Category: Committee News

Legal Research Instruction Program – Call for Volunteers

Do you know a lot about legal research? Do you want to share your knowledge with others?

If the answer is yes, then consider volunteering to teach a section of the Legal Research Instruction Program. Currently LLNE needs volunteers to teach Statutes, Administrative Law, as well as Transactional & Business Law this spring. There is also a need for substitute instructors who can fill in at the last minute if needed.

The course is taught by different law librarians from the membership of LLNE, with a different librarian teaching each section. Brian Flaherty from New England Law oversees the program and is there to lend support for all of the sessions.

The course runs on six Tuesday evenings from March 14 to April 25, 2017 (no class on 4/18) from 5:45 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Suffolk Law in Boston.

Teaching legal research is a great way to contribute to the field of law librarianship while developing your teaching skills. Please consider volunteering your time for this great program. Contact Brian Flaherty for more information.​

Exciting News about the LLNE Legal Research Instruction Program

By Ellen Phillips, LLNE Education Committee Co-Chair

Each Spring LLNE offers a six-week legal research instruction program for librarians in the New England area who would like to learn about law librarianship. For many years, this unique course has been offering instruction in various legal topics.

Beginning this year, one class of the Legal Research Instruction Program (LRIP), the section on Case Law, will be taught online. The rest of the classes will be held in person on Tuesday evenings at Suffolk Law in Boston as it has been for the past two years.

Each topic is taught by academic law librarians who are members of LLNE and is overseen by Reference Librarian Brian Flaherty from New England Law.

Currently Brian, along with Susan Vaughn, a legal information librarian from Boston College Law Library, is working together to create a lesson plan to teach caselaw online.  All of the instructors volunteer to donate their time to participate in LRIP, and the students have the benefit of being taught by a variety of information professionals who are also experts in their field.

Class participants are varied in their background and career goals. The class traditionally has an even mix of public, academic, and law firm librarians, as well as the occasional pupil who is considering library school. This ensures a lively mix of skills and experience, but it was noted that the majority of the participants are from the greater Boston area. It is hoped that by offering a hybrid format, LLNE will be able to encourage librarians who live further away to consider attending.

This year’s Legal Instruction class will run from March 14th through April 25th. Classes will not be held on April 18th. A description the program is available at the LLNE website. The deadline to register is Friday, March 7th.

The Education Committee is excited about this change and welcomes any feedback. The members of the committee are Greg Ewing, Brian Flaherty, Bonnie Gallagher, Elliott Hibbler, Jessica Lundgren, Ellen Phillips, and Susan Vaughn.

Service Committee Drive for Project Smile: Wrap-Up

“Thank you so much- those stuffed animals were beautiful! Thank you for your efforts in collecting them for us.” – Catherine Piscane, Director of Project Smile

As part of the Fall Meeting, the Service Committee set a goal of collecting 70 stuffed animals for Project Smile to celebrate LLNE’s 70th anniversary.  With Bear leading the way and armed with the hashtag, #LLNE70forSmile, members took to social media to show their support and post photos of the stuffed animals in route to Maine.  With your help, the LLNE Service Committee was able to surpass their goal and donate over 150 stuffed animals to Project Smile.  Now, due to your hard work and generosity, a lot of children will receive comfort when they need it most.

Thank you to the members of the LLNE Service Committee for organizing the Project Smile Drive.  The Service Committee is always looking for more volunteers!  If interested, go to http://llne.org/committees/service/.

Fall 2016 Meeting Service Project – Project Smile

bear

Dear LLNE Member,

My name is Bear and I am getting ready to go on an adventure. My first stop will be the LLNE meeting on October 28th at The Westin Portland Harborview. While you all are learning about law library assessment, I am going to meet with other stuffed animals to discuss best practices for making boys and girls smile and how to be extra huggable. We are preparing to go to Project Smile, which will deploy us to children who are going through a traumatic experience.

I am a little nervous about this journey, and hope you will help by sending lots of nice friends to join me. Since it is LLNE’s 70th anniversary, we’re hoping to send at least 70 of us to Project Smile.

How Can I Help?

  • Bring a new stuffed animal to the meeting.
    • Stuffed animal must be under 20 inches in length
    • Stuffed animal cannot have a year sewn on it
    • Stuffed animal cannot have a battery compartment or make noise (sorry Tickle Me Elmo)
  • Mail a new stuffed animal to:

Joshua LaPorte

University of Connecticut

School of Law Library

Access Services

39 Elizabeth Street

Hartford, CT 06105

 

  • Bring or mail a monetary donation, and the Service Committee will purchase stuffed animals for Project Smile.

Although Project Smile notes that Build-A-Bears are very popular, you don’t have to break the bank to help out. Here are some stuffed animals under $10:

As I mentioned before, I’m a little nervous about this journey, and I would love to connect with some of my soon-to-be friends before the meeting. If you’re bringing a stuffed animal, please take a picture and post to Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.

#LLNE70forSmile

Love,

Bear

Government Relations Committee Update

By Anne McDonald & Emilie Benoit, Co-chairs, LLNE Government Relations Committee

Massachusetts Legislative Update

The UELMA in MA Subcommittee of the LLNE GRC continues to advocate for the passage of H 43, the UELMA bill.  The Massachusetts Bar Association House of Delegates voted to support H 43 on May 19, 2016. We thank Marnie Warner for her advocacy efforts with the Massachusetts Bar Association and thank all members of the UELMA subcommittee for their hard work and dedication.  According to Emily Feltren of AALL’s Government Relations Office, Massachusetts is the second state bar association to support UELMA, after Connecticut.

H 43 remains in the Massachusetts House Ways and Means committee. Marnie Warner, of the UELMA in Massachusetts Subcommittee of the LLNE GRC, reports that given the current budget shortfall, she does not expect any movement until the budget is settled.  Even though formal legislative sessions end at the end of June, legislators continue to meet informally, retaining the ability to vote on bills, until the end of December.

There is still time for LLNE members who are Massachusetts residents to contact their legislators and urge passage of UELMA.

The Massachusetts Public Records bill was signed into law on Friday June 3, 2016. It promises to make government more transparent, according to the Boston Globe.

 AALL GRO News

June 13, 2016, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the FOIA Improvement Act (S.337), sending the comprehensive Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reform bill to the President’s desk. He is expected to sign it before the 50th anniversary of FOIA on July 4th.  The bill updates FOIA by codifying the directives previously established in memoranda by President Obama and Attorney General Holder. It requires that information be available to the public in electronic format and limits the time period that federal agencies can keep internal information confidential.  Here is a link to AALL’s Washington Blawg.

 Librarian of Congress Nomination Progresses

 On June 9, 2016, the U.S. Senate Rules Committee voted to recommend that the nomination of Dr. Carla Hayden as the next Librarian of Congress be approved by the full Senate.

We are hopeful that the Senate will take up the nomination without delay.

Please urge your Senators to vote to confirm Dr. Hayden, through AALL’s Legislative Action Center.

Legislative Advocacy Training at AALL

 For those of you who will be at AALL, there is still time to register for the Legislative Advocacy Training on Saturday July 16, 2016. It will feature a speaker from Congressman Mike Quigley’s office and an opportunity to meet AALL members who will share their experiences in the legislative process. Here is a link to the draft agenda.

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.

Service Committee Shares “Legal Link” With SNELLA

By Joshua LaPorte

Mike VanderHeijden and I presented Legal Link, the Service Committee’s online tool-kit for public librarians, to the Southern New England Law Libraries Association (SNELLA) at an event at the UConn School of Law Library on April 19th.

At the program, we discussed the background of the Service Committee’s “outreach to public libraries” initiative, how Legal Link fits into that larger focus, gave a tour of Legal Link, and solicited feedback from SNELLA’s members on topics we should include as we further develop the site.  Some ideas floated were including patent searching, lawyer referral resources, and business development topics.  We also discussed similar efforts being made here in Connecticut to equip our public library colleagues to help patrons with legal research as a tool to mitigate access to justice issues.

The Service Committee is working on developing content for Legal Link, and the feedback from SNELLA was extremely useful as we determine what should be included on the site.

Generosity: A Message from the LLNE Membership Committee

By Nicole P. Dyszlewski

Because the Service Committee’s Spring project benefits the Rhode Island Department of Corrections Library System and I am a Rhode Island law librarian, I have been receiving the donations here in my office at Roger Williams University Library. I have been so impressed by the generosity of LLNE members. While the book drive, Bringing Books Behind Bars, is being organized by the Service Committee, and I am sure that committee will thank all donors fully, I just wanted to take a moment from behind the wall of donated books in my office to point out what is obvious to me. It is obvious to me that LLNE is a community of thoughtful, generous, and committed members.

Book Drive Pic

Every morning for the last few weeks I have come in to my office to find packages from Amazon. These books have been donated from active librarians and retired librarians from government, academic and private firm libraries from several New England states. Several people have even donated multiple books! It is clear from the response to the Service Committee’s call to action that the members of our organization are engaged and involved in this project.

Many professional organizations (including our own) have lately suffered from a decrease in members. In addition, leaders of these organizations, and LLNE in particular, work hard to assess how actively engaged members appear. LLNE uses data such as number of attendees at meetings and responses to listserv posts on issues to gauge the connectivity and vibrancy of the organization. These conversations and changes made to organizational processes are important. If you have ideas on how LLNE can continue to serve its members, the Membership Committee and all of LLNE leadership would be happy to speak with you. This conversation continues and we invite you to be one of the participants as we move forward.

Bringing Books Behind Bars Book Drive

LLNE Spring Service Project - Copy

By the LLNE Service Committee

In association with the 2016 Spring Law Librarians of New England (LLNE) Meeting, the LLNE Service Committee has organized a book drive for the Rhode Island Department of Corrections library system. The Service Committee has met with library staff of the prison system and has worked with volunteers to compile a list of needed acceptable books. 

All books donated must be from this list and must be donated in new condition based on the institutional rules.

The list of books can be found at: http://www.amazon.com/registry/giftlist/1R2951TFE7498

We have chosen a wide variety of titles which are both legal and non-legal.  We have also chosen titles at a variety of price points.

Donations can be purchased on Amazon and mailed to:

Nicole Dyszlewski

Roger Williams University School of Law Library

10 Metacom Ave

Bristol, RI 02809

In addition to the book drive we will also be engaging in an advocacy effort to ask prison officials to make the rules about acceptable material more lenient and more standardized. If you are interested in learning more about this project, please contact one of the co-chairs of the Service Committee, Joshua LaPorte (Joshua.laporte@uconn.edu) and Jessica Jones (jjones@socialaw.com).

Education committee update

By Elliot Hibbler

It is “Sunshine Week” this week! No, it is not about the weather (the warm temperatures have not correlated with clear days so far) but about open government and freedom of information. This week, we have seen the Senate pass a bill, S. 337, related to improving FOIA. Many such bills are also at various stages of the legislative process at the state level.

Which reminds me…the LLNE / ABLL Spring meeting is coming up soon!

We have a great day of programming planned. We will be looking at access to government information from a policy level, and also getting into the specifics of how access is working in practice. We’ll also look at projects shaping the future of access. There is still time to register at lawlibraryguides.neu.edu/LLNE2016!

Proposed Bylaw Changes

At the request of the LLNE President, an ad hoc committee was charged to look at possible changes to the LLNE bylaws with the intent of streamlining the election process.

The committee’s report with the proposed bylaw changes, is now available for review. The text has also been submitted for review to the AALL Bylaws committee.

We hope to vote on the proposed changes at the Spring Meeting.

Submitted by the Ad Hoc Bylaws Committee

Elaine Apostola, chair, Elliott Hibbler, Mindy Kent and Barbara Schneider