LLOPSCited

Do you, like me, grit your teeth and death grip your armrests when you get a patent law question? Well, at our first meeting of the year, on the Patent Life Cycle, Colette Napoli of ThomsonReuters broke down the who, what, when and why of patents in a way that even your kindergartner might understand. She went through the front page of a patent, explaining what each section signifies. We also learned about the differences in patent family coverage between Derwent and INPADOC. Turns out Derwent is much more selective than INPADOC when connecting patents to their family members. Colette also tested us on what could / could not be patented. Turns out my flying squirrel cannot be patented.  

Amy Eaton then gave a great presentation about the top five patent-related questions that librarians typically receive. It was nice to be reassured that I am not the only one who thinks researching a company’s assigned patents is a real challenge. I think I’m calling Amy the next time I have a patent research question.

Attendees: Mort Brinchmann, Tina Ching, Robyn Hagle, and Christy Leith.
Location: Perkins Coie, Seattle WA
Time: The meeting was called to order at 9:08am by President Hagle.

1. Code Reviser Survey
   The Washington Code Reviser is conducting a survey on the Washington Administrative Code and the Session Laws.  It is available at http://www.leg.wa.gov/CodeReviser/Pages/default.aspx.   Peggy Jarrett thought LLOPS should reply to the survey as an organization.  The board thought it might be more effective if many LLOPS members and clients responded and suggested that Peggy make an announcement to the LLOPS membership about the importance of filling out the survey.
2. Blog Update
   The Newsletter/Blog committee requested permission to use the online service Blog2Print to periodically archive the LLOPS blog.  It will cost $8 each time the blog is archived to a pdf.  M/S/A to allow the Newsletter/Blog committee to archive using the Blog2Print service.  President Hagle will follow up with the committee regarding the frequency of archiving.
3. LLOPS Archive
   AALL chapters can send items to be included in the official AALL archives in Chicago.  The Board discussed sending the Professional Development Award plaque and the letter from President Catherine Lemann letter congratulating LLOPS on its 20 year anniversary.  President Hagle will ask Rick Stroup about the LLOPS archive at the King County Law Library.
4. Inventory of State Legal Materials
   Volunteers are needed for the inventory of Washington state legal materials. This survey is being coordinated by the AALL Government Relations Office.  Please contact co-coordinators Kay Newman or Tina Ching for additional information.
5. Community Outreach
   A Community Outreach grant was not awarded this year due to work on the Heller Erhman collection. The committee is currently working on the inventory of materials in that collection. The Board should consider this as a factor when determining the amount allotted to grants next year.  The Board discussed whether the committee can award a grant without submitting an application.  This suggestion will be made to the committee for next year.  The Community Outreach committee may need to be added to the bylaws and the committee description in the handbook may need to be changed as a result.
6. LLOPS June Meeting
   The June business meeting at the Federal Courthouse will include committee reports, the treasurer report and the 20^th anniversary celebration.

Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 10:05am.
Respectfully submitted by Tina S. Ching, LLOPS Secretary.

Those you who attended the LLOPS business meeting and birthday party lastweek got to try your hands at the LLOPS Trivia quiz put together by Barbara Swatt Engstrom and the program committee. For those of you who missed it, below are a few of the facts relating to the founding of LLOPS.

Where and when was the annual meeting in which LLOPS was approved as a chapter? Minneapolis, 1990

How many contested elections has the Chapter held? 1

How many “charter” members were there when the Chapter was formed? 87

How many times has the AALL annual meeting been held in Seattle? 3 times: 1974, 1994, 2003

And what would a celebration of our chapter be without the traditional passing of the gavel, from Robyn to Mort. Here’s to a wonderful year behind us and looking forward to another wonderful year ahead.

Librarians do know how to party. And we did so at the last LLOPS meeting of the year. Cupcakes, merriment and a trivia contest were shared by all to celebrate the 20th anniversary of our organization. The Blog Committee garnered the President’s Award, and each committee provided a brief yearly wrap-up of their activities. A photo of many of the past Presidents was taken to commemorate the anniversary. Happy Anniversary, LLOPS! And here’s to 20 more great years to come.

Attendees: Mort Brinchmann, Tina Ching, Robyn Hagle, Rita Kaiser, and Christy Leith.
Location: Perkins Coie, Seattle WA
Time: The meeting was called to order at 12:00pm by President Hagle.

1. Government Relations Position Paper
   The papers on net neutrality were passed down to the current co-chairs of the Government Relations committee. SNELLA considered adopting versions of these papers. Before the papers can be submitted for adoption, the papers will need to be rewritten for LLOPS. This project will require additional members on the government relations committee. The Board agreed to table the issue until the committee determined the papers a priority.
2. Website Redevelopment – Special Committee
   President Hagle will form a special committee including the website manager, a blog committee representative, a representative from marketing committee, and an executive board representative.
3. Ads on Blog
   The blog committee decided they did not want ads on the blog. F. Hanson will contact advertisers to see if there are alternatives to newsletter ads such as quarterly emails to membership.
4. Blog Committee – Listserv Footer
   The blog committee requested to add footer language in listserv emails referencing the blog. They offered two options to the board.
   M/S/A to add language to the footer of listserv messages “Get LLOPSCited ! Visit our blog at http://llops.org/wordpress/.”
5. LLOPS and Social Networking
   At the Business Meeting on 1/27/2010, President Hagle presented the LLOPS Facebook and LinkedIn pages. The Facebook page is administered by E. Hoffrance. K. Pitts administers the LinkedIn page. Consistent branding has been implemented across the blog, Facebook and LinkedIn. A future committee may be formed to combine the blog and website committees.
6. Handbook Changes – Lifetime Member
   R. Kaiser was charged with editing language to clarify the category of “Lifetime Member” in the LLOPS handbook . R.Kaiser agreed to send edited language to the Board for further discussion. Once the Board approves the language, the changes will be sent to K. Ositis to change the language on the website and the Handbook document.
7. AALL Visitor – Catherine Lemann
   AALL President Catherine Lemann will visit LLOPS in late March. Her schedule currently includes: Tuesday 3/30 – Dinner with the Executive Board; Wednesday 3/31 – Meeting with the LLOPS Membership, social at the Columbia Tower, a tour of the King County Law Library and a tour of the U.S. Courts Library.

Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 12:47pm.
Respectfully submitted by Tina S. Ching, LLOPS Secretary.

by Dianne George and Kristine Lloyd

Our May LLOPS meeting featured Rita Dermody, King County Law Library Interim Director, and Judge Mary Yu, President of the KCLL Board of Trustees, holding court at Davis Wright Tremaine on the future of KCLL.

Judge Yu’s remarks focused on the development of a Strategic Plan, a major effort to re-define and re-brand the library. The library remains passionate in its mission to support the pro se community, and KCLL aims to fashion itself as a hub of activity where patrons can find help using a myriad of resources. In order to succeed in this mission, the support of the law firm community is critical, and the library is reaching out to find ways to support us as well.

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by Jill Allyn
This is part 2 of a 2-part article that Jill wrote for our blog, recounting the GSB Flood of 2009. Read Part 1 here:

Aftermath: Litigation associates whose offices received serious water damage on floor 17 packed up their offices very quickly (every person was responsible for packing up his/her own office). In the chaos, wet library books were tossed out, and we had no record of which volumes these were. Other attorneys scooped up favorite titles from the library before they were moved to build personal collections that could be kept close at hand. The built-in shelving in the main library on floor 18 housed the Washington collection, and since it received no damage, was able to remain in place behind protective plastic sheeting. It was crazy to have some of the most used titles on 16 and some on 18, so on June 15th I asked the movers to return and move the Washington collection to floor 16. During this period there was only one elevator operational for all the businesses from floors 11 – 22, and much of the time it was being used for moving, demolition, and the like. Simply getting to floors 16 and 18 from floor 11 required a long wait. The firm opened a special client/matter for flood-related activities, and we documented all costs, including labor costs, there.

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By Jill Allyn

The Event: May 18, 2009, (twenty-nine years to the day after St. Helens erupted), a pressurized sprinkler line erupted sometime around 3:30 AM in the ceiling over the Garvey Schubert Barer (GSB) library on floor 18. Water flowing in the pipe at an estimated 700 gallons per minute sprayed upwards, quickly soaking the ceiling tiles below the pipe. The ceiling tiles failed, and water spray carried foam insulation and bits of tile into the library.

Building personnel became aware of the break at about 5 am and called the fire department. The fire fighters turned off the water and quickly arrived on Floor 18. There were 4 1/2 inches of water in some attorney offices. Using their water hoses as giant squeegees, the firemen pushed large amounts of the standing water into the elevator banks. This shorted out all four elevators that serve floors 11-22. Water seeped down on the north side of the building, wetting carpet and walls, from floor 18 to floor 11. Water dripped onto scanners and copiers, seeped under walls and migrated around the firm via the carpet. The elevator shafts leaked water as far down as six levels, to the bottom of the parking garage. The fire department later estimated that had the water continued rising just 15 minutes more, it would have run down data ports and shorted out the firm’s servers that serve all 5 GSB offices.

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Last week, during our March meeting, many LLOPS members had the honor  of meeting our AALL President, Catherine Lemann. In addition to particpating in a panel discussion on disaster planning, Ms. Lemann also congratulated our chapter on its 20th anniversary. Happy Anniversary LLOPS!

Click on the photograph to view a larger version of our lovely Executive Board with AALL President Catherin Lemann.

by Erin Hoffrance

Photo by Kate Stockert

A crisp, late February afternoon was the backdrop to the LLOPS tour of the new retrofitted William Kenzo Nakamura United States Courthouse. The Courthouse is used by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Tim Sheehy, Branch Librarian, and Sarah Griffith, CALR librarian, were kind enough to give us a tour and a little history to go along with it. In 2001 the Courthouse was re-dedicated and named after William Kenzo Nakamura. Nakamura, who died in the line of duty and received the Medal of Honor for his heroism many years after his death in World War II while his family was held in Japanese internment camps by the American government.

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