VOLUME 27
ISSUE 1
Fall 2007

Inside this issue:

• AALL Program Reviews:
  • A Review of “And Still I Rise: Resurrecting the Legal System in New Orleans”
  • Grand Slams and Strike-Outs: A Rookie’s First Trip to the AALL Conference
  • Instructional Technology in Teaching Legal Research: Tricks of the Trade in the Real and Virtual Classroom
  • Librarians Rebuilding New Orleans
  • Networking to Serve Self-Represented Litigants
  • New Academic Law Librarian’s Meeting (NALLM)
  • Update on the ABA Questionnaire
  • Welcome to the Profession: A Report on CONELL
• Roundtables
• Faculty Services Committee Roundtable
• ALL-SIS Committee Members 2007 - 2008
• Developments in Legal Education:  Integrating Transnational Perspectives into U.S. Legal Education
• Fourth Northeast Regional Law Libraries Meeting
• Member News
• On the Nightstand
• Ten Non-Law Librarian Books for Law Librarians: New Tangential Titles You Should Know About

Message from the Chair

Michelle Wu
Interim Senior Vice Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law
Hofstra University
Deane Law Library
122 Hofstra University
Hempstead, NY 11549
516-463-5858
lawmmw@hofstra.edu

Greetings, and welcome to another exciting year with ALL-SIS!

For those of you unable to attend the annual meeting in New Orleans this year, we have included reports of this year’s programs and events in this issue of the newsletter in hopes that they will convey the energy and flavor of the meeting.

In terms of official business, I am pleased to announce that ALL-SIS members unanimously approved both the revised Strategic Plan and the proposed Bylaws amendments at the Sunday, July 15, 2007 Business Meeting. The final documents are now available on the ALL-SIS webpage at www.aallnet.org/sis/allsis/.

Through this newsletter and the all-sis listserv, you will undoubtedly hear from many of the ALL-SIS committees throughout the upcoming year, but I wanted to take this time to highlight three particularly ambitious projects for the 2007-08 year.

First, in reviewing ALL-SIS committees, the Board noticed that student services were not well represented, though most committees had some component of student services in their charges. A new committee seemed necessary for a more comprehensive and coordinated discussion of students services, and I am pleased to announce that we have established a new Student Services Committee, to be chaired by James Durham (jdurham@tourolaw.edu). Among its many charges is a direction to survey the membership and share results on the range of innovative services provided by academic law libraries to law journals, moot courts, law student organizations, and individual students.

Second, the Statistics Committee, co-chaired by Jonathan Franklin (jafrank@u.washington.edu) and Kory Staheli (stahelik@lawgate.byu.edu) will continue to develop meaningful measurements of academic law library services and resources, measurements that will take us beyond the usual statistics found in current law school surveys. We encourage everyone to participate in this process, responding to the questionnaires that the committee submits to the membership for comment, as this input will help guide the committee in its efforts.

Third, the Continuing Status/Tenure Committee, chaired by Kathleen Carrick (kxc4@case.edu), has an expanded charge this year. In addition to status issues, the committee will work with AALL to collect and disseminate data on librarian and library staff compensation (including perks), and it will seek to identify trends related to compensation and status for the ALL-SIS membership.

Although it seems early, preparations are also already underway for the next AALL Annual Meeting in Portland! Peter Nycum and the staff of the Lewis & Clark Law Library have agreed to host the annual ALL-SIS reception, and the Program Committee, chaired by Sara Sampson (sas235@law.georgetown.edu) has been reviewing and ranking the programs that ALL-SIS has been asked to sponsor or co-sponsor next year.

I hope that you have had a smooth start to your academic years, and as you go about your work, I urge you to think about new ways that a professional organization such as ALL-SIS can assist you. Please feel free to contact me (lawmmw@hofstra.edu) or any other member of the ALL-SIS Executive Board (www.aallnet.org/sis/allsis/directories/) with ideas, suggestions, or comments. We are here to serve you, and your input is essential to ALL-SIS effectiveness!

Best wishes,
Michelle
ALL-SIS Chair