Friday, September 5, 2014

AALL 2014: San Antonio

In July, several AzALL members traveled to San Antonio for the 2014 AALL Annual Meeting & Conference. The programs I attended include:
  • Chapter Summit
  • Chapter Legal Issues
  • Leadership Training
  • Opening General Session with keynote speaker Andrew Keen
  • Vendor Shootout at the Alamo: Current Awareness Tools
  • Librarians and Law Firm Pricing: Learn the Stakes, Get Involved
  • ALM Legal Intelligence Law Librarian Survey Presentation
  • Own the Room: Presentations That Captivate and Win Over Any Audience
  • Land Grabbing: Accessing Information to Protect Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples
  • Using Patents to Expand the Boundaries of Business Development and Competitive Intelligence
  • Emerging Issues in Copyright: What You Need to Know
  • Strategic Technology Imperatives for Law Librarians
I will post more about some of these later.  But first: pictures!

View of the Convention Center from my hotel, the Marriott Riverwalk.






The Riverwalk outside the Convention Center.
View from a River Taxi.

The San Antonio Museum of Art.
The Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library at the Alamo.

The Alamo shrine.
The Liberty Bar: Southtown restaurant in a converted convent.
Me (and my horribly humidity-swollen legs) with a longhorn at the Thomson Reuters party at Knibbe Ranch.

Monday, July 29, 2013

AG Librarians to summit at Columbia Law School

Columbia Law School is hosting the first ever Attorneys General Librarians Initiative (AGLI) Summit August 7-9, 2013. Led by Jim Tierney, Director of the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia Law School,  a group of six Attorneys General law librarians have put together the framework for three days worth of substantive legal policy programming and sessions geared toward resource-sharing by AG librarians across state lines. At the conclusion of the Summit attendees will finalize AGLI’s Constitution and Bylaws, and vote in a new Executive Board.  Overall, the three days are aimed at creating a collegial bonding and collaboration experience for AG librarians nationwide.


The National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia Law School is a legal research, education-and-policy center that examines the implications of the jurisprudence of state attorneys general.   Working closely with attorneys general, their staff, students, academics and other members of the legal community, the Program is active in the development and dissemination of legal information that state prosecutors are able to use in the carrying out of their civil and criminal responsibilities.   

Saturday, February 23, 2013


Let the blogging begin!!

The Arizona Association of Law Libraries (AzALL) would like to express its gratitude to AzALL member Jennifer Murray (Maricopa County Superior Court) for creating the first AzALL blog! This blog is intended to be a vehicle for distributing timely and useful information about the chapter, the activities of its members, committees, and Executive Board, and items of general interest to AzALL members. Be sure to include the AzALL Blog in your RSS feed!

About AzALL

AzALL is a non-profit organization and is the Arizona chapter of its parent organization, the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). AzALL is a great organization for law librarians and those interested in legal research. Throughout the year AzALL members benefit from the organization’s listserv, its Membership Directory, monthly programming activities, networking opportunities with other AzALL members, the AzALL blog, discounts on AzALL-sponsored continuing education programs, and the chance to apply for grants for continuing education opportunities, including the programming presented at AALL’s Annual Meeting.

Congressional Information Symposium*

A major AzALL event taking place in April is the AzALL Legal Research Institute’s (LRI) Congressional Information Symposium. This symposium is open to the public and promises to be the defining conference for Congressional information researchers in Arizona. Register for the symposium at the AzALL LRI webpage.

The Congressional Information Symposium will take place on Friday, April 26, 2013, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the downtown Phoenix Burton Barr Central Library’s Pulliam Auditorium.  

AzALL’s LRI has gathered an exciting mix of six expert speakers that will present at the symposium, four of whom will be flown in from Washington, D.C. Two of these D.C. speakers, Joshua Tauberer of GovTrack.us and Eric Mill of the Sunlight Foundation, are technical experts in government data and work to make sure this data is useful and accessible by citizens.

You can catch Mr. Tauberer and Mr. Mill all over the Internet but here are a couple links that will help you gain an idea of their involvement in government data accessibility.

·       Josh Tauberer and Eric Mill at Open Data Day DC 2011

·       2008 audio interview with Joshua Tauberer in which he discusses his ongoing efforts to acquire official information from various sources, provide useful tracking and analytical services, and encourage citizen participation.

Two additional DC experts are Law Librarians Ellen Sweet (U.S. DOJ Tax Department) and Richard McKinney (Federal Reserve Board). Both Mr. McKinney and Ms. Sweet are active in the Law Librarians’ Society of Washington, D.C., and are responsible for writing Federal Legislative History Research: A Practitioner’s Guide to Compiling the Documents and Sifting for Legislative Intent.  Ms. Sweet will present on the Congressional lawmaking process and how to garner legislative intent from Congressional lawmaking documents, and Mr. McKinney will present on how to compile legislative histories from the digital documents that are found on today’s Internet.

Our final two presenters are local experts Victoria Trotta, Associate Dean for the Ross-Blakley Law Library at the Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law, and Janet Fisher, Director of the Research and Law Library at Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records. Ms. Trotta and Ms. Fisher will speak on the impact of digitization on the Federal Depository Loan Program.

We expect a fantastic turn-out for this symposium so be sure to register early as seating is limited! Early Bird registration ends March 15th

The Congressional Information Symposium is a “must-see” for all legal professionals, lobbyists, legislative and political analysts, journalists, and students. And because the symposium is of interest to a large group of professionals we expect seating to fill quickly. Reserve your space soon!

*This program is made possible by a grant from the AALL/Bloomberg Continuing Education Grants Program.

Best Regards,

Joan Dalton
2012-13 AzALL President