Annual Reports

Legal Innovation & Technology SIS (LIT-SIS) ANNUAL REPORTS

2022-2023 LIT-SIS Annual Report
2021-2022 LIT-SIS Annual Report
2020-2021 LIT-SIS Annual Report
2019-2020 CS-SIS Annual Report
2018-2019 CS-SIS Annual Report
2016-2017 CS-SIS Annual Report

  • 2015-16 CS-SIS Annual Report

    Annual Meeting

    The Computing Services SIS had another successful Annual Meeting.  We sponsored a hot topics session, a workshop, and organized a great Cool Tools Café educational program.  Other CS activities at the Annual Meeting included the Joint Reception (CS/OBS/RIPS/TS), Karaoke with Ken, and the Breakfast and Business Meeting.

    The Hot Topics program was a presentation and discussion of the Case Analysis Research Assistant functionality of Casetext and its utility in legal research.  Pablo Arredondo, Vice-President for Legal Research of Casetext, presented.  Cool Tools Café was a “Must-Have Program” and again well attended this year. Kurt Meyer and Jessica Hanes coordinated over twenty presentations into two slates over the B and C time slots.

    Approximately fifty CS members attended the Breakfast and Business Meeting. Topics discussed included the implementation of the CS strategic plan and CS governance, the website migration, committee and Treasurer reports, and awards.

    Awards and Grants Committee

    Kris Niedringhaus was awarded the 2016 Kenneth J. Hirsh Distinguished Service Award.  Kris has contributed to CS and AALL in numerous ways, including involvement in over 20 AALL or CALI educational programs, two stints on the CS-SIS Executive Board including as Chair, serving on the CALI Executive Board, and serving on AMPC and more than a dozen CS committees.

    CS also awarded three Annual Meeting Grants:

    • Two for experienced librarians: Mari Cheney and Kris Niedringhaus
    • Grant for students & new librarians: Lacy Rakestraw

    The Grants & Awards Committee was chaired by Jean Willis.

    Education Committee

    The CS Education Committee presented an AALL-wide webinar in July. “Creating Engaging Digital Content to Teach and Promote Library Services” with presenters Beverly Butul and John Cannan was a success with a high attendance.

    The Education Committee was chaired by Kristopher Turner.

    Strategic Plan Implementation & CS Governance

    The Board spent a lot of time this year advancing the strategic plan and Executive Board practices.

    Changes implemented this year included:

    • Regular conference call meetings for the Board
    • Liaisons between Board members and CS committees
    • The Chair studied existing CS documentation and wrote a report on Succession Planning and Archives with recommendations. The report recommended a consolidation of documentation currently spread between individuals, the website, and the wiki. All documentation will now be housed in a CS Executive Board Google Drive account. The Chair also began to implement the requirement for committee chairs to write documentation to aid in succession planning.
    • In Spring 2016, the Website Content Review Taskforce was convened to review the content and organization of the CS website. In 2016-17, the Board will focus on updating the website based on these recommendations including re-organizing the website and integrating appropriate wiki content into the website. Out-of-date wiki content will be archived.
    • The first Vice-Chair Project was undertaken this year. The Vice-Chair submitted an AALL webinar proposal that was ultimately not selected.
    • The Executive Board reviewed the existing CS committee structure and reviseed the Program Planning Committee and reworked the Communications Committee into the Blog Committee.

    Website Migration

    Tom Boone, the CS webmaster, completed the migration to AALL’s content management system. The CS blog will continue to function on a separate platform, but will display on the AALL CS page.

    Officers

    The following served as officers for the year: Chair: Kincaid C. Brown, Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect: Cynthia Bassett, Secretary/Treasurer: Kara Young, Member-At-Large: Patrick Butler, and Immediate Past-Chair: Caroline Young. Incoming officers for the next year will include Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect: Jessica de Perio Wittman, and Member-At-Large: Alex Berrio Matamoros. We thank Caroline Young for chairing the Nominations Committee and providing an excellent slate of candidates.

    Respectfully Submitted,
    Kincaid C. Brown, CS-SIS Chair, 2015-16

  • 2014-15 CS-SIS Annual Report

    Annual Meeting

    The Computing Services SIS had a productive year.  The CS sponsored a Roundtable, an Educational Program and a Workshop at the 2015 Annual Meeting.  Other CS activities at the Annual Meeting included the Cool Tools Café, Karaoke with Ken, the Joint Reception (CS/OBS/RIPS/TS), and the CS-SIS Breakfast and Business Meeting.

    The CS-SIS Roundtable: Hot Topics in Law Library Technology was a big success.  The following topics were discussed: Social Media in Libraries, Mobile Apps for Law Librarians and Lawyers, Practice Readiness Technology, and Cloud Based Computing in Law Libraries.  The following CS members and leaders agreed to lead a session: KC Brown, Patrick Butler, Susanna Leers, Jackie McCloud, Charlotte Schneider, Kara Young and Jean Willis.

    CS also sponsored the AALL program Uncovering Discovery Systems: Digging Beyond the Hype and Gripe.  This was extremely well received and was named a “must-see.”  Special thanks to Nancy Babb and Iain Barksdale for coordinating and speaking, as well D. Prano Amjadi, Matthew L. Zimmerman and Kristina Anderson for speaking.

    Additionally, CS co-sponsored the preconference workshop: AALL Hackathon: Connecting Legal Information and many members participated.

    The Cool Tools Café was also very well attended and there were many positive comments about the new format this year.  A much larger space was provided this year which helped with noise control.  Each station has a large monitor and there was also a large presentation screen for the whole room.  There were almost twice as many presenters this year.  The changes were praised by both the attendees and presenters.  Special thanks to Kara Young for coordinating and to Jackie McCloud who assisted.

    The Annual Breakfast and Business Meeting was well attended.  Our own CS member Kenneth J. Hirsh, Director, Law Library and Information Technology and Professor of Practice at the University of Cincinnati College of Law spoke about the Evolving Roles for Law Librarians and Legal Technologists.  Committee Reports and the Treasurer’s Report were also heard before the official Board Transition.

    Website Migration

    Tom Boone, our webmaster reported that the migration is nearly complete.  The content has been migrated and now he is in the process of cleaning up.  The CS blog will continue to function on a separate platform.  Special thanks to Tom Boone for his exceptional assistance in getting the website migrated.

    Awards and Grants Committee

    Meg Kribble was awarded the Kenneth J. Hirsh Distinguished Service Award for 2015.  Meg’s service contributions are too numerous to list here but suffice it to say that Meg has served on the CS-SIS Board in nearly every capacity, including Member at Large and Chair.  Meg has also contributed a great deal of volunteer service to AALL serving in such capacities as:  Member of the Local Arrangements Committee for the 2012 conference in Boston, serving as Vice Chair and Chair of the Copyright Committee, and member of the Appointments Committee.  She is a true asset to the profession!

    We continued our practice of providing grants to worthy AALL members to attend the Annual Meeting. The Grants Committee, chaired by Kristina L. Niedringhaus, who was assisted by Vice-Chair Jean Willis awarded grants to the following members:

    • AALL CS-SIS Annual Meeting Grant for Students and New Librarians – Jessica Burkhardt, Fox Rothschild LLP
    • AALL CS-SIS Annual Meeting Grant for Experienced Librarians – Barbara Ginzburg, Washburn University School of Law Library

    Education

    The Education Committee chaired by Alex Berrio Matamoros and Lucy Fazzino served as Vice-Chair.  The committee initiated discussions of offering webinar programming around computing services related topics, submitted a proposal to the CS-SIS board request approval for such programming began discussions with Celeste Smith, Director of Education for AALL, regarding webinar programming; and intends to offer the first webinar in Fall 2015.

    Communications

    The Communications Committee chaired by Patrick Butler has been contributing to the CS-SIS blog and continuing to submit communications through social media platforms.  The major initiative of the year was the design and distribution of the Communications Survey to the CS membership and the resulting proposal to the Board.  A survey was designed to identify how the membership would most like to receive information and identify what information is most important.  The survey went out to the membership in March.  The Communications Committee then submitted a proposal to the Board to make changes to the communication methods, remove unused methods of communication, and bolster membership participation based on the results of the survey.  The proposal was approved and will be carried out in the next year.

    Strategic Planning Committee

    The Strategic Planning Committee was chaired by Debbie Ginsburg.  The Committee finalized the Strategic Plan and Implementation Document and submitted it to the Board and it was approved.  It is now in place for 2015-17.  The Plan builds on the work done the previous year which included four strategic goals: Education, Communication, Administration, and Year-Long Programs.  A fifth goal of Succession Planning was added with a new charge to the Chair, Vice-Chair and Immediate-Past-Chair in particular which includes mandatory Board meetings, designated liaisons to committees, a 2-year project for the Vice-Chair and for the Past-Chair to contribute documentation.

    Officers

    The following served as officers for the year: Chair: Caroline Young, Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect: Kincaid Brown,  Secretary/Treasurer: Ellen Qualey Jacquette, Members-At-Large Elizabeth Farrell and Patrick Butler, and Immediate Past-Chair: Susanna Leers.  Incoming officers for the next year will include Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect: Cynthia Bassett, Secretary/Treasurer: Kara Young; and Member-At-Large: Vicki Steiner.  Thank you Susanna Leers for chairing the Nominations Committee and providing an excellent slate of candidates.

    Respectfully Submitted,
    Caroline Young, CS-SIS Chair, 2014-15

  • 2013-14 CS-SIS Annual Report

    Annual Meeting

    Computing Services SIS sponsored a roundtable, an educational program and a workshop at the 2014 Annual Meeting. The Cool Tools Café was reconfigured by providing a table, large monitor and seating area for each presenter. The changes were praised by both the attendees and presenters.

    The Roundtable discussions on “Hot Topics in Law Library Technology” were led by CS-SIS board members and committee chairs. Topics included “Teaching Technology to Law Students,” “Discovery Layers,” “Providing computing hardware & services to faculty,” “Institutional Repositories & Open Access,” and “Free law online.”

    Computing Services participated in the CONELL Marketplace and in the exhibits area. Jean Willis, Chair of our Membership Committee, and her committee organized both events. There were 55 attendees at the Annual Breakfast and Business Meeting. The CS-SIS Strategic Planning Committee (Chair Debbie Ginsberg, Meg Kribble, Jacquelyn McCloud, Kristina Niedringhaus, and Caroline Young) led a brainstorming activity that engaged all attendees in discussing CS-SIS’s future. Participants discussed and presented suggested projects falling under CS-SIS’s four strategic goals: Education, Communication, Administration, and Year-Long Programs. Members shared their ideas with the larger group. The committee will incorporate these suggestions into the CS-SIS Strategic plan.

    Website Migration

    Following recommendations from the Website Task Force, a CS-SIS website migration team has been formed to move the CS website to the AALLNET with the assistance of the AALL’s IT Director and the CS webmaster.

    Awards and Grants Committee

    Jean Willis was awarded the Kenneth J. Hirsh Distinguished Service Award. Jean has, with great personal warmth and energy, served the Section and AALL in many capacities. She was a unanimous choice among the Executive Board members. We continued our practice of providing grants to worthy AALL members to attend the Annual Meeting. The Grants Committee, chaired by Monica Sharum, awarded grants to the following members:

    The Library Student and New Librarian grant was given to:
    Artie Berns. Student at the University of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign.

    Librarians with 3+ years in service to the profession:
    Debbie Ginsberg. Educational Technology Librarian, Chicago-Kent College of Law Library.

    Education

    The Education Committee chaired by Alex Berrio Matamoros surveyed CS-SIS members on what educational programming they wish to see and the committee will use the information for upcoming programs.

    Communications

    The Communications Committee chaired by Elizabeth Farrell plans to unify CS-SIS Social Media accounts, and has been working on increasing the SIS’s presence on Twitter leading up to the conference. They will also be involved as we migrate the CS-SIS website over to the AALLNET platform.

    Officers

    The following served as officers for the year: Susanna Leers. chair; Caroline Young. vice chair/chair-elect; Ellen Qualey Jacquette. secretary/treasurer; Kincaid Brown and Elizabeth Farrell, member s-at-large; and Jason Eiseman. immediate past chair. Incoming officers for the next year will include Kincaid Brown as vice chair/chair-elect and Patrick Butler as incoming member-at-large. We thank Jason Eiseman for chairing the Nominations Committee and providing an excellent slate of candidates.

    Respectfully Submitted,
    Susanna Leers, CS-SIS Chair, 2013-14

  • 2012-13 CS-SIS Annual Report

    Jason Eiseman, Chair 2012­-2013
    August 12, 2013

    The officers of the Computing Services Special Interesting Section during 2012-­13 were Jason Eiseman, Chair; Susanna Leers, Vice Chair; Meg Kribble, Past Chair; Cynthia Bassett, Secretary/Treasurer; Kincaid Brown, Member at Large; and Tom Boone, Member at Large. In 2013­14, our officers are Susanna Leers, Chair; Caroline Young, Vice Chair; Jason Eiseman, Past Chair; Ellen Qualey, Secretary/Treasurer; Elizabeth Farrell, Member at Large; and Kincaid Brown, Member at Large.

    The Section’s 2013 Annual Breakfast and Business Meeting was held on Monday July 15 at 7:00am. CS­SIS is thankful to the meeting’s sponsors: Bloomberg Law/Bloomberg BNA, William S. Hein & Co., LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters, and Wolters Kluwer Law and Business.

    The annual Kenneth J. Hirsh Distinguished Award for outstanding service was presented to Debbie Ginsberg. CS­SIS awarded grants to attend the Annual Meeting to Members Merri Hartse, Patrick Butler, and Kara Young. Member at Large Tom Boone and Awards & Grants Committee Chair Monica Sharum participated in the selection of AALL’s Innovations in Technology Award.

    In response to the new programming process created by AALL, CS still sponsored additional educational opportunities at the annual meeting. The section sponsored a program on responsive web design, held a “pop­up meeting” where CS members brainstormed creative ways to approach difficult problems, and the CS Emerging Technologies subcommittee again proposed and put on the popular “Cool Tools Cafe.”

    In addition, CS brought in a user experience specialist to speak at the annual breakfast meeting. Lada Gorlenko a Research and Strategy Lead at Artefact, a leading User Experience company in Seattle spoke about “USER RESEARCH FOR NON­RESEARCHERS: HOW TO GET STARTED AND KEEP GOING.” CS­SIS once again hosted the annual social outing Karaoke with Ken during the Annual Meeting and participated in the jointly sponsored “Alphabet Soup” reception with

    The section also initiated an important recruitment initiative, spearheaded by Jean Willis. This year we sent an email to all new AALL members informing them about our section and the benefits of membership.

  • 2011-12 CS-SIS Annual Report

    Meg Kribble, Chair 2011-2012
    August 10, 2012

    The officers of the Computing Services Special Interest Section during 2011-12 were Meg Kribble, Chair; Jason Eiseman, Vice Chair; Debbie Ginsberg, Past Chair; Cynthia Bassett, Secretary/Treasurer; Dan Blackaby, Member at Large; and Tom Boone, Member at Large. In 2012-13, our officers are Jason Eiseman, Chair; Susanna Leers, Vice Chair; Meg Kribble, Past Chair; Cynthia Bassett, Secretary/Treasurer; Tom Boone, Member at Large; and Kincaid Brown, Member at Large.

    The Section held its 2012 Annual Breakfast and Business Meeting on Tuesday July 24. CS-SIS is thankful to the meeting’s sponsors: Bloomberg Law/Bloomberg BNA, William S. Hein & Co., LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters, and Wolters Kluwer Law and Business.

    During breakfast, Member Ken Hirsh led the Section in a toast in memory of Member Elizabeth Glankler, a past CS-SIS Chair and Hirsh Award winner who died earlier this year. CS-SIS made a donation to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Glankler’s memory.

    The annual Kenneth J. Hirsh Distinguished Award for outstanding service was presented to Bonnie Shucha. CS-SIS awarded grants to attend the Annual Meeting to Members Ellen Qualey and Wilhelmina Randtke. The Section also recognized Member Jean Willis’s receipt of the AALL Volunteer Service Award. Member at Large Dan Blackaby and Awards & Grants Committee Chair Monica Sharum participated in the selection of AALL’s Innovations in Technology Award.

    The Communications Committee launched the new CS-SIS website in late 2011. The Drupal-based site provides the Section with a blogging platform and web space for archiving CS-SIS information as well as built-in survey tools and forms. Members are now blogging and posting updates via the website.

    The ad-hoc Strategic Plan Committee drafted a new strategic plan that has not yet been adopted due to upcoming changes in annual meeting program planning. The draft plan will be revised over the coming year.

    The CS-SIS Board approved addition of our newsletter archives to HeinOnline.

    CS-SIS sponsored or co-sponsored 8 programs at the 2012 Annual Meeting including a full-day workshop on mobile apps. Other popular sessions included the annual “Cool Tools Cafe,” “Searching Legal Opinions: The Google Scholar Approach,” and “Guerilla Usability Testing.” In addition, CS-SIS sponsored its own programming: a roundtable discussion, “What’s it All About Techie?: Does Educational Technology Help Law Students Learn Law?”, a hot topic program about ebook creation, and a session on HTML5. The Education Committee blogged and recorded the Section-sponsored programming for posting on our website.

    CS-SIS once again hosted the annual social outing Karaoke with Ken during the Annual Meeting.

  • 201-11 CS-SIS Annual Report

    Deborah Ginsberg, Chair 2010-11
    August 12, 2011

    The officers of the Computing Services Special Interest Section during 2010-11 were Deborah Ginsberg, Chair; Meg Kribble, Vice Chair; Bonnie Shucha, Past Chair; Melissa Serfass, Secretary/Treasurer; Jason Eiseman, Member at Large; and Daniel Blackman, Member at Large. In 2011-12, our officers are Meg Kribble, Chair; Jason Eiseman, Vice Chair; Deborah Ginsberg, Past Chair; Cynthia Bassett, Secretary/Treasurer; Daniel Blackaby, Member at Large; and Thomas Boone, Member at Large.

    The Section’s 2011 Annual Business and Breakfast meeting was held on Tuesday, July 27, at 7:15. At this meeting, the membership approved minor changes in the Section’s by laws to clarify ambiguous language. Members also discussed the 2011-12 Strategic Plan which includes specific recommendations for the Section for the coming year. CS-SIS is thankful to the meeting’s sponsors: HeinOnline, Lexis/Nexis, Wolters Kluwer, and BNA.

    The CS-SIS annual Kenneth J. Hirsh Distinguished Award for outstanding service was presented to June Hsiao Liebert, Director of the Law Library at the John Marshall School of Law. CS-SIS also awarded grants to attend the Annual Meeting to Beth Given and Jennifer Prilliman. The Section also participated in the selection of AALL’s Innovations in Technology Award, which was presented to “The People’s Law Library.”

    CS-SIS experienced problems with its self-hosted website in the fall of 2010. The Section decided to take this opportunity to redesign the website using the popular Drupal content management system. The new site will launch by the fall of 2011. CS-SIS is looking forward to using its new site as a tool to introduce and teach Drupal to our members who are interested in learning more about it.

    The Recruitment Committee surveyed the Section’s members for feedback about communication and volunteer opportunities. CS-SIS will use the results to reach out to members in the coming year. The Adaptive Technologies Committee reported on accessibility issues with PBWiki (used by the section to host several projects) as well as the new AALLNet website.

    CS-SIS sponsored or co-sponsored 12 programs at the 2011 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. Popular sessions included “Cool Tools Cafe” which invited participants to attend hands-on demos for mobile, scholarly, and educational technologies. We were proud to host VIP Nicole Engard of ByWater Solutions. Nicole presented CS-SIS’s annual “Hot Topic,” discussing open source technologies available to law libraries. Additionally, she was one of four presenters for the session “Coding Potpourri: A Survey of Programming Languages and Tools Used in Library Applications Today.” CS-SIS recorded its self-hosted programs which will soon be available on the new website.

    CS-SIS also hosted two popular social events at the Annual Meeting – Karaoke with Ken and the annual Bloggers Meet-Up (with special guest Meredith Lindemon).

  • 2009-10 CS-SIS Annual Report

    Bonnie Shucha, Chair 2009-10

    Annual Meeting

    The Computing Services Special Interest Section sponsored eight educational programs, one roundtable and one workshop at the 2010 Annual Meeting in Denver, CO. Programs topics ranged from mobile applications and e-book readers to digital preservation to database design and ownership. Drawing on positive feedback from previous Cool Tools programs and workshops showcasing various emerging technologies, we continued on with the theme this year but changed to a hands-on format. At the “Cool Tools Café,” over 20 CS-SIS members demonstrated tools and gadgets that to help librarians create, organize and deliver information, increase productivity, and connect with users.

    CS-SIS also provided support for “Lawberry Camp 2010,” a user-generated un-conference organized by members Jason Eiseman and Sarah Glassmeyer.

    Under the direction of our Education Committee chaired by Dan Blackaby, CS-SIS live-streamed video and audio of several of our programs. CS-SIS also participated at the CONELL Marketplace and in the exhibits area again this year thanks to the coordination of Recruitmentand Involvement Chair, Jean Willis.

    Awards and Grants

    Richard Leiter (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) was awarded the Kenneth J. Hirsh Distinguished Service Award in 2010. The award honors a CS-SIS member who has made outstanding contributions to the SIS, to AALL, and who is well regarded for his or her service to the profession. We continued our practice of providing grants to worthy AALL members to attend the Annual Meeting. The Grants Committee, chaired by Monica Sharum, gave grants to two members who we look forward to working with CS-SIS in the years to come. Our Newer Librarian grant wasawarded to Cynthia Bassett (University of Missouri-Columbia). Our Experienced Librarian grant was awarded to Marin Dell (Florida State University).

    In addition, the Computing Services Special Interest Section also awarded a registration grant to incoming chair, Deborah Ginsberg in recognition of the significant amount of work entailed in chairing this special interest section.

    Communication

    The Computing Services Special Interest section continues to use new technologies to reach our members. In addition to keeping content current on our website and blog, we also added new content to our wiki, such as lists of librarians using LibGuides and Twitter, as well as an update to our list of law library blogs. CS-SIS also communicates through our listserv and Twitter feed. Adaptive Technology Committee Chair, Ryan Overdorf performed a study on the accessibility of the CS-SIS wiki and hopes to make improvements in the coming year.

    Officers

    The following people served as officers for 2009-2010: Bonnie Shucha, chair; Deborah Ginsberg, vice chair/chair-elect; Melissa Serfass, secretary/treasurer; Meg Kribble, senior member-at-large; and Jason Eiseman, junior member-at-large; and Victoria Szymczak, immediate past chair. This year, new duties were added to the members-at-large position. The junior member serves as the chair of the Communications Committee and the senior member coordinates non-AMPC events as a member of the Program Planning Committee.

    Incoming officers for 2010-2011 include Deborah Ginsberg as chair; Meg Kribble as vice chair/chair-elect; Melissa Serfass as secretary/treasurer; Jason Eiseman as senior member-atlarge; Dan Blackaby as junior member-at-large; and Bonnie Shucha as immediate past chair.

    CS-SIS thanks the Nominations Committee, chaired by Victoria Szymczak, for proposing an excellent slate of candidates this year and secretary/treasurer, Melissa Serfass, for organizing the election.

  • 2008-09 CS-SIS Annual Report

    Vicki Szymczak, Chair 2008–09

    Annual Meeting 

    Computing Services is sponsoring eight educational programs and one workshop at the 2009 Annual Meeting. We are particularly proud of the Cool Tools Workshop, which grew out of the positive feedback from the 2008 educational program of the same name.

    Under the supervision of the Educational/Emerging Technologies Committee, we will rerun the Web 2.0 Challenge, a volunteer-based, free educational program for AALL members.

    Besides our regular business meeting and breakfast meeting, we will hold two RoundtableDiscussions. This year the Roundtables include a discussion titled “Mashing Up the White House” (with guest speaker John Wonderlich, policy director, Sunlight Foundation), and a reception for Web 2.0 Challenge participants. We will also be hosting a Hot Topic discussion with speaker/blogger Connie Crosby who will be addressing the necessity for librarians to monitor emerging information technologies, especially in light of the current economic downturn.

    This year, Computing Services will be sponsoring VIP registrant Connie Crosby at AALL.

    Computing Services will participate at the CONELL Marketplace and in the exhibits area, interviewing members and posting comments on our website.

    Awards and Grants 

    Sheri Lewis was awarded the Kenneth J. Hirsh Distinguished Service Award. Lewis served theSection and AALL in many official and unofficial capacities and well deserved the award. She was a unanimous choice among the Executive Board members.

    We continued our practice of providing grants to worthy AALL members to attend the Annual Meeting. The Grants Committee, chaired by Monica Sharumt, gave grants to the following  members who we look forward to working with CS-SIS in the years to come.

    Library Student and New Librarian grants were given to:

    • Joe Cera, Student, University of Washington
    • Caroline Young, Reference and Technology Librarian, Rutgers University Law School Library

    Librarians with three plus years in service to the profession:

    • Carmen Melendez, Reference Librarian, University of Puerto Rico Law Library
    • Wei Fang, Digital Services Librarian, Rutgers University Law School Library.

    In addition, Computing Services Special Interest Section added a new registration grant this year for the elected Incoming chair in order to recognize the significant amount of work entailed in chairing this special interest section. Incoming Chair Shucha is the first recipient.

    Communication 

    A new Communications Committee was formed to adopt a new website and wiki, which will serve as the new platforms for CS news and information. This committee has also redesigned our SIS brochure.

    Officers 

    The following served as officers for the year: Vicki Szymczak, chair; Bonnie Shucha, vice chair/chair-elect; Jean Willis, secretary/treasurer; Katie Brown and Meg Kribble, member-at-large; and June Hsiao Liebert, immediate past chair. Incoming officers for the next year will include Debbie Ginsberg as vice chair/chair-elect, Melissa Serfass as secretary/treasurer and Jason Eiseman as incoming member-at-large. We thank June Liebert for chairing the Nominations Committee and giving us an excellent slate of candidates.

  • 2006-07 CS-SIS Annual Report

    Kristina L. Niedringhaus, Chair 2006-07

    The Computing Services Special Interest Section (CS-SIS) sponsored several timely and informative programs in New Orleans: “How (and What) to Podcast” (workshop); “CSSIS Playtime: Hands-On Exploration of Presentation Gadgets and Software”; “Step Away from the Podium! Tips, Tricks and Technologies for Energizing Training Sessions and Legal Research Classes”; “CS-SIS Hot Topic: The Intersection of Web 2.0 and Libraries”; and “The E-Book Report: Using Electronic Books in your Law Library.” CSSIS is sponsoring Ernest Svenson, aka “Ernie the Attorney”, as our SIS VIP. Ernie will also be the speaker at our annual breakfast meeting. Finally, CS-SIS is hosting two roundtable discussions, holding its annual business meeting, attending the CONELL Marketplace and hosting a table in the exhibits area.

    Connecting…, the CS-SIS newsletter, published two issues electronically this year under the guidance of Eric Kistler, chair, and the rest of the Publications Committee.

    The Awards Committee, chaired by James Duggan, selected James G. Milles as a recipient of the Kenneth J. Hirsh Distinguished Service Award. Jim has served CS-SIS and AALL in many invaluable ways and has mentored numerous law librarians through the years. CS-SIS is pleased to award Jim this well-deserved recognition of his service.

    The Grants Committee, chaired by Jim Gernert, awarded Annual Meeting grants to the following two CS-SIS members: Julie Jones, Cornell University Law Library and Katie Jones, Wyoming State Law Library.

    This year CS-SIS created a new committee on Emerging Technologies. The committee, chaired by Eric Gilson and Debbie Ginsberg, is exploring emerging technologies and their role in the law library setting and is planning ways to facilitate collaboration on these topics.

    The following served as officers for the year: Kristina L. Niedringhaus, Chair; June Hsiao Liebert, Vice Chair/Chair-Elect; Eric W. Young, Secretary/Treasurer (until December 2006); Victoria Szymczak, Secretary/Treasurer (January 2007 – end of term);

    Debbie Ginsburg and Bonnie Shucha, Members at Large; and Dominick Grillo, Immediate Past Chair. Incoming officers for the next year will include Victoria Szymczak as Vice Chair/Chair-Elect; Jean Willis as Secretary/Treasurer; and Katie Jones as incoming Member at Large, replacing Debbie Ginsberg. Many thanks go to Dom Grillo for chairing the Nominations Committee and submitting an excellent slate of candidates.

  • 2005-06 CS-SIS Annual Report

    Dominick Grillo, Chair 2005–06

    Computing Services is sponsoring four programs at the 2006 Annual Meeting: Let’s All Wiki Wiki! Creative Uses for Wikis in Any Library; Invasion of the Podcast People: Podcasting for the Law Library; Managing Beyond the Library: Successful Management of IT Departments for Law Librarians; and Beyond Google: Hot New and Specialty Search Engines. Besides our regular Business Meeting and Breakfast Meeting – with Guest Speaker John Mayer (Executive Director of CALI) – we will once again be holding two Roundtable Discussions. This year the topics are Organizing Legal Databases on Library Websites and Web Site Design & Maintenance. Computing Services will also be present, as usual, at the CONELL Marketplace and in the exhibits area.

    Communication

    Connecting…, the Newsletter for the SIS had 2 issues published this year, thanks to Chair Eric Kistler and the rest of the Publications Committee Also active was the blog maintained by our Blawgs Committee, Co-Chaired by Debbie Ginsberg and Bonnie Schucha. Computing Services also started a wiki this year.

    Awards and Grants

    Liz Glankler was the next recipient of the Kenneth J. Hirsh Distinguished Service Award. Liz served the Section and AALL in many official and unofficial capacities and well deserved the award.

    We continued our practice of providing grants to worthy AALL members to attend the Annual Meeting. The Grants committee, chaired by Jim Gernert, gave grants to the following three members who we look forward to working with CS-SIS in the years to come.

    • Hadi Amjadi, Golden Gate University Law School
    • Frank Lima, Northern Illinois University College Of Law
    • Dawn Marin Dell, Florida State University College of Law

    Looking Ahead

    Two particular events should be highlighted, both of which will be discussed and acted upon at the Business Meeting at the Annual Meeting. The first is a proposal to modify our Bylaws in case of a tie during an election. The second is a discussion on a possible name change for our section. An Ad Hoc Name Change committee was formed (chaired by Sheri Lewis) to investigate this issue which grew out of our last survey of our members.

    Officers

    The following served as officers for the year: Dominick Grillo, Chair; Kristina Niedringhaus, Vice Chair / Chair-Elect; Eric W. Young, Secretary/Treasurer; Robert A. Jacoby and Debbie Ginsburg, Member-at-Large; and Susan Boland, Immediate Past Chair. Incoming officers for the next year will include June Hsiao Liebert as Vice Chair / Chair-Elect and Bonnie Shucha as incoming Member-at-Large (replacing Robert Jacoby). We thank Susan Boland for Chairing the Nominations Committee and giving us an excellent slate of candidates.

  • 2004-05 CS-SIS Annual Report

    Susan Boland,  Chair 2004–05

    Thanks to its dedicated and enthusiastic members, the CS-SIS accomplished a number of important projects this year. This year, the CS-SIS tried to focus on member education and support.

    Education

    Five CS-SIS sponsored programs are being offered at the 2005 Annual Meeting: “Creating & Using Interactive Electronic Legal Research Lessons,” “Raise Your Standards, Improve Your World and Create Universal Web Pages,” “30 Cheap Web Development Tools in 30 Minutes,” “Multimedia Presentations: How to Get Copyright Clearance and Other Permissions for Digital Projects,” and “Beyond the Blog: RSS, Wikis, and Blikis.” The Roundtable Planning/Coordination Committee, chaired by Eric Young, is running two roundtables at the Annual Meeting this year, one on Web design and maintenance and one on instructional technology. This year’s CS-SIS Breakfast is on the future of law librarianship and featured Roy Mersky, the Harry M. Reasoner Regents Chair in law, and director of research at the Tarlton Law Library at the Jamail Center for Legal Research at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. Other CS-SIS meetings and events will include the CS-SIS Executive Board Meeting, CS/TS/OBS/RIPS-SIS Joint Reception, the CS-SIS Business Meeting, the CS-SIS Program Planning Committee Meeting, and Karaoke night.

    The Technology Competencies Committee, chaired by Eric Gilson, developed a resource guide related to the core competencies AALL has developed for information technology. This guide will be available at the CS-SIS Web site. Also developed this year for the CS-SIS Web site were a resource guide for obtaining copyright clearance for digital projects and a guide to inexpensive Web development tools. These join our CS-SIS Adaptive Technology Guides, Cascading Style Sheets Templates, and Job Descriptions Database. The Job Descriptions Database has surpassed 900 entries this year.

    To support librarians interested in blogging, the CS-SIS developed a new Blawgs Committee co-chaired by Bonnie Shucha and Debbie Ginsberg. The committee created a blawg, using Bloki, a web service which also runs forums and wikis. This committee now has nearly 30 members who actively contribute to the CS-SIS blawg at http://cssisblawgs.bloki.com/blog/.

    Publicity

    The CS-SIS continued to promote the visibility of our section by submitting articles for every issue of Spectrum’s “SIS News” column. CS-SIS events will also be featured in the annual newspaper and blog, the AALLamo. We also published two issues of our newsletter Connecting…, one in December and one in June. The Recruitment and Involvement Committee is reaching out to new law librarians by running a table at the CONELL marketplace as well as putting together a wonderful display in the exhibit hall.

    Other Committee Work
    Other CS-SIS committees also worked hard this year. The Grants Committee, under the direction of Cynthia Lewis, awarded three program registration grants to David Lehmann, Eric Young, and Bonnie Shuscha. A special CONELL grant was awarded to Denise Potter. The Strategic Plan Committee, chaired by Robert Jacoby, ran a survey of CS-SIS membership and developed a draft strategic plan that was voted on at the Annual Meeting. The Nominations Committee, chaired by Don Arndt, chose an excellent slate of candidates to run for office. Our second electronic election was held and elected were Kris Neidringhaus, Vice Chair/Chair-Elect; Eric Young, Secretary/Treasurer; and Debbie Ginsberg, Member-at-Large. They join the 2005–2006 Executive Board members Dom Grillo, Chair; Susan Boland, Immediate Past Chair; and Robert Jacoby, Member-at-Large. We give a heartfelt thanks to our departing Board members, 2004–2005 Past Chair Don Arndt, Secretary/Treasurer Vicki Szymczak, and Member-at-Large June Liebert.

    As the role of information technology grows in libraries, the role of the Computing Services SIS to provide a voice and support for law library personnel involved with information technology also continues to grow.

  • 2003-04 CS-SIS Annual Report

    Don Arndt, Chair 2003-04

    The Computing Services SIS made progress in a number of areas over the past year, while continuing to carry out functions that it has traditionally performed well. Our biggest accomplishment was increasing the visibility of our section, which hopefully will motivate our membership to further achievement.

    Electronic Election

    We held the very first all-electronic election in AALL history, thanks to CS member and past-chair, Ken Hirsh. As chair of the bylaws committee, Ken drafted an amendment to allow for electronic balloting, which was subsequently approved. He then set up a secure electronic voting mechanism that is more efficient and cost-effective than paper balloting, while preserving each member’s right to a secret ballot. After our election was held and publicized in April, we received requests from other sections on both the bylaws requirements and technical aspects of conducting electronic elections. Ken will share his expertise on this at the SIS Council business meeting in Boston this July.

    Publicity

    The CS-SIS also achieved greater visibility among the entire association by submitting articles for almost every issue of AALL Spectrum’s “SIS News” column. Activities that were highlighted include CS-sponsored educational programs, service initiatives, philanthropic work, accomplishments of our SIS as a whole, and the noteworthy accomplishments of our individual members. CS-SIS events will also be featured in every daily issue of the annual meeting newspaper in Boston, “The HUB.”

    Communication

    We continue to look for ways to expand opportunities for communication with and among our membership. We have three primary means of communication, all of which act primarily as announcement vehicles. Our Web site, at http://www.aallnet.org/sis/cssis/, contains links to CS information and resources. We are completing an overhaul of the Web site’s design, which will result in an improvement in its look, usability, and ease of revision. We published two issues of our newsletter, Connecting…, in December and June. Both issues were published in electronic format via our Web site, resulting in savings of hundreds of dollars in printing and mailing costs. Our e-mail discussion list, CSSIS-L, was auto-populated in the early autumn with all of our members’ e-mail addresses, ensuring full distribution of messages to our membership. Since the most effective channel of active communication among our members continues to be the in-person encounter, we have made efforts to increase turnout at our annual meeting and CALI conference events through the judicious use of prizes and giveaways.

    Philanthropy

    The CS-SIS increased its giving on behalf of the association by making a $1,000 pledge to the George Strait Minority Scholarship Endowment in order to help this worthy cause reach its $100,000 goal this year. We also continued to provide financial assistance to librarians who hold promise of future involvement in the law library profession, especially those who are directly involved in providing technology support of any kind within law libraries. This year’s grant recipients are:

    • Kevin Cook – State Law Library of Montana
    • Lisa White – 1st Circuit Court of Appeals Library.
    • Kim Deniker – Mercer County Court Library

    Service

    We increased our activities of service to the profession in three areas. First, the CS-SIS Job Descriptions Database expanded to over 700 entries this year. Employers who are creating or revising their job descriptions can use this resource as a collection of models to work from. Second, we are working on a similar database to highlight the collection strengths of academic law libraries in the United States. Third, we are working on an adaptive technologies addition to our Web site to help Web page creators improve accessibility in their Web page designs.

    Annual Meeting

    Four CS-sponsored programs were approved for the 2004 annual meeting:

    • Beyond the traditional curriculum: How to Create and Teach a Law Practice Technology Course. Speakers: Maryanne Gerber and Sally Irvin; Coordinator: Ken Hirsh.
    • Creativecommons.org and Publishing in the Digital Age. Speakers: Lawrence Lessig and Elisabeth Long; Coordinator: Sheri Lewis.
    • Designing Artificial Intelligence-Based Agents For Your Reference Desk. Speakers: Roy Balleste and Brian Williams; Coordinator: Roy Balleste.
    • Translating the World Wide Web: Selecting and Using Website Translation Software. Speaker: Roy Balleste; Coordinator: Kris Niedringhaus.

    Other CS meetings and events in Boston will include:

    • CS-SIS Executive Board Meeting (2003-04 & 2004-05)
    • CS/TS/OBS/RIPS-SIS Joint Reception
    • CS-SIS Business Meeting
    • CS-SIS Breakfast Meeting (featuring speakers Betty Taylor and Dan Henke)
    • CS-SIS Roundtable on Web Design & Maintenance
    • CS-SIS Program Planning Committee Meeting (2004-2005)

    Executive Board

    The Nominating Committee put together a competitive slate of candidates for our two offices in contention this year. Congratulations to our new officers:

    • Incoming Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect: Dominick Grillo
    • Incoming Member-at-Large: Robert Jacoby

    They will join the continuing members of our 2004-2005 Executive Board:

    • 2004-2005 Chair: Susan Boland
    • 2003-2005 Secretary/Treasurer: Vicki Szymczak
    • 2003-2005 Member-at-Large: June Liebert
    • 2004-2005 Immediate Past Chair: Don Arndt

    A fond farewell and huge thank-you to our Board members whose terms are expiring:

    • 2002-2004 Member-at-Large: Kris Niedringhaus
    • 2003-2004 Immediate Past Chair: Liz Glankler

    Committees

    • Adaptive Technologies
      Chair: Ryan Overdorf
    • Awards
      Chair: Jean Willis
    • Bylaws
      Chair: Ken Hirsh
    • Grants
      Chair: Susan Boland
    • Membership
      Chair: Eric Young
    • Mentoring
      Chair: Jim Milles
    • Nominations
      Chair: Liz Glankler
    • Program Planning
      Chair: Don Arndt
    • Publications
      Chair: Eric Kistler
    • Recruitment & Involvement
      Chair: Vicki Szymczak
    • Roundtable Planning/Coordinating
      Chair: Susan Boland
    • Strategic Planning
      Chair: Kris Niedringhaus
    • Technology Competencies
      Chair: Sally Irvin
    • Web Development
      Chair: June Liebert

    The Computing Services Special Interest Section has concluded a year of growth and stability. We accomplished a number of things, but much work remains for the future. With continued strong leadership and active participation, great things are possible.

  • 2000-01 CS-SIS Annual Report

    Sheri Lewis, Chair 2000-01

    The Computing Services Special Interest section enjoyed a productive previous twelve months marked by two overall themes. The first theme focused on efforts to gain increasing visibility within the Association and among CS-SIS section members. The second theme was the continuation of successful projects and activities developed in recent years.

    In terms of the first theme, the greatest accomplishment of this year’s CS-SIS was the resurrection of the CS-SIS Newsletter . The Publications Committee (James Duggan, chair) served as an advisory committee for the editors of the newsletter, Liz Glankler and Sandra Braber-Grove. The Publications Committee established a “Name the New Newsletter” Contest with an award of $50 to the successful submission. James Duggan generously donated the $50 prize money. The winning entry was Connecting…Connecting… was published twice this past year, both in print to all CS-SIS members and simultaneously on the CS-SIS web site. The first issue came out in December 2000 and Liz Glankler served as the primary editor for that issue. The second issue was published in June 2001 and Sandra Braber-Grove was the primary editor for that issue. The two issues ofConnecting… included both news from the CS-SIS as well as informative articles in the area of technology. Two recurrent columns were “Ask the Guru,” which has responses to technology-related questions sent to the editors, and “On the Front Lines,” a column by Ken Hirsh reviewing the past, present and future of law library computing.

    The CS-SIS also achieved greater visibility among the entire Association by frequent write ups in the SIS column in The Spectrum. Information about the CS-SIS was included in almost all of the SIS columns in The Spectrum during the past year. Some of the activities that were highlighted in these articles include the Job Descriptions Database, the Grants program, the CS-SIS Breakfast, and CS-SIS Strategic Plan. The CS-SIS will also be featured in two articles in the Annual Meeting newspaper News From Up North. Jean Willis (Member-at-Large) and Sheri Lewis (Chair) will preview various CS-SIS Annual Meeting activities in these articles.

    The CS-SIS has enjoyed highly-qualified and competitive election slates and this year was no exception. The Nominating Committee (James Duggan, chair) worked to attract a fine group of candidates for the three offices in contention this year. Following upon the passage of a bylaws amendment last year, the section elected the second of its two members-at-large this year, Susan Boland. Elected as Secretary/Treasurer was Dominick Grillo. And the new Vice Chair/Chair elect will be Liz Glankler. These new officers will join James Duggan (Chair), Sheri Lewis (Past Chair) and Jean Willis (Member-at-Large) to comprise the 2001-2002 CS-SIS Executive Board. Leaving the CS-SIS Board this year, with many thanks for their excellent contributions, are Lyonette Louis-Jacques (Past Chair) and Don Arndt (Secretary/Treasurer).

    The Computing Services Special Interest Section has expanded its schedule of events for the upcoming AALL Annual Meeting in Minneapolis. This year, the CS-SIS will be offering two roundtables, scheduled at separate times, in order to offer section members more opportunities for professional development through discussion on topics of interest. One roundtable offering will be on Web Design and Maintenance, following up on the highly successful roundtable on Web Sites of two years ago. Barbara Ginzburg and Dominick Grillo will coordinate the Web Design and Maintenance Roundtable. The second roundtable will be on a topic of interest to many section members, Technology Competencies. Kris Niedringhaus and Vicki Szymczak will coordinate this roundtable. The Technology Competencies Roundtables follows the CS-SIS sponsored program, H4: “Key Competencies for the Key Cogs in Your Value Network: Your IT Staff” and, therefore, offers an expanded opportunity for enlightenment on this important topic.

    Also new to this year’s AALL Annual Meeting schedule is a CS-SIS Executive Board meeting which will include both the 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 section officers. This meeting will be held on Saturday, July 14, just before the official start of the convention. The joint meeting will enable incoming and outgoing officers to do some proactive planning for the year as well as the exchange of information that will facilitate a smooth transition for the new board.

    Over a year and a half ago, the CS-SIS developed, through the creativity of Robert Linz and Don Arndt, the Job Descriptions Database. This database serves as a repository of technology-related law positions offered in both a searchable and browseable interface. The creators have continued to improve upon this database and will help to achieve greater visibility for it with an educational program at this year’s annual meeting, G-3: We’re Hiring: Designing Job Descriptions to Attract the Very Best.

    A second theme for the Computing Services SIS this year was the continued, and improved, status quo for several CS-SIS activities. A number of successful ongoing functions should be mentioned.

    This year’s AALL Annual Meeting will include the Third Annual CS-SIS Breakfast. Originally instituted in 1999, the breakfast has a created a less formal, and quite collegial, social event for section members attending the Association meeting. And again for the third year, the CS-SIS has helped finance the cost of the breakfast for its membership. 55 section members have registered for the CS-SIS breakfast. Following upon the successful inclusion of a featured speaker at last year’s breakfast, the Third Annual Breakfast will feature speaker Mark Folmsbee, Washburn University Law Library, who will share his experiences in a talk entitled, “The Dirty Little War of Strategic Planning, and Other Tales of an AALL Executive Board Veteran.”

    The CS-SIS will continue to be a co-sponsor of the Joint SIS Reception (CS/TS/OBS/RIS) again this year in Minneapolis. Mila Rush (CS-SIS’s representative on the Joint Planning Committee) helped to coordinate what hopes to be a lovely event. This year’s reception is co-sponsored by Innovative Interfaces, as in the past, and St. Thomas University Law School, which also serves as the location for the event.

    The CS-SIS continued its success in developing educational offerings for the AALL Annual Meeting. The Program Committee (Sheri Lewis, Chair) submitted ten program proposals to the Annual Meeting Program Selection Committee. The following CS-SIS sponsored programs were selected for the 2001 Minneapolis meeting: (1) Using Metadata to Increase Visibility: The GPO Access Search Engine Project (Kris Niedringhaus, coordinator); (2) New Roles: Hitching Reference Librarians to the Web Rocket (Jean Willis, coordinator); (3) Key Competencies for the Key Cogs in Your Value Network: Your IT Staff (Lyonette Louis-Jacques, coordinator); (4) We’re Hiring: Designing Job Descriptions to Attract the Very Best (Don Arndt, coordinator). As in previous years, the CS-SIS held an informal gathering at the CALI Conference in June. James Duggan (Vice-Chair, Chair-Elect) helped lead a discussion of programming ideas for the 2002 AALL Annual Meeting in Orlando. There will also be a planning meeting of the Program 2002 Committee at the upcoming Annual Meeting.

    The successful grants program from last year continued for a second year under the stewardship of chair, Jean Willis. Again, the CS-SIS was to offer support for professional activities for members of the Association. The CS-SIS Grants program was advertised on the CS-SIS web site, through listserv postings, and in articles in the SIS column in The Spectrum. The following law librarians will be awarded full grants towards a Member Program Registration at the 2001 AALL Conference in Minneapolis:

    Amy Moberly, California Western School of Law Library

    D.J. Morrison, Oregon Supreme Court Library

    Chris Tighe, U.S. District Court Library, Southern District of Illinois

    The CS-SIS adopted its first Strategic Plan on July 20, 1999. That two-year plan was ripe for reexamination in 2001, so a special committee was formed last fall to take on this task. Strategic Planning Committee chairs, Mark Folmsbee and Kris Niedringhaus, reviewed and revised the previous plan and, following upon one of the plan’s directives, conducted a membership survey to better inform the CS-SIS leadership on the interests of the section’s members.

    During the past few years, the CS-SIS has gained a reputation for having some of the most desirable giveaways at its table in the activities area of the Annual Meeting. The Recruitment and Involvement Committee (Liz Glankler, chair) continues this fine tradition. During the upcoming CONELL Marketplace, the CS-SIS will be distributing pocket solar calendars as well as a wealth of information on the section and copies of its new newsletter,Connecting… Giveaways planned for the activities table include foam flyers, in an assortment of colors, and the ever popular gourmet chocolate mints.

    The CS-SIS membership communicates throughout the year via its own listserv and web site. Darin Fox has continued to maintain the section’s website and will be attending an AALL-sponsored training session for Chapter and SIS website managers at the upcoming Annual Meeting. The CS-SIS listserv was auto-populated in the early Fall, which helped facilitate communications early in the year.

    The Computing Services Special Interest Section has concluded a year of growth and stability. With the continuation of strong leadership and active participation and enthusiasm, the CS-SIS is poised to continue as one of the dynamic special interest groups in AALL.