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COLLABORATIONISTA | |
Member Spotlight |
NELLCO Affiliate Member
Matthew Downs - Assistant Dean, Law Library and Graduate and International Programs |
Blog of the Month! |
Promoting the VALUE of Law Firm Librarians
On Firmer Ground is a joint project of the Legal Division of the Special Libraries Association, the Private Law Libraries Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries, the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (l'Association Canadienne des Biblioth�ques de Droit) and the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians.
The editors of OFG are:
John J. DiGilio, MLIS, JD / National Manager of Research Services / Reed Smith LLP / Chair, Legal Division of SLA
Steven Lastres / Director of Library & Knowledge Management / Debevoise & Plimpton LLP / Chair-Elect, PLL-SIS of AALL
Susannah Tredwell / Library Manager / Lawson Lundell LLP / Co-Chair, Private Law Libraries Special Interest Group of CALL/ACBD
James Mullan / KM Systems Manager / Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP / President Elect, BIALL
Recent posts include:
Check it out! |
Does your staff need grantwriting skills? As a NELLCO member you can get them for free! |
NELLCO member libraries that can host a 2-day grant writing or grant management workshop will receive two free seats for staff to attend. That's a value of almost $1000.00!
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NELLCO has teamed up with Grant Writing USA to offer these workshops across the US. Host institutions only need to provide space and a local contact person. We do the rest. Interested? Let us know!
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Streaming Video! |
Swank Digital Campus! Take a look. View the recorded demo at your convenience. Swank offers a great service that librarians can provide to support their faculty! |
Send Us Your Pictures! | |
We want to highlight your library and your staff on our website and in our newsletter. Please send in any images you'd like to see, along with a brief description, to [email protected] or [email protected]. All images should be jpgs of at least 620 pixels wide by 310 tall. We can work with larger images but nothing smaller. Now hit us with your best shots! |
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Quick Links |
LIPA Legal Information Preservation Alliance
MALLCO Mid-America Law Library Consortium
LLMC Law Library Microform Consortium
ICOLC International Coalition of Library Consortia
ACL Association for Consortium Leadership
ASAE American Society of Association Executives |
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Director's Corner |
A Busy Spring
This issue of The Slice covers March and April, and is arriving in your inbox a week late, simply because we've been busy here in Albany! And ok, also because I took some vacation last week when the newsletter normally would have gone out. My family and I enjoyed Easter on Bald Head Island in North Carolina. I highly recommend it!
Our much-anticipated NELLCO Symposium went off as planned on March 12-13 here at the Albany Law School. Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings was on hand to welcome attendees and share his passion for the Capital City. The group was also warmly welcomed by ALS Interim President and Dean Connie Mayer, and Schaffer Law Library Director and Interim Dean for Academic Affairs Helane Davis.
We learned a lot in this first conference and we hope to reflect those lessons in next year's event (tentatively scheduled for March 14-15, 2013). Planning for a first time conference proved to be quite a juggling act. There were so many unknowns. We didn't know how many attendees to anticipate, but we had to develop program content that would draw members to attend. We estimated @200 registrants, so we anticipated needing to establish 3-4 content tracks running simultaneously throughout the two days. In the end, we had just over 100 total attendees (speakers, Industry Partners, registrants) which really lent itself to running only two tracks. That left us with too much outstanding content squeezed into too little time. I guess it's not the worst problem to have.
The last session on day two was a wrap up and debriefing. We got lots of very frank and helpful feedback from the hardy souls who stayed to the bitter end! For that we are grateful. We have been analyzing their feedback and the post-conference evaluations and we have some good ideas for radical changes to next year's conference structure, with the primary focus on NELLCO Interest Groups. The NELLCO Board of Directors will meet next week at Suffolk Law School where we'll review the evaluations and discuss the future of the conference. Stay tuned for more information as we develop the plan later in the year.
I want to thank Theresa McCue and Kathy Gundrum for all of their hard work to keep everything running smoothly during the Symposium. They were both tireless in their efforts in the planning and execution, and it couldn't have been accomplished without them!
Also, huge thanks to the Albany Law School, the Schaffer Law Library, and the Library Staff who gave us their time and were willing to step in wherever they were needed. It presented a great opportunity for us to work together that we don't otherwise enjoy, even though we're only one floor away!
After the Symposium it was time for me to focus on site visits. In the current NELLCO strategic plan the Board established a goal for the NELLCO Executive Director to visit at least two Full Member libraries each year. While I see many member libraries when I am on site for meetings throughout the typical year, the site visits anticipated by the plan provide a focused opportunity for me to raise awareness about NELLCO and the benefits of membership, and for members to raise my awareness of their needs and expectations as members.
Last week, after returning from our BHI family road trip, I met with staff members at the Social Law Library and the Boston College Law Library. Over the course of two days I met with five groups of staff, including paraprofessionals, professionals and support staff. I walked folks through the new website, gathered some great ideas and gained some valuable insight about what these members value and want from their NELLCO membership. The list includes:
- Resource Sharing/ILL
- E-resource acquisition/licensing
- Leveraging the collaborative for advocacy and 'enlightened policy change'
I also took away some good suggestions for the website that we will be reviewing after we return from the NELLCO Board of Directors meeting next week.
If you'd like to host a NELLCO site visit please let me know! Until next month. . .
Yours In Collaboration,
Tracy L. Thompson-Przylucki
Executive Director |
Oxford's Treaties and International Agreements Online - Update |
Thanks to Monica Sharum, Emerging Technologies Librarian at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, NELLCO became aware of the lack of currency in the TIAO database. We contacted Oxford and Peter Berkery's response is set forth below. We appreciate Oxford's responsiveness to this important issue.
Current TIAO subscribers: Please see the compensatory offer below.
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Dear NELLCO:
Following recent correspondence concerning the content updating frequency for Treaties and International Agreements Online, I am writing to confirm the status of new content uploads and address the recent issues surrounding currency and product description inaccuracies.
Prolonged problems surrounding online content operations and resourcing for the Treaties database have negatively impacted the currency of the service, and the database has ceased to be up to date. OUP has not done a good job in communicating this effectively to our customers, especially in failing to provide an update to the product information featured on oup.com and oceanalaw.com. We extend our sincere apologies for our oversight in this matter and any inconvenience it has caused.
As it stands today there are just over 18,000 Treaties within the database. During the next 8 weeks over 900 new records will be uploaded to the site, both amendments to existing treaties and new treaties transmitted to the Senate or released by the U.S. Department of State through 2010. The current round of updating will put us up to date through those agreements made available by the State Department or issued by the Senate through 2010. Work now commences on 2011 agreements, and these will be added throughout the remainder of 2012, as well and will put us on a better path to reclaim the currency of content in the database.
In light of the above, and as a gesture of our sincere regret surrounding the issue, we would like to offer NELLCO treaties customers free access to one of the following products through December 2012.
1.Oxford Dictionaries Pro www.oxforddictionaries.com
2.American National Biography Online www.anb.com
3.Investment Claims www.investmentclaims.com
Please make your product selection and email it to [email protected], and you will be set up with gratis access expiring Dec 31, 2012.
Thank you for your continued support.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Berkery
Law Publisher, OUP USA
Oxford University Press
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iSinolaw/Westlaw China Licensing Update |
As we reported in Feb., iSinolaw was acquired by Thomson Reuters at the end of 2011. The iSinolaw content has now been Westlaw China, accessible via the Westlaw China platform exclusively.
I have been in negotiations with Thomson Reuters on the terms of their agreement, which will replace the exisiting iSinolaw agreement. They may agree to allow NELLCO to continue to sign on behalf of the subscribing members, or they may decide to require each library to sign the agreement individually. In either case they have agreed to negotiate the terms through NELLCO.
As of this date, the terms Thomson Reuters proposes are unacceptable in a number of areas, including:
- choice of law and venue
- confidentiality
- responsibility/liability for the actions of end-users
- reference to unknown terms outside of the agreement to which licensees become subject upon use of the resource
These remaining issues were sent to them on March 28 and I hope we can resolve them soon.
In the event that we are not able to resolve these issues and subscribing libraries are asked to sign individual agreements, please read the license agreement carefully for these issues and negotiate directly with Thomson Reuters if these are non-starters for your library.
As always, feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns!
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NELLCO Symposium 2012? It's a Wrap! |
More than 100 participants enjoyed unseasonably warm weather here in Albany last month during the first ever Annual NELLCO Symposium. But the good weather was more than just a nice perk. It turned out to be a lifesaver (or at least a conference saver) when the buses failed to show up to carry conference participants to our Mon. evening venue! Most folks were able to walk the 1.3 miles to the New York State Museum and Library, and many seemed genuinely happy to have done so. Others were able to catch a ride with Kathy Gundrum, who had been posted at the first hotel to assist with the bus loading, and ended up being the shuttle driver in her own car! In the end, everyone was very good-natured about the snafus and hiccups that are the bane of many novice conference planners. For that generosity of spirit we thank all of those in attendance!
We also thank the Industry Partners whose generous support and commitment made the inaugural NELLCO Symposium possible. They are:
- ACLS Humanities
- ALM Legal Intelligence
- Berkeley Electronic Press
- Digital Library Systems Group
- East View Information Services
- EBSCO Publishing
- Fastcase
- Gale/Cengage
- Justis Publishing
- Leadership Directories
- LexisNexis
- Oxford University Press
- Paratext
- ProQuest
- Thomson Reuters
- True Serials
- Wolters Kluwer Law & Business
- YBP Library Services
Please mark your calendar for next year's NELLCO Symposium and plan a return visit to Albany. Tentative dates are March 14-15, 2013. |
Tips from Theresa |
Theresa McCue - Administrative and Member Support Manager
Haven't registered yet? Please make sure that you create your profile on the NELLCO website.
Renewals are right around the corner so if you are not aware of the NEW renewal process please contact me. We can set up a brief telephone training session and I can walk you through it in no time!
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NELLCO Current Trials |
To see detailed trial information, including access instructions and pricing, for these resources, visit the NELLCO website. You must be logged in to see the 'For Members' tab. Open the tab and choose >E-resources, Trial and Offers >Trials. |
May 1 is Law Day! |
The 2012 Law Day theme, "No Courts, No Justice, No Freedom," underscores the importance of the courts and their role in ensuring access to justice for all Americans.
"All of us must have and protect our right and our freedom to use courtrooms when we need to. That courtroom must be open to protect families. That courtroom must be open to validate and protect contracts for business. That courtroom must be open to keep the wheels of justice turning. That courtroom must be open to defend our individual rights to prove again and again that we continue to be a free society. All of that takes more money ... not less and less money for our courts."
American Bar Association President Wm. T. (Bill) Robinson III |
May 1-7 is Privacy Week! |
From the Privacy Revolution website:
JOIN THE REVOLUTION!
Join ALA's Intellectual Freedom office as they rally Americans to Choose Privacy! Protect your freedom to read, search, and learn in a digital age.
Choose Privacy Week is an initiative that invites library users into a national conversation about privacy rights in a digital age. The campaign gives libraries the tools they need to educate and engage users, and gives citizens the resources to think critically and make more informed choices about their privacy.
The American Library Association (ALA) has developed a variety of resources to help libraries reach out to their communities. We hope you will explore this site to learn more about what your community can do to spark thought and discussion around privacy issues today. Whether you are considering creating a display, sponsoring a contest, hosting a program or workshop, or moderating a community dialogue about privacy, we have tools that can help!
Wondering where to start? Check out some of our materials for libraries here. |
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