the Board has approved a SIS grant of $500 for an academic librarian to attend next year’s annual meeting, to be administered by the AALL Grants Program.
12. The Section is in substantial compliance with the AALL Strategic Plan. Barbara Bintliff has agreed to chair a Task Force to develop a marketing “Toolkit” for academic libraries. In addition the Legal Research Committee has added a number of items to the website in furtherance of our goals.
13. The Board just approved the Chair’s motion that we begin a dialog with some of the smaller vendors to form partnerships when appropriate.
14. Since the Section’s Strategic Plan has been approved, the Board has approved the disbanding of the Section’s Strategic Planning Committee.

6. Committee Reports

1. Archives – Nancy Strohmeyer:  The committee is just getting organized and expects to work with the Anniversary Task Force to provide materials to celebrate our 25th anniversary.
2. Awards – James Duggan:  The Hicks Award will be given to Bob Berring this year; Bob was unable to attend the conference and so his designee will receive the award.
3. Bylaws – Pam Williams:  Pam was not present so there was no report.
4. CONALL/Mentoring – Ruth Levor:  CONALL Program will take place at Seattle University prior to the SIS Reception there. Thanks to LEXIS for agreeing to fund buses for an additional two hours to accommodate those attending CONALL.
5. Continuing Status/Tenure – Robert Hu:  The survey to collect data on employment status for non-director librarians at member institutions is underway. Brian Huddleston has compiled the survey data received thus far and posted it on a website at Loyola, which is linked from the ALL-SIS website. Data for 49 schools is included; others are encouraged to participate. The survey results are being published in Law Library Journal.
6. Directors Program – Penny Hazelton:  The program this year will feature speaker Richard Alan Farr, who will offer tips for how to communicate well when time is short.
7. Legal Research – Beth DiFelice (& Kit Kreilick for CALI Subcommittee):  The Legal Research Committee is collecting materials from various “Bridge the Gap” programs and posting them on the section website. They are working on a “Legal Research Sourcebook” style collection of outlines, syllabi and problems for teaching legal research which will also be available via the web in the future.
• The CALI Subcommittee considered applications for 5 ‘rounds’ of rolling deadlines and approved eleven new lesson proposals. Six new lessons are already available at the CALI website and on the new CALI CD-ROM for fall. Topics include: using ALR, case-finding using the digests, updating statutes, forms of federal statutory publication, federal executive orders, and rulemaking research using Federal Register & CFR. Kit will be doing a 30-minute program on Wednesday entitled “How to Write a CALI Legal Research Exercise” to spur more submissions.
8. Local Arrangements – Kristin Cheney:  This year’s reception will be held at Seattle University Law School on Tuesday, July 15 starting at 6 p.m. It’s a walkable distance of 8 - 9 blocks, but uphill; buses will be available at the lower level of the Convention Center beginning at 4:30 for the CONALL participants.
9. Membership – Arturo Torres:  Merle Slyhoff reported in Arturo’s absence that the following members served as ALL-SIS liaisons: Erika Wayne to CS-SIS, Sue Burch to RIPS-SIS and Marjorie Crawford to TS-SIS. Marjorie Crawford reported briefly on her role coordinating program proposals with TS-SIS. Guidelines for the role of the liaisons were proposed to the Board and have been approved; a major role will be to assist with coordinating program proposals for the annual meeting to avoid duplication.
10. Middle Managers – Joyce Manno Janto:  The middle managers program at their breakfast on Tuesday will be focused on discussing assorted “How Do You Manage?” scenarios.
11. Newsletter – Shaun Esposito:  Shaun noted that he is filming the meeting so as to put something in the next Newsletter. The schedule remains 3 issues per year and members are encouraged to submit articles and news items. Shaun expressed gratitude to Leah Sandwell-Weiss for doing the conversion of the newsletter to HTML.
12. Nominations – Mila Rush:  Along with creating a slate for this year’s election, the group worked to develop a list of past chairs who might help identify good candidates.
13. Programs – Ajaye Bloomstone:  Several ALL-SIS program proposals were accepted for this year’s meeting. The deadline for next year’s proposals is August 15; members are encouraged to send their ideas to the committee for review.
14. Public Relations – Amy Osborne:  This year the ALL-SIS booth in the Exhibits area will include a drawing for a $25.00 gift certificate from Amazon.com. The drawing will be held during Tuesday’s reception.
15. Statistics – Leonette Williams:  The committee is serving as a clearinghouse for reactions to the ABA’s proposed changes to the Law School statistical questionnaire.
16. Strategic Planning – Mark Bernstein:  Having completed their task, Mark thanked the Board for agreeing to dissolve the committee.
17. Vendor Relations – Nancy McMurrer:  Nancy expressed the committee’s gratitude to the Board for approval of their statement of principles for CALR Vendor-Library Relationships. She noted that the annual meeting of CALR vendor staff and interested academic librarians will be held on Monday July 14.
18. Website – David Burch:  David noted that a redesign and reorganization is in the works and asked members to send him their suggestions for improving the site.

7. Task Forces/Working Groups Reports

1. BNA – Suzanne Thorpe:  The Task Force met with BNA representatives and have published their report on the ALL-SIS website in the Spring 2003 Newsletter.
2. Collection Development – Margie Axtmann:  Margie reported that this task force has developed a training outline for new selectors which will be posted on the website. Other tools in development include a bibliography on collection development workflow, as well as bibliographies on organizational structures for collection development and selection tools.
3. Education – Steve Hinckley:  The group is focusing on models of educational content outside the annual meeting, and is currently looking at how other comparable organizations approach this.
4. Library Support for Law Journals – Paul George:  Merle Slyhoff reported for Paul that the group has done a survey and the responses will be posted on the website; there will be a program on Wednesday in hopes of stimulating further dialog.
5. Toolkit – Barbara Bintliff:  Using models such as the American Library Association’s “@ Your Library” website, the group expects to develop a package of marketing materials for academic law libraries to be completed a year from now. The idea is to help academic librarians answer the question “why are all these books needed?” and “why are all these staff necessary?”
6. Visiting Librarian Project – Rich Leiter:  The project is intended to further communication between academic and private law firm librarians by providing opportunities for librarians to visit the alternate library type as part of their professional development. This is a joint effort of PLL-SIS and ALL-SIS. The plan is to establish guidelines for visitorships and development SIS sponsorship, with the hope of eventual CLE credit.

8. Liaisons to Other Organizations

1. ABA Legal Education/Law Libraries – Pauline Aranas:  The group met at the AALS meeting and their comments on the ABA Statistics changes have been forwarded to the ABA Committee on Legal Education. Pauline will participate in a short program on Wednesday afternoon to discuss issues related to the ABA Statistical Questionnaire.
2. AALS – Dick Danner/Billie Jo Kaufman:
   • Billie Jo noted to applause from those present, that one of our own, Joyce Saltalamachia from New York Law School, is now the Deputy Director of AALS. The focus at the moment in AALS is the impact of globalization on our programs.
   • Dick currently serves on the Executive Committee for AALS and reported that they are reworking the association’s by-laws and addressing other “core values”. One proposal to be considered next January in Atlanta at the annual AALS meeting would move the by-laws into the ‘regulations’ category which would make them amendable by the Executive Committee without membership approval.

9. Passing the Gavel & Vice-Chair’s Report – Merle Slyhoff & Sally Wise

Merle happily passed the gavel to Sally Wise.

Sally noted that the new Program Committee co-chairs would be Ajaye Bloomstone and Joanne Duggan. She reminded those present that the deadline for program proposals is mid-August and urged members to submit proposals to the co-chairs as soon as possible.

Sally will be considering ways we can continue to implement our strategic plan, and will formalize the responsibilities of the 25th Anniversary Task Force soon.

Committee appointments will be completed soon; members who wish to serve should contact Sally.

10. Adjournment – Sally Wise

The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 a.m. by new chair Sally Wise.

Respectfully submitted,

Kit Kreilick
Secretary/Treasurer