AALL is solely dedicated to law libraries, as Terry says; SLA is dedicated to the needs of all special librarians, whether in law libraries or in other settings. There are good reasons to belong to each, and in an ideal world, those of us in law libraries could belong to both.
I came to law librarianship after having been a business librarian and an engineering librarian, and a long-time member of SLA. I was fortunate when I switched direction 10 years ago into law librarianship that several law firm librarians had seen that SLA provided some benefits to them that AALL was not able to provide, and began SLA's Legal Division, now grown to over 1300 members. Generally the Legal Division members are in a law firm or corporate setting. We think the SLA exhibit hall offers more variety of information resources that meet our needs than that at AALL. Although we all use many of the same vendors, those of us in law firms and corporate settings get a lot more variety in our requests for reference and research than our colleagues in academic institutions. I would dare to say that SLA offers less to academic law librarians than to for-profit institution law librarians.
One reason I am quite happy to be involved with the SLA Legal Division is that we have total control of the division programming held each year at the conference. Our Division Board and Program Planning committee are able to construct a list of proposed programs purely on the recommendations of our members. Like all conference planning, it has to be done a lot earlier than we would like, so our programming is planned well in advance, but we can respond fairly readily to changes and new technology or techniques. We can work with other divisions to present programming of overlapping interest. This year, we are doing a two-part program with our Business and Finance Division colleagues which has as Part 1 Business Research for Non-Business Librarians and as Part 2 Legal Research for Non-Law Librarians. Programs such as this draw on the strength of our network in SLA. I could not do my job as well without having been able to call on librarians I know from SLA in the Pharmaceutical, Engineering, News, Marketing &
Advertising, and Business & Finance Divisions. Many of our law firm colleagues are solo librarians, and get much support from our Solo Division. Continuing Education courses and programs focus on institution-wide topics such as Knowledge Management, Content Management, Intranets and other technology initiatives as well as searching workshops and other subject-specific topics.
Ultimately the decision about professional association affiliation is a personal one as well as a financial one. I have often had to make the decision on whether membership in a particular library association was important enough to come out of my own pocket. I am fortunate now to be at a firm where I can budget for at least one membership and conference per librarian, and can generally also justify regional and local association membership. Here at my firm, as in so many other law libraries, the whole staff cannot go to the same conference and leave the home base untended. Each year (except this one, as we will all go to the Nashville 2004 conference due to its proximity) we send some to SLA and one to AALL. In most institutions, the director gets to go to whatever he/she decides. With the option of another conference to attend, some staff benefit by not missing a conference year. I would not support an every-other-year conference for either SLA or AALL, as it would allow even fewer professional education a
nd networking opportunities. I would also not support merging the two annual meetings, as it would be unfair to half the staff of every law library. Starting in 2008, SLA is moving its meeting to July (Seattle July 26-31, 2008). Many of the members of the SLA Legal Division are not thrilled with that, but are at least happy that the dates do not overlap. Vendors with whom I have spoken have also said they would prefer to reach a wider audience at two separate conferences, which I thought went against the common wisdom that it would be less expensive to be at just one meeting.
One last (selfishly non-professional) point - a lot of folks pick conference based on the cities they are held in. Let's not decrease the choices!
Charlene Cunniffe
Director of Research Services
Bass, Berry & Sims PLC
315 Deaderick Street Suite 2700
Nashville, TN 37238-3001
615-259-6473
fax 615-742-2761
ccunniffe@bassberry.com
Chair, Legal Division
Special Libraries Association
-----Original Message-----
From: Terry Long [mailto:tlong@infionline.net]
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 9:08 AM
To: Judith Cole; law-lib@ucdavis.edu
Subject: Re: AALL or ALA
Judy -
AALL is not just for academic librarians. It is the sole library
organization dedicated to law libraries. Granted there are law librarians
who like you and I are in government but, we are, after all, law librarians.
AALL presents programs and publications that are unique to our types of law
libraries. It is not serving the interests of pharmaceutical, museum,
banking, engineering and law; it is serving only the needs of law libraries.
Stick with AALL. Try to attend an annual meeting (There are scholarships
available, if your agency can not afford to send you.), while at the annual
meeting attend the State, Court and County SIS meeting. Get involved with
the section. You will meet others in your situation and will benefit from
sharing ideas and attending programs. And, speaking of programs, you can
propose one for next year's meeting - another way to get involved in an
organization dedicated to your profession. Even if you can't attend a
meeting, the literature and listserv discussions provided by AALL are
beneficial to the profession.
On a local level, try to attend a SEAALL meeting (There are scholarships
availabe to attend - I have received one.). Local involvement is helpful,
too.
Remember AALL is for law libraries.
Terry
***********************************************
Elizabeth Terry Long
Assistant Law Librarian
Virginia State Law Library
Supreme Court Building, 2d floor
100 N. Ninth St.
Richmond, VA 23219
Phone: 804-786-2075
E-mail: tlong@infionline.net
or tlong@courts.state.va.us
----- Original Message -----
From: "Judith Cole" <ColeJ@hillsboroughcounty.org>
To: <law-lib@ucdavis.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 2:11 PM
Subject: AALL or ALA
This is a departure from the conference thread. I have been a member of
AALL for 2 years and have never been a member of SLA. I can belong to only
one or the other. I am thinking of moving over to SLA because my
organization's needs are very different from those of academic law
libraries. We are a government entity but aside from having a captive
clientele and not having shareholders, we function very much like a private
practice. I would welcome feedback before I make the move.
Judy Cole, Law Librarian
Hillsborough County Attorney's Office
601 E. Kennedy Blvd., 27th Fl.
Tampa, FL 33602
Tel: 813-272-5673, Ext. 126
Fax: 813-272-5758
colej@hillsboroughcounty.org
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