Submitted by Sara Monalea McMahon, LLNE President 2023 – 2024
LLNE once again had a wonderful year with our committees being actively working hard. We filled the newly created Equity Director position. The winter retreat this year was focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion with our new Equity Director putting together a great presentation on the topic. In March, we hosted the Legal Research Information Program where we had 15 attendees, two of whom received scholarships to attend. There were two meetings held – one on international and foreign legal research held in Boston, hosted by Northeastern School of Law and one on history and law held in Boston, hosted by the Social Law Library. Below please read reports directly from some of our committees about the work they did this year.
Access to Justice:
This year the Access to Justice Committee solicited scholarship applications for participants in the LRIP program. The Committee reviewed eight applications and awarded two scholarships. The Committee has also been maintaining legal research information for the public through LLNE Legal Link.
Communications:
This year the LLNE Communications committee has continued to publicize LLNE events and activities on the blog, through the list-serv, and on Facebook. Due to a variety of factors, we deleted our X account and began the process of evaluating our social media presence. As part of that evaluation, the committee created a survey about social media usage and communication preferences to identity if there were other social media platforms we could use besides X or if there were other opportunities to improve communication between the organization and its members. We will continue to evaluate the responses we received and work with other committees to improve organizational communication. Co-Chair Emma Wood has stepped down from her position as of June 2024.
Government Relations:
Members of the GRC are continuing to track state legislation of interest to law librarians.
In Massachusetts, Representative Gentile filed H.1522, An Act relative to the Uniform Electronic Material Act. UELMA requires that online state legal material deemed official will be preserved and made permanently available to the public in unaltered form, and has been adopted in 22 states, plus Washington, DC and the U.S. Virgin Islands. On October 3, 2023, LLNE President Sara McMahon testified in support of UELMA at the Joint Committee hearing. The bill was referred for a study order on February 5, 2024.
The NH Supreme Court adopted a neutral citation form effective January 1, 2024 https://www.courts.nh.gov/our-courts/supreme-court/orders-and-opinions/opinions and/or https://www.courts.nh.gov/sites/g/files/ehbemt471/files/inline-documents/sonh/1-18-2024-notice-concerning-adoption-of-neutral-citation.pdf.
Additionally, though not specific to the law, GRC members in Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island have been tracking several bills relating to public libraries and school libraries introduced in those states this session and their potential impact on libraries.
Education:
“LLNE held two conferences during the 2023-2024 fiscal year: “The Fog of War: International and Foreign Legal Research in Today’s World” hosted by Northeastern University Law Library on Friday, November 3, and “History in Law | Law in History” hosted by the Social Law Library on April 26, 2024 (co-sponsored by the Association of Boston Law Library (ABLL)). LLNE has two conferences scheduled for the 2024-2025 fiscal year: one hosted by the University of Maine Law Library in the fall and one hosted by the Boston College Law Library in the spring. The chairs of the education committee are currently working to update the conference manual.”
Service:
The Service Committee, consisting of Nicole Belbin, Stephanie Farne, John Nann, and Rebecca Valentine, identified, publicized, and promoted several opportunities for members to support community organizations in conjunction with our LLNE meetings. For the Fall 2023 Service Project, we ran a donation drive for the International Institute of New England (IINE). Katie Kerekes, Northeastern University School of Law, dropped the donated items off at IINE’s Boston office. We were unable to confirm monetary donations.
For the Spring 2024 Service Project, we encouraged members to donate their time to transcribe historical documents for a variety of digital historical initiatives. We highlighted state, regional, and national projects looking for volunteers.
Technology:
The Technology Committee met intermittently over the year to review the back and front end of the website. In Fall 2023, we upgraded the version of PHP the site used, which then let us update WordPress to its current version. Chris Collins and Maya Bergamasco have provided invaluable assistance updating our website and mailing list.
Annual Report 2021
Annual Report 2018