Librarian position available at Williams Mullen

Librarian (Virginia Beach/Norfolk Office)

Williams Mullen, an award-winning AmLaw 200 firm, is well regarded for providing comprehensive legal services to regional, national and international clients in a wide variety of general and specialty practice areas. With about 275 attorneys and ten offices throughout the Mid-Atlantic, the firm delivers innovative, team-supported solutions to support its clients’ diverse business activities. Close working relationships with clients have been the foundation of Williams Mullen’s progressive approach to law practice since the firm was founded over 100 years ago in Richmond, Virginia, where the firm maintains its headquarters today.

Williams Mullen is seeking a Librarian responsible for all tasks associated with the operation and maintenance of the libraries in the Virginia Beach and Norfolk offices. The librarian will support local and firm wide library projects and initiatives. The candidate must have a professional presentation and have a team player attitude.

Responsibilities include:
Conduct research using a variety of on-line and print resources.
Provide guidance to the attorneys and paralegals on sources and strategies for research.
Record incoming books and periodicals using a library software system.
Recommend resources and solutions regarding practice group needs.
Process payment of invoices, ordering of books and other materials.
Maintenance of libraries in multiple locations.

Requirements Include:
3-5 years of law library or comparable experience including familiarity with legal research in print and online resources
Must have strong organizational skills and ability to multi-task.
Experience working with patrons and handling research, inventory, and collections.
Superior customer service skills.
Strong knowledge of online databases and other research systems.
Must have confidence, knowledge and positive personality and the ability to function independently.

This position is open until filled. Visit the Williams Mullen website to apply online.

Submissions for VLA Annual Conference

VALL will not be partnersing with VLA this year, but please consider submitting a concurrent session proposal for the VLA 2012 Annual Meeting which will be held Oct. 24 - 26 in Williamsburg. The deadline to submit a proposal is May 1.

Please see below for details about submission:


May 1: Deadline to complete the 2012 Annual Conference Concurrent Session Proposal form. We know you're doing GREAT things at your library -- why not share? Go to http://www.vla.org/?p=4430 for the appropriate forms and suggestions for sessions from your colleagues. Sessions are 45 minutes long and are terrific ways to network and build your resume! (please note, the Williamsburg Marriott has changed its name and is now the Williamsburg Hotel and Conference Center.)

VALL Grants

Congratulations to Bill Magee from Regent University Law Library who was awarded a VALL grant to attend SEAALL 2012 in Clearwater, Florida! The conference was held March 22 - 24. Keep an eye out on the blog ... Bill will be writing about his experience very soon.

Don't forget to apply for grants to attend AALL in Boston. The deadline is April 15 ... don't let it creep up on you! Click here to get to the grants information and application form: http://vall.pbworks.com/w/page/23509251/VALL%20Grants

Message from the President

A short and sweet President’s message for February, the shortest, and sometimes the sweetest (for those of us that partake in Valentine’s Day celebration) month of the year.

Leadership:

Leadership Manual: The edits continue; very, very slowly. I am determined to complete the manual before the end of my term, so that the incoming executive board and committee chairs can hit the ground running.

Leadership Transition: A leadership transition workshop is tentatively scheduled for the April 13, 2012 Spring Meeting. All incoming and outgoing executive board members and committee chairs will be invited to participate.

Pride:

Electronic Newsletter Collection: All RALLA and VALL newsletters are in the process of being scanned and converted to OCR (Optical Character Recognition) format. Many thanks to Gail Zwirner and our archivist Gail Warren for providing the print copies.

The ultimate goal of this project is to create a searchable and browseable newsletter collection which will be accessed through the VALL Wiki. The digitization of the newsletters is just the first step. I invite and encourage you to join Gail Warren and me in seeing this project through to its completion. Please contact me (mgernhardt@hunton.com) if you are interested in participating in the planning and/or execution of this project.

Growth/Other important updates:

VALL VIP: John Douglass has accepted our invitation to attend the 2012 AALL Annual Meeting in Boston as the VALL VIP. Lyn Warmath has been the driving force behind this process. I deeply appreciate her efforts in keeping us on task in ensuring VALL participates in this important program.

AALL Chapter Visitor: Our request for a AALL executive board visitor was submitted in advance of the deadline. We are currently awaiting a response.

Elections: The election process is underway and on schedule. Please send any further nominations to Fred Dingledy, Nominations Committee Chair, by February 15, 2012. I am so very appreciative of the Committee’s timely efforts, and the responsiveness of the membership in submitting nominees. Thank you all for your part in a successful elections process!

List-serv: The List-serv is being vigilantly administered by our Membership Committee Chair, Chris Vassey. All active 2011-12 members should be receiving list-serv messages. So, you should have received a “save-the-date” announcement for the Spring 2012 meeting at the University of Richmond School of Law. If you did not, please contact Chris at christina.vassey@thomsonreuters.com.

I wish you all the very best in 2012 and hope to see you at the Spring Meeting on April 13.

Michele Gernhardt

Save the Date: April 13!

The Program Committee is in the process of finalizing the Spring meeting -- please save the date for the meeting which is scheduled to be held at the University of Richmond School of Law Library.

The day’s program will include a presentation from the team at the University of Virginia that is digitizing the papers of Frank S. Tavenner relating to the Tokyo War Crimes Trials; a visitor from AALL (still to be determined); and a presentation from David Mao, the new Law Librarian of Congress.

Mark the date on your calendars -- it looks to be an interesting and informative meeting.

Happenings at Ehrhorn Law Library

Congratulations to Anthony Brown Ikwueme who is now the director of Ehrhorn Law Library! Tony assumed the directorship in December after serving as acting director when Barbara Baxter retired in the summer of 2011.

Welcome to Sola G. Babatunde who is the new reference librarian at Ehrhorn Law Library. Sola comes to Ehrhorn from from Texas Southern University – Thurgood Marshall School of Law where he was the Government Documents Librarian.

For nearly eight years, Sola served Fondren Library at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, first as Library Specialist III in the Center for Information Processing and then as Library Specialist IV in the Government Documents Department.

Sola is a recipient of the SMU Colophon Library School Scholarship Award, the University of North Texas School of Library and Information Science Scholarship, and has been invited to join the Beta Phi Mu honor society. He is a member of the American Association of Law Libraries, the Houston Area Association of Law Libraries, and the Houston Area Network of Documents Information. Babatunde has been a member of the Tennessee bar since 2005.

Below is Sola's educational background:

M.L.I.S., University of North Texas, School of Library and Informational Sciences;

LL.M., Southern Methodist University School of Law;

LL.M., Unviersity of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria;

B.L., Nigerian Law School;

LL.B., University of Lagos; Lagos, Nigeria

We look forwarding to meeting Sola at future VALL meetings.

Message from the President

Greetings, fellow VALLers.

Time has hurtled by at a startling pace as it is wont to do. I hope this message finds you all in good health and high spirits.

Our joint annual meeting with VLA last week was a great success. All of the programs presented by VALL members were very well-attended and well-received.

Congratulations again to the presenters: Tim Coggins, Suzanne Corriell, Fred Dingledy, Ben Keele, Terry Long, Bill Magee, Greg Stoner, Jeanne Ullian and Gail Zwirner. I had the opportunity to attend the programs offered by Tim, Suzanne, Fred and Ben, which were at a perfect level of complexity to be of value to law librarians and non-law librarians alike.

By chatting with other conference attendees, I found that they all had very positive things to say about each VALL program. The venue, activities and personal interactions made the conference a very rewarding experience for me. I had the chance to re-connect with library school classmates and professors, have lunch with some VALL members each day, and celebrate in excellent company at the Thursday night social.

I only wish that VALL member attendance at the conference had been more robust. I’d very much like to know what factored in to your decision to attend or not attend the conference. Cost, distance, programming, or something else entirely? I invite you to share your feedback with me or Suzanne Corriell, VALL Vice President and Programs Committee Chair [scorriel@richmond.edu]; we would very much like to factor membership preferences into future partnership planning.

In my first message as your President, I outlined objectives in three areas: leadership, growth and pride. The following is a status report concerning the first two objectives and other recent developments.

Leadership

Executive Board Meetings:

The Executive Board met via telephone conference in June and September. Both meetings were productive and well-attended. Outside of meetings, I have also communicated regularly with officers, committee members and VALL members at-large. Thank you all for your initiative and responsiveness. Donna Bausch and Jennifer Sekula, our Grants committee co-chairs, have been especially communicative and responsive. Thank you both! I have seen evidence, time and again, from nearly every committee that they are truly committed to VALL’s continued success.

Leadership Handbook:
Edits are well under way in updating the leadership handbook. I hope to release an updated version in January 2012. Many changes are being made to account for last year’s bylaws amendments. Here are some other changes being incorporated into the Handbook, which were briefly discussed during the October 28 business meeting:

1. Recruitment committee responsibilities and list-serv administration are being placed under the auspices of the Membership committee.

2. Creation of an Audit committee, at the request of current and past Treasurers.

Other updates:

VALL has adopted the “Private” list-serv policy as required by AALL. All members in good standing will be added to the list-serv by the administrator. Others may request to be added to the list-serv, but cannot be added without administrator approval. We consider the list-serv a member benefit; additions outside of VALL will be very rare.

Copyright and discussion forum statements for Wiki and VALLTalk are forthcoming. The draft statements were distributed at the business meeting and will be posted on the Wiki today. Please submit any comments to me by Tuesday, November 15, 2011.

Growth

Meetings:

The joint program with VLA was a wonderful experience. I learned a great deal working with Lisa Varga (VLA CEO and Conference Committee Chair), Matthew Todd (VLA President) and the conference committee as they planned the conference. Matthew and Lisa each expressed an interest in partnering again next year. We think a less frequent formal partnership would be best for VALL, but I assured them both that VALL’s partnership did not end at the stroke of 4:00 p.m. on Friday, October 28. The VLA conference is an excellent forum for VALL members’ specialized knowledge. We can help improve legal information literacy by sharing our knowledge with librarians across the state. Please plan to submit program proposals for VLA’s next conference.

In the coming months, I will work with the Programs Committee to develop a strategy for maintaining communications with proper contacts at national and local chapters of library associations, such as LLSDC, SLA, VASLA and VLA. A programs page will be added to the VALL Wiki, which will be updated with links and information concerning program/presentation opportunities.

Membership:

As of today, VALL has 120 members in good standing. Each member has been added to the list-serv and has received or will receive a copy of the directory. The membership committee has done a phenomenal job with outreach, follow up and with the directory itself. I sincerely appreciate Chris Vassey’s initiative and leadership in her role as committee chair. Lisa Reinhard and Cathy Palombi have also actively contributed to the committee; thank you both for all of your contributions.

Thank you again for this opportunity to serve.

Michele Gernhardt