While the number of submitted proposals for both ALL-SIS and AALL was slightly down, the ALL-SIS Programs Committee nonetheless received an excellent selection of program proposals on a wide variety of topics. I would like to thank all of the individuals who took the time to submit a proposal. The Programs Committee members, Molly Brownfield, Rosemary LaSala, Debora Person, Ron Wheeler, and I, carefully reviewed each of the proposals. The ALL-SIS Program Committee forwarded its recommendations to the AALL Annual Meeting Program Committee for review. A total of six ALL-SIS sponsored programs were accepted. Additionally, on the Program Committee’s recommendation, the ALL-SIS Executive Board selected four additional programs for independent sponsorship.
E-6: Teaching Advocacy in International Commercial Arbitration Research is Essential
Date & Time: Monday, July 25, 10:00 - 10:30 a.m.
Program Track: Teaching
Audience: Academic law librarians and law firms librarians who support international commercial arbitration practice groups
In the past, most international commercial arbitrators and practitioners came from a few international law firms. With the explosion of international commerce, international commercial arbitration (ICA) has become much more prevalent and more generalists have become involved. In a field that is qualitatively different than other areas of law, more research and practice instruction is necessary. Law librarians have unique qualifications to assist in this instruction. The program will explore the reasons favoring and disfavoring ICA as a dispute resolution tool. The program will also discuss how the characteristics of ICA create challenges to effective research and advocacy. The program will discuss sources of law in international commercial arbitration, how to locate these sources, and the use of these sources in ICA advocacy.
F-6: Meeting Employers' Expectations: Are Library Schools Doing Everything They Can?
Date & Time: Monday, July 25, 10:45 - 11:45 a.m.
Program Track: General or Core Programs
Audience: This program is designed to attract law library educators, students, and directors interested in how we can best meet the needs of today's library employers, while preparing LIS students to be leaders in the law library profession.
What are the skills and knowledge at the core of law librarianship in our digital global market? The panelists will be asked their views on library school curricula and on best strategies to give voice to faculty, students, and employers' in designing the LIS curricula. The panelists will share their opinions about how to improve law library curricula while balancing new market demands and digital directions with the profession's core competencies.
H-6: Making the Grade: Assessing Legal Research Skills in the Classroom and Firm
Date & Time: Tuesday, July 26, 9:00 - 10:30 a.m.
Track: Teaching
Audience: Academic Law Librarians, Firm Librarians, and Public Law Librarians
This program will feature law librarians actively involved in assessment in law schools and in law firms. David Armond, Senior Law Librarian at the BYU Law Library, will address the use of pre-teaching feedback such as using the results of TWEN quizzes before lectures to shape in-class instruction, and using practicums as effective assessment tools. Though his focus will be on assessment in a first year legal research course, the tools presented apply to all librarians who instruct patrons. Molly Brownfield, Head of Reference Services at Duke Law Library, will address assessment in the context of a specialized upper level research course, including concrete examples of research assignments and corresponding grading sheets. Additionally, she will speak to administrative aspects, such as grading according to a forced curve, and will show how tools in Excel can facilitate this process. Linda-Jean Schneider, Director of Libraries & Research at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, will discuss assessment activities she has undertaken in connection with her firm's associate training program, including the assessment of associates' legal research skills and the assessment of the training program itself.
J-1: Developing and Using Patron Satisfaction Surveys
Date & Time: Tuesday, July 26, 1:00 - 1:30 p.m.
Track: Reference, Research and Client Services
Audience: Librarians interested in focusing their library services to best meet the needs of their patrons
The Student Services Committee of ALL-SIS is undertaking a project to collect and compile student satisfaction surveys from member libraries. The result will be a compilation of the contributed surveys and a sample “best” survey culled from the responses. A web page of the surveys and a sample “best” survey will be posted to the ALL-SIS web page upon completion of the project. This program will be a direct result of the work of this Committee. It will include discussions of the benefits of a satisfaction survey, how to determine what information you want to get from the results, the best way to ask the questions to get the answers, the sample “best” survey, and what to do with the results. The presenters for this program will be selected from the surveys we collect from ALL-SIS members. Although based on information from members of ALL-SIS, we see the results as being of value to all library settings.
J-5: Feeling Good about Medical Legal Research
Date & Time: Tuesday, July 26, 1:00 - 1:30 p.m.
Track: Reference, Research and Client Services
Audience: Any Law Librarian who would like a step-by-step plan for conducting medical legal research in medical databases.
Most Law Librarians will have to locate and find appropriate medical or health-related research during the course of their careers. However, many of us are intimidated by medical or scientific information and do not know how to get started. This program provides an introduction for law librarians to locating and evaluating medical information. Topics to be covered include defining evidence-based medicine, applying the methods of evidence-based medicine to the process of medical research and evaluating information retrieved. Effective searching of MEDLINE using the controlled vocabulary MeSH (the National Library of Medicine’s Medical Subject Headings) will also be covered.
J-6: What’s Happening in Green Acres?: The Struggle for Information Access and Instruction in Less Populous Areas
Date & Time: Tuesday, July 26, 1:00 - 1:30 p.m.
Track: Reference, Research and Client Services
Audience: Law Librarian interested in services to less populous and rural areas.
Law schools and legal institutions in rural settings have a unique perspective on access to legal resources and instruction of legal professionals. Some vendors no longer support institution-specific representatives for smaller schools. Primary legal resources in low-population states are limited, and secondary sources may be non-existent. New attorneys going into rural law offices will have neither the resources of large firms nor the benefits of additional training by firm librarians. Given these realities, there is a need to address three central questions. What differences are legal institutions with significant rural populations noticing, and can these differences be documented? What is being done to accommodate for them? Where is it possible to affect change? Many law librarians in rural states are finding ways to benefit from this environment and making resources available to a grateful audience of legal professionals. This program is intended to illuminate the weaknesses of supply and raise awareness among librarians and vendors who service rural areas with a goal toward improvement.
ALL-SIS SPONSORED INDEPENDENT PROGRAMS
Supporting Librarian Scholarship
Date & Time: Sunday, July 24, 1:30 - 2:45 p.m.
Competency/Track: Library Management and Administration
This program examines three successful programs for supporting the scholarship of librarians. Creators and administrators of these programs will discuss how the programs were implemented and give advice on how they could be replicated by other libraries or groups. Successful participants in each program will discuss how the programs helped them produce publishable scholarship.
The three programs represented are (1) the Boulder Conference, (2) Georgetown Law Library's Scholarly Writing program, and (3) AALL research grants. The Boulder Summer Conference on Legal Information: Teaching and Scholarship allowed librarians to workshop their papers related to legal research pedagogy. Georgetown’s new program of a mini-sabbatical and library support group was established in response to an increasing interest in scholarly writing. AALL research grants provide support to librarians doing a wide-range of research.
Questioning the Paper Chase: Why Should Law Librarians Obtain a Law Degree?
Date & Time: Sunday, July 24, 3:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Competency/Track: General or Core Programs
For many years the requirement that a law librarian possess a law degree was almost exclusively seen in job postings for academic positions, usually at a supervisory level. However, this requirement is now often associated with even entry level jobs in all types of law libraries. This program posits two fundamental questions; do we need law degrees to do our job, and is a law degree a sound financial and professional investment for a law librarian today? A panel of librarians will provide differing viewpoints in answering these and other questions regarding the place of the JD in the profession.
We're All in This Together: Achieving Success Through Collaboration with Non-Library Staff
Date & Time: Monday, July 25, 8:45 - 9:45 a.m.
Competency/Track: Library Management and Administration
In 2003 at Chicago-Kent, part of the law school’s faculty support staff began reporting to the Library Director, which created an unusually rich opportunity for collaboration. Now the librarians and faculty support staff work together to expand library and educational technology services. This program will discuss how the librarians trained and collaborated with the faculty administrative assistants and how both groups have worked together on everything from course websites, to posting articles to SSRN and ExpressO, to creating a Library Virtual Tour (seen here: http://bit.ly/dtclibrarytour), a production that would not have been possible without extensive expertise of both librarians and faculty administrative assistants, and a collaborative attitude from all involved.
Empiricist or Empirical Reference Librarian?: Structuring an Empirical Legal Research Program
Date & Time: Monday, July 25, 2:15 - 3:30 p.m.
Competency/Track: Library Management and Administration
Fordham Law Library hired a Reference Librarian/Empirical Research Specialist and other academic law libraries are including knowledge of empirical research methods into their reference librarian job descriptions. At the Harvard Law School Library, there are two empirical research positions: Empirical Research Fellow and Empirical Research Consultant. Duke University School of Law has an Empirical Research Associate position, as well as a reference librarian who coordinates the library’s Empirical Legal Research Program. These are a few examples of how law libraries are responding to faculty’s increasing demand for empirical legal research support. While other sessions have focused on resources for doing empirical work, this program focuses on how academic law libraries are meeting the needs of faculty members by creating empirical positions within or in conjunction with the library. It will address the factors that led these institutions to create the empirical legal research programs and the structures of these programs. Panelists will discuss how the programs were implemented and will evaluate the programs’ strengths and weaknesses.