As ALL-SIS reaches its 30th anniversary, some folks thought that it would be a good time to update Rosalie Sanderson’s history of ALL-SIS, 1 “like a pocket-part.”
Currently ALL-SIS has 1233 members. Since 2004 the Membership Committee has worked with AALL to identify academic AALL members who were not members of ALL-SIS. Membership Committee members personally contact AALL members affiliated with a law school, who are not also members of ALL-SIS members. In 2005 the committee proposed revamping the welcome kit to increase personal contact to new members. In 2006 35 newer members of the SIS received a welcome kit which included a welcome letter from the ALL-SIS Chair, Michael J. Slinger, the 2006 ALL-SIS Annual Meeting Matrix, ALL-SIS Frequently Asked Questions, and ALL-SIS promotional items. The committee sent out 138 welcome kits in 2007 and 40 in 2008. In addition the committee has reached out to student members of AALL as well as library and law students who may be interested in law librarianship. To keep in tune with the membership the committee surveyed the membership in 2004 and 2006.
Over the past five years there have been several amendments to the bylaws. The 2006 amendments brought the ALL-SIS bylaws in line with the AALL bylaws and clarified existing policies. In 2007 three issues were addressed: Article V was amended to clarify officer reimbursement, while Article VI was amended to change the dates for the filing of petitions and the timing of notification of candidates and to make clear that the Secretary Treasurer is a two year position. In 2008 Article V was amended to bring the ALL-SIS bylaw dealing with succession of officers due to vacancy in line with the AALL model bylaws for special interests sections.
Several new committees and task forces have been created. New committees include the Faculty Services Committee, the Student Services Committee, and the Continuing Education Committee. The Faculty Services Committee has initiated virtual roundtables which involve creating a limited time listserve meant to host a discussion on a specific topic. During 2005 - 2006 the committee hosted four virtual roundtables on new faculty orientations; services to non-faculty; electronic publishing, posting and storing of faculty scholarship; and managing research assistants. The virtual roundtables are archived on the ALL-SIS website. The Continuing Education Committee created a streaming video “Challenging Conversations,” which is available on the AALL website. New Task Forces include the Task Force on Job Titles, which provided academic job titles for the AALL Salary Survey, and the Strategic Directions Task Force, which developed the 2007 - 2010 Strategic Plan.
The Academic SIS Strategic Plan 2007 - 2010 was adopted at the 2007 Business Meeting. The four directives are (1) advocate, (2) coordinate and disseminate, (3) develop and adapt, and (4) preserve and enhance information policies. As with earlier plans, the 2007 - 2010 Strategic Plan identifies specific initiatives for each outcome supporting the four directives. To see the plan, visit www.aallnet.org/sis/allsis/strategic/.
Over the past five years the SIS and its committees and task forces have made more and more information available on the organization’s website. To name but a bit of what’s available: links to faculty services websites; a directory of collection development contacts in academic law libraries; the Sourcebook for Teaching Legal Research; a full text archive of the ALL-SIS newsletters; links to law library collection development policies; a bibliography on law librarian tenure and status; an archive of virtual roundtables; links to recommended legal research resources; and current and historic survey results.
Developing programs for the AALL Annual Meeting continued to be a focus of the SIS. For example the 2004 - 2005 Program committee created a sub-committee to develop possible program ideas, which included having brainstorming sessions for section members. Programs over the last five years have covered topics such as defining what is a core collection; teaching online legal research; podcasting; supporting new faculty; and legal research on the bar exam.
AALL celebrated 100 years in 2006. The Centennial Committee compiled a list of Firsts in Academic Law Libraries: for example, in 1779 William and Mary became the first college to have a law school, while the first academic law library to offer 24/7 library access was Washington and Lee in 1849. To view the complete list visit www.aallnet.org/sis/allsis/centennial/firsts.asp. Several articles were written by the Centennial Committee, including Milestones in Academic Law Libraries: Law School Libraries “Among the First” Great Feats in Last 100 Years, 9 (9) AALL Spectrum 10 (2005), by Margaret Christiansen and Christopher Knott. Also, special Centennial Grants were awarded to Sarah Glassmeyer and Emily Janoski-Haehlen to support their attendance at the 2006 AALL Annual Meeting.
ALL-NEW, New Academic Law Librarian’s Meeting, is held at the AALL Annual Meeting. The name has been changed over the past five years to reduce confusion with AALL’s CONELL, Conference of Newer Law Librarians, which also takes place in conjunction with the AALL Annual Meeting. In addition ALL-SIS works with AALL to connect newer librarians with mentors. Starting in 2006 biographies of newer members of ALL-SIS have been featured in the newsletter.
The SIS continues to recognize outstanding contributions to academic law librarianship by annually awarding the Frederick Charles Hicks Award. Honorees since 2003 are Timothy L. Coggins (2004), Barbara Bintiff (2005), Roger F. Jacobs (2006), Roy M. Mersky and Robert L. Oakley (2008), and Nancy P. Johnson (2009).
Since 2002 the ALL-SIS Outstanding Article Award has been presented to author(s) of an article that enhances academic law librarianship. In 2004 two articles shared this award: Nancy Carol Carter, The Special Case of Alaska Native Law and Research, 22 Leg. Ref. Servs. Q. 11 (2003); and Matthew Cordon, Beyond Mere Competency Advanced Legal Research in a Practice-Oriented Curriculum, 55 Baylor L. Rev. 1 (2003). In 2005 Nancy M. Babb was honored for Cataloging Spirits and the Spirit of Cataloging, 40(2) Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 89 (2005). Bonnie Shucha’s article, The State of the Law Library Blogosphere, available at www.llrx.com/features/blogosphere.htm, was the 2007 recipient. Carol A. Parker was honored in 2008 for Institutional Repositories and the Principle of Open Access: Changing the Way We Think About Legal Scholarship, 37 New Mexico L. Rev. 431 (2007). In 2009 Daniel W. Martin, Katherine Pratt, and Jennifer M. Kowal were recognized for The Virtual Tax Library: A Comparison of Five Electronic Tax Research Platforms, 8 Fla. Tax. Rev. 931 (2008).
The ALL-SIS Outstanding Service Award was first awarded in 2007 to Lee Peoples. It has since been awarded to Diane Murley and Leah Sandwell-Weiss (2008), and to Sara Kelley Burriesci (2009).
In an effort to support news librarians an ALL-SIS CONNELL Grant program was created in 2005 to run for three years. The first grant was first awarded to Joy Hanson. The grant was awarded to Elizabeth Outler in 2006 and to Yu-Hui Chang in 2007.
The past five years have demonstrated that ALL-SIS is still an organization where “law librarians of all positions work[] together to create thriving law libraries rich with information resources, services and resourceful librarians.”2
* This update was based on the ALL-SIS Newsletter, ALL-SIS Annual Reports of the Chairs, Minuets of the executive board meeting, and the ALL-SIS website.
1 This article updates Rosalie Sanderson, The ALL-SIS: A Brief Historical Profile, 23 (3) The ALL-SIS Newsletter 10 (2004).
2 Id.