The Local Systems Committee of the Online Bibliographic Services Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries met on July 22, 1997, at 5:30 p.m. in the Baltimore Convention Center. This time had many conflicts for members which included the Academic Libraries reception, the Technical Services SIS Serials Committee, and the Technical Services SIS Preservation Committee. Yet twelve members attended the meeting led by Chairperson Georgia Briscoe.

Introductions of members included what local system their library used and what features of their system were considered best and worst. Seven members had Innovative; two had Dynix; one had Bestseller; one had NOTIS; and one used Sirsi, Horizon and Data Trek as a consultant. Three members were migrating or in the process of selecting a system for migration.

Agenda items discussed:

» Topics for articles in Technical Services Law Librarian: Two possible articles emerged from the discussions. Phyllis Post could summarize her experience migrating from Data Trek to Innovative Interfaces. Margaret Lundahl could describe the pros and cons and compare the three systems she has used in private law libraries.

» Projects: Jacqui Paul suggested a long term project of listing minimum standards or features required by law libraries for local systems. It is thought that several systems are "going overboard with boxes and clicking" when streamlined steps for the basic procedures is more desirable. A second possible project would be documenting the best features of each system. And a third could be creating a check list of considerations for libraries which are migrating.

» Local Systems Directory: This publication, which is edited by Carol Nicholson (who was not able to attend) and sponsored by the Local Systems Committee, could be updated. Several members thought new items should be added to the directory entries and it might best be published electronically.

» Program proposals for AALL in Anaheim: It was believed that Vianne Sha (not in attendance) was working on a program proposal dealing with the local system as a total gateway. No other proposals were suggested.