^*Brian Striman writes:

It's getting better and better each year! Come and join us for the 1997 Baltimore OBS/TS SIS Research Roundtable. Write down in your convention calendar, Sunday, July 20 3:00 - 4:00 p.m. Look for the room in the final convention brochure. In the past it's been scheduled for 1 ½ hours, but this year was trimmed to one hour to accommodate other conflicting time slots, or something like that. Anyway, the time we spend together during the Roundtable goes by quickly each year. Ellen McGrath and I plan to have a one sheet handout available at the TS and OBS booths with the scheduled day and time, plus our agenda. We will discuss the joint grant proposal status, review and discuss anyone's interests in publishing, share what we are doing and any other ideas that pop up, discuss the informal "mentoring" arrangement and the publishing opportunity "alert" e-mail list that Ellen has set up to see if we should continue with those things or do something different. If time permits, we hope to have someone talk about their experiences on getting an idea, researching it and getting it published.

In February 1997, Brian and Ellen revised and re-submitted the OBS/TS SIS joint research grant proposal to the Chairs of OBS and TS SIS for their review and feedback. There is a lot of work involved in getting a proposal like this reviewed and discussed and Sally Wambold and Jim Mumm are working with their Boards to get appropriate input and to figure out all the details to ensure everything is worked out correctly. At this point, I'm not sure where we are with the research grant proposal, but I can tell you that it is moving along the trail. I hope we can have some definitive word to pass on in the post-convention TSLL issue. Maybe there will be some action on the proposal in Baltimore.

If you're going to Baltimore (Ellen mentioned this in the last column, but a reminder won't hurt), please plan to attend program E1 "So You Wanna be a Writer" on Tuesday, July 22, 2:00 - 3:30 p.m. This looks to be an excellent program. I hope there are plenty of handouts.

As usual, there are a lot of publishing opportunities. Below are some I've selected for your perusal, with comments:

» Have you looked at issues of the publication Legal Information Management Index yet? In the front is a listing of the periodicals and subscription data of all the titles that are indexed by this fine publication (published bi-monthly by Legal Information Services in Sudbury, Massachusetts). "So what?" you say. Well, you can look down the impressive list of titles and pick out ones that sound good, write down the address of the publication and send off a letter to the editors, telling them you are a potential author and asking for the criteria for authors who want to submit material to their periodical. You can also look through each issue for what our colleagues may have published. In the Jan/Feb. 1997 issue, you can turn to page 19 and find a citation to an interesting article by Barbara Holt, published in the Winter 1997 issue of Perspectives, titled "Our Question--Your Answers: What Tips Can You Offer the Inexperienced Researcher for Determining When to End a Research Project?" In this same issue of Legal Information Management Index is the citation to an article by Joni Lynn Cassidy, "Cataloguing for Special Libraries: Administrative Perspectives" published in the Fall 1996 issue of Legal Information Management Reports. Chris Anglim wrote an article for the Spring 1997 issue of Jurisdocs titled "Docs to Dust? The Preservation Challenge for Depository Librarians [Documents]"

» Alva T. Stone gave a presentation at the February 15, 1997 ALCTS CCS (Cataloging and Classification Section) Research Discussion Group at ALA's mid-winter meeting. Alva's topic was a report on the first Library Research Seminar, held in Tallahassee in early November, 1996. The seminar was designed to facilitate the development of research-based knowledge for library and information professionals, explore interdisciplinary perspectives and new methodological approaches, and encourage collaborative research by practicing professionals and educators. At this same ALA conference the Acquisitions Section held an open forum on research and statistics. This forum promotes research and statistics in the area of acquisitions. The Chair, Roger Presley (librlp@gsu.edu), is the contact person for the forum.

» Speaking of acquisitions, here's an idea and perhaps a publishing opportunity. Will Jarvis, Head of Acquisitions at Washington State University Libraries, issued a call for acquisitions papers for a pending volume of The Acquisitions Librarian. The proposal, outline, and abstract of articles are due June 1, 1997, a deadline which is probably past. But I would recommend if you are interested, e-mail Will at jarvis@wsu.edu and see if he still would like proposals for future issues. I'd wager he'd be interested in a law library acquisitions-related article.

» A couple of months ago, across my desk came a little snippet "Free online magazine for researchers." I haven't looked at this Web site yet, but you can and then tell me what it's like. It says it's a "how-to magazine for librarians, corporate professionals, or anyone who does online research (http://www.onlineinc.com)."

» Want to be a book reviewer? Donna Tuke Heroy from Alert Publications, Inc. is looking for book reviewers on many legal topics. One of the topics that caught my eye was "finding legal/regulatory information on the Internet." Perhaps "you" would like take this on. Another idea is to contact Donna and tell her you are interested in reviewing a book in your area(s) of expertise. Donna's e-mail is heroy@ix.netcom.com. You say you don't the have expertise? How about a cooperative effort with another librarian, perhaps one of your own public services staff, or with a law firm librarian, or with an academic librarian, or with a state or county law librarian.