“The City of Roses” was a great host for AALL, but it’s time for us to leave Portland and head back to Minnesota.
(Image courtesy: AALL)
We hope you enjoyed our blog posts from the meeting and the videos, photos and text we brought you.
Next year, AALL takes its show to Washington, D.C.
Law libraries recognize the importance of getting the word out about their services.
The AALL/West Excellence in Marketing Awards honor outstanding achievement in public relations activities by an individual, a group of individuals, a library, a Chapter, an SIS, a Consortium, a Caucus, or any other group affiliated with the Association.
AALL believes public relations is a critical responsibility of nearly every member of the library profession and they issue the Excellence in Marketing Awards to inspire, educate and encourage promotional activities by the AALL membership.
This year’s winner for Best Brochure was the Law Library of Congress in Washington D.C.
Leon Scioscia talked to us about the Law Library of Congress and showed us the winning brochure:
The other four 2008 AALL/West Excellence in Marketing Award winners are:
Best Campaign
Rhode Island State Law Library (Providence, RI)
Justice Rules in Rhode Island-An Educational Collaborative
Best Newsletter
Jacob Burns Law Library (Washington D.C.)
Legal Miscellanea: A Newsletter for the Friends of the Jacob Burns Law Library
Best Public Relations Toolkit
Wahab Public Law Library (Virginia Beach, VA)
Welcome to Wahab!
Best Use of Technology
King & Spalding (Houston, TX)
Articles & Alerts Monitor of Peer Law Firms
As we mentioned in a previous post, a white paper distributed at a town hall discussion hosted by West at AALL is now available.
The “Partnership and Solutions for Preparing Job-Ready Attorneys” white paper addresses the key issues in the discussion surrounding the gap between desired and actual legal research skills among law students and new associates.
The discussion also was previewed in a Westcast podcast produced last week, a 20-minute discussion that featured Monice Kaczorowski, Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP; Karl Gruben, St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami; and Lezlie Bartz and Anne Ellis from West.
The new white paper on legal research builds on the discussion sparked by the “Research Skills for Lawyers and Law Students,” white paper produced by West last year.
West held “Librarian Camp” as the theme of its customer appreciation party last night at the Hilton Hotel serving as AALL headquarters in Portland.
We’ve posted some photos on our Flickr page.
No matter where they work – in law firms, law schools or government agencies – the law librarians at AALL have good reasons for coming to the meeting.
Many cite the networking opportunities with their colleagues. They also come for the career development opportunities.
We interviewed a few librarians at AALL for WestBlog:
One look around the West booth area at AALL and you get the sense you may be nestled into the scenic woods not far from Mt. Hood.
That’s the idea.
The large poster of the mountain – and the grass – may be fake but the pine trees are the real deal.
Kathy Granger, director of trade shows for West and the North American Legal businesses of Thomson Reuters, says like camp AALL is a time for law librarians to learn, enjoy existing friendships and cultivate new ones.
Through a video, attendees at AALL are getting a chance to get a unique behind the scenes look at West and learn about the company’s approach to the business of law, new product development and the future, among other things.
Anne Ellis, senior director, West Librarian Relations narrates the 20-minute video titled “Faces of West” that is playing in the West booth. It also features interviews with key leaders within West.
We’ve broken it into eight parts. For example, this clip features a closer look at the library West maintains at its Eagan, Minn. headquarters:
Other video clips from “Faces of West” are:
Attendees at AALL are getting some free titles from Aspatore Books and West, just for stopping by the West Print/CD booth.
The books, appropriately, are two Aspatore titles for law firm and academic librarians: The Changing Role of Academic Law Librarianship: Leading Librarians on Teaching Legal Research Skills, Responding to Emerging Technologies, and Adapting to Changing Trends (Inside the Minds).
Both books feature multiple authors and address the ongoing transition of the law librarian profession as a whole.
Aspatore Books offers more than 4,000 expert authors, addressing legal and business strategies for numerous topics, including intellectual property, bankruptcy, human resources, insurance and venture capital.
We’ve posted a few photos from AALL, inside the Oregon Convention Center, on our Flickr page, including some pictures of the West booth area in the exhibit hall, with its camping theme (and giant Mt. Hood poster!):
We’ll be adding to our Flickr page through Tuesday.
You can also see photos taken by AALL attendees on this Flickr group page and on The Daily Rose blog.
New lawyers spend much of their time doing legal research. Yet librarians and law firm partners agree that new graduates commonly leave law school without the research and writing skills needed to be successful in a law firm environment.
The challenge this poses to law firms, law schools and legal information providers took center stage on Saturday, July 12 here at AALL in Portland at the West town hall meeting, “Partnership & Solutions for Preparing Job-Ready Attorneys.”
The town hall, moderated by Karl Gruben from the St. Thomas University School of Law in Florida, featured a blue-ribbon panel of academic and law firm librarians who explored the challenge law schools face in squeezing research and writing coursework into an already-packed class schedule.
Gruben noted that research accounts for only one percent of law school coursework; this was reinforced by law professor Arthur Miller, who in pre-recorded video remarks decried the gap between what’s taught and what’s needed in that first job.
Research and writing, Miller said in the video, are “crowded out”, and don’t receive the focus and seriousness they should be afforded in law school.
The Town Hall also looked at a unique partnership between West and the law firm Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP that is providing new associates with comprehensive legal research training, including when and how to use print and online resources most effectively.
Monice Kaczorowski, head of Neal Gerber’s competitive intelligence unit and law firm litigation partner Chris Mickus said this training has helped new Neal Gerber associates more efficiently use all of the firm’s research materials. There needs to be more emphasis on research “nuts and bolts”, and new associates need to know how to use the library and its print resources before jumping to online databases, Mickus said.
West produced a white paper to address the key issues in the discussion in the town hall.
(Image courtesy: AALL)
We are in Portland, Ore. to cover the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Annual Meeting. It’s at the Oregon Convention Center, today through Tuesday, and features academic, government and law firm librarians from across the United States.
Over the next four days we’ll bring you updates, photos and interviews with attendees and some of our West colleagues.
West Librarian Relations plays a key role in participating in the meeting, including a West town hall discussion on partnerships and solutions for preparing job-ready attorneys.
If you’re also at AALL and want to give us your perspective on the meeting and the topics being discussed here let us know where to find you, in a comment to this post.
Or, e-mail Kevin Hunt at kevin.hunt@thomsonreuters.com.
Think that the ease with which we all search for information online hasn’t had an impact on how some law students and new attorneys start their legal research?
Think again.
A new Westcast podcast explores the legal research approach and skills of the so-called Google generation, as well as ongoing efforts by West and librarians in academic, government and law firm settings to improve legal research skills training.
The podcast involves Monice Kaczorowski, Director of Library Services at Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP in Chicago; Karl Gruben, Director of Law Library and Associate Professor of Law at St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami; Lezlie Bartz, vice president, Print/CD, West; and Anne Ellis, senior director, Librarian Relations, West.
They also will take up the topic at the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Annual Meeting in Portland, Ore. this Saturday, July 12, at a town hall discussion organized by West’s Librarian Relations.
The panel will explore the impact the Open Web has had on “professional search”, which has relied on specialized print publications and online databases.
“We’re trying to get law students and new attorneys out of the Google mentality, or hopping online without a clear understanding of what they’re looking for,” Kaczorowski said. “I think we’re slowly making headway, but I also think it’s essential that we continue to teach them how the print resources are set up so they can apply it to their online research.”
What do you think? Listen to the Westcast and share your thoughts with us.
For years, the West Key Number System has been the most comprehensive and widely used classification system for case law materials by the bench and bar.
It’s the index that makes it easier to do legal research, by organizing the American system of law into topics, and then dividing those topics further to quickly lead to the most relevant cases and issues in a specific search.
The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Awards Program just selected an article about the Key Number System, written by Dan Dabney of Thomson Reuters Global Resources, as its Law Library Journal Article of the Year.
“The Universe of Thinkable Thoughts: Literary Warrant and West’s Key Number System” is based on a speech Dabney gave in 2006. In the article, Dabney gives an overview of the classification system and its role in efficient legal research.
The award will officially be announced at the AALL Annual Meeting in Portland, Ore., July 12-15. (We’ll be live blogging from the meeting, by the way).
The AALL Awards Program was established to publicly recognize the achievements of law librarians based on service to the profession and contributions to legal literature and materials.
Dabney, a former law librarian at several law schools and professor at UCLA, is a senior director for Thomson Reuters Global Resources, based in Zug, Switzerland. We just got his reaction to the award:
Listen to interview (1 min. – mp3)
The AALL Award is not the first time Dabney’s article has gotten attention. The Out of the Jungle blog, via Jacqueline Cantwell, paid him some compliments as well, last year.
Westcast podcast
