AALL’s Executive Board approved the formation of the Academic Law Library Special Interest Section or ALL-SIS at the AALL meeting in July 1979; thus the section was born. In celebration of its 30th anniversary, ALL-SIS gave away a Blackberry Pearl as the traditional 30th anniversary gift, pearls, through a drawing at the ALL-SIS table in the AALL Annual Meeting Exhibit Hall. William S. Hein & Company donated the Blackberry Pearl.
Two hundred and twenty-three (162 academic librarians, 22 firm librarians, 26 SCCLL, and 13 student or non-affiliated librarians) tried their luck at winning the Pearl. The lucky winner was Ms. Gigi Panagotacos, a collection development and reference librarian at the Faulkner University Jones School of Law Library. While she has not received the Pearl yet, she cannot wait to start using it and get rid of her landline. Ms. Panagotacos encouraged everyone to check out the AALL Activities Section at the Annual Meeting because the information keeps you updated and you just may win a prize or two.
ALL-SIS members made the table a success because they staffed it during all of the hours that the exhibit hall was open. Mila Rush coordinated the staffing and got all the slots filled with enthusiastic volunteers. Rush stated that she thinks the goal of the table is to advertise the SIS and encourage more academic law librarians to become members of ALL-SIS.
The ALL-SIS Public Relations Committee would like to thank Hein, the volunteers who staffed the table, the entrants for the drawing, and members of ALL-SIS for making our anniversary celebration a success.