Public Relations Committee

LLAW PR CHAIR ANNUAL REPORT 2021/2022

Public Relations had a more limited role this year.  LLAW did not submit a poster for the 2021 AALL virtual annual meeting but will be submitting a poster for AALL conference in 2022.  We continued to submit articles to the Wisconsin State Bar and that has increased slightly with LLAW membership contributions to the special Wisconsin Lawyer focus on water law throughout 2022. 

Attorneys in Wisconsin continue to value LLAW members Inside Track articles, published monthly at the Wisconsin State Bar’s online newsletter.  LLAW membership contributed our 101 legal resource articles for each issue during the pandemic as scheduled

 

Jenny Zook

LLAW PR Chair

 

Membership Committee

For the 2021-2022 membership year, LLAW Membership used a new online form with a Google document.  This new form allowed the membership information to be captured as the member entered it, thus reducing the need to maintain a separate spreadsheet of information and typing.  It was fairly seamless –LLAW Treasurer, Angela Henes and I worked with Emma Babler (Web chair) to make sure the form had clear instructions for payment options and functioned correctly for members as well as provided the information that was needed for the treasured and membership records. 

The final LAW membership for 2021-2022 year was as follows

Breakdown by member level:

Active: 55

Associate: 2

Student:  1

Sustaining:  4

TOTAL:  62

Breakdown by type of library/organization

Academic: 21

Firm: 27

Gov:  7

Other:  3

Vendor: 4

Total: 62

This year most of LLAW members renewed online and had the option to pay via PayPal or to pay with a paper check

Number paid by PayPal: 44

Number paid with check : 18

Other membership numbers to note”

AALL Members: 49

Non-AALL Members: 13

New members: 3

Non renewals from previous year:

 

In January 2022, a review of LLAW memberships from 2015 – present identified 12 individuals who were still employed as law librarians in Wisconsin.  Seven were LLAW members in the past and the remaining five had never been LLAW members.  Of the five, two were new to their positions at the end of 2021. All 12 received an email to join LLAW but only 1 past member rejoined.   

 

Respectfully submitted by Carol Schmitt, LLAW Membership Committee Chair

 

Web Committee

In 2021-2022, we have continued our transition to the new WordPress-hosted website. I have made tweaks according to member feedback and suggestions, especially those from the other Web Committee members.

We also transitioned to doing our membership registration using Google Forms on the new WordPress website. This makes the registration process much clearer and easier for both members and the Membership Committee. This way we can also collect yearly data about our membership using the built-in tools from Google Forms.

The new website also allows me to be much more responsive to website requests from members and committees- I can update anything much faster and from anywhere (the previous website could only be updated from my work desktop).

 

Submitted by Emma Babler, Web Committee Chair

 

Placement Committee

In June 2021 I took over as chair of the placement committee, I have sent out fourteen job announcements thus far. Placement Committee Job announcements have been distributed through the LLAW listserv. Job announcements are received by emails from the employers or from postings across several library job websites. Jobs were located in Milwaukee, Madison & Chicago.

 

Respectfully submitted by Sarah Kober, Chair

 

Nominations Committee

Bylaws were changed in September 2021 to update language allowing directors to be elected or appointed, as opposed to only allowing them to be elected. This brings the bylaws into agreement with the practice of appointing committee chairs, who are the directors.  (Vice President/President, Secretary and Treasurer are still elected on an annual ballot). The other change is updating gender specific language to be more gender neutral. Both of these revisions were presented to our membership via a ballot and both were approved by the membership.

LLAW held its annual election in the Spring of 2022.  The following people were elected to office:

Vice President – Liz Manriquez
Secretary – Emily Gellings
Treasurer – Angela Henes 

 

Jim Mumm
LLAW Past President / Chair of Nominations

 

Government Relations Committee

The Government Relations Committee continues to monitor and share developments in legislation which could have an impact on the legal information profession. Most notable was the advancement of the Open Courts Act of 2021 (S. 2614), also known as the Free PACER bill, to the full Senate for consideration in December 2021. The bill would modernize the federal judiciary’s case management system and make access to court filings free for all Americans. The bill was placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar in March 2022. 

 

Jessica Moore, Chair

 

Grants and Awards Committee

This year, things started to resemble a bit of normalcy with conferences being held in person, again. The Committee received a few grant applications, and we were excited to extend funds to help attendees.

First, because the Wisconsin Law Journal sponsors the Unsung Heroes Award, LLAW’s Distinguished Service Award continues to be suspended. In September an email was sent to the LLAW membership sharing information on nominating a colleague for the Unsung Heroes Award. This year Emily Gellings, Information Resource Center Manager at Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren, and Jamie Kroening, Senior Research Specialist at Godfrey & Kahn, were named 2021 Unsung Heros.

 

In addition, multiple emails were sent encouraging grant applications with a listing of the variety of professional development opportunities, additional to the 2022 AALL annual meeting, available. The committee received three grant applications this year. The first application was from Carol Hassler, Web Services Librarian at the Wisconsin State Law Library, for $587.00 to attend the 2021 WLA Annual Conference. While the committee approved her request, Ms. Hassler opted to not attend the conference and did not require the funds. The second application was from Wendy Smith, Reference Librarian & Adjunct Professor of Law at Marquette University Law School, for the AALL Leadership Academy. Wendy was awarded $1,000.00 to pay for registration, room & board and travel costs for the conference. The third application, was, again, from Carol Hassler to attend the IUG Annual Conference. The committee awarded her the requested $75.00.

 

The AALL annual meeting will be in person this year. President-Elect, Amy Crowder, will be attending the conference and has accepted the $1000 LLAW award. With the President-elect’s use of the intended grant funds, the grant’s committee will end the year with a $925.00 balance after awarding $2,075.00 total in funds.

 

Additionally, this year LLAW was selected to receive one of the 10 complimentary chapter registrations for a newer member to attend the 2022 AALL Annual Meeting & Conference. Shannon Erb, Research Specialist at Godfrey & Kahn was selected to represent LLAW at this year’s conference.

 

Sincere thanks to this year’s Grants Committee members: Katie Dunn of the University of Wisconsin Law Library; and Elana Olson of Marquette University Law School.

 

Respectfully submitted by Candace Hall Slaminski, Chair

2021/22 Grants & Awards Committee

 

Archives Committee

The older materials continues to be stored on CD-ROM.   All new materials are saved to both a Dropbox account and a jump drive.   Should we ever exceed the capacity of the free account, alternatives will need to be investigated.   We also maintain three boxes of physical items including photos, cassettes, awards and the like.  

 

Respectfully submitted by Bev. Butula

Newsletter Committee

 

Programming Committee

Due to the pandemic, three of the LLAW programs were held via Zoom over the lunch hour.  The first meeting, held in September, featured  Heidi Frostestad Kuehl the Circuit Librarian for the 7th Circuit.   We focused on emotional wellbeing for our second meeting with Steph Richter, IICDP and Emily Edelman of The Perk presenting on Emotional Health in the Workplace.   Our third meeting was a tour of Recollection Wisconsin presented by Andi Coffin of WiLs.  We wrapped up the 21-22 Term with an in-person LLAW Happy Hour at Hi-Way Harry’s.   We also collected two boxes of children’s books for the Next Door Foundation.  

 

The Programming Committee conducted a survey of the membership to determine the format of future meetings.   It is almost a tie between A.  2 meetings held virtually at lunch and 2 in the evening and  B. 3 meetings held virtually at lunch and 1 in the evening.   At the final 2021-2022 business meeting, it was decided that the upcoming meeting structure would be:

  • 1 meeting at lunch hosted at a firm in Madison and Milwaukee
  • 2 meetings virtually (Zoom or Teams) at lunch
  • 1 in-person meeting

 

Thank you everyone who attended the various programs.  

Respectfully submitted by Bev Butula

 

Treasurer