AALL Annual Meeting and Conference

Registration - Friday

Registration - Saturday

The Supreme Court and Free Speech 

How the Supreme Court is fracturing over speech issues, and how the press and the public are both causing it, and suffering for it

Dahlia Lithwick is a senior editor at Slate, and in that capacity, writes the "Supreme Court Dispatches" and "Jurisprudence" columns. She is a biweekly columnist for Newsweek. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Harper's, The Washington Post, and Commentary, among other places. She received the Online News Association's award for online commentary in 2001 and again in 2005, for a series she coauthored on torture, and was the first online journalist invited to serve on the Steering Committee for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. She is the co-author of "Me v. Everybody: Absurd Contracts for an Absurd World," a legal humor book, and "I Will Sing Life: Voices from the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp", a book about seven children from Paul Newman's camp with life-threatening illnesses. She lives in Charlottesville, VA with her husband and two sons.

This session will be webcast live here.

Legal Information Preservation Alliance Business Meeting

Target Audience: Information technology librarians, technical services librarians, administrators interested in the next generation library management system

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will identify at least three advantages and disadvantages of cloud-based solutions and three types of cloud computing- Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)-to lower the total cost of ownership.
2. Participants will be able to evaluate the library management functionality in OCLC's Web-Scale Management Services (WMS), a cloud computing interface, and the efficiency of OCLC's WorldCat Grid Services.

Libraries are on the forefront of migrating their data and services to the "cloud." Cloud computing is emerging as a key way for libraries to implement new services. Presenters will discuss how cloud computing can be implemented to leverage library end-user satisfaction and build the necessary interoperability. OCLC member institutions have been contributing to the idea of cloud computing through the centralized MAchine Readable Cataloging (MARC) records services. Now, OCLC's WMS promises less complexity in its library management system to create a more independent discovery and delivery platform. Panelists will also give a critical analysis on the trend of proliferated cloud computing services to demystify questions about privacy, security, and reliability that cloud computing often raises.

Target Audience: Law librarians interested in collaborating on the creation of institutional repositories and open access digital collections, as well as those interested in the research and teaching opportunities afforded by such collections

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will be able to describe collaborative methods for developing digital collections.
2. Participants will be able to discuss how digital collections facilitate research access to rare resources, as well as how such collections can enhance teaching.

Building digital collections and repositories to facilitate research and enhance teaching has been a focus of much recent activity by state and university libraries. However, few law libraries have participated in this trend, largely due to the costs associated with content management systems and the need for specialist metadata librarians. By joining together in consortia, or by participating as junior partners in university digitization projects, law libraries are beginning to engage in the opportunities offered by digital collections. A panel of law librarians and professors will discuss the collaborative development of law library digital collections, as well as examine how these collections have greatly simplified research access to rare materials and enhanced teaching.

Target Audience: Electronic services librarians, acquisitions librarians, solo librarians, library directors

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will be able to identify and list the best practices to employ when considering the acquisition of a new electronic resource.
2. Participants will be able to design and conduct an electronic resource trial using a focus group comprised of stakeholders within their institution.

This program will highlight the best practices to use when evaluating a new electronic resource for acquisition. These best practices are gleaned from the library literature, published surveys, and the experiences of the presenters. Best practices include: "try before you buy," obtaining stakeholder involvement, benchmarking, and using an electronic resource evaluation checklist, among others. The program will focus on four areas: 1) the electronic resource evaluation checklist, 2) selection and coordination of a trial focus group, 3) the cost-benefit analysis, and 4) subscription versus ownership and other licensing options. Other considerations to be examined include: authentication, user interface, content appropriateness, search capability, browsing capability, currency and archives, vendor support, training, user statistics, bill back mechanisms, online documentation, and formatting. In addition, the program will present questions to be asked of other stakeholders in the acquisitions process (e.g., the IT department, catalogers, public services). Program materials will include a sample electronic resource evaluation checklist and bibliography.

Target Audience: Technical services librarians, electronic resources librarians, library directors

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will be able to compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of various ERM systems in order to select a system that best meets their institution's needs.
2. Participants will be able to list workflow and implementation tips from different ERM systems users and to plan a smooth and positive installation of a new ERM system.

As libraries add more electronic resources to their collections, there will be a greater need to manage and maintain these resources effectively and efficiently. By viewing what ERM systems are available in the market place and identifying special features of each system, librarians responsible for electronic resources will be better equipped to select an ERM system that best fits their institution's needs. Librarians with limited resources will benefit from the demonstration of a locally developed, or an open source, ERM system. Insights into the pros and cons of using different ERM systems will also be shared.

Target Audience: Library managers from all types of libraries involved with the budget or the budgeting process

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will be able to educate decision makers on the effects budget reductions will have on library services.
2. Participants will be able to formulate a plan to minimize the impact of reductions and lobby successfully for it.

Library budgets are stagnant or being reduced, and administrators are faced with making hard choices of “what” and/or “whom” to cut. In the current economic climate, libraries are often targeted for reductions because everything is perceived as being “online.” An informative dialogue role-play will be presented by a director and a technical services head in a law library that suffered two recent 10 percent budget cuts, with another one in the offing. How do you deal with these budget reductions? Do you eliminate or decrease the quality of services, stop binding, buy fewer materials, or reduce staff? This program will offer a range of ideas to cope with stagnant or reduced budgets, when you already feel like you’re “down to the bone.”

This year's Diversity Symposium will celebrate the first 10 years of the Minority Leadership Development Award, and what this award has meant to AALL members and to the profession.  The panel will feature previous winners, Lauren Collins, Joy Shoemaker, and Ron Wheeler, among others.

ALL-SIS Reception and Awards (sponsored by Wolters Kluwer Law & Business)

Separate registration fee: $20.00 - be sure to register well in advance of the June 17 deadline!

Target Audience: Directors, public services librarians, IT professionals, and non-catalogers in technical services in all types of libraries

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will be able to understand RDA's new approach to relationships between authors and works, how this new approach needs to be accommodated, and how it can be utilized by public services librarians.
2. Participants will be able to assess RDA's new approach to dealing with publishing patterns and resolving challenges posed by diversification of electronic and online media, and how this approach can be utilized by acquisitions and serial librarians.

Resource Description and Access (RDA), the new cataloging code published in June 2010, is based on a recently formalized philosophy for providing access to materials. It is written with the international world of computers and online access strongly in mind along with the relationships of information elements. Librarians, other than catalogers, may not know much about this new code, nor may they know how these new standards for metadata creation will affect public services and technical services areas other than cataloging. Most may also not be aware of its possible applications outside of integrated library systems. "RDA for Everyone" will bring together a respected law cataloger/RDA tester, a well-known associate director/professor of legal research, and a reference and technology librarian (who is also the Chair of the Education Committee of the CS-SIS), to relate a brief history and description of RDA, explaining how it affects discovery and use of information, and how it has potential use outside the traditional library catalog.

Target Audience: Library staff who work on group projects, especially those who lead projects and those who support collaborative organizations

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will evaluate the range of new technologies available to enhance collaborative work.
2. Participants will be able to identify and use skills needed to manage teams in collaborative work.

How do you collaborate with others? What if they work in other cities, countries, and time zones? New project management platforms such as Basecamp, collaborative mindmapping, and wireframe/mockup tools like Mockingbird and Balsamiq join familiar tools like wikis and Google Docs to make teamwork easier, regardless of where everyone is located. Join legal information consultants Connie Crosby and Kathie Sullivan for a tour of the latest collaborative tools being used in a number of industries and explore how law libraries can use them. Before the conference, Crosby and Sullivan will create a wiki for collecting resources and discussions about these tools; watch the CS-SIS blog for an invitation to participate. Lessons from this collaboration will be incorporated into the presentation.

This tour has reached capacity.

Modeled after Versailles, this beautiful building on the famous Philadelphia Benjamin Franklin Parkway houses an incredible variety of historic, scholarly, and modern materials. "First imagined in the mid-1890s, begun in earnest in 1910, and not completed for 17 years, the Central Library building is a triumph of civic architecture and library science as well as a monument to the fortitude, commitment, and aspirations of the librarians, trustees, local politicians, architects, and general public, who persevered during decades of tribulation including legal and political battles and a world war." Specialized collections range from Pennsylvania German Fraktur and imprints; the history of the automobile; a treasure trove of maps, prints, and drawings; a fine library of choral and chamber music; and a collection of vintage theatre materials. The digital collections include: historical materials on Philadelphia, vintage postcards, and medieval manuscripts.

Walking tour: 15 minute walk

Join a CRIV roundtable discussion on the action plan and shared principles developed as a result of AALL’s Vendor Colloquium, "Creating, Disseminating, Using, and Preserving Legal Information in Challenging Times.”  Member input is critical to the success of the plan.  Come join in on what should be a lively discussion on AALL and vendor relations.

This roundtable will be webcast live here.

Librarians are known to wax eloquently about the virtues of a strong relationship between the public and technical service operations within the library. On a day-to-day basis in our libraries, however, library staff may do little to build and foster these relationships. In worst case scenarios these units may actually work against each other much to the detriment of community members. For those librarians who want to create a great experience for their community members, they will need to do much more than just give lip service to a productive connection between the public, technical and system units in their organizations.

In this talk, Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian for Research&  Instructional Services at Temple University, will explore what it means to design and implement a holistic user experience in a library setting. Doing so requires the delivery of a consistently great user experience at all library touchpoints, and that only happens when the entire organization works together to create an environment of totality. Steven will introduce the Experiential Brand Statement concept as a framework for bringing staff together to discuss and design the library user experience.

Diagrams, symbols, and figurative elements have been applied throughout the centuries to illustrate the development of thought, or to explain complex concepts visually. In early legal  manuscript and law books, visual presentations closely correlated to the written text, are often used to explain or teach the law pictorially. Used as memory aids or visual short cuts for verbal explanations, they fall in the rubric of the ars memorativa.

This lecture, illustrated with important examples, will explore art and artists in the service of teaching and application of the law.

This program will present current practices for cataloging print integrating resources (updating loose-leafs). Discussion points include creating original records for new editions, as well as revising existing records to link to new formats, particularly electronic versions. Additionally, the program will cover previous cataloging practices in light of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) guidelines, why a variety of treatments in shared bibliographic databases exist, and how to deal with the records encountered.

This tour has reached capacity.

Founded in 1802, Jenkins is America’s First Law Library. It is a membership law library that also serves as the public law library for the City and County of Philadelphia. Jenkins houses a fine portrait gallery and its collection of more than 250,000 volumes includes extensive current materials, as well as centuries-old rare legal documents.

The library is a blend of old and new and underwent a major renovation 7 years ago.  It often refers to itself as “the library without walls” as many of its databases are available to members remotely whether at the office, at home or commuting on the train.  Its website was recently updated and contains original content such as Pennsylvania Legislative Histories as well as briefs and records.  Jenkins conducts a successful CLE program taught by staff librarians as well as its members.  It has a staff of 32 employees.

Walking tour: 10 minute walk

Any member who wants to submit a resolution for consideration by the membership at the Business Meeting must do so no later than July 1. Resolutions can be submitted by any AALL entity or member concerning substantive matters for consideration by the membership.

During this year's Members' Open Forum, which immediately follows the Annual Business Meeting, the AALL president and other officers will be available to respond to member questions regarding AALL and its programs and activities. In addition to accepting questions from the floor, members can also submit questions in advance of the meeting.

To submit a question in advance for this year's Open Forum, email ambusmtg@aall.org.

International Attendees Joint Reception (AALL/FCIL/IALL) (sponsored by BNA, LexisNexis, William S. Hein & Co., and Wolters Kluwer Law & Business)

Target Audience: All librarians who have a role in vendor contract negotiations

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will be able to analyze contract terms to better understand how those terms affect the end results of their negotiations.
2. Participants will acquire the tools to negotiate a favorable contract with a services vendor.

Vendor contracts are getting more complex, with finer print. Many librarians are involved in the contract negotiation process and need to be able to read and comprehend often complex contracts in order to get the most favorable terms for their libraries and institutions. Two attorneys who are involved in their large firms' vendor contract negotiations, along with their library directors, will discuss contract best practices, what elements to look for in a contract, and which clauses or provisions will render a contract unworkable. They will offer practical tips on negotiation skills, and on reaching a workable agreement with service vendors.

Target Audience: Law librarians in any setting who would like to take their already excellent customer service skills to the next level

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will be able to describe the Zingermans' customer service principles and apply them to their own library setting.
2. Participants will be able to describe concrete examples of teaching, defining, living, measuring, and rewarding excellent customer service.

This program will challenge law librarians to create a vision of their own library’s ideal customer service experience using the principles of a unique organization: Zingerman’s Delicatessen of Ann Arbor. Named the “Coolest Small Business in America” by INC magazine, Zingerman’s is so renowned for its customer-centric culture that it created a separate training company just to meet the information requests of other organizations. The Zingerman’s customer service model, which includes the organizational credos of “fairness is on another planet” and “breaking the rules,” has been adopted by a small number of public libraries across the United States. This program, led by a library director and customer service trainer, will feature how a large public law library staff has adapted Zingerman’s principles to create a culture that makes it easy to provide excellent customer service to all of its patrons, including each other.

Regardless of how widely it is adopted, the newly-developed cataloging code, Resource Description and Access, will affect all of us in libraries profoundly - even if we’re not responsible for cataloging materials. Please join Jean Pajerek and Pat Sayre-McCoy as they lead a lively discussion on the recent information from the three U.S. national libraries, the decisions libraries need to make about RDA, and the impact of the new code on our institutions - especially in the area of library technical services.

This tour has reached capacity.

The Earle Mack School of Law was launched in 2006, with an emphasis on cooperative education and pro bono programs, providing opportunities to engage with practicing lawyers. The programs offered include one of the few joint J.D.-Ph.D. programs in law and psychology in the United States. The Legal Research Center is a state-of-the-art library located on the 3rd floor in the Earle Mack School of Law. The collection reflects the curricular and research needs of the faculty and students with a particular emphasis on the areas of concentration: business and entrepreneurship, health law, and intellectual property.

Tour involving public transportation

This tour has reached capacity.

The U.S. Courts Library for the Third Circuit serves the federal courts in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and the Virgin Islands. The main location of the library is in Center City Philadelphia, at the corner of 6th and Market Streets, very close to the National Constitution Center and the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. Among recent major projects is an extensive digitization of the materials in the collection.

Please note that tour registrants will need to pass through security and have a valid, government-issued photo ID.

Walking tour: 10 minute walk

Target Audience: Technical services librarians, administrators

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will be able to analyze the potential workflow impacts of implementing RDA, based upon the experiences of RDA testing.
2. Participants will be able to explain how the RDA Toolkit is structured and how to use it effectively.

Law catalogers who participated in the RDA testing process during the fall of 2010 will describe their experiences. Topics will include: the testing process, overall impressions of RDA, and use of the online RDA Toolkit. The presenters will specifically compare using the online RDA Toolkit with using printed AACR2 guidelines for cataloging library materials. Participants will learn how RDA affected library workflow and productivity in the test libraries. (Please note that this program is NOT a training session on RDA itself.)

Target Audience: All law librarians

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will analyze e-book licensing models, focusing on implications for alternative pricing, digital rights management, license negotiation, and usability.
2. Participants will be able to discuss how e-books will impact the future of law libraries.

The future of e-books in law libraries is still unclear, despite the surging popularity of dedicated e-book readers such as the Kindle. Legal publishers have taken a cautious approach in developing e-books to date. In addition, e-book licensing, particularly in economically difficult times, will provide new challenges to law librarians. Representatives from leading legal publishers and e-book vendors will discuss what they see as the future of e-books and how it will change law libraries.

Librarians are often called upon to analyze, manage, and communicate about their budgets, despite perhaps having had no formal training in accounting or budgeting rules and procedures.  In this program, three librarians will introduce examples of tools they've developed to analyze and present budget data to library or institutional managers.  A discussion period will follow the presentations, during which attendees may discover helpful tips for both the new(er) and the more experienced librarian.

Target Audience: Law librarians who want a step-by-step plan for conducting medical legal research in medical databases

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will learn the strategies and skills necessary to perform comprehensive medical searches in specialized medical databases, including MEDLINE.
2. Participants will become familiar with the different levels of medical proof found in the medical literature.

Most law librarians will have to locate and find appropriate medical or health-related research during the course of their careers. However, many are intimidated by medical or scientific information and do not know how to start. This program will provide an introduction for law librarians to locating and evaluating medical information. Topics include: defining evidence-based medicine, applying the methods of evidence-based medicine to the process of medical research, and evaluating retrieved information. Effective searching of MEDLINE, using the controlled vocabulary MeSH (the National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings), will also be covered.

Join us as we look forward to the 2012 Annual Meeting in Boston with themed snacks and soft drinks. As attendees visit with exhibitors before the closing of the exhibit hall, there will be an opportunity to "meet the candidates” on the Executive Board ballot, view the Boston welcome video, win fabulous prizes and witness the passing of the gavel to our new president, Darcy Kirk.

Registered attendees with badges are welcome at this event.

Target Audience: Academic law library directors and other administrators; all academic law librarians

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will learn about changes in the American Bar Association Standards for Approval of Law Schools that directly affect their jobs and their libraries.
2. Participants will be able to evaluate their libraries' policies and practices in light of the new standards.

During 2009-2011, the American Bar Association reviewed and is now revising its Standards for Approval of Law Schools and the accompanying Interpretations, the law school "accreditation standards." Significant changes have been proposed for law libraries and for educational outcomes, including legal research education.  The recommended changes are soon to be finalized and sent for approval.  Academic law librarians must understand the Standards and their implication for management of the law school library, especially as their law school approaches its sabbatical accreditation visit. In this program, two ABA committee members involved in the formulation of the recommended Standards revisions will describe the changes made to the law library standards and the proposals for outcomes measurement, and will then answer questions about the intended application of the new standards. Participants will be expected to have read the new Standards in advance of the program to allow maximum time for questions.

Target Audience: Technical services librarians, public services librarians, library managers

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will become acquainted with ways to utilize staff in more creative ways.
2. Participants will be introduced to new initiatives that can benefit their libraries and generate increased appreciation for technical services staff skills.

Shrinking library budgets often require reductions in materials and staffing, even as demands for library services continue to grow. Some libraries deal with this dilemma by bridging the previously well-defined distinctions between technical services and public services. Initiatives and projects on public services department "wish lists" can often be readily accomplished when goals are realigned to utilize the expertise and specialized skill sets of technical services staff. This program will explore techniques for building cooperative partnerships between the two departments. Managerial tips, best practices, ways of fostering innovation and creativity, and initiatives at various law libraries will be discussed.