VOLUME 26
ISSUE 2
Spring

Inside this issue:

• The AALS Section on Law Libraries Programs - Report from AALS
• ALL-SIS Board Approves New Name for CONALL
• ALL-SIS Faculty Services Discussion
• ALL-SIS Seeks Nominations for Annual Awards
• ALL-SIS Sponsored Programs for AALL
• Bob Berring:  Still Championing Legal Research
• CALI Legal Research Community Authoring Project
• Continuing Education Task Force Awarded AALL/BNA Grant
• Day in the Life of the Law Library Community Photo Contest
• Developments in Legal Education:
  Academic Support Moves Beyond the “Minority”
• A Few New Year’s Resolutions
• Grants Available!
• Member News
• A New Chapter for Touro Law Center
• New Member Spotlight
• New Orleans and the Legal, Mixological, and Etymological History of the Cocktail

Message from the Chair

Suzanne Thorpe
Associate Director for Faculty, Research, and Instructional Services
University of Minnesota Law Library
229 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis MN 55455
(612) 625-0187
s-thor@umn.edu

Happy 2007! I hope you will find the coming months both professionally enriching and personally satisfying.

At the start of a new year, people in Sweden frequently wish each other “good continuation” (god fortsättning). I would like to make this same wish to everyone who has been engaged in ALL-SIS activities these past months. Please continue your impressive work!

Thankfully, many of you are eager to develop ideas for cutting-edge programs. Our Program Committee, chaired by April Schwartz, received numerous program proposals seeking ALL-SIS sponsorship. The committee sent nineteen proposals forward to the AALL Annual Meeting Program Committee and, of these, nine programs and one workshop were selected for presentation this July in New Orleans. Our Program Committee also recommended several proposals to the ALL-SIS Executive Board as possible alternative programs. The board decided to fund two alternative programs. A list of this impressive array of ALL-SIS programming can be viewed in this newsletter, while more details can be found at www.aallnet.org/sis/allsis/annualmeeting/2007/programs.htm.

As these programs are being prepared, planning is also underway for the annual ALL-SIS reception and awards ceremony to be held at Loyola Law School in New Orleans. Our host, Mike Whipple, and our sponsor, BNA, are planning a lovely evening with lots of fine southern hospitality. The Mentoring Committee is also organizing the Newer Academic Law Librarians Meeting (NALLM),^* scheduled to take place at Loyola right before the reception.

Last summer, AALL announced its grant program to support continuing education beyond the annual meeting. To capitalize on the availability of funding, the ALL-SIS Executive Board set up the Continuing Education Task Force to explore possible programming that would benefit ALL-SIS members. Under the leadership of Lee Peoples, this task force submitted a grant proposal to the AALL Continuing Education Grants Program to develop a video that could be distributed online in streaming formats. I am delighted to report that this proposal was funded. The soon-to-be-produced video, Difficult Conversations, will focus on key strategies and techniques to ensure communication success and star Bill Lindberg and several law librarians. Kudos to the task force for developing this excellent program! You can read more about their plans and activities here.

The Strategic Directions Task Force, chaired by Michelle Wu, was also appointed last summer to update the 2002 ALL-SIS strategic plan. This committee has already developed a revised plan that conforms to the AALL Strategic Directions. You will be consulted on the task force recommendations in the coming months.

The Public Relations Committee, chaired by Mary Hood and Eric Gilson, has updated our membership brochure. We took advantage of the graphic design support offered by AALL and will soon be releasing the final version.

In December, the AALL Committee on the Economic Status of the Law Librarian called on ALL-SIS to develop definitions for academic law library titles that will be used with the AALL Salary Survey. I asked Ted Potter to chair the Task Force on Job Titles for this purpose. This task force is currently drafting definitions and these will soon be available for review on the ALL-SIS web site.

Our Statistics Committee, chaired by Jonathan Franklin and Kory Staheli, has agreed to survey ALL-SIS members about the need for new measures of library services. This survey responds to a request from Rita Reusch, Chair of the ABA Committee on Libraries, which is considering including such measures on the ABA Annual Questionnaire and Site Evaluation Questionnaire. We hope that you will generously share your views about the benefits of measuring services and your knowledge about existing measures.

The ALL-SIS Executive Board recently formed the Task Force to Examine the ABA Standards for Law Libraries, which will be chaired by Jim Milles. This task force will poll members on the effect of the ABA standards in our libraries.

This is an impressive listing of accomplishments, but it mainly highlights recent developments in ALL-SIS. Numerous other committees are also hard at work, some on longstanding projects. I look forward to sharing news of their contributions in the future.

Before closing, I would like to ask each of you to think about individuals deserving of our ALL-SIS awards and grants. The deadline for submitting nominations is the end of March, but it is never too early to nominate colleagues for awards. We have so many to honor!

Best wishes to all,
Suzanne Thorpe
ALL-SIS Chair

* The former name of this meeting was CONALL (Conference on Newer Academic Law Librarians). The name was changed to reduce confusion with the CONELL program that also takes place every year. See the article in this issue for more information.