by Cheryl Nyberg
Teaching and training library users are bread and butter items on the task menus of many law librarians. Since few librarians are born teachers, most of us have to work at developing and improving our skills. We worry about how to get and hold the audience’s interest, how to make our examples relevant to their experience, and how best to deliver information in a way our listeners will retain and use it. Continue reading 'So You Think You Can Teach?'»
by Kristine Lloyd
Last September’s news reports were full of economic carnage, but most of it seemed to take place in the faraway world of Wall Street. That is, until the collapse of Washington Mutual and Heller Ehrman hit us locally. Even though Heller was a San Francisco-based firm, the dissolution had a huge impact on Seattle’s legal community.
Take a look at this recent Law.com article quoting our own Brenna Louzin about the fall of Heller. And thanks to Fred Hanson for alerting me to it.
by Kristine Lloyd
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Charles Dickens
It’s budget time, and well, you have no money, or less money, or you’re just winging it, hoping that no one will notice you’re a penny over! By now, most of you have read this year’s AmLaw law library survey article, “No More Sacred Cows.” The big news: it’s not that bad. It’s tough to make a case for economic devastation, with numbers like these: 46% of respondents reported a decrease in their annual budgets, but 43% actually reported an increase in their budgets. The average reported library budget was down by only about 1.5%.
Continue reading 'Belt Tightening, Penny Pinching, and Bovine Sacrifices'»
by Jan Lawrence
The LLOPS Grants Committee is pleased to announce the award of a $500 grant to Kristine Lloyd to support her attendance at the AALL Leadership Academy this October.
Dawn Kendrick, Chair
Bridget Dacres (as Kristine’s supervisor, Bridget absented herself from the deliberations) Jan Lawrence
*Too bad Ed McMahon isn’t still with us to deliver the check!
by Lori Fossum
This past June, I attended the CALI Conference for Law School Computing: “Tools for Change” in beautiful Boulder, CO. While geared mostly toward academic law librarians and information technology professionals, the conference spoke broadly to other types of law librarians and even law professors interested in integrating electronic resources into their teaching. I attended sessions on authentication of online documents and finding low-cost and free web-based legal resources, to name just two. Conference attendees all seemed to agree that we librarians ought to collaborate more, that all of us are asked to do the same work with fewer resources, and that we all wish things like PACER were free and easy. Of course, we didn’t all agree on everything, and I found it fascinating that the overflow room for the plenary speech filled before the main auditorium did. The speaker, Harvard Law’s John Palfrey, noted that many conference attendees chose to sit in the overflow room so they could use their various electronic gadgets in peace during his speech. And he seemed perfectly comfortable with that. Continue reading 'CALI Conference Lowdown: The Adventures of a New Law Librarian'»
by Kristine Lloyd
LLOPS’ own Rita Dermody was featured in a recent Seattle Times photo, for an article about the potential flood risks posed by the Howard Hanson dam in Kent. Departments like the King County Law Library, which are housed in the Maleng Regional Justice Center, are preparing for a possible dam failure this fall. One wonders if Aerosoles, J. Jill and Hot Topic are engaging in the same kind of rigorous disaster planning at the Kent Station mall nearby.
Disaster planning has been a hot topic in recent years, but how many of us have devised a disaster plan with the threat of real disaster looming, as opposed to “I should do this because it’s good for me and librarians are a prepared people” hypothetical disaster planning? Let’s hope KCLL does not have to implement their plan, but we know they’ll be ready if the water starts to rise.
Check out Rita D. in action here. And read the article here.
by Kristine Lloyd
If you haven’t heard about the AALL Award our chapter won for the 2008 Professional Development Workshop, then you truly are living under a rock. Here is Robyn Hagle accepting our award. The award is nice and all, but check out how pretty in pink Robyn looks. Way to liven things up with color!
by Richard Jost
I was fortunate enough to attend the “Cool Tools” workshop this July, one of the pre-AALL Annual Meeting workshops sponsored by the CS-SIS. The workshop, held at the Georgetown University Law Library, had about 25 participants from a variety of library backgrounds (technical services, public services, electronic/computing resources) mainly from academic law libraries. Continue reading 'Cool Tools: A Review of the AALL Workshop'»
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