Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Rights of Indigenous Peoples

FCIL-SIS Indigenous Peoples Interest Group
and the Native Peoples Law Caucus present: The Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Tuesday, July 13
11:45 am – 12:45 pm
Professor Glenn T. Morris will present an introduction to The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which was created to address the unique situation of indigenous peoples around the world. While drafting was begun in 1983, the Declaration was not passed until September 13, 2007. Affecting the over 370 million indigenous peoples around the world, it is a complex document, little known outside the world of indigenous studies. One hundred forty three countries voted in favor of the Declaration with only 4 negative votes (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States). As reflected in the new Library of Congress law classification "KI," for works dealing with indigenous peoples in the western hemisphere, it is a detailed area of law. This program will provide both domestic and international law researchers with an opportunity to learn more about issues concerning indigenous land rights, the environment, climate change, and the obligations of states, as well as resources on the drafting history and subsequent developments.

Navigating Your Way to the Classroom: Law Librarians Teaching New Law School Classes

Monday, July 12
4:00 pm – 5:15 pm
Level: Introductory
Competency: Teaching
Sponsor: FCIL-SIS. Co-Sponsor ALL-SIS

The 2007 Carnegie Report on Legal Education could potentially result in greater teaching opportunities for law librarians. Three librarians who teach upper-level legal research courses will guide participants through the design, approval and implementation of a new course and the design of a syllabus with learning goals and assignments. They will identify the skills and practices necessary for building one's credibility as a professor.

Richard A. Leiter - Winner of Kenneth J. Hirsh Distinguished Service Award


The Computing Services Special Interest Section congratulates Richard A. Leiter, winner of the CS-SIS Kenneth J. Hirsh Distinguished Service Award.
The award honors a CS-SIS member who has made outstanding contributions to the SIS, to AALL, and who is well regarded for his or her service to the profession. The award is named in honor of the first recipient, Kenneth J. Hirsh, a longstanding, distinguished member of the section. Richard Leiter is the Director of the Schmid Law Library at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.

Past winners include:

2009
Sheri H. Lewis
Associate Law Librarian for Public Services and Lecturer in Law
D'Angelo Law Library
University of Chicago

2008
Mark Folmsbee
Former Associate Dean of Computer Services and Associate Director of the Law Library
Washburn University School of Law Library

2007
James G. Milles
Associate Dean for Legal Information Services
Director of the Charles B. Sears Law Library
Professor of Law at the University of Buffalo
State University of New York

2006
Liz Glankler
Head of Access Services
Saint Louis University
Omer Poos Law Library

2005
Kenneth J. Hirsh
Director of the Law Library and Information Technology
University of Cincinnati College of Law
Robert S. Marx Law Library

Karaoke with Ken 2010


Come stretch your vocal cords at the 10th Anniversary of Karaoke with Ken sponsored by the Computing Services Special Interest Section. This year’s event will be held Monday, July 12, beginning at 9:30 p.m. at Armida’s Restaurant, 840 Lincoln Street, Denver, CO. All AALL attendees are welcome!
Meet in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency at 9:15 pm and share cabs to the restaurant. Armida’s has a $15 cover charge or two-drink minimum, so you might as well plan to loosen up while you’re there. Twitter hashtag is #karaokeken2010.


FROM A SMALL GROUP OUTING TO AN AALL TRADITION

At the 1997 AALL Annual Meeting in Baltimore, a small group of law librarians found a Karaoke bar & attempted a song or two. The outing continued informally until 2001 when CS-SIS officially sponsored the event for the first time, dubbing it Karaoke with Ken, for its enthusiastic leader Ken Hirsh.
Since its humble beginnings, the event has continued to grow in popularity. Last year’s outing to Cafe Japone in Washington, D.C. brought out more than 75 AALL attendees, many of whom were new singers. In addition to Ken, previous AALL singers have included Tori Trotta and George Pike, along with many others.
Don’t be intimidated if you don’t have a superstar voice. Karaoke singers range from the truly great to the truly awful and we have fun no matter who is singing. If you’re not a singer, that’s OK, too – just join us for the camaraderie.

The 25th Anniversary of the Standing Committee on Lesbian and Gay Issues

by Sarah Jaramillo
I have come out with relative ease to my law librarian colleagues over the years. The nonchalance of these disclosures was due in part to the work of the SR-SIS Standing Committee on Lesbian and Gay Issues (SCLGI). So, as a grateful member of SCLGI, I would like to take a moment to commemorate this group’s 25th Anniversary.
Please join me in celebrating the SCLGI’s 25th anniversary at a reception on Sunday, July 11, from 8-11 pm at Dixon’s Downtown Grill at 16th and Wazee. The reception is a fundraiser for the Alan Holoch Memorial Grant.
Carol Alpert called the first meeting of the SCLGI at the 1985 Annual Meeting. All eight attendees agreed that the environment for LGBT librarians necessitated the SCLGI. Camille Broussard, an early SCLGI chair, notes that in 1985 “it was not a profession that you felt very comfortable being out.” From early days to the present, a spirit of sensitivity and inclusion has been an SCLGI hallmark. This is evident in former chair Scott Fisher’s account of meeting Alan Holoch: “Alan came along saw me and, I'm sure, noticed my nervousness and asked if I was looking for the SCLGI meeting. I think I nodded and he said, ‘I'm heading in there too so, just follow me!’ and I did. He sat next to me and talked with me at my first SCGLI meeting and made me very welcome.”
SCLGI members have presented educational programs, published a sexual orientation bibliography, and supported resolutions that encourage equality and diversity. For example in 1992, the SCLGI successfully campaigned to cancel the1998 Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado. The campaign was due to Colorado’s Amendment 2, which prohibited “sexual orientation” from being a protected class in any state, county, or municipal law. The group continues to be vital. LGBT issues still command attention. Transgender discrimination is not prohibited by the Association’s bylaws. Stephanie Davidson recognizes another challenge for librarians and the SCLGI is the incorporation of various resources from disparate disciplines into LGBT research bibliographies.
The SCLGI work will continue until realization of what former chair Scott Fisher believes is the group’s ultimate goal – dissolution: “When true equality is achieved, the need for a Standing Committee on Lesbian & Gay Issues will cease to exist because an individual’s sexual orientation will no longer be an issue to anyone.”

After Hotel Rwanda and Welcome to Sarajevo: Preserving Trial Evidence and Documentation in a Multi-Media Age

Sunday, July 11
1:30am – 2:45pm
Level: Intermediate.
Competency: Core Competencies for Law Librarianship
Sponsor: FCIL-SIS

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is scheduled to close in 2010, and many questions have arisen as to the best way to preserve materials, which encompass different media and archival, policy, technological, and security concerns, such as safety issues for witnesses and judges. Using this case study, the speakers will discuss how law librarians can help organizations retain information for the future and the different technologies that can be used. The lessons learned can be extrapolated to other trial collections and judges' papers.

A Baobab Grows in Brooklyn: Training U.S. Law Students to Work in a South African Legal Aid Clinic

Monday, July 12
10:00 am – 10:30 am
Level: Intermediate
Competency: Reference, Research and Patron Services
Sponsor: FCIL-SIS

Jean Davis will discuss the research training that she provided to intrepid Brooklyn Law School students who worked in a 2009 pilot program at the University of the Western Cape Legal Aid Clinic in Cape Town, South Africa. She will incorporate the students' comments and present a publicly accessible web guide highlighting free sources, subscription databases, and "hidden gems" such as a clinic manual developed for South African law students.

F.H.Blume's Annotated Justinian Code

FCIL-SIS Roman Law Interest Group presents
F.H. Blume's Annotated Justinian Code: A Western Classic
Monday, July 12, 2010
10:45 am – 11:45 am

Why did Wyoming State Court Justice Fred Blume work in his spare time to produce an annotated English translation of the Code of Justinian? Why did other common law lawyers and jurists, including Roscoe Pound and Oliver Wendell Holmes, write on Roman law? Why did Justice Stevens cite Roman law in a 2005 opinion? What other Roman law influences lurk in American law? Timothy Kearley, Director of the Law Library & Professor of Law, University of Wyoming College of Law, will introduce the Code of Justinian and share the story of Justice Blume's work and the creation of the Annotated Justinian Code website. Lucia Diamond, Librarian for The Robbins Collection at the University of California, Berkeley, will highlight other Roman law influences in the U.S.

Cannibalism and Lunch

LH&RB –SIS PROGRAM
Sunday, July 11, 2010
12:00 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.
CCC Room 107

“DIGGING” COLORADO LEGAL HISTORY:
ALFRED PACKER: THE MAN, THE MYTHS, THE CANNIBAL

Professor James E. Starrs of The George Washington University Law School, forensics expert and internationally-known authority on exhumation, returns to AALL to discuss the case of Colorado cannibal Alfred (Alferd) Packer, a member of a February 1874 gold prospecting party who returned in the spring, well-fed and without his five companions. Packer was charged at his first trial with murder, not cannibalism, which was not a crime in Colorado then - and still isn't. He was convicted in 1883. When his conviction was reversed on a technicality, his retrial resulted in conviction for five crimes of homicide. Professor Starrs led a team of experts in the exhumation of the Packer party members and will discuss his analysis of the scientific data gleaned from the victims’ bones. This data undermined Packer’s trial testimony, confirming that Packer had cannibalized all five of his companions, when he had contended that he had cannibalized only two under duress when food ran out. Come join us for a fascinating trip through forensic science and the law. Lunch will be served and you’ll also get to hear a poem written about Starrs’s exhumation, “T’was the Night Before Digging”!

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Community Service Projects

There are still openings for the Friday, July 9th AALL Community Service Projects. The AALL website says registration is closed, but that is not true – in fact they are in need of additional volunteers to make these projects viable! Please contact one of the organizers listed below if you are interested in helping out by donating a few hours to a worthy cause.

Community Service Projects

AALL's Special Interest Section Council is again sponsoring two exciting opportunities for AALL members to volunteer with local Denver community organizations during the Annual Meeting and Conference. Volunteering with a service project is a great way to get to know the local community and support our host city. This year the SIS Council is partnering with Denver Parks and Recreation and the Food Bank of the Rockies to offer two unique, fun, and interesting volunteer opportunities.

Denver Parks and Recreation Community Gardens
Friday, July 9 • 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. (does not include travel time)
Limit: 20 volunteers
Denver Parks and Recreation is hosting a project that involves maintenance at Sunken Gardens Park, one of the community parks that dot the Denver metro area. Sunken Gardens Park is located in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, a vibrant community that includes the Santa Fe Arts District, and was built on the site of a former city dump in 1909. Volunteers will paint benches and tables and perform maintenance on the garden, including mulching trees and weeding the flowerbeds.
Volunteers must be at least 18 years old. You should wear sturdy, closed-toe shoes and bring bug spray and sunscreen. You should also dress appropriately for outdoor work, preferably in long-sleeved shirts and pants. If you are allergic to bees or any other insects, please bring any necessary medications. Denver Parks and Recreation will provide all safety equipment, including safety glasses, vests, gloves, and trash bags. Bottled water will be provided, but volunteers are encouraged to bring their own water bottles if they wish.
Sunken Gardens Park is located at 8th Avenue at Speer, which may be reached by either walking or by bus (with a $2.00 fare each way) from the Convention Center. Travel to the volunteer site is the responsibility of the attendee. Further travel information will be provided to registered volunteers as we near the service date.
Questions? Contact Volunteer Team Leader Pam Brannon at pbrannon@gsu.edu or 404/413-9128.

Food Bank of the Rockies
Friday, July 9 • 12:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. (does not include travel time)
Limit: 30 volunteers
The Food Bank of the Rockies receives food from national and local companies and, by repackaging and distributing those donations, provides food supplies for over 1,100 hunger-relief programs in Northern Colorado and Wyoming. Last year the Food Bank of the Rockies distributed over 26.3 million pounds of food through over 800 partner agencies.
Volunteers will be working with the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which provides food to seniors age 60 and over, low-income pregnant and postpartum women, and their children under the age of six. Volunteers will sort, inspect, sanitize, and pack food and non-food donations for redistribution throughout the community and may also perform light cleaning duties. Volunteers must be at least 14 years of age. You should dress appropriately for warehouse work, including wearing comfortable, closed-toe shoes and shirts with sleeves. The tasks involved require standing, squatting, lifting and pulling. Most physical limitations can be accommodated, but please indicate on the registration form if you have any special needs.
Travel to the Reclamation Warehouse is the responsibility of the attendee. Group travel will be by public bus from downtown Denver . The fare is $2.00 each way and includes a five minute walk to the warehouse. Further transportation information will be provided to registered volunteers as we near the service date.
Questions? Contact Volunteer Team Leader Laura Ray at laura.ray@law.csuohio.edu or 216/687-6880.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Mapping the Profession's Future through the Core Competencies

You know the song, “The Times They Are A-Changin” by Bob Dylan. I think we can all agree times have changed and are changing in our profession today and that the future of law librarianship is a topic of conversation in law libraries across the country.

We all have the opportunity now to take this conversation to the next level at the annual meeting on Monday the 12th from 10-10:30AM in CCC 205-207. The Continuing Professional Education Committee (CPEC) is presenting a half hour program in July at the Denver conference introducing the revised Core Competencies. The revision is the result of more than a year long culmination of online discussions on updating the core competencies. The program will talk about what the competencies are used for and will review the process used by the CPEC that resulted in the main changes made in the revision. The committee’s main focus of the program is to get feedback from you.

Ask yourself, what changes do we see occurring as participants in the profession? What is our vision of ourselves as law librarians? How can this vision be incorporated into the core competencies? By entering the discussion now you can strengthen the meaning, applicability and relevance of the core competencies to correspond to your current vision of the profession, whatever you decide that is. You may be a seasoned veteran speaking with the voice of experience, or you may be an up and coming GenX/GenY librarian who can articulate a fresh point of view. Whatever your vision, your participation in this discussion will only enhance the outcome.

The CPEC would like to establish the Core Competencies as a living document. The last revision of the competencies was approved in March 2001 by the AALL Executive Board. The CPEC hopes to establish a continuing dialogue with all AALL members with regard to the competencies so that the competencies aren’t something that just gets pulled off the shelf every ten years for revision only to go right back on it. The committee recognizes that change is rapid and that there may be things even in the newly revised competencies that people may not agree with or would like to see added. But you need to let us know.
AALL sees the competencies as a way, “to define the profession of law librarianship and its value to the legal field, today and in the future, by identifying, verifying, and actively promoting competencies of law librarianship”, and describes the competencies as, “the knowledge, skills, abilities, and personal characteristics that help distinguish superior performance”.

Change is constant, but every once in a while we must take a snapshot of the way we see things today to give definition to what is now and guide us into the future. The core competencies are that snapshot. Help us get it as in-focus as possible.

Legal Information Preservation Alliance Meetings

Legal Information Preservation Alliance Meetings
Margaret K. Maes, Executive Director

The Legal Information Preservation Alliance (LIPA) will hold its annual business meeting on Sunday, July 11, 12:00-1:15 p.m., in the Hyatt Regency Centennial Ballroom G.

LIPA is also presenting Program J-3: The Durham Statement on Open Access One Year Later: Preservation and Authentication of Legal Scholarship on Tuesday, July 13, 2:15-3:15 in the Colorado Convention Center, Room 201-203.

Established in 2003, LIPA is a non-profit organization of 95 academic, federal, state and public law libraries, with additional support from AALL. LIPA members work on collaborative projects to preserve print and electronic legal information.

Anyone interested in preservation and the work of the Legal Information Preservation Alliance is welcome to attend the business meeting or visit Table 1018 in the Exhibit Hall. Contact Margie Maes (mkmaes@gmail.com or 812-822-2773) for further information.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Childcare in Denver

One of our members asked about the potential for childcare during the meeting. The Denver Convention & Visitors Bureau recommended Premier Nannies at 303-322-1399 and Front Range Nanny at 720-244-2247. The Bureau stated the hotels work with these two companies quite a bit.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Lawberry Camp @ AALL 2010

If you've been wondering about Lawberry Camp this year, wait no longer! The camp will be an all day (or most of the day) thing on Saturday, July 10. The planning site will be updated closer to the conference with sign-ups, location info, etc.

From My Summer of Unconferences via Henderson Valley Eggs by Sarah Glassmeyer.

Did You Know THAT About Denver?

In preparation for the Annual Meeting, Lauren E. Schroeder of O'Quinn Law Library decided to put together a list of tidbits about Denver. It was published in the Summer 2010 issue of the ALL-SIS Newsletter, and is reprinted with permission below.

Did You Know That About Denver?
Lauren E. Schroeder
University of Houston Law Center, O’Quinn Law Library

As this year’s Annual Meeting draws ever closer, I decided to put together a myriad of little tidbits about the host city. I hope you’ll find the list informative and interesting (or at least potentially useful to any Jeopardy aspirations you may have), so in no particular order:

* The 105th meridian west of Greenwich, which serves as the reference point for the Mountain Time Zone, goes through Denver’s Union Station.

* In addition to having the city named for him, U.S. Representative and territorial governor James William Denver is also the inspiration behind the Denver omelet, which usually contains ingredients such as ham, onions, and green peppers.

* The precursor to today’s United Way was formed in Denver in 1887. Called the Charity Organizations Society, it was created by religious leaders to coordinate local services to the population and to raise funds for several agencies.

* In 1970, Denver was chosen as the host city for the 1976 Olympic Winter Games. However, due to fears of taxes being increased, the citizens voted against it in 1972, giving Denver the distinction of being the only city to ever turn down hosting the Olympics after being selected.

* Denver is at the midpoint of a 10 year plan to end homelessness, called Denver’s Road Home. Its successes include: creating more than 1,500 new housing units, helping more than 3,000 people find jobs, and providing assistance to several thousand families in order to keep them from becoming homeless.

* For the chocoholics in our midst: Russell Stover Candies began producing its chocolates in Denver in 1923.

* Quiznos was founded in Denver in 1981, and continues to be headquartered there.

* Denver has the second-largest performing arts complex in the nation (behind Lincoln Center), and it is the largest housed under one roof.

* Got beer? Denver is number one in the nation for beer production per capita, and second overall in terms of the number of breweries. But you might want to go easy on the alcohol, since the high altitude can increase its effects quickly.

* Animal Planet’s “Emergency Vets” television show (1998-2002) was filmed in Denver’s Alameda East Veterinary Hospital, and several of the featured vets are still there.

* Denver is the second-oldest sister city in the U.S., establishing an officially-approved relationship with Brest, France in 1948.

* Denver resident Margaret “Molly” Brown of Titanic fame also earned the Legion of Honor for her relief efforts in France during World War I.

* Denver’s Botanic Gardens were featured in the book “1001 Gardens You Must See Before You Die” (edited by Rae Spencer-Jones, Barron’s, 2007).

* According to the U.S. Census website, approximately 7,600 people are employed in legal occupations, 14,800 people work in education, training, and library occupations, and there are about 1,000 law offices in Denver.

* It is one of only two U.S. cities with 8 professional sports teams: the Colorado Rockies (baseball), Colorado Rapids (soccer), Denver Broncos (football), Denver Outlaws and Colorado Mammoth (lacrosse), Denver Nuggets (basketball), Colorado Crush arena football), and Colorado Avalanche (hockey).
* It has the nation’s largest Cinco de Mayo celebration.

* There are more than 300 days of sunshine per year, so bring your sunscreen!

* Denver’s U.S. Mint was founded in 1863 as an assay office, became a working mint in 1904, and its current output can be over 50 million coins a day.

* It has the third-highest percentage of college graduates in the country, with 35.5% of its population having at least a Bachelor’s degree.

* Denver has the largest public parks system of any city in the U.S. – there are 205 parks within the city limits.

* It has the first stand-alone nonprofit invertebrate zoo in the nation – its Butterfly Pavilion is home to over 1,200 free-flying butterflies, as well as other insects.

* Denver’s first public library opened in 1889 in a wing of Denver High School, described as a “center of public happiness” by City Librarian John Cotton Dana, and moved to its own building (funded by Andrew Carnegie) in 1910.

Sources Consulted:

Alameda East Veterinary Hospital: www.alamedaeast.com/
Butterfly Pavilion: www.butterflies.org/
Census Bureau: www.census.gov/
Colorado’s official tourism site: www.colorado.com/
Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce: www.denverchamber.org/
Denver Performing Arts Complex: www.artscomplex.com/
Denver Public Library: http://denverlibrary.org/
Denver Sister Cities International: http://denversistercities.org/
Denver Tourist & Vacation Information: www.denver.org/
Denver’s Road Home: www.denversroadhome.org/
Molly Brown House Museum: www.mollybrown.org/
Quiznos: www.quiznos.com/subsandwiches/
Russell Stover: www.russellstover.com/
United States Mint: www.usmint.gov/
United Way: www.liveunited.org/

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Explore Colorado


We think Chris Hudson's article, Pike, Powell, and You, in the May Spectrum is so great that we're pointing you to it again. It's packed full of ideas for exploring all of Colorado's beautiful vistas and intriguing history.

Come and enjoy the plentiful outdoor fun!

Photo by Alaskan Dude.