Leah Sandwell-Weiss has so skillfully edited the ALL-SIS Newsletter for the last 10 years that I feel I have enormous shoes to fill – though I make no allusions to the size of Leah’s feet! I thank Leah for all the help and support she has given me thus far and know I can count on her during this transition year. And as I learn how to do this I hope you will all forgive the late issues, omissions or errors that are likely to occur.
Most importantly, I hope you will all HELP ME! At the ALL-SIS Breakfast and Business Meeting in Denver, outgoing Chair Beth Adelman mentioned that our SIS now has 1301 members. With all the issues facing law libraries in general and specifically law school libraries and librarians, our members must have a wealth of ideas and experiences to share. Don’t wait for the other guy! Try your hand at writing an article, however brief. Send me suggestions for columns. Get involved! This is your newsletter and forum. I invite everyone to participate – even if 10% of you write one article that’s 130 articles!!
I would also like to follow up on Jack’s comments about the current ABA standards review. As an Interim Director I have attended several meetings at which proposed revisions to the standards concerning law libraries and library directors were discussed. It is still relatively early in the review process, and there will be a mandatory notice and comment period after the Council of the Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar receives the report of the Section’s Standards Review Committee and approves any proposed changes. That is the opportunity for all 1301 of us to be involved.
Personally, I find the most troublesome draft provision put forth by the ABA Standards Review Committee to be the proposed revisions to Standard 606(c) which eliminate requirements that the library director possess a law degree and a library / information science degree. Instead the draft standard requires that the director “shall have the requisite skills and experience to provide leadership to the law school's information resource needs and shall have a sound knowledge of and experience in library administration." [See “Security of Position, Academic Freedom, and Attract and Retain Faculty” posted at http://www.abanet.org/legaled/committees/comstandards.html under “Drafts for Consideration at Standards Review Committee Meetings”, Meeting of July 24-25, 2010, “Academic Freedom”.] If we, as librarians and as an association do not protest loudly the suggestion that the library director need not even be a professional librarian, we will be abdicating the future of our profession. Read… become informed… and speak up. This seems to be the quintessential issue for our SIS at this time, and what is the SIS but each one of us?