The LLOPS Grants Committee is pleased to announce two grants ($75.00 each) are available for the LLOPS Professional Development Workshop. Completed applications should be sent to the Grants Committee by March 19, 2010. The LLOPS Workshop is Thursday, April 29, 2010, 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
We are also able to offer two registrations for the 2010 AALL Annual Meeting – Denver. Early Bird registrations are $445 and must be paid by June 1, 2010. Your application is due to the LLOPS Grants Committee by April 15, 2010.
Please complete the LLOPS Grant application and send to:
Dawn Kendrick Gibb, Grants Chair
Washington State Law Library
Box 40751
Olympia, WA 98504-0751
by Keith Pitts
You’ve heard of sports fanatics slavering over draft picks, reams of statistics, and ESPN.com, all for the benefit of their fantasy football, baseball, or basketball teams. But now, for you the legal research elite, above such antics, a new game’s in town: Fantasy SCOTUS. Yes, now you can “play like the 10th Justice.”
For each case granted cert, you (an “Associate Justice,” vying for the title of “Chief Justice of Fantasy SCOTUS,” and associated TBD swag) predict four things:
- The final supportive stance of the court towards the lower court ruling
- The judicial split
- The members of the majority
- The members of the minority (I don’t know how they deal with point-by-point support and dissension)
Continue reading 'You Be the Judge'»
Why do we willingly hand over $7 for a mocha chai grande latte, but then balk at the ever increasing price of stamps? Join us next Monday, March 1st, here at K&L Gates, to hear library consultant and professional speaker, Pat Wagner. Her program: “Good, Cheap and Fast or Perfect, Free and Instantly: Understanding the ‘Iron’ Triangle'” will explore the interplay between Time, Money and Quality. How do we communicate our value to our customers when our stock-in-trade, information, has no inherent monetary value?
For those of you who have not heard Pat Wagner speak before, you’re in for a real treat. She has worked as a library trainer and consultant since 1978, speaking at major library conferences such as ALA, AALL, and MLA. LLOPS members who have heard her speak, can attest that she is a highly entertaining and engaging speaker. We’re fortunate to have her here, as part of her 2010 Pacific Northwest speaking tour.
Please email Barbara Swatt Engstrom by Wednesday, February 24th, if you would like to attend. The program runs from 3-4:00, followed by a social hour.
by Karen Helde
Is there life after librarianship? I talked to Denyse McFadden, longtime LLOPS member and former Library Director at Lane Powell to find out. Denyse now heads up the Human Resources department at Lane Powell and was gracious enough to share her perspective from beyond the stacks.
Q: What do you miss most about being a librarian?
I miss the collegiality of the profession. Librarians are hard-wired to be helpful and have highly developed skills at being supportive of one-another, while safeguarding the resources of their own employers or institutions. That support is warm, friendly, genuine and often very “behind the scenes.” Mentoring is in our DNA.
Continue reading 'Librarian, Reclassified: An Interview with Denyse McFadden'»
by Holly Gale
Have you seen it? Have you heard the Buzz? Yes, it’s true. Google is one step closer to world domination with its release of the new social media tool, Google Buzz. When I was invited to try out G
oogle Buzz, I was in the middle of juggling my inactive Twitter account, a Facebook page with ancient photos, an old Picasa album for family, a blog for my neighborhood friends, and my LinkedInnetwork. Did I not have enough channels of information to manage and update? Is Buzz really the new Facebook? And I was just getting back into Twitter!
Continue reading 'What's the Buzz All About?'»
In the daily rush of responding to reference queries, it’s easy to forget about the greatness of libraries. Libraries are places that save people every day, people like Shon Hopwood, who went from robbing banks to representing a fellow inmate at the Supreme Court, after spending hours studying the law in his prison law library. Makes a LLOPS member feel proud to be donating books to our local public law libraries.
by Erin Hoffrance 
When I’m in a crunch and need an article fast, I turn to document delivery services. I have had great success with Research Solutions, but there is a new kid on the document delivery block, Reprints Desk. Below is a head-to-head comparison of these two document delivery vendors.
History:Based in California, both Research Solutions and Reprints Desk are fairly new companies, founded in 2002 and 2006 respectively; however, the ability to retrieve and send electronic documents quickly and efficiently is also a relatively new phenomenon.
Continue reading 'Document Delivery Showdown:Research Solutions v. Reprints Desk'»
by Erin Hoffrance
On a recent cruise around the web, I stumbled upon an interesting post at the Librarian in Black Blog about a new Library Journal column, written by 2009 Professional Development Workshop superstar, Aaron Schmidt. If you did not already know about this library celebrity, Aaron is the digital initiatives librarian for the DC Public Library, and he is also half of the user experience consultancy at Influx.
The new column, The User Experience, is concerned with, of course, user experience, as well as information architecture and design. Information architecture is one of those hot, new terms that gets bandied about liberally in library school and at conferences, but I fear I have not ever fully grasped the meaning of it. In this first column, Aaron does a great job offering definitions of user experience and design. The article does not talk down to the reader who has more to learn about user experience and does not bore the reader who is well-versed. Aaron will be a great addition to the Library Journal publication, and I am already looking forward to his next column!
Attendees: 18 Members including M. Brinchman, B. Dacres, A. Eaton, R. Hagle, J. Hill, E.Hoffrance, C. Leith, K. Lloyd, B. Louzin, K. Ositis, K. Pitts and B. Rothwell.
Location: Lane Powell, Seattle, WA
Time: The meeting was called to order at 12:05p.m.
Continue reading 'LLOPS Business Meeting Minutes 1/27/2010'»
by Kate Stockert
Five years ago my company, Knowledge Mosaic, reviewed and purchased our first web conferencing product. Since that time GoToMeeting has served our training and sales needs well. However, a recent renewal notice prompted me to reconsider the options. Boy, was I surprised to find the significant price drops since our initial purchase. Suddenly WebEx Meeting Center and Microsoft Live Meeting’s sexy features and high screen resolution were within reach!
One thing has not changed: there are still numerous factors to consider when purchasing a web conferencing product, and none of the products match up feature-for-feature. Below I highlight my findings, including this Feature Comparison Chart. My review covers GoToMeeting, WebEx Meeting Center, Microsoft Live Meeting, and Fuze. Other players my research did not cover include DimDim, ooVoo and Eye Network. My findings are by no means exhaustive, but will hopefully offer a starting point for your next review process. I invite you to share your own suggestions, ideas, or findings.
Continue reading 'Meet Me Online!'»
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