AALL Annual Meeting and Conference

Registration - Saturday

The Conference of Newer Law Librarians (CONELL) is held every year at the American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting and Conference. The purpose is to welcome newer AALL members, introduce them to the Association and its leaders, and provide a setting for newer members to become acquainted with each other. Attendees will have an opportunity to talk with representatives from AALL's Committees and Special Interest Sections to find out firsthand how to get involved and enjoy the benefits of Association membership, to meet new people, and have some fun. CONELL attendees arriving on Friday, July 22, are invited to attend "Dutch Treat Dinners" at 6:30 p.m. that day. The dinners are a great way for attendees to meet each other and members of the CONELL Committee. Saturday's events start with a continental breakfast at 7:30 a.m. and the conference begins promptly at 8:00 a.m., where attendees will meet the AALL Executive Board and participate in Speed Networking and Market Place. Later that day, a fabulous lunch will be followed by a guided tour of a Philadelphia landmark - perfect opportunities to network with new colleagues.

Separate registration fee: $100.00

Attendance is limited for all workshops - be sure to register well in advance of the June 17 deadline!

Target Audience: Law librarians in all settings looking for EU research guidance.

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will identify the current law-related functions and documentation of the institutions and organizations of the European Union.
2. Participants will identify and execute the best strategies for researching legal issues involving the European Union.

The European Union, established in 1951, has expanded its scope and responsibilities greatly over the years. The policies, laws and actions of the EU affect not just its 27 member countries, but due to its economic power, the entire globe. Following the passage of the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009, the EU's powers and competencies will expand even further in the coming years. To provide law librarians the necessary information and tools to keep up with these changes, this workshop will offer a brief overview of the legal history of the European Union and show the research tools that are provided by the EU, namely EurLex, the online law portal of the EU, N-lex and other tools for locating the national law of Member States, and PreLex, for tracking legislative proposals. Further presentation will give an overview on trade relations/corporate law, religious freedom and energy and environment in the European Union. Engaging speakers will enable law librarians to approach EU research tasks systematically and successfully.

Separate registration fees

AALL Members: $90.00
Nonmembers: $135.00

Attendance is limited for all workshops - be sure to register well in advance of the June 17 deadline!

This year's Meeting in Philadelphia will kick off with the opening of the Exhibit Hall at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, followed by an Opening Reception on the exhibit hall floor. This light hors d'oeuvres and cocktail reception, featuring local favorites, will allow attendees to gather to network and visit exhibitors without scheduling conflicts and will allow plenty of time for dine-arounds and receptions to follow.

Registered attendees will receive a ticket to this event; additional guest tickets are available for purchase.

AALL would like to acknowledge and thank LexisNexis for their past ten years of partnership in sponsoring the Opening Event!

ALL-SIS Breakfast and Business Meeting (sponsored by LexisNexis)

Exhibit Hall Breakfast Break

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.

Target Audience: Librarians who envisage changing positions over the course of their careers

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will be able to identify issues that arise as they begin to pursue a new position in the future.
2. Participants will be equipped to update their own documents, techniques, and tools when pursuing new employment.

Many graduates fresh out of library school know how to prepare for the process of getting their first job. Yet, many are not as prepared when they are ready to apply for a lateral or promotional position. Similar to last year's round-robin poster session, "What Is It You Do Again?", each poster station will discuss a key issue that needs to be addressed before pursuing your next career move. Issues to be addressed include: updating and rewriting your resume, interviewing do's and don'ts, jumping to a new kind of library, networking, and tools AALL offers such as the Career Center and Members Only section. Participants will listen to a short presentation by the poster creator, and then have the opportunity to ask questions. Participants will be notified when it's time to move to the next station, where the process begins again.

Target Audience: Law librarians interested in gaining a further understanding of THOMAS

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will be able to articulate a user-centered design business model.
2. Participants will be able to name several ways that THOMAS can be improved in the near future.

THOMAS.gov, the legislative information database from the Law Library of Congress, was created in 1995. It is regarded as the "go to" place for bills, laws, Congressional Record, etc. This program will focus on the recent changes to THOMAS, many of which stem from user-generated feedback such as permanent links and integrated social media. The program will also cover how these changes better the user experience and make reference transactions using THOMAS easier. A member of the Library of Congress Information Technology Services Division will explain the challenges and requirements of revamping THOMAS around a user-centered design. The Law Library of Congress would like feedback and input from the participants on the next generation of THOMAS.

Target Audience: All librarians

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will learn the rationale and learning theory for embedding librarians in support of clinical teaching in law schools.
2. Participants will be able to analyze the tools and techniques needed for starting an embedded librarian project at their law schools.

This program describes the Mason Law Library's experience of embedding librarians in clinics at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, rated second highest in the nation for clinical teaching. The project's rationale is based on adult learning theory, teaching at the point of need, and recommendations from Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (2008) for teaching legal research as a part of lawyers' "expert performance." Embedding librarians in a practice environment enables users to learn and integrate advanced legal research skills, professional judgment, and ethics through modeling, practice, coaching, and feedback. The panelists include the embedded librarians and clinic directors, who will discuss the effectiveness of this experiment.

Mnemonics, techniques to improve the memory, have been a subject of continuing fascination, especially just before exams. The Romans systematized the memory technique of storing places in one's mind and then associating striking images with those places. We will explore techniques, especially visual, meant to help one learn and remember the rules of Roman law. Jolande Goldberg, 2011 Distinguished Lectureship Award Winner, will join us in this discussion of visual presentations of the law.

ALL-SIS Faculty Services Roundtable

Target Audience: Librarians who support students, faculty, and attorneys working in the areas of international law or humanitarian law specifically

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will list the key features of the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect.
2. Participants will create a research plan in International Humanitarian Law.

The purpose of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine is to prevent mass atrocities by placing a duty upon state actors to protect their citizens. When individual states fail in this duty, it is the collective responsibility of the international community to respond. This response may include, in an exceptional case, military intervention. Gareth Evans, a former Foreign Minister of Australia, and the former President of the International Crisis Group, has promoted this development in International Humanitarian Law. The Responsibility to Protect is an emerging norm with an uncertain future. Its status has been a subject of debate in the United Nations General Assembly. This program will discuss its development, its application or misapplication, and its future as a mechanism to prevent mass atrocities. The program will also provide a strategy for researching a cutting-edge topic in International Humanitarian Law.

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.

SEAALL Business Meeting

SEAALL Reception

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.

Target Audience: Librarians who are interested in content digitization, as well as those interested in the status of the Google Book Settlement

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will be able to understand the background and current legal status of the Google Book Settlement.
2. Participants will explore strengths and weaknesses of Google's proposed private market solution to the problem of orphan works for books.

Through its book scanning project, Google has announced a lofty goal to someday "make the full text of all the world's books searchable by anyone." As if that weren't big enough, it wants to sell these books. In the process, Google has encountered legal problems and is involved in a protracted settlement that seeks to give it an affirmative grant of the copyrights necessary to start selling books. James Grimmelmann, a law professor from New York Law School, has tracked the Google project closely and regularly blogs about it. For this session, Grimmelmann will summarize the current legal status of the project, and will put the Google Book Settlement in context of the overall question of orphan works in the United States.

Target Audience: Anyone who participates in workplace decision making

Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will discover the positive role that conflict can play in decision making.
2. Participants will be able to outline and assess the elements of a successful process to harness conflict in group decision making, as well as the abilities that the leader and participants must bring to that process.

The most innovative organizations have moved beyond merely managing conflict. They have learned to actually encourage healthy conflict and harness the creative energy it sparks. Using this "creative contention," organizations hammer out superior solutions to the problems they confront. The decision-making participants forge closer bonds with one another. These groups also implement decisions or new programs more easily because most participants become committed change agents during the decision-making process. In the years since the University of Georgia Law Library transitioned to a team-based structure, its primary decision-making body, the Steering Group, has grown into this model of decision making. Listen and learn as two long-time participants share important milestones in that growth and explain the processes and skills that are necessary to make creative contention a viable tool.