Category: Committee News

Tech Committee Update – All About Jotform

So you’ve been dying to learn all about how we create the forms we use for events and things like that.  Or maybe you’re not, but I’m going to tell you anyway. And it would help to have some instructions somewhere.

Say there’s a meeting coming up and we need a form stat!  Fortunately, I don’t need to create a whole new form.  I can copy a form from an earlier meeting and reuse the content. We use Jotform for our meeting registrations, and that’s pretty easy to use. 

Screenshot of Jotform website, showing the orange "Create Form" button in the left-hand navigation, and a list of forms to the right.
Getting started with the form

To make the changes,  I’ll need the following info from the event organizers:

  • Name of meeting
  • Co-sponsor
  • Price
  • Questions for attendees (lunch, dine-arounds, etc.)
Pages: Page 1, Page 2

LLNE Scholarship Application is EXTENDED to May 20th!

Greetings LLNE Members!

The members of the LLNE Scholarship Committee would like to invite you to apply for our open scholarships. We encourage you to apply for any (or all) of the scholarships listed below. LLNE Scholarships are available to attend or access the annual AALL or biannual LLNE meetings; for participation in continuing education/training opportunities; and for those seeking a degree in librarianship. Descriptions of our scholarship opportunities are listed below and on the LLNE website.  

Basic Scholarship information:

  • Meeting Scholarship: Help with registration fees or travel expenses, for LLNE members who wish to attend the Spring LLNE Meeting being held this June at Yale Law School, or the AALL meeting being held this July in Denver, CO.
  • Academic Scholarship: LLNE members who are enrolled in an accredited degree program in Library Science or in an ABA-accredited law school are eligible for one of our academic scholarships.
  • Continuing Education Scholarship: LLNE  members who wish to access continuing education and training opportunities beyond the programming offered at our biannual LLNE meetings and the annual AALL meetings may apply for one of our continuing education scholarships.

The application criteria and the application form can be found here, (LLNE scholarship guidelines and application process), and the application deadline has been extended to next Friday, May 20th. Please contact Dawn Smith at dawn.smith@yale.edu if you need more information.

Again, we encourage you to apply!

Posted on behalf of the Scholarship Committee

LLNE Access to Justice Update

The Access to Justice Committee has been reviewing and updating the Legal Link section of the LLNE website. Legal Link gathers general resources on legal information and research as well as state-specific resources for all New England states. It focuses on information about free and low-cost legal help, law libraries open to the public, and how to answer legal reference questions, making it a valuable resource for public librarians who have patrons with legal questions. Legal Link also contains information about free sources of legal information, basic legal research information, and guides to each state’s legislative process.

The Committee has reviewed all five New England states and identified a number of updates, which are in the process of being added to the website. Please consider promoting Legal Link in your public library community!

LLNE Scholarship Application is open!

Greetings LLNE Members!

The members of the LLNE Scholarship Committee would like to invite you to apply for our open scholarships. We encourage you to apply for any (or all) of the scholarships listed below. LLNE Scholarships are available to attend or access the annual AALL or biannual LLNE meetings; for participation in continuing education/training opportunities; and for those seeking a degree in librarianship. Descriptions of our scholarship opportunities are listed below and on the LLNE website.  

Basic Scholarship information:

  • Meeting Scholarship: Help with registration fees or travel expenses, for LLNE members who wish to attend the Spring LLNE Meeting being held this June at Yale Law School, or the AALL meeting being held this July in Denver, CO.
  • Academic Scholarship: LLNE members who are enrolled in an accredited degree program in Library Science or in an ABA-accredited law school are eligible for one of our academic scholarships.
  • Continuing Education Scholarship: LLNE  members who wish to access continuing education and training opportunities beyond the programming offered at our biannual LLNE meetings and the annual AALL meetings may apply for one of our continuing education scholarships.

The application criteria and the application form can be found here, (LLNE scholarship guidelines and application process), and all applications are due on May 13th, 2022. Please contact Dawn Smith at dawn.smith@yale.edu if you need more information.

Again, we encourage you to apply!

Sincerely,

The LLNE Scholarship Committee

Dawn Smith, Chair

Ana Delgado Valentin

Jocelyn Kennedy

Old Members, New Members, and Librarian Thoughts

A few months ago former LLNE member Professor Sarah Ryan emailed LLNE President Michael VanderHeijden to discuss a new Northern New England online cohort at the University of North Texas Department of Information Science. Mike sent the email to me and my interest was piqued.

As a former law librarian in Maine, I know that Northern New England can sometimes be overlooked. While there are three ALA-accredited Library and Information Schools in New England with the University of Rhode Island (Go Rams! I am a proud alum!), Southern Connecticut State University, and Simmons University, none are physically located in Northern New England (for more info on ALA-accredited programs, check out this database). As much of library school is online (because it is designed to be or because of COVID) I wondered what this Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine cohort was all about so I decided to ask a friend.

Amanda Ouellette is a Library Associate at the Maine State Law and Legislative Reference Library. She works mainly in technical services and cataloging and is part of a team working on a multi-year digitization and review of historical and current Maine legislative documents. (As I type this she is working on the digitization of the 1967 Maine House and Senate Registers having worked her way back from 2007 with her sights on going all the way back to 1915). She had worked in libraries for about 10 years when, in January of 2022, Amanda began UNT’s MLS program through its Vermont-New Hampshire-Maine Cohort.  

I spoke with Amanda and first I convinced her to join LLNE for the low, low, low student rate of $5 per year! Next, I asked her some questions to learn more about the student perspective on the new cohort. Amanda liked the experience at UNT so far. She likes that the program is all online and affordable. (Also, work reimburses part of her tuition which is an amazing benefit of being a state employee!)  She says she has up to 5 years to finish her program so she can pace herself and manage the school and work and life demands. She likes the cohort model, stating that there are about a dozen people in it. Amanda is the only member of the cohort with an interest in law libraries at this time but there are many other members of the cohort interested in public librarianship. She is most looking forward to a class on information organization like cataloging or metadata because she says her job revolves around cataloging which is something in which she has no formal instruction.

Looking to find out more details about this new cohort, I emailed Professor Sarah Ryan. The first thing I did was convince her to rejoin LLNE for the low, low, low cost of $10 per year. Next, I asked Sarah a bit about the program from her perspective as a professor. As Sarah describes it, “The cohort model is about people. Librarians are more than just walking skills repositories. We are sounding boards for each other, research collaborators, and just plain interesting people to know. The cohort class meetings bring our students together to make connections (and swap cat stories).”

For more information on the cohort, check out this flyer. For more information about joining LLNE, click here. (https://llne.org/join-llne/)

-Nicole Dyszlewski

Legal Research Instruction Program Scholarship Information

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 online 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 class will run on Wednesday evenings from March 23 — April 27, 2022. For more information about the LRIP course, go to https://llne.org/legalresearchinstruction/ or contact Brian Flaherty directly at brian2@bu.edu.

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.

Applications should be submitted through this Google form https://forms.gle/Wdyy1hiYQJtzNwY89 by Friday, March 18, 2022. Scholarship recipients will be notified by Monday, March 21, 2022.

Please send questions about the scholarship to Anne Rajotte at anne.rajotte@uconn.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.

Reflections from an LLNE Education Committee Co-Director

I am serving my second consecutive term as one of the Education Directors for LLNE.  A large part of the position is requesting Law Libraries to host the semi-annual LLNE Meeting and Conference.   

My first LLNE meeting was after moving from New York to Maine in 1994.   I agreed to drive to a meeting in Boston.  I was arrogant and thought driving in Boston would not be an issue.   That is when I first found out that Boston is not organized in a grid. I decided to stop for coffee on the way back to the parking garage at the end of the day. Everywhere I went people said, ‘You’re welcome, Maureen’, ‘Have a nice day, Maureen’.   A person held the door and said, ‘have a good evening, Maureen’.  I was busy thinking of how to easily get north and it would be on the drive that I realized I was still wearing my name tag. I have an appreciation now for the bus and train.  I have since learned that Boston is a very nice city to walk around and I still prefer walking to driving.

LLNE meetings are a place to spend some time meeting other Law Librarians.   When I attend a meeting, I always learn something new, talk to someone I did not know and, thoroughly enjoy myself. When Maine Law hosts the meetings, I enjoy being able to share my fondness for Maine and our little city, Portland.  New England is a large geographic space.  I suggest talking yourself into traveling and seeing more of New England’s  wonderful cities and neighborhoods. How often are you getting the opportunity to visit a part of New England you do not live in?  There is a good chance that an old friend will also be in attendance. Meet some new Librarians and see a Law Library you have not visited before.  

LLNE offers scholarships for those attending an LLNE Conference and Meeting https://llne.org/committees/scholarships/scholarshipinfo/

Thank you to all the Law Libraries who have hosted meetings.  We know there are many hours of work and planning that go into each meeting. The Education Directors and everyone at LLNE are aware that it is no easy task to host a meeting.

News from the Government Relations Committee Co-Chairs

Greetings LLNE advocates,

We have a few items to report:

First, the AALL Government Relations Committee is looking for nominees for two awards it administers:  the Robert R. Oakley Award and the Public Access to Government Information Award. The Oakley Advocacy Award is given to recognize an AALL member or group who has been an outstanding advocate and has contributed significantly to the AALL policy agenda at the federal, state, local, or international level. The award honors the memory of Robert L. Oakley, AALL’s Washington affairs representative from 1989-2007.   The Public Access to Government Information (PAGI) Award is given to recognize persons or organizations that have made significant contributions to protect and promote greater public access to government information.

Official descriptions of the awards and nominating procedures, along with lists of past winners, are available on the AALL website via these links:

PAGI: https://www.aallnet.org/community/recognition/awards-program/public-access-to-government-information-award/

Oakley:  https://www.aallnet.org/community/recognition/awards-program/robert-l-oakley-advocacy-award/

Nominations are due by Tuesday, March 1, 2022. 

Second, if you didn’t have a chance to attend the live event on January 27, 2022, we recommend that you check out the 2022 AALL Chapter Advocacy Training recording (available on AALL eLearning) for great takeaways on local advocacy.  The training included presentations by AALL members who have been active in their chapters advocacy efforts, including Sarah (Sally) Holterhoff (Chicago Association of Law Libraries), Benjamin Keele (MidAmerica Association of Law Libraries), and David McFadden (Western Pacific Association of Law Libraries and Southern California Association of Law Libraries).

Finally, here in New England it’s still early in the legislative sessions of many states, but we’re continuing to monitor developments of interest to law librarians.   We’ll keep you apprised.

Best,

Catherine Biondo and Emilie Benoit, LLNE GRC Co-Chairs

Service Project Wrap-Up: South Coast Fair Housing

The Service Committee would like to thank everyone who attended LLNE Trivia Night 2021.  The event was hosted by trivia master Thomas Todd (also known as Ttodd) and 34 librarians, friends, and family participated.  It was a great night of pop culture and general knowledge trivia, culminating in a tie breaker show down between Cardoza and UConn.  The winning team was Cardz Against Humanity, the team from Cardoza Law Library.  Congratulations to Christine George, Richard Kim, Ingrid Mattson, Anu Pal, and Olivia Smith!!  The winners will receive e-gift cards to Frugal Bookstore, a fantastic black-owned bookstore located in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston.

The event was to raise money for SouthCoast Fair Housing in New Bedford, MA.  SouthCoast Fair Housing is “dedicated to eliminating housing discrimination, ensuring equal housing opportunities, and developing inclusive communities throughout Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts.”  They do this through education, community outreach, advocacy, investigation, and legal representation. 

If you haven’t donated, there is still time.  Just go to https://bit.ly/3Ep9VGO and donate any amount today. 

Also, a big thanks to Lexis for sponsoring trivia night. 

If you are interested in joining the Service Committee or have an idea for our next project, please reach out to co-chairs Jessica Almeida and Kaitlin Connolly.

Fall 2021 Meeting – [In]accessible Justice: Innovation, Technology and Solutions

There is still time to  register for the Fall 2021 meeting next Friday!

Image

If you’ve registered, a Zoom link to attend will be sent soon!

More details and a schedule can be found on the meeting website. 

See you soon!

Fall 2021 Meeting Planning Committee