Some Thoughts on Programming at the AALL Conference

I'm Caren Biberman, the newest contributing editor to this Blog.  I've been in the legal field for 30 years, first as a practicing attorney and then for the last 17 years as a law librarian.  My first full time job as a law librarian was with AT&T.  Then I moved on to various law firms in NJ and NY.

I am concerned and angry about the lack of respect for the law librarian profession and the many recent layoffs of colleagues.  I agreed to blog so I can talk about issues relating to the profession that I and many of my colleagues feel are pressing.  Today's post's subject is the programming at the upcoming AALL Conference.

At AT&T I attended the conference sporadically but for the last six or seven years I have faithfully attended.  In the early years I sent justification emails to my boss.  I listed each program I planned to attend with an explanation of why attending these programs would be good for my professional development and the company.  I remember listing at least 8-10 programs.

This year when I registered I was hard pressed to find more than 2 or 3 that I wanted to attend when I saw programs like: Making Sense of the Federal Census?; Water Water Everywhere; After Hotel Rwanda & Welcome to Sarajevo: Preserving Trial Evidence & Documentation in a Multi Media Age; Hillmon's Bones: Solving a 19th Century Legal Mystery with 21st Century Research.  And then there was Glass Half Full Explore Techniques for Putting Optimism to Work as a Management Tool in Difficult Times.  Okay, I admit it, I am a born and bred pessimist.  But in these challenging times I frankly think you need a whole lot more than optimism to get you through and that's what these programs should be focusing on.

I am not saying these programs aren't interesting.  And I know I am infuriating some really great people who have worked hard on these programs.  But too many of the programs appeal to a very small subset of the librarian population.  Many programs seem to be repeats of programs done at prior conferences.  We need to provide programming that focuses on the skills librarians need today.  We need to do programs looking at the big picture and not just librarianship.  We need to have new and more advanced programming for the members who come each year.  Can we really afford to be spending time and our organizations' funds attending programs that don't directly have some tangible benefit?  Not in these times.

Frankly, I gave up writing emails based on AALL's programming.  Now I focus on the other valuable aspects of the conference.  I set up 2-3 sit-downs with vendors to discuss issues that arose during the year.  I troll the Exhibit Hall looking for new vendors and products that might be of interest to my firm.  I network with other librarians.  Fortunately, I work for a boss who finds value in these activities.  Unfortunately, that's not the case for a lot of librarians.  It is now much harder to get firms to pay for conferences.  The lack of relevant programming is a major issue.  Quite a few librarians have said the programming at the AALL Conference has declined in recent years and they too are lucky if they can find 2 to 3 programs to attend.  Some have simply decided not to attend.

Having done so, I know it is very time intensive to put together a program and applaud all who do.  But we need to scratch the programming model and start anew.  PLL took steps on its own this year and created a day and one half Summit for private law librarians prior to the conference.  It focuses on the business of law, change agency, staffing, etc. and features outside speakers including a law firm consultant, a business librarian and an analyst in the legal publishing arena.  It provides a ray of light for law firm librarians.  I have signed up for it, if you are a PLL member I hope you did as well.

If the PLL Summit lives up to its promise why go to the AALL Conference?  Why not expand it and create our own conference?  Well, I would miss out on the interaction with the academic and the state, county and court librarians. There is an untapped synergy among the groups and this is what we need to focus on in our programming--programs that appeal to more than just one type of law librarian and that encourage the groups to work together to keep our profession relevant.  We should also reach out to speakers outside of the law librarian community to talk about issues of importance to large groups of law librarians.

We need to expand our focus to the world around us--the law firms, the law schools, the courts and the local governments and talk about the issues facing them.  We need to have a clear understanding of what is happening in the organizations we support and be able to react so we become a highly regarded and sought after profession that is relevant to our organizations.  Focusing on actual law librarian skills is just part of the story.

I don't pretend to have all the answers.  And I do not believe we can do this alone.  We need a educational programming professional to work with us.  I ask all of you to reach out to AALL and voice your opinion (good or bad) on the programming.  Sitting back and grumbling will change nothing.

The opinions expressed in this post are mine alone.