Private Law Libraries Special Interest Section
American Association of Law Libraries

CONTENTS

What's New

 

INTRODUCTION

 Since its inception in 1977, the Private Law Libraries Special Interest Section (PLL/SIS) of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) has sought to improve the quality and service of private law libraries by emphasizing their goals, needs and special interests, and to represent those interests and concerns within AALL and the larger community. With almost 1700 firm, corporate and independent librarian members, it is the largest special interest section of AALL. In fact, more than one-third of all AALL members belong to the PLL/SIS, making it a powerful force in the profession, and within the legal community.

As anyone connected with the industry can attest, the practice of law has undergone radical changes in the last ten years, and that, in turn, has radically affected the private law librarian. Outsourcing, budgetary constraints, space reduction, technology, the ever-changing face of the legal publishing industry -- all of these challenge our members, and in turn challenge AALL and PLL to respond to these changes through educational programming and the development of resources to help our members sharpen their skills and give them the tools they need to succeed.

While the PLL/SIS has always been extremely active, we have never before developed a strategic plan. This meant that we were choosing projects and making decisions without periodically stepping back to look at the big picture, an exercise that takes on even more importance as the environment changes rapidly. It also meant that we had nothing against which to measure our successes and failures as an association. As with most all-volunteer organizations, long-range planning is tough to accomplish, for a number of reasons. First, it requires a certain amount of continuity. PLL leaders rotate through the Executive Committee rather quickly, each with his or her own agenda, and it becomes difficult to sustain the momentum necessary to see the project through to completion. In addition, our myriad projects have been so time-consuming that it has been difficult to find the time necessary for strategic planning. And finally, with the Executive Committee members spread across the U.S., the only opportunity for face-to-face interaction has been once a year at the AALL Annual Meeting, a time which is already loaded with activity. Recognizing that the only way to actually carry out strategic planning was to carve out the time to do it, the Executive Committee of PLL met in Dallas in the first part of November of 1996. Out of that came this plan.

There are several parts to this document. The first component is an article on the process, written by JoAn Segal, our facilitator for the strategic planning session. This accurately describes the way we arrived at the results. Coming up with ideas has never been difficult for the leadership of this organization. What was lacking, at least in our estimation, was a theoretical framework - a list of ultimate goals that we wanted to achieve, and a list of criteria out of which we might choose our activities more carefully. After this process, we identified 26 activities that would help us attain our goals. Out of those, we identified the ones we thought we could accomplish, given the limited amount of time, money, and energy.

The second component to the plan is the list of activities where we would like to focus, including where these fell in regard to the vision statements we crafted, and the time line for implementation. This is the heart of the plan itself, and we urge you to read it over several times and to talk about it with your colleagues. Ask yourself: "How will these activities affect my ability to do my job? How will I be better off at the end of the plan than I am now?"

Also included in this packet is a response form. We are interested in input from our membership which can help direct and shape our next plan. As with all strategic plans, this is a work in progress, to be fine-tuned and adjusted as we progress. While these are the areas that weíve identified as important, there is, of course, always room for discussion and comment. In fact, we welcome the opportunity to discuss this plan with the membership and listen to their concerns. We also would like to use it as a checklist, of sorts, against which we can measure, at the end of the allotted time, our successes or failures. We hope that future PLL Executive Committees will continue to build on this document, and that it will be regularly compared and contrasted to the Strategic Challenge that is developed by AALL, (which is on a different planning cycle) to make certain that our activities both flow from, and inspire, our parent organizationís planning.

On that note, the PLL Executive Committee would like to thank Roger Parent, AALL Executive Director, for his encouragement to ìthink outside the boxî and his commitment to the PLL; to Frank Houdek, AALL President, and Tory Trotta, AALL Executive Board Member (and Chair of the AALL Long-Range Planning Committee) for their assistance with formulating the plan and helping us put it in the larger context of AALL; and to JoAn Segal, our facilitator, who carried us through to the end with unfailing . enthusiasm. To the extent that the plan shines, it is due in no small part to the involvement of these individuals.

One last comment: while the PLL Executive Committee has identified these projects as ones toward which we should be working, it is the responsibility of each one of us, as members, to make them a reality. Private law librarians are working in a challenging environment, under difficult circumstances. We need each and every one of us to contribute to this organization to the best of our ability in order to keep it responsive to the ever-changing needs of the marketplace. We have a tremendous amount at stake, and if we are to succeed in our task, we need you.


Michael Saint-Onge, Chair
Anne Ellis, Vice-Chair
Mary Smith Forman, Past Chair
Joan Jarosek, Treasurer
Jean O'Grady, Secretary
Sabrina Pacifici, Board Member
Karl Gruben, Board Member