by Kerry Fitz-Gerald
Before heading to AALL, I will be in Boulder, attending the second annual Boulder Conference on Legal Information: Scholarship and Teaching. The goal of this conference is to create a pedagogy in support of the Boulder Statement on Legal Research Education.
In preparation for the conference, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about information literacy and teaching legal research. As a teacher, I find there is a real conflict between the need to teach particular skills, like how to find a case or a statute, and the need to teach broader skills, like how to identify and use an unfamiliar database. Usually, by the time one’s taught the basic skills, there’s no time to teach anything more ambitious. Continue reading 'Teaching Legal Research'»
Those you who attended the LLOPS business meeting and birthday party last
week 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.
by Kristine Lloyd
Not to get all existential at the get-go, but what is a library? Is it a museum, a warehouse, a digital wonderworld? I have read so many articles lately and heard so much about Kindles, iPads and Google’s world takeover, that like every other librarian in the world, I’m questioning my place in it. Not that this is news. Seems to me like it all started with bringing beverages into the library, and then snacks, which I wholeheartedly supported, though popcorn seemed to be frowned upon. One of my favorite older attorneys at a previous firm had the charming habit of shelling peanuts in the library and leaving the shells scattered across the carpet like those restaurants that encouraged you to throw your shells on the floor. And then there were actually coffee bars in libraries. Something I noticed first in Seattle, which is no real shock. But then I don’t get out much, and I’m from Alabama, where I think I’ve yet to see a coffee bar in a library, though there are still plenty of shushers. And so, the library looked to me like it was becoming a glorified coffee bar and social space. Continue reading 'Coffee, Tea and Me in the Library'»
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.
by Kate Stockert
Do you have a family member notorious for passing along newspaper clippings of various sorts? Both my aunt and mother clip articles for me in seemingly greater volume than the GPO spits out Federal Register pages. I get at least two copies of every article that might be of interest to me, sometimes more if it relates to libraries. Recently my aunt sent me a clipping about Seattle Public Library’s event “The User Experience in the 21sth Century Library” which piqued my interest.
The event took place on Saturday, June 12th and offered the perfect mix of thought-provoking, riveting, and humorous dialogue. Moderated by Virginia Anderson, a member of the Library’s Strategic Planning Advisory Committee, the panel seated four participants: Joan Frye Williams, a “library futurist” and consultant; George Needham, a library consultant and VP at OCLC; Robert Spector, a published author and expert on customer service; and Tim Pfeiffer, Senior VP of Store Design at Starbucks.
Continue reading 'Review: “The User Experience in the 21st Century Library”'»
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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/.”
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 Philippe Cloutier
In 2007, I was lucky enough to intern at the Perkins Coie Law Library in Seattle. It proved to be an integral stepping stone in my introduction to law librarianship. To this day, Robyn Hagle says that they put me to task, having me work on all kinds of projects.
Thinking back on the experience has me considering my previous post on “Catching the Future.” The internship at Perkins accomplished several things, not only encouraging new librarianship and diversity in the field, but also allowing the library to focus on other goals and projects. One assignment focused on streamlining business reference inquiries. Resources and requests typically demanded corporate structure and filings, SEC documents, patents, ownership, news, litigation, profiles, and more. I was tasked with looking at the databases most often used and creating a grid for go-to reference assistance. Another example, at my current firm, has been refining our California Legislative History process. We looked at each step, dissected it into parts, determined the best methods and resources and have even managed to remove much of the paper waste it produced. It ended decades of file storage and created an online document database that saves time and ends duplicated effort. Both experiences resulted in improving standard work-flow and better turn around time. Continue reading 'Statistics to Action'»
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