All public librarians are encouraged to apply for a scholarship, sponsored by the LLNE Access to Justice Committee, to attend our chapter’s Legal Research Instruction Program.
The Legal Research Instruction Program (LRIP) is a six-week seminar geared towards public librarians interested in learning more about law librarianship. Each week, a different aspect of legal research is covered — everything from an overview of the U.S. legal system, to finding business transactional documents.
The 2021 legal research instruction program is going to be run entirely online. It will be a combination of synchronous and asynchronous instruction, using zoom, the various google tools, video instruction, and the imagination of the great teaching librarians of the Law Librarians of New England.
The class will be run on six Wednesday evenings from March 17th through April 22nd. The times of the synchronous class will vary based on the amount of asynchronous instruction for each topic, but each Wednesday will be at least one hour of synchronous online instruction.
The LLNE Access to Justice Committee is providing two scholarships to cover the cost of registration. Applicants must be public (non-law) librarians from the New England region. Please use this google form to apply. Application deadline is March 8, 2021 and awards will be announced on March 10, 2021.
Please contact Josh LaPorte with questions, jlaporte@bu.edu.
We encourage all LLNE members to share this scholarship opportunity with their local public libraries and any public librarians that would be interested in this excellent professional development opportunity.
The LLNE Nominating Committee will be meeting this spring to come up with a list of candidates for elections to the LLNE Executive Committee. If you are looking for an opportunity to get more involved in LLNE, one way to do so (besides volunteering for one of our fantastic committees) is to serve on the Executive Committee as Secretary, Treasurer, Vice-President, or President. As part of our push toward greater transparency, we’re circulating information about each of these positions to help you decide whether you might want to serve in any of these roles at some point during your career. This installment is all about the Vice-President/President Elect.
The Vice-President serves for one year (July-June) before becoming President. Following that one-year term as President, the now former President continues to serve on the LLNE Executive Committee as Immediate Past President. So, all told, this is a three year commitment. The Vice-President assists the President (think meetings, retreats, communications), chairs the Budget Subcommittee, and – in my case – tries to learn as much as possible from President Dyszlewski, who knows stuff about LLNE procedures and policies, and seems to have a bottomless well of energy and ideas. Although there aren’t any prerequisites for serving as Secretary or Treasurer, candidates for Vice-President should have the benefit of having previously participated on the LLNE Executive Board. Basically, that means you’ll be better-prepared if you’ve had some prior involvement in the leadership of LLNE, whether as a chair or co-chair of one of the many committees, or as Secretary or Treasurer. Below you’ll find the official list of duties recorded in the LLNE Procedures Manual.
If you’re interested in the role of Vice-President, please contact Diane D’Angelo, Chair of the Nominating Committee. We would love for you to be involved.
1. The Vice-President/President-Elect shall serve as a member of the LLNE Executive Committee and perform such duties as are assigned by the President.
2. In the absence of the President, the Vice-President shall preside at Business and Executive Board meetings.
3. In the event that the President resigns prior to the completion of the regular term of office or, in the judgment of the Executive Committee is unable to perform the duties of the office, the Vice-President/President-Elect shall assume the role of President for the remainder of the term.
4. The Vice-President chairs the Budget Subcommittee of the Executive Board and is responsible for the timely submission of the budget proposal to the Executive Board for consideration and approval.
5. The Vice-President/President-Elect shall join the chapter President in attending the annual meeting of the Council of Chapter Presidents at the AALL annual meeting and provides a report of the meeting to the Executive Board.
Rereading the piece, I am struck by my enthusiasm – and how cliché it all reads, I was not providing new and insightful comments. But, it does remind me of the value of continuing to expand and renew our knowledge as knowledge professionals. And even for those of us with more experience, everything is new to someone.
As the newer co-Education Director (Can we pause and marvel at the fancy title) with Maureen Quinlan, I agreed to run because of the value of education for all members of our organizations.
Now, in a pandemic we have to rethink how we educate and connect members while keeping our libraries afloat. Somewhere I read that we need to remember we’re not working from home, we’re working from home during a pandemic. Now, many of us are also staffing open libraries. Its daunting, emotional work. Our members are also furloughed, laid off or job hunting. How can we help them and their professional development? So if you have ideas for education, or ways LLNE can assist members, please let Maureen, I or any member of the LLNE Board know.
It’s time once again to take action on the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA) in Massachusetts! Massachusetts Representative Carmine Gentile has re-introduced the UELMA bill (HD.469) and has urged our members to seek co-sponsorship. If you live in Massachusetts, please reach out to your state representatives and senators now and ask them to join on to this important legislation.
For a sample email or to discuss these efforts further, please email Catherine Biondo, LLNE GRC MA representative, on behalf of the LLNE UELMA in MA committee (cbiondo@law.harvard.edu). Also, if you choose to send an email, please bcc Catherine on your email or forward her a copy afterward.
Since the co-sponsorship deadline is approaching quickly, time is of the essence. Please contact your legislators by Friday, February 12.
Due to the pandemic, which prevented most state legislatures in our region from holding sessions, the LLNE Government Relations Committee does not have any legislative activity or policy initiatives of interest to law librarians to report. Our bit of good news: Catherine Biondo, Research Librarian at Harvard Law School and former LLNE President, is the LLNE GRC’s newest member and is serving as the LLNE GRC’s Massachusetts State Representative. As detailed in our September 2020 blog post, Catherine was recently appointed to the AALL Government Relations Committee and also serves as AALL’s liaison to LLNE.
Earlier this month the LLNE Executive Board and LLNE Committee members were invited to engage in a two day retreat on the topic of antiracism. It is hard to take out 2 days of your schedule and make yourself available for intense volunteer work, but many of our amazing board members and volunteers did; some while on reference duty; and some on mommy duty. Beyond just showing up, those that attended engaged with the work, for which I am grateful.
The speaker on the first day of the retreat was Dr. Raul Fernandez who is the Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity & Inclusion at BU’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development and a lecturer in Wheelock’s Higher Education Administration program. He was phenomenal. (I recorded the talk and am free to share it with members if any of you are interested!). The remainder of the retreat was spent on thinking about big ways and small ways we can make our organization and its policies antiracist and more inclusive.
In 2020, our board released a statement in support of the Black Lives Matter movement where we stated:
We therefore want you to know we are committed to systemic change and doing work which furthers equity, access, and justice for the Black community not only in our country, but within our organization.
This was a statement condemning acts of violence and committing ourselves to the work of systemic change. We released the statement because we thought it critical to affirm our beliefs. It is also an invitation to hold the organization and its leaders responsible for following through on its statement. The statement was a promise to do more and do better.
The work of the new Diversity and Inclusion Working Group is one way we are upholding our promise. This retreat was another. Our work will continue throughout this Spring.
One of the themes that surfaced at the retreat was that the organization needs to be more open and inclusive when selecting leaders. Another way of expressing this is that our organization needs to choose leaders in a different, and more transparent, way. We need to recruit beyond our own networks of colleagues and instead post position descriptions and open calls for volunteers in a more intentional way. This may not yield instant results but it may set the tone for a more inclusive professional organization.
One way this can begin is through the organization’s yearly nomination process. The first step in this journey is selecting members of the LLNE Nominating Committee.
The Nominating Committee currently has room for 2 volunteers. If anyone is interested, please email me. As described below, the duties are fairly limited and the tasks completed in about 2 months.
Below is the description of the Nominating Committee charge:
1. Members of the Nominating Committee are appointed by the President in consultation with the Executive Committee at least ninety days prior to the annual meeting. Three in number, the members should represent a cross-section of library types and states in the Chapter. The Chairperson should be a previous member of the Committee. Members hold office for a term of one year.
2. Committee members shall develop a list of candidates who are knowledgeable, dedicated to improving the profession, have an interest in the chapter and its goals, and have a willingness to serve. In developing the slate of candidates, the Committee shall attempt to give representation to each state and library type when possible.
3. The Committee develops a priority list of candidates for each office and approaches each candidate about his/her willingness to serve.
4. Once the slate of candidates has been finalized, the Chairperson notifies the President at least sixty days prior to the annual meeting. Although additional nominations may be made directly to the President (see Article VI of the LLNE Bylaws), the slate generally includes one candidate for each office.
5. After the President has been notified, the Committee Chairperson sends a copy of the Committee Report to the editor of LLNE News for publication at least thirty days prior to the annual meeting.
I am the president of LLNE for the next 6 months and I hope that during this time, and beyond, we all can work to make LLNE a better organization. I am open to hearing about ways this can be done. I invite you to email me or call me to discuss your thoughts. I invite you to hold us accountable for our actions and our statements.
Finally, thanks should also go to the D&I working group members and leaders for their work. Also, there was a lot of behind the scenes work that was done by Christie, Mike, and Rachel to make the retreat happen that I am thankful for.
Hi, LLNE members! Our names are Allegra (“Ally”), Andante (“Dante”) and Parker Frentzen and we are the trio responsible for coming up with crazy stories to share with LLNE. Our mom is Ellen, one of the Communications Committee Co-Chairs of LLNE and the Assistant Dean for Administration at the Boston University School of Law. We were supposed to have been interviewed by the pup-arazzi in November, but we were too busy causing holiday mayhem, and so had to wait until we were ready for a little R&R (that’s “recuperation and recovery” for those of you who have never had to be on bedrest after splitting a toenail chasing a squirrel out of the backyard). Those holiday decorations don’t destroy themselves, you know! But we are delighted to take a moment to tell you more about Ellen. Here is a transcript of our conversation with Sara and Nicole:
Nicole: Hi, Ally, Dante, and Parker. Thanks for sitting down with us today.
Sara: Thank you for granting us this exclusive interview.
Nicole: We want to get to know the real Ellen better and we thought we could start by asking you a few questions.
Sara: What does Ellen do for fun?
Ally: She really likes to do projects. She’s always coming up with something to do, and moving our bed so she can paint the wall, or rearrange the furniture, or digging up the yard to plant a garden or taking us to the beach to look for seaglass or letting the tiny humans make a giant mess or something.
Parker: all the moving is terribly exhausting. I wish she’d just stick to her fun hobbies, like knitting. All that yarn makes a nice snuggly bed.
Nicole: What is your favorite thing about Ellen?
Ally & Dante: She is always up for trying something new. Almost every weekend we go explore a new place or try a new activity. And she adopted us from Texas together, because we are a bonded pair and cannot be separated, so that was nice. And she came up with our names, which are a perfect reflection of our personalities.
Parker: She really likes to read, which is a nice quiet activity with a lot of sitting and relaxing.
Sara: What is your least favorite thing about Ellen?
Parker: She can’t leave well enough alone. She’s always pushing people to do more and achieve more. All I want to do is sleep, preferably on someone’s lap, and she keeps buying new toys to try and get me to play. Also, she says I am a nosy Parker, which I think is terribly unfair. Someone has to keep track of the goings on around here, or it would be total chaos.
Ally and Dante: She massively overreacts when we achieve new heights. The other day, we figured out how to open the oven door and took out the short ribs she left hidden in there for us, and then washed those down with a pan of marshmallows off the counter and smashed the pan on the floor. Did she praise our ingenuity? She did not. She said it made a huge mess, and kicked us out of the house so she could cleanup. She said the same thing when we removed the dishrack from the dishwasher to more efficiently prewash the dinner plates. We didn’t even get a cookie!!! Also, whenever we’ve dug under the fence and gone running through the swamp up the street, she makes us take a bath before being allowed back into the house.
Nicole: What is Ellen’s favorite guilty pleasure?
Parker: Very few people know this, but she’s weirdly obsessed with waste management and what people consider trash, because she studied environmental science and archaeology. She likes to read books on supply chains and waste management, and she would love to have Catherine Coleman Flowers give a talk at LLNE or her law school.
Ally & Dante: Sometimes, she sneaks out of the house really early in the morning to go for a walk all by herself. She doesn’t even always take us!
Sara: We are down to our final question, if Ellen won the lottery, what would she do with the funds?
Ally & Dante: She firmly believes that everyone should have enough to eat, so she’d send a lot to food panties and food rescue organizations. She’d also like to expand her garden and start a #littlefreefarmstand to share extra pumpkins and tomatoes with her neighbors! We would like a big field to run around in, preferably with a pond to swim in, though.
Parker: She also feels everyone should have a home, which I agree with. I don’t even like to go outside, so I don’t think anyone should have to sleep on the street, and I would support her in donating to Habitat for Humanity, as long as there was enough to make sure I never run out of Fancy Feast.
Ally and Dante: In closing, we would just like to welcome Major as the historical first rescue dog to serve as First Dog and wish him a happy “Indoguration” and a enthusiastic first 100 days of digging in the Rose Garden.
2020 has been memorable but I think we are all ready for the start of the new year.
This year has been filled with loss and challenge. But it has also been a year marked by tremendous innovation and grace.
I am proud that our organization was one of the first law library organizations to hold its conference online in the Spring. This educational opportunity was followed up by frequent LLNE Friendly Friday Zoom meetings, a trivia event, and another all online meeting this Fall, hosted by UConn.
We were also one of the first law library organizations to issue a Black Lives Matter statement. Since issuing that statement, we’ve continued the conversation about issues of diversity, inclusion, equity, and anti-racism in our profession with other chapters and with our national organization’s leadership. I heard from other chapter leaders that our statement influenced their own deliberations about both the creation and content of their chapters’ statements. Further, LLNE organized a new Diversity and Inclusion Working Group, and they are doing important work which will help LLNE act in accordance with its espoused beliefs.
The work of a regional law library association is sometimes quiet and forgotten. But the impact of the work our association and our members do is loud. The Service Committee raised thousands of dollars for a local charity, the A2J Committee is rolling out new content on eviction resources, and our members are writing, teaching, leading, helping, and researching all the time.
Thank you to all our members, leaders, and volunteers for your contributions this year. I am proud to be the president of an organization that consistently leads our profession forward, even during trying times.
Jessica Almeida, Chair of the Service Committee, and Nicole Dyszlewski, current LLNE President wrote two articles on law librarianship, artificial intelligence, and surveillance and big data within law librarianship. Check the article out here.
The Law Library Assistant assists the Head Law Librarian in providing reference service, implementing circulation and interlibrary loan policies, utilizing knowledge of judges, court personnel, and the general public. Performs major duties under the direction of the Head Law Librarian. Law Library Assistants will be required to occasionally travel within a designated county to provide services at another law library as needed. The position title above the entry-level performs more complex and varied work. Employees are hired at the entry-level position title and are eligible for reclassification to the higher level position title within this series, consistent with the specifications for the higher-level position title. The position title reverts to the entry-level when there is a vacancy.
Qualifications
High school diploma and two (2) years of clerical experience in a library or an Associate’s degree or paralegal degree and one (1) year of clerical experience in a library or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Knowledge of library procedures, interlibrary cooperation, and the types of resources and services available to librarians and library users.
Demonstrated knowledge of personal computers including MS-DOS and Window environments, and proficiency in word processing, spreadsheets and CD-ROM use is preferable.
Ability to perform Trial Court fiscal procedures in accordance with MMARS accounting system.
Ability to travel to multiple court locations.
Ability to reach with hands and arms, bend, climb, crouch and lift materials weighing up to 30 pounds.
Ability to gather, analyze and report information.
Ability to communicate well both orally and in writing.
Ability to deal effectively with judges, court personnel, and the general public.
Ability to work independently.
Full/Part Time
Full Time
Education
NA
Salary
$51,193.42/Yr.
Closing Date
Until filled.
How to Apply
If you are not currently viewing this posting online, please visit the Trial Court website at www.mass.gov/jobs-in-the-courts to apply for this position or any other Trial Court employment opportunity.
