Law Librarians Play Active Role in National Association

Several law librarians from the Robert S. Marx Law Library attended the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), held in July at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. While there they attended educational programs on subjects related to legal information, library management, and changes in the ABA standards for accreditation of law schools. Several have leadership roles in AALL and its regional chapters.

James Hart, senior reference librarian, was a presenter in two programs. In “Designers’ Workshop: Subject Guides that Create the Effect You Want,” Jim showed attendees how to improve the library subject guides they create to help library patrons. Jim also presented on a program that discussed machine-based language translation, which was of special interest to foreign and comparative international law librarians.

Associate director for public and research services Susan Boland concentrated on sessions relating to learning outcomes and assessment as required by new ABA accreditation standards. Many of the required assessment methods are already incorporate into the school’s legal research curriculum that Susan played a primary role in designing. Susan also participated in sessions on training law students in legal technology and teaching research to LL.M. students and international attorneys. Susan led a roundtable for the Academic Law Library Special Interest Section.

Shannon Kemen, reference librarian, is the current president of the Ohio Regional Association of Law Libraries (ORALL) and represented the organization at the AALL Council of Chapter Presidents. She also hosted an ORALL social event. Shannon attended sessions on student assessment, library finances, and tools for attorney/law student job searching.

Collections and access librarian Lisa Britt-Wernke attended several programs and met with recipients of the ORALL registration grants, as chair of the ORALL Grants Committee.

Bibliographic services and special collections librarian Akram Sadeghi Pari concluded her term as a member of the Indexing of Periodical Literature Committee. That group reviews new legal periodicals and makes recommendations to The Gale Group about including the publications in its indexes to legal periodicals. Akram serves in the Cataloging and Classification Standing Committee and in the Awards Committee, both of the Technical Services Special Interest Section.

Law library director Kenneth J. Hirsh spoke on “Evolving Roles of Law Librarians and Legal Technologists” at the breakfast business meeting of the Computing Services Special Interest Section. Ken began his third and final year as a member of the AALL Executive Board.

 

 

Comments are closed.