Volume 41, Issue 1 (Fall 2017)
SWALL’s 2016-2017 Executive Board
2017 SWALL ANNUAL MEETING
Albuquerque, NM – April 6-8, 2017
Business Meeting (April 7, 2017) Minutes
Committees read their reports:
ARCHIVES
The SWALL Archive is missing a few things. If you have served on a committee or the board in the last 5 years, please send all SWALL material you may have in your home or office to the Archives. If you have ever chaired a committee, please send me a copy of the annual report you wrote. Emailing them to me is fine.
Next year we will celebrate SWALL’s 60th anniversary at the annual meeting in Houston and I would like to create a display celebrating our history. To that end, if you have photos or SWALL memorabilia from the past, please consider donating (or lending) them to the archives.
FINANCE
Katy Stein Badeaux, as treasurer, provided SWALL financials:
- Numbers for the current meeting are still being calculated
- However, we are happy to announce that SWALL made a profit of $5,800 from the previous joint SWALL/SEAALL meeting in 2016, in Dallas TX.
GRANTS COMMITTEE
The grants committee awarded two grant awards of $500 for attendance at this year’s SWALL Annual Meeting. We would like to congratulate the following SWALL grant award recipients:
Ai Aizul G. Ortega
Technical Services Supervisor
Travis County Law Library
Austin, Texas
Heather Holmes
Assistant Law Librarian
Harris County Law Library
1019 Congress Street
Houston, Texas
The SWALL grants committee will likely award at least one grant award for a SWALL member to attend this year’s AALL Annual Meeting which will be held in Austin this year. This information will likely be sent to the SWALL Listserv and posted to the SWALL website by the first week of May.
LEGAL INFORMATION SERVICES TO THE PUBLIC
The LISP committee has elected to host a public services program later this year, not in conjunction with the annual meeting in Albuquerque.
LIFE MEMBERSHIP/MEMORIALS
Jill Henderson, the former director of the Taylor County Law Library, has been nominated for SWALL Life Membership. Jill retired September 30, 2016 after 23 years as their law librarian.
According to our bylaws, a nominee for life membership must meet the following criteria:
- Life members. The members entitled to vote may, by a vote of 2/3 of the majority, elect to life membership those who have been members of the corporation for at least five years, but who have retired from active library work. Someone who is currently working for a legal publisher or vendor is not “retired.”
- Life members and student members shall not be assessed annual dues.
- Suggestions should also be requested in the fall and winter issues of the Chapter newsletter.
- The Committee submits the list of recommended life members to the Board of Directors prior to the annual business meeting.
- The Board of Directors will make the final decision.
Jill has been a member of SWALL over 15 years. She was spotlighted in an August 2016 article from the Abilene Reporter-News. Among her many accomplishments, the article stated she made improvements at the inmate library at the Taylor County Jail, which has been closed since the last librarian there retired at the end of 2015.
Jill also helped people who “fell through the cracks” meaning those who made too much money to qualify for services offered by Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas. She assisted by finding books and forms that were easier to read for those who were not attorneys.
The SWALL Life Membership/Memorials Committee is honored to submit before its members in general and the SWALL Board of Directors, the nomination of Jill Henderson as a Life Membership recipient.
LOCATION OF FUTURE MEETINGS
- Joseph Lawson gave information for the 2018 meeting in Houston including hotel information and things to do in Houston.
- A business card raffle was done giving a bottle of wine and a free stay at the host hotel.
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Working with the Recruitment Committee, the Public Relations Committee created a SWALL recruitment brochure that was used at the 2016 Conference of Newer Law Librarians (CONELL) in Chicago.
RECRUITMENT
The Recruitment Committee undertook a few projects this year.
- In July 2016, SWALL had a table at the AALL CONELL marketplace.
- In partnership with Robert Clark on the public relations committee, the recruitment committee finalized a high-quality SWALL recruitment brochure. Unfortunately, our table did not generate much traffic, perhaps due to table location.
- From the few who signed our interest form, we were able to raffle off a free one-year membership to SWALL. That person was Lei Zhang of the University of Texas.
- The brochure is available on the website for future use (http://www.aallnet.org/chapter/swall/membership/SWALLbrochure.pdf).
- Our committee created a form and solicited program proposals for the program committee, for this annual meeting. We received 19 submissions.
- Our committee also solicited volunteers for the 2017-2018 committee placements. We received 26 submissions and placed volunteers by March 2017. We prioritized this responsibility this year as we felt it was important to place volunteers in advance of the annual meeting for two reasons:
- Members on the fence of whether to attend the meeting might perhaps feel compelled to attend knowing their committee term would begin at the meeting; and
- We wanted to set aside time at this year’s annual meeting for both outgoing and incoming committee volunteers to discuss responsibilities and potential future plans. Many AALL committees do this, and we wanted to echo that structure.
- We urge all members to get involved. We are often able to place all volunteers on a committee of their choice and especially encourage newer members to volunteer to build leadership experience. If you’d still like to participate in SWALL more actively, it’s not too late, email Cassie DuBay.
- Our final task was to take on the committee charge of forming a mentorship program.
- The committee solicited applications for mentors and mentees. Matched mentors/mentees would be invited to an information Meet & Greet Happy Hour at the SWALL annual meeting.
- Unfortunately, we received applications for mentors only, 5 applications total.
- We cancelled the happy hour, and adjusted the program. You can now look for Mentor ribbons on folks who we are calling “SWALL-Stars.” If you have a SWALL question or just looking for a new SWALL friend, we recommend starting with these SWALL-Stars!
Other discussion:
- Tentative 2019 meeting location – Little Rock, AR
- New Executive Board was introduced
- President – Joan Stringfellow (not in attendance)
- Vice-President/President Elect – Jeff Woodmansee
- Secretary – Cassie DuBay
- Treasurer – Carla Cates
- The Life Memberships/Memorials Committee honored Mortimer Schwartz (1922-2016), founding president of SWALL, with a moment of silence
- Attendee, Mike Beaird, further honored Mortimer Schwartz with a few personal words
SWALL Bulletin 