Daniel on facilitating communication through My Communities
Daniel Wade is the Curator of the Foreign and International Law Collection, Yale Law Library.
Why did you join AALL?
I am sure I was encouraged to do so by Rick Searles, my Legal Librarianship instructor at the University of Illinois. Tim Kearley there was my model, and Nancy Johnston was helpful. I wanted to learn more about the profession and the subfield of Foreign and International Law, which I knew I wanted to pursue from the beginning as I had worked with one of the great international law scholars in the world, Cherif Bassiouni, in law school.
Why do you stay a member?
It provides the work I need for my work through the FCIL-SIS, its listserv, Int-law, and its activities at the Annual Meeting. Occasionally, there are general programs of relevance to my work, but in recent years they are rare. There is a pre-conference workshop on the European Union this year.
What one membership benefit is most valuable to you?
The organization’s facilitating communication with my colleagues around the country and world through the FCIL-SIS Int-law and AALL My Communities.
What is your favorite memory associated with AALL?
The creation of the Daniel L. Wade Outstanding Service Award and my receipt of it in 2006. I also remember fondly all the support Mila Rush gave me when I became Chair of the FCIL-SIS in 1988.
What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
I enjoy the outdoors. During the winter, I vegetate, watching the U Conn Women’s Basketball team. During the spring, summer and fall, I garden, walk and read. I also spend an inordinate amount of time in church, as I am a member of two different congregations and a member of a third religious gathering. I am currently serving as Moderator of Center Church on the Green, founded 1638, a United Church of Christ affiliate (modern day Puritans). I believe our church is unique in that it was built over a colonial burial ground (earliest stone 1678). Colleagues should come and visit when they are passing through New Haven.
What book(s) are you currently reading?
I just finished Christopher Benfey’s A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art, and Scandalin the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Martin Johnson Heade. (This is about the post-bellum literati of Massachusetts; a wonderful read for the pre-bellum figures is American Bloomsbury by Susan Cheever.)
We recently went to the Morgan Library (my favorite library!) exhibit onLincoln, and discovered Jerome Charyn’s I Am Abraham, an irreverent novel about Lincoln—kind of dirty for my Puritan tastes! (An excellent read is Doris kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals about Lincoln’s cabine, but it took me two months to read it!)
Finally, I usually take a book with me to church. I am currently carrying and reading a little Thomas P. Slaughter’s The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman, Apostle of Abolition. Several times in my life I have turned to Woolman’s journal, which is a Quaker classic, though my Anabaptist sentiments are almost antithetical, emphasizing “good works,” and not being very spiritual/meditative.
I almost forgot what I read at work, (Do I have to confess this?). Currently I have on my desk Henry Kissinger’s World Order, not my political persuasion, but a solid historical work.
What’s your favorite travel/vacation destination?
We (my wife, Carol, and I) enjoy Acadia National Park because it is so close. We go there virtually every summer, especially fine on full moon nights. I also very much like Grand Teton National Park, though I fear my days of long hikes are over. My favorite place I have ever been in my life is Monserrat, Spain, a truly mystical place.