New Member Spotlight

The Academic Law Libraries-SIS welcomes Amy Tomaszewski to the organization and to the profession. Amy graduated from the Schools of both Law and Library Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, obtaining her MLIS this past December. She is now a Research Librarian at the USC Gould School of Law. Her primary assignments are covering the reference desk, assisting the professors in their research, and teaching research skills to 1Ls. Amy taught her first research instruction class the week after her arrival at USC!

Amy’s first professional job was working at Sears as a buyer of clothing for juniors. While she really enjoyed it, after 11 years she decided she wanted something different as a career. In law school, she discovered that research and writing were her greatest strengths, and she was attracted to the lifestyle enjoyed by librarians. During library school, she found herself fascinated by the contrasts in how information is found, comparing what she grew up with and what is used today. She enjoys working with databases, computers and information science in general. Of course, she also likes books.

Although Amy doesn’t intend to practice law, she still took and passed the Illinois Bar. Congratulations on that accomplishment!

Amy is really enjoying her new job and living in Santa Monica instead of Illinois (who wouldn’t?), but she does miss the rest of her family. Left behind in Illinois are her husband Matthew, who is working on his MBA at UI, and two sons. Joshua will be graduating from UI next year with a degree in Industrial Design. He’s spending the summer in England. Max will be a senior in high school starting this Fall, and has been spending this semester in Germany.

Amy is planning to attend AALL in New Orleans, so be sure to say hello if you chance to meet her.

Please meet Dianne Chambers. Dianne very recently joined the Academic Law Libraries SIS in the wise belief that membership in the SIS will make her a better Librarian Relations staff for LexisNexis. Since she will be working with law schools, she hopes to get a realistic picture of the “other side” - by meeting and knowing academic law librarians, she will understand how we function, how computer-assisted legal research is carried out, how we deal with the students and professors who are our primary clientele. She hopes to get an insight into how best to make the LexisNexis partnership with law schools mutually beneficial. Asked how she plans to contribute to ALL SIS, she cited responsible stewardship. She said she will be quite visible. She hopes that being a visiting lecturer at Catholic University will give her hands-on academic experience.

Dianne was previously an account representative for LexisNexis. Before that, she was firm librarian for Crowell & Moiring, located in Washington, DC. After spending some time working and trying to find her career path, she thinks she has found what she likes in her current position. Dianne has always enjoyed being a researcher, but she also realized that customer education and being an advocate for the librarian’s professional development are also activities that she enjoys. Working as a Librarian Relations Consultant provides Dianne with the opportunity to assist her customers in this way.

Dianne is currently a member of AALL, LLSDC, GPLLA, LLAM, and WPLLA. She received her BA in Philosophy from Howard University and an MLS with a concentration in Law Librarianship from the Catholic University of America.

Two years ago Dianne married Christopher A. Chambers, a lawyer-turned-author who is also teaching an undergraduate English course at the University of Maryland University College. He also teaches a professional development course at the School of Continuing Studies at Georgetown University. You can probably guess how the at-home conversations go. Dianne has to watch what she says for fear of it turning up in a short story!! In her spare time Dianne likes to read, crochet and knit, ride her bike, and catch a good movie. Her favorite place to be in is Harbor Island in the Bahamas. This was her honeymoon spot, and Dianne thinks it is one of the most peaceful, beautiful places on earth.

Dianne will be attending the Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Please be on the lookout and say hello. I chose Dianne for this piece as a diversion from the librarian-employed-in-a-law-school mold.