By Christine Dulac
I have attended the AALL Annual Meeting almost every year since 2001—my first in Seattle. In 2004, I attended in Boston, seven months pregnant with my daughter Rose, much to my friend and colleague, Maureen Quinlan’s dismay—fearing I would give birth on the T.[1] There are many reasons to attend the AALL annual meeting—educational sessions, meeting vendors and seeing new products, and last but certainly not least, networking with colleagues.
At every AALL meeting I have attended, I have learned a great deal from the educational sessions and the vendor sessions, and most importantly I have always enjoyed reconnecting with my friends that I have made in this profession. This year’s meeting was no different. I attended great sessions on the future of the profession and the possible impact of AI. I reconnected with colleagues, some I have known for years and some new colleagues I met when I moved from academia to private law librarianship in August of 2022. Finally, I met with many of the vendors to see what they are bringing to the profession this year.
There was one major difference for me at this year’s meeting. For the first time, I attended this meeting while not employed in law librarianship. Because of this, I spent a great deal of time networking at this meeting. I met with librarians at institutions I had applied to before the meeting started in hopes of getting a leg up in the hiring process. I talked with colleagues about my employment status and asked them to keep me in mind when they talked to people in their network. From this, I learned about upcoming job opportunities and I had friends tell me about job opportunities they learned about that would fit my skill set. I spoke with new colleagues from the PLLIP-SIS and learned that some of the things I was requesting in the search process were not out of line with the standards in the profession.
I am not going to generalize and say that most come to these conferences and networking is third on their list of things to do after attending the educational session and meeting with the vendors. I will, however, admit that it certainly was third on my list of things to do at the conference. Yes, I have hung out with my friends, attended social gatherings, and simply met folks at the hotel bar! This year, however, my networking was more focused on meeting with people to let them know that I am actively looking for a job or to discuss open positions at potential employers. It certainly was more strategic than just catching up with my colleagues and learning about their family and friends. It was more strategic than that. Lesson learned: networking is an important part of attending professional conferences and can be approached differently depending on your goals. Meeting in the bar and catching up on their family and mutual friends is important but if you are looking for a job you need to branch out from there and talk about what you want or need in your next position. You need to ask them to keep you in mind when they learn about positions that fit your needs. As an extrovert, this is easy for me to do. I love to socialize with my colleagues at the conferences I attend but for many this is hard to do, and it is work! Be brave, reach out to the people in your network and be sure to have them looking out for you in their network too.[2]
[1] Rose was born on September 17, 2004 and will be celebrating her 20th birthday this year!
[2] I want to thank the LLNE Scholarship Committee for awarding me this year’s Annual Meeting Scholarship. Because of this, I was able to attend this year’s meeting with little financial burden and was able to do the networking I needed to do in hopes of finding a new position in law librarianship. I am still looking for that next job but I was able to make some headway in my search because of the networking I did at this meeting. My next blog post will be about the new and exciting position I have found…when I find it.
