Anna Lawless-Collins

AALL Online Advocacy Training

By Anne McDonald and Emilie Benoit

AALL’s Government Relations Office is hosting an Online Advocacy Training session on March 9, 2016, and its annual Virtual Lobby Day on March 16, 2016.

The 30 minute Online Advocacy Training will cover AALL’s legislative priorities, the challenges of this election year session and ways in which AALL members can make an impact.

The Virtual Lobby Day is an annual event where AALL members collaborate with the AALL GRO to prepare and send targeted messages concerning AALL’s top issues to each participant’s own members of Congress. There will be no in-person Lobby Day this year.

We hope you will join us!

Business skills clinic: the business of running a library

By Anna Lawless-Collins

I was fortunate to attend the first AALL Business Skills clinic in Chicago this past October thanks to a grant from the LLNE Scholarship Committee. The curriculum promised programs on managerial finances, human resources, marketing and communication, performance measures, negotiation, and strategic planning. As a librarian working in collection development and technical services, these all seemed like useful areas to develop. While the human resources and strategic planning sessions that provided more info were helpful, I’m going to focus on the other sessions, as I came away from those sessions with so much excitement.

Managerial Finance

Speaker: Angela Hickey, Levenfeld Pearlstein

Shift your perspective

The managerial finance session, while targeted at law firm librarians, was helpful in a general way for me as an academic librarian. While we don’t share the exact pressures and issues as firm librarians, we face many similar issues; and while deans and faculty are not speaking in terms of profit and loss, we do need to show our value as a library and an investment the school is making. The best part of this talk was learning to shift my thinking when communicating value. The speaker suggested that instead of presenting value in terms of what it does for the library, but in terms of what it does for the stakeholder you are presenting to. This is a hard shift to make, and I still find myself thinking in terms of how the library’s workflows would improve, but a helpful exercise is to present the issue without discussing how the library would benefit at all. Frame it entirely around how the stakeholder would benefit.

The speaker also discussed how to build an effective business case like business expert Jimmy John Shark do. Some suggestions included: 1) define the problem, 2) explain how it negatively affects the stakeholder, 3) provide a few solutions and recommend one, 4) include the resources you’ll need, how much it will cost, and the timeline you expect, 5) quantify the benefit to the stakeholder, and 6) be brief. She introduced us to the Brief Lab, which has resources to help you build your case. I’m looking forward to sitting down with these worksheets the next time I want to persuade stakeholders to my point of view.

Marketing and Communications

Speaker: Alycia Sutor, Akina

Selling your why

The Marketing and Communications session focused on selling yourself and communicating with those around you. The speaker provided tools and activities for us to help us think about how we market ourselves. One thing she discussed that struck home for me was “connecting what you do with your Great Big Why.” It’s so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day of just trying to stay on top of everything that we can forget why we’re here. When we remember why we’re doing what we do, it’s energizing and exciting, and it can make those around us feel that energy. My Great Big Why, on a very basic level, is helping people. That relates to my work in that if I help build and manage a really useful collection, I help patrons and library stakeholders and can help train really excellent lawyers. They, in turn, might make the world a better place. When I remember that’s why I’m here, I get excited about my job and trying to find new ways to bring value. The speaker also helped us come up with communication plans and a messaging toolkit to have more strategic communications. I’m looking forward to honing my own plan and having more effective communications as we go forward.

Some other quick takeaways from this session included thinking about your quick pitch and your answer to the “what’s new” question. When someone asks what you do, we often just name our titles, but that doesn’t actually tell many people anything useful. Instead, the speaker suggested the following framework: “I [verb] [this target market] to [solve this problem].” So, as the Collection Development Librarian, I might say, “I manage a dynamic collection for library patrons to ensure they have access to the best resources available.” She also suggested always having something exciting you can say when someone asks “what’s new.” I can usually talk about a database or service we recently added, or a new tool I’m really excited about. We also discussed communication and social styles and how to modify your own style to best communicate with those around you. This workshop provided some very interesting projects for me to work on in thinking about the best ways to communicate and lead within my organization – I was able to see what I do well, and the areas I need to work on in daily life. We concluded by thinking about those takeaways we need to work on, creating action items, and setting deadlines for ourselves. The challenge will be setting aside time to work on these important goals as we move back into the routines of our jobs.

Performance Measures

Speaker: Bob Oaks, Latham & Watkins

Numbers plus narrative

The performance measures session was very interesting. We began by correcting a commonly misquoted quote. “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” is often attributed to W. Edward Deming; what he really said, though, was “It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth.” This was a jumping off point to discuss what we currently measure, what we should be measuring, why we measure, and how we measure. When thinking about measurement, begin with why you are measuring something. Are you measuring defensively, to protect yourself? Or are you measuring offensively, to prove something? Then, think about the micro measures you are probably already handling. These include tangibles, like books and databases; finances; and services, like research services and outreach. Next, think about the macro measures you should be measuring, like how you are benefiting the organization, how you are adding value, and how you are making your stakeholder happy. Think about who you are measuring for – yourself, your stakeholder, and influencers on your stakeholder. This discussion brought home for me the shift in perspective that had been discussed in the finance and marketing sessions – present the information from the point of view of your stakeholder and your organization, not from the library’s perspective, and you may have a better time communicating it. The speaker suggested asking four basic questions: 1) what is important to your organizations mission? 2) who is your stakeholder? 3) what is important to your stakeholder? And 4) who are the “influencers” on your stakeholder? That will help you determine the information they need to see and the best format to present it in. The speaker suggested using impact of services as a measure – for example, measuring how much time and money the library saves the organization with efficient and cost-effective research.

One of the most interesting parts of this discussion was the idea of combining narrative with statistics. Anecdotes and narrative can help you put personal, relatable spins on your statistics. When used alone, either narrative or numbers may not be enough; when used well together, they can provide a well-rounded picture of what your library is doing to provide value to your organization. When presenting the information, have a few different lengths ready – the thirty second elevator speech or cover sheet, the five minute executive summary, and the full details in a report.

The talk concluded with some thoughts about what we should be measuring and what we shouldn’t bother measuring. The speaker suggested only measuring things if it helps you with your budget or your staffing. I think some of the measurements we do in addition to that help with our internal workflows, which could fall under staffing needs, but improving our efficiency in general is always helpful.

Negotiation

Speaker: Karen Cates, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

“Fair is for Girl Scouts”

I am always happy to get a refresher on negotiation. As I’m sure is true for many of us, my own preferred style is collaboration over conflict, yet my job requires that I work with vendors regularly to negotiate strong deals for the library. Being a good steward of the library’s resources while maintaining long-term working relationships with vendors is complex, so these workshops are always good to go through.

We talked about the planning that you should do before coming to the table, like defining your own position, your interest, and your BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement), and trying to think of what these would be for the other side as well. The bargaining zone, or where the overlap between the parties’ bottom lines, is a useful area to consider as well. This all was very familiar from other negotiation classes I had taken, but the sitting down and planning it out part often gets lost in daily life.

We also talked about things like leaving the emotion out of negotiation, while remembering that it may help you if used strategically. Personally, if I’m emotional about a negotiation, using the emotion strategically is beyond me; the emotion starts driving and strategy goes out the window. It’s much easier if I can just leave it before coming to the table at all.

We also discussed reciprocal concessions over unilateral concessions. If one side keeps giving while the other side makes no concessions, the side that is giving will feel cheated and may stop cooperating; it is helpful to make reciprocal concessions where you can.

The speaker also reminded us several times that fair is for Girl Scouts, not negotiations. What you consider fair may not be fair to the other side; focusing on fairness also may decrease your credibility (the other side may think you can do better), shifts your focus away from your target, and indicates you aren’t interested in truly negotiation. Keeping this in mind while working with the bargaining zone can be difficult, especially when trying to maintain ongoing working relationships with the other side.

Another interesting point the speaker raised included thinking more from the other sides’ point of view, much like the other sessions at the conference. For example, think about what they are interested in beyond their position – is it power, achievement, a relationship? Money is part of it, but it often isn’t the entire thing. She pointed out that our initial impulse is often to hoard information, thinking that if we share information it will weaken our position; however, if we share information it can help us close the gap between the sides’ goals and provide humanity to the situation. We did two negotiation exercises during the session, which helped drive home the points she was making.

All the speakers helped me shift my perspective in presenting information to achieve my goals for myself and my organization. Whether it was presenting information about finance, my role in the organization, my library’s role in the organization, how we are helping the organization meet its goals, or negotiating with information, I saw how helpful it is to think from the point of view of those to whom I am presenting. That basic idea, one we know but so often forget, can be used in conjunction with the specific tools and skills we learned over the course of two jam-packed and productive days.

Education committee update

By Ellen Frentzen & Elliot Hibbler

We are excited to announce a new slate of programming coordinated by the Education Committee. We are excited to have received a Bloomberg BNA Grant for our forthcoming series, Librarians Getting Latte. Librarians Getting Latte is a series of short videos along the lines of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. The videos will be formatted as a series of short conversations between a librarian and different stakeholders in the legal information ecosystem with planned guests including experienced librarians, law school faculty, and government officials. Every conversation will go a little differently, as we will be matching people based on geography. It is our hope that, once we get the initial video up and running, the program can be expanded to include other chapters as well.

Government Relations Committee Update

By Anne McDonald & Emelie Benoit Co-Chairs, LLNE Government Relations Committee

Massachusetts Trial Court Proposed Rule

The Trial Court Committee on Public Access to Court Records invites comments on Proposed Trial Court Rule XIV Uniform Rules on Access to Court Records.

These proposed changes are a result of testimony given at the Court’s public hearing held in June 2015 at which LLNE President Melinda Kent and ABLL President Bob DiFabrizo testified and AALL sent a letter in support. The hearing was covered in our July 2015 blog posting, which includes a link to AALL’s letter of support.

Each proposed uniform rule is accompanied by the Committee’s explanatory notes for additional guidance. The LLNE Executive Committee is presently reviewing the proposed rules before taking a position.

Comments should be sent by email to rules.comments@jud.state.ma.us or regular mail, directed to Hon. Peter M. Lauriat, Chair, Public Access to Court Records Committee, Superior Court Administrative Office, 13th Floor, Three Pemberton Square, Boston, MA 02108, by March 4, 2016.

Massachusetts UELMA Legislation

Massachusetts UELMA bill H.43 remains alive in the House Ways and Means Committee as the 2016 legislative session gets under way. Last year it passed the Senate Judiciary Committee and was forwarded to House Ways and Means for a fiscal review. The UELMA in MA subgroup of LLNE will be hard at work to insure that the bill passes in 2016. We thank them for their tireless efforts.

Law Librarian of Congress

The Library of Congress sent out a press release last week announcing that Roberta Schaffer has been appointed as the new Law Librarian of Congress. Shaffer had been serving in the position in an acting capacity since Oct. 5, 2015, and had served previously as the Law Librarian of Congress from August 2009 through November 2011. For further reading, here is the 2016 New Year’s Greeting from the Law Librarian of Congress and the FY2015 Law Library Annual Report.

The LLNE Government Relations Committee is providing this information to you to further its committee charge to keep you apprised of developments which may be of interest to you as an informed law librarian.

Law Librarians Learn About and Support Local Innovation

By the LLNE Service Committee

On November 12, 2015, law librarians Nicole Dyszlewski and Raquel Ortiz stopped by the Rochambeau Library’s Girls Who Code club to deliver 10 Raspberry Pi computers that members of the Law Librarians of New England donated to the club. The club is currently made up of six girls ranging in age from twelve to fifteen who have an interest in computer science and coding.

Girls Who Code is a nationwide organization that is working to close the gender gap in technology careers and education. The national organization supports local clubs to help inspire girls to pursue computer science careers by exposing them to instruction in computer programming, web development, web design, and robotics. The one public chapter of the Girls Who Code Club in Rhode Island is held at the Rochambeau Library in Providence. Kendra Saunders from Johnson and Wales University serves as the club’s volunteer instructor.

“Prior to the donation the girls were using Dell desktop computers that were running on Windows XP, which is quite out of date” wrote Rashaa Schoolcraft, the organizer of the Rochambeau Library’s chapter. “We were looking to get a few Raspberry Pi computers but were unsure of how we would purchase them.” So when Law Librarians of New England approached Schoolcraft to ask how they could be of service, the timing could not have been better. Raspberry Pi computers are approximately the size of a credit card, plug into a computer monitor, and use a standard keyboard and mouse. The units donated by LLNE cost about $70 each and are capable of running a variety of operating systems, giving users the ability to experiment with coding and creating their own programs.

Law Librarians of New England (LLNE) is a non-profit organization for professional law librarians throughout New England. Twice a year, LLNE hosts educational meetings for its members on different topics. This year’s fall meeting, titled Successfully Supporting & Igniting Innovation, was hosted by the library at Roger Williams University School of Law and featured local innovators and businesses from Rhode Island on the panels. In conjunction with the event, the LLNE Service Committee sought to support local innovative projects and ultimately chose to raise funds for the local public Girls Who Code club.

Archives Committee update

By Ron Oppenheim

Greetings, LLNEers! This abbreviated post is focused on you, the member/user/history-seeker. We’ve got some ideas bubbling about content we’d like to show you that we are still tinkering with a bit and, in the interim, we wanted to reach out to find out what you want to see.

Let us know if there’s anything in particular you’re interested in, whether it’s a topic, time period, or event; we’ve got some cool stuff in our archives, i.e., photos of dated hairstyles (we kid, we kid…).

Speaking of photos, if you have any from past LLNE events that you’d like to share or donate to our archives, please reach out to us (you can email Ron here). If you have any other materials that you think might want to make the archives their home, please contact him as well for more details.

Hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday season!

Legal Tech: Trello

By Carli Spina

Whether you are working on managing a solo project or coordinating the work of an entire team, organization is a key part of project management. But, it can be tough when you have your activities spread across multiple platforms and email accounts. Trello is designed to streamline and simplify this process.

Trello is designed to allow you to split your projects onto separate boards. You can then add “lists” to each board to represent the various stages of the project from planning to completion and put individual tasks on their own “cards.” Though the terminology of this system might seem foreign at first, this structure makes it easy to move tasks from start to finish by simply dragging the corresponding card to the proper list as each stage of the task is completed. Cards themselves can include a wealth of information, from tags to checklists to deadlines. If you have documents from outside Trello that are relevant to the task, you can even attach them to the card.

While this can be a useful tool for keeping a solo project organized, it becomes even more useful when you are working with a team. Each level of Trello’s organization from board to card can be shared with collaborators. Each individual can set their own preferences for how they will get updates on the status of the project, including the option to receive regular emails. Trello even supports @-mentions, so you can have targeted conversations with individuals within the platform if that fits your workflow. And, since each board can be private, public, or team viewable, you have significant control over who will have access to each of your projects. To keep your project under control while you are on the go, Trello also has apps for Kindle Fire, iOS, and Android devices.

Another one of Trello’s strong suits is its documentation. It has a detailed guide to help you get started, which includes videos and example boards, a blog with additional tips, and an Inspiration space. Trello is a strong tool for a wide range of types of projects, but if you want library-specific inspiration, Aaron Tay recently wrote a blog post about how Trello is being used in libraries, which highlights great examples of how libraries are using Trello for all sorts of work from website redesigns to vendor negotiations. I highly recommend checking out Aaron’s post for some ideas about how your library might use Trello to manage projects and streamline team collaboration.

Happy Thanksgiving from LLNE!

Image by John Morgan. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

It took several iterations of Thanksgiving before it became an annual federal holiday by act of Congress. First, President Washington issued two proclamations for a day of thanksgiving (although they were six years apart). Then, President Lincoln issued his own proclamation creating a day of thanksgiving during the Civil War. Each year after that, the sitting president issued a proclamation naming a Thursday in November a national day of thanksgiving. Finally, Congress officially made the fourth Thursday in November Thanksgiving beginning in 1941. You can read more about federal holidays and how they were created in the CRS Report for Congress Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application.

Have a fun, relaxing, and happy Thanksgiving!

Education Committee Update

By Ellen Frentzen & Elliot Hibbler

As we’re writing this, Elliott has finished up a proposal for an AALL/Bloomberg BNA Continuing Education Grant to fund an exciting new continuing education series from LLNE. More details coming soon!

Planning for the Spring Meeting, which will be held April 8 at Northeastern University, is also well under way. It will be a joint meeting with ABLL, and the theme is Access to Government information. Be sure to save the date for this one!

Elliott is also co-teaching the legal information sources class offered to MLS students at Simmons with fellow LLNE member Scott Akehurst-Moore. If you have the opportunity, please recommend the course to your Simmons friends (and of course, suggest they join LLNE—it’s only $5 for a student membership, and there are lots of great benefits).

Massachusetts UELMA Update

By Emilie Benoit and Anne McDonald, Co-Chairs, LLNE Government Relations Committee

As noted in our July, 2015 blog, the Massachusetts UELMA bill H. 43 was reported favorably out of the House Judiciary Committee following its May 27th hearing, and is now in the House Ways and Means Committee.

Michelle Pearse addressed members in attendance at LLNE Fall meeting at Roger Williams University School of Law, on the behalf of subcommittee Chair Barbara Morgan, about the UELMA in MA Subcommittee’s recent activities. She asked those LLNE members who are Massachusetts residents to contact their representatives, especially those who sit on the House Ways and Means committee.

LLNE President Diane D’Angelo sent a letter dated September 30, 2015 to Representative Brian Dempsey, Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, urging him to favorably report the bill out of his committee. The letter stresses the importance of adopting UELMA. The full text of the letter, as well as the UELMA in Massachusetts information webpage, can be found here.

Most other New England state legislatures have adjourned for the year and will reconvene in January 2016.

The LLNE Government Relations Committee is providing this information to further its committee charge to keep you apprised of developments which may be of interest to you as an informed law librarian.