Member News

Events & Awards

Lee Ryan, Senior Reference Librarian at the Dorraine Zief Law Library, University of San Francisco School of Law, since 1987, received the Fr. William Dunne Award at the university’s Merit Award ceremonies on May 4, 2010. The award is the highest individual honor that USF bestows, recognizing an individual who has demonstrated excellence to USF and the community at large through service, creativity, innovation and leadership, above and beyond the scope of regular job duties.

Joel Fishman, Asst. Director for Lawyer Services, Duquesne University Center for Legal Information/Allegheny County Law Library, has been appointed a member to the Pennsylvania Bar Association Constitutional Reform Commission; President, Western Pennsylvania Law Library Association (2010-11), as well as Law School representative on Duquesne University Faculty Senate.

James M. Donovan, the Faculty and Access Services Librarian at the University of Georgia Law Library, has won the 2010 AALL Spectrum Article of Year Award for his article Back Away from the Survey Monkey!:  Optimize Research Results with an Honest Assessment of Methodology which appeared in the November 2009 issue and is available at www.aallnet.org/products/pub_sp0911/pub_sp0911_Monkey.pdf.

Carol Parker received the 2010 AALL LexisNexis Call for Papers Award, Open Division, for her recent manuscript, The Need for More Uniform and Consistently Rigorous Standards for Assessing Law Librarian Performance in Tenure and Continuous Appointment Policies, available at:  http://works.bepress.com/aallcallforpapers/. Carol Parker is the Keleher Professor of Law, and Associate Dean for Library and Information Technology at the University of New Mexico School of Law.

Carol Avery Nicholson, University of North Carolina, is the recipient of the TS-SIS Renee D. Chapman Memorial Award for Outstanding Contributions in Technical Services Law Librarianship for 2010.

New Positions and Promotions

Robb Farmer, Assistant Director for Research Services, Faulkner University Thomas Goode Jones School of Law Library, was promoted to Assistant Director for Research Services.

Michelle Cosby joined the North Carolina Central University School of Law Library staff as the Faculty Services Librarian on May 6, 2010. She is active at the national and regional levels of the American Association of Law Libraries. Previously, Cosby was the Information Services Librarian at the University of Miami, where she taught a variety of bibliographic instruction courses. In November 2007, she joined the staff of the University of Kentucky College of Law Library as a Reference Librarian, where she provided reference services to patrons. Michelle received her J.D. and her M.L.S. from Indiana University – Bloomington in 2006 and is a member of the Indiana State Bar.

Mitch Silverman is the new Emerging Technologies, Reference, and Instructional Services Librarian at the Shepard Broad Law Center of Nova Southeastern University. He is a December, 2008, alumnus of the Florida State University College of Information, a member of the Gamma Chapter (FSU) of Beta Phi Mu, and a 1998 graduate of the Florida State University College of Law. Mitch practiced law for ten years before transitioning to library-based information work, and volunteered as a Reference Administrator and Senior Reference Administrator for the Internet Public Library while in information school.

Barbara Bintliff will be the new director of the Tarlton Law Library and Jamail Center for Legal Research and Joseph C. Hutcheson Professor in Law, The University of Texas. Currently the law library director at the University of Colorado at Boulder, she will join Tarlton in the fall. For more information, see www.utexas.edu/law/news/2010/040710_barbara_bintliff.html.

Eric W. Young has been hired as the Assistant Dean for Library & Technology Services at the Shepard Broad Law Center of Nova Southeastern University.

Barbara Swatt-Engstrom, Reference Librarian, and Kent Milunovich, Technical Services/Systems Librarian, were promoted from the rank of assistant librarian to associate librarian at the Seattle University Law Library. Kara Phillips, Collection Development Librarian/Associate Director, was also promoted from the rank of associate librarian to full librarian.

Kris Helge, Texas Wesleyan School of Law Dee J. Kelly Law Library, has joined the Law Library faculty. Kris’s new title is Public Services Librarian and his rank is Assistant Professor. Kris most recently worked at the Baylor Law Library.

Joan Stringfellow, Dee J. Kelly Law Library, Texas Wesleyan University School of Law, has been promoted to Associate Professor effective with the 2010-2011 academic year.

Shikha Gupta recently joined the Gould Law Library of Touro Law Center in Central Islip, New York, as “Reference Librarian and Library Webmaster.” She received her J.D. from New York Law School and an M.L.S. degree from Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies. She previously practiced law with New York City Administration for Children’s Services and also with Legal Services for the Elderly in Queens. While pursuing a library science degree, she served as a law clerk to Honorable Ute Wolff Lally of the Nassau County Supreme Court.

Rhonda Wiseman joined the University of Cincinnati in early April. Rhonda is a library assistant behind the scenes in the technical services area. Rhonda has several years experience in libraries. Shannon Kemen is the newest reference librarian. Shannon has her J.D. from the Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky and her M.L.S. from the University of Kentucky. She has been working as a librarian for Keating Meuthing & Klekamp and as an adjunct legal research instructor at Chase.

The Lawton Chiles Legal Information Center at the University of Florida Levin College of Law is proud to announce the hiring of Jennifer Wondracek (Greig) as our new Instructional Services/Reference Librarian. Jennifer’s role is to support the distance learning efforts at the college and one way she do that is via her own distance teaching of advanced legal research.

Heather Hamilton is the new Reference and Research Services Librarian at the University of Richmond School of Law. In addition to handling reference and research requests, she will be teaching first-year legal research in the lawyering skills program. Heather holds her J.D. degree from William and Mary School of Law. She received her Master’s in Library Sciences from Drexel University and a B.A. in English Literature and a B.A. in History from the University of Cincinnati. Prior to joining the University of Richmond, she was the Foreign, Comparative and International Law Librarian at Louisiana State University Law Center.

As of July 1, Carol Watson will become the new Director of the Law Library at the University of Georgia Alexander Campbell King Law Library, where she will oversee Library and Computing Services for the School of Law. She succeeds E. Ann Puckett, who is retiring effective June 30.

Karen Nuckolls has been named as Interim Director of the University of Kentucky Law Library.

Ernesto Longa was promoted to Associate Professor of Law Librarianship at the University of New Mexico School of Law Library.

The Gallagher Law Library, University of Washington School of Law welcomes a new Reference Librarian, Trinie Thai-Parker, who started March 1, 2010. Trinie comes from the Harvard Law Library where she was employed as a Librarian for Foreign, Comparative, and International Law for the past 4 years. Trinie earned her M.S.L.I.S. from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and her LL.B. from the University of Leeds in Law and Chinese Studies. She also holds an LL.M. from the European Academy of Legal Theory in Belgium and a B.S. in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Publications/Presentations

Joel Fishman, Duquesne University Center for Legal Information/Allegheny County Law Library, authored Punishment in the Harry Potter Novels, in The Law and Harry Potter 119 (Jeffrey E. Thomas & Franklin G. Snyder eds., 2010); with Amy Lovell, Pennsylvania Administrative Law: An Introduction to the Independent Regulatory Review Commission and Its Website, WPLLA Newsletter, Spring 2010 at 1; Index to Fiduciary Review (1933-2009) and Index to the American Journal of Legal History Volumes 1-49 (1957-2007). He also taught the English History to 1715 course, History Department, Duquesne University (Spring 2010).

Rhea Ballard-Thrower, Howard University Law Library, had two case entries published in the Encyclopedia of African American Education, edited by Kofi Lomotey (Sage, 2010). The two case entries in the encyclopedia are:  Dayton Board of Education v. Brinkman, I and II, pages 208-212; and Freeman v. Pitts, pages 271-274.

Terry Ballard (Assistant Director of Technical Services for Library Systems, New York Law School) and Anna Blaine (Reference Librarian, New York Law School) authored The Changing Face of Current Awareness Reporting in Law Libraries (2010), New Library World 111 (3/4) 104.

Nichelle Perry, Assistant Director at the North Carolina Central University School of Law Library, co-authored, a GD-SIS State Bibliography:  Guide to North Carolina Legal and Law-Related Materials with Donna Nixon and Jason Soward.

Sarah Gotschall, Reference Librarian & Adjunct Assistant Professor of Legal Research, Daniel F. Cracchiolo Law Library, James E. Rogers College of Law, The University of Arizona, recently published Teaching Cost-Effective Research Skills: Have We Overemphasized Its Importance?, 29 Legal Reference Services Q. No. 2, at 149. The article is available online at www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=jour~content=a922219297~frm=titlelink.

Mitch Silverman, Shepard Broad Law Center of Nova Southeastern University, published an article in the Spring 2010 South Florida Association of Law Libraries newsletter, Teach a Librarian to Fish:  Lessons Learned from the Web 2.0 Challenge.

At the SWALL meeting held in Waco, Texas, during April 8-10, two librarians from St. Mary’s University Sarita Kenedy East Law Library made presentations and moderated panel discussions:

• Mike Martinez, Head of Student Services, moderated the Techie Petting Zoo program. He also spoke at the program, Not Your Grandma’s Student Services.
• Katy Stein, Faculty Services Librarian, moderated the panel, Publish or Perish:  The Benefits of Publication in the Academic and Law Firm Setting.

Collection Development Librarian/Associate Director, Kara Phillips, has coauthored an article entitled A Tragedy of the Commons:  Property Rights Issues in Shanghai Historic Residences to be published in the Penn State International Law Review. For a sneak peak, see the Seattle University School of Law’s Legal Studies Research Paper Series at:  http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1564413. The Seattle University School of Law’s new Legal Studies Research Paper Series on SSRN is co-edited by Reference Librarian, Kerry Fitz-Gerald.

Roberta F. Woods, University of Hawaii, recently published an article, From Federated Search to the Universal Search Solution, 58 The Serials Librarian 141 (2010).

Mini-Research Training Sessions:
One Way to Reach Students

In recent years, there has been a push for librarians to market the library and the services a librarian can provide. In fact, at every conference I have attended since the start of my career, there have been panel discussions on effectively marketing the services of the law library. A method often viewed as effective marketing in an academic setting is the librarian getting out of the library and going to the potential patrons. Specifically, librarians should whenever possible try to be a guest lecturer in substantive law classes. Librarians who step out of the library are able to reach patrons who may have spent little to no time in a library. Presenting in the classroom also provides the students a familiar and friendly face to go to for research assistance in the future. As the Faculty and Student Services Librarian at St. Thomas University Law School, I have witnessed how going into a classroom and teaching a specialized research training session can bring students into the library. One challenge can be convincing faculty members to give up class time to librarians; over the course of a semester, professors can find it difficult to give a full class to a librarian. Ideally, a librarian will teach the students subject specific research that supports the professors’ established curriculum. Legal research taught in this manner will ensure the training is viewed as essential and valuable to the course and not just an add-on that will not be used by the students.

Last year, I was able to accomplish this on a small scale by planning mini-training sessions that corresponded with the syllabus of a paper final seminar course, Race and the Law. The Professor of the seminar is an avid user of law library services and was familiar with the training sessions I provide law students who are writing their thirty page paper requirement to graduate. The professor’s familiarity with my work led her to approach me with concerns about students in the course who appeared to have limited knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement and race law issues. She also expressed concern the lack of knowledge might cause problems for the students when searching for appropriate final paper topics and resources. After discussing her goals for the students, we decided that I would come into the course a few times and perform a fifteen to twenty minute training session each time. The intended outcome of the training was that my research instruction would assist the students as they progressed with the research and writing of their final paper.

Before I explain the details of the mini-training session, I wanted to point out that some of what I did was basic library information training. Some readers may feel the students should already possess the knowledge. I discovered the students at our law school did not receive the same basic library information training I received growing up. In grade school, I had a class on the library. Unfortunately, it appears this course has not been taught in the grade school curricula for years. One other training note:  at our school, the law librarians do not include either LexisNexis or Westlaw in their training sessions. We have excellent representatives who provide training sessions to the students on these databases.

The first mini-training session was on the topic of how to find a paper topic using library resources. I provided the students with a bibliography of selected resources which would aid them in selecting a paper topic. During the training, I discussed the usefulness of subject specific encyclopedias to spark the idea for a paper topic and the value of essay collections or compiled case material published on a specific legal issue to provide inspiration for a paper topic. I also provided the class with the following book resources to review and ask me questions about:  Race, Law, and American History, 1700-1990, an eleven-volume series containing scholarly articles; Michael Klarman’s From Jim Crow to Civil Rights; and Landmark Briefs and Arguments of the Supreme Court of the United States. I have found that some students do not view books as a useful resource until they actually hold one in their hand. I provided instruction on how to search the law library catalog, locate subject headings to ensure the resources are on point, use the subject headings to find material, and then use those same subject headings in WorldCat to find more resources. At the end of the mini-training, I provided instruction on performing an advanced search in the HeinOnline Law Journal Library.

Later in the semester, I returned to the Race and the Law seminar course and provided another 15 minute mini-training. The topic of the session was how to gather a broader variety of resources for their papers. Most of the students had only acquired two or three resources for their papers and the professor was understandably concerned. I began the training with a brief explanation about how easy it is to write a paper when you have many authoritative resources on point for your topic. I continued the discussion by explaining that the references in the resources that they had already gathered can direct them to additional resources for their papers. I continued the previous instruction on WorldCat, this time addressing the use of WorldCat to acquire references to a variety of resources and how to locate where the resource is available. I continued the training on HeinOnline and pointed out the Hein libraries that provide government documents. After some further discussion with the class about their needs, I also provided a refresher on how to perform an advanced search in the HeinOnline Law Journal Library. A few of the students were working on papers that addressed current topics of race law. As such, I pointed out a few key features in JSTOR, ProQuest, and Newsbank that could assist them. At the end of the session, recognizing that many of the students would use Google for their research, I provided a brief training on Google Scholar and explained why using it is better than just performing a search in Google.

I anticipated going back to the class one more time, but after speaking with the professor, she was content with the progress of the majority of the students in the class. A few students were sent to me by the professor for one-on-one training on how to incorporate more law into the paper because of concern that their writing was more akin to a history paper than a law review article. In my one-on-one sessions with the students, we discussed, in detail, their paper topic, and I directed them towards specific print resources and electronic databases for their search.

The mini-training sessions were a success for everyone involved. At the end of the semester, the professor received well researched papers that relied on authoritative resources in a variety of formats without giving up a great deal of class time. The students were exposed to basic information science research techniques. They also learned about locating and searching resources and databases they were previously unfamiliar with. This experience was a win for me because the mini-training session model could work with any professor teaching a class with a final paper. An additional positive outcome from the training was that it proved to be an effective means of promoting the services of the library. Since the end of the class, every member of the course has come to me and asked for assistance. In fact, one student is now employed by the law library and has shown some interest in the law library profession. If you have been unable to provide additional legal research to the students, the curriculum-supporting mini-training session may be the best way for you to get out of the library and into the classroom.