Not Just Timely for Private Sector Law Librarians: Registration for the PLL-SIS Summit II: Change as Action, Change as Opportunity, Due by June 17th

Registration is now open for the Private Law Libraries SIS Change as Action Summit being conducted on Saturday, July 23, 2011, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, just before the regular 2011 AALL Annual Meeting education and professional development sessions.

Personally, the first thing I do when planning my trip to attend our professional association's annual meeting is look at the agenda to determine how many days I can eliminate from the trip. Why? One, I'm an aging and decripit Boomber law librarian. My road warrior days are long behind me. I would rather be home in my own bed, with the Blog Widow and my four dogs, plus going to work with my staff (read, more productive). Second reason, cutting the duration of attendence has been pretty damn easy for years, scratch that, decades, because of the dismal programming.

Personally, my usual "rule of thumb" or tolerance level for AALL annual meetings is 3 days/2 nights. Anything longer requires prescription medication. This year, well, there is always an exception to the "rule." There are, OMG, enough potentially interesting regular sessions to go to. Kudos to this year's session programmers. In response to wide-spread complaints about annual meeting programming, I think AALL has made the first steps to correcting this. At least for this aging and decrepit Boomer law library director, the schedule is offering a few more interesting regular sessions than past years. I might exit some early but even the prospect of not doing so is a plus. Alas, the most interesting event is this year's PLL-SIS Summit.

The PLL-SIS Summit II: Change as Action, Change as Opportunity: It offers to be the most interesting "education and professional development" event in Philly 2011. I, for one, don't know why the PLL-SIS Summit II:  Change as Action, Change as Opportunity should be outside the regular session (and hence require Saturday attendence with an additional registration fee). Professionally, I find the meeting extends well beyond the professional interests of private law libraries to include public sector law librarian issues (since, our issues are more aligned to the private sector than to the academic law library sector). I also think there are plenty of academic law librarians who would be interested in these matters too but may not be able to attend because of the additional cost (lodging for another day or two, supplemental registration fee, etc.)

From the announcement for this year's PLL-SIS Summit II:  Change as Action, Change as Opportunity:

Esther Dyson, legendary technology visionary, will be our Keynote Speaker, sponsored by Wolters Kluwer Law & Business. We’ll also be hearing from Jim Jones of Hildebrandt, David Curle of Outsell, Inc., Sabrina Pacifici of BeSpacific, the Three Geeks, and many more dynamic and intriguing speakers.
 
In addition, break-out sessions, based on the current PLL Law Firm Management webinar series, will allow attendees to engage in open dialogue on their favorite webinar topics, from law firm financials to knowledge management and client marketing.
In the afternoon, we will offer concurrent programs in three areas: administration, research/reference and technology/technical services on practical topics such as metrics, project management, legal publishing trends, and social media. 
 
The $145 registration fee includes all programs plus a Friday night BNA Welcome Party, a breakfast sponsored by Priory Solutions, lunch sponsored by LexisNexis and an afternoon break sponsored by Law360.  Registration is required by June 17th.

You don't have to be a member of PLL-SIS to register and attend. Just because it is sponsored by AALL's PLL-SIS, I hope law librarians in the public sector and academic sector spot this summit on their radar and find a way to attend.

Perhaps in the future, something like this will be scheduled during the "regular" calendar of education and professional development sessions and won't require additional expense to attend. There is no rationale that is persuasive to do otherwise. It's not like not scheduling AALL's Vendor Colloquium at a cost of $27K to the membership during Philly 2011 because "everyone will be too busy during the annual meeting." [JH]