Virginia State Law Library Celebrates NLW 2012

The Virginia State Law Library collected over 86 books for the Children's Book Bank of  Richmond as part of its National Library Week 2012 celebrations. State Law Librarian Gail Warren said that the library's NLW celebration also included a virtual scavenger hunt with the all-correct entry winning a $10 Barnes and Noble gift card. The library held an open house where cake and light refreshments were served.

 What's a celebration without cake?

Visitors to the State Law Library enjoying the cake and refreshments



Part of the collection for the Children's Book Bank of Richmond



L - R: Librarian Benjamin Almoite with Joan Mielke, winner of the B&N gift card, and library technician Janet Holland

Highlights of the VLA Council Meeting, April 20, 2012

Terry Long

 Sen. Warner contacted VLA leadership to participate in a conference call with him. He wanted to learn about library issues. Those who participated were pleased with how candid he was. Among the topics discussed were: e-rate, provisions of a security bill that will give more access to library records and broadband access in rural areas.


 Phil Abraham, VLA’s lobbyist, reported on the recent session of the General Assembly and its many challenges. The governor’s budget initially cut state aid to libraries by 2%. He and library supporters worked to get it restored. The Library of Virginia had funding cut for its public records project, it has been restored. Though the General Assembly has finally passed a budget, the Governor still can make changes; Phil thinks he won’t in these areas.

 Betty Dillehay, director of Matthews County Public Library, received a citation from VLA for her work as co-chair of the Legislative Committee.


 The VLA Conference this year will be held October 24-26 in Williamsburg; the 2013 conference will be held there, too, but at the end of September.


 VLA’s Paraprofessional Forum Conference is May 20-22 at the Koger Center in Richmond; there are 45 registrants.


 This year’s annual VLA Conference will have two noted speakers, Nancy Dowd and Hillary Jordan. Nancy Dowd is author of Bite-Sized Marketing and is the Director of Marketing for the NJ State Library. Hillary Jordan won the 2006 Bellwether Prize, established by Barbara Kingsolver to recognize literature of social responsibility, for her first novel, Mudbound.

Welcome, Catherine!

Catherine Lemann took up the position of Circuit Librarian at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on April 1, 2012.

Cathy comes to Virginia from the Alaska Court System where she was state law librarian from 2006 - 2011. Before that she was associate director of the Law Library of Louisiana from 1991 - 2006.

She received her BA from Carleton College, her JD from Tulane University Law School and her MLIS from Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College.

Cathy was secretary of the American Association of Law Libraries from 2002 - 2005, and was president of AALL from 2009 - 2010.

VALL welcomes Cathy to Virginia and looks forward to seeing her at VALL meetings. 

Congratulations!

Former VALL president, Kevin Butterfield, is now the University Librarian of the Boatwright Memorial Library of the University of Richmond.

Kevin became University Librarian on April 16 after serving as interim University Librarian for about seven months.

Congratulations to Kevin from VALL!

VALL Spring Meeting 2012

The meeting which was held on Friday, April 13, 2012, at the University of Richmond School of Law, was attended by at least 52 people, and filled Classroom L30 in the law library to capacity.

Attendees were given an update by the new Law Librarian of Congress, David Mao, and his team (please see entry below for a summary of what was presented).

The team of Elizabeth Ladner and Loren Moulds, from the University of Virginia Law Library, shared their work on the digitization of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial Papers (please see entry below for a summary).

VALL was also fortunate to have a chapter visitor from AALL -- vice president, Jean Wenger, who talked about recent AALL initiatives and upcoming changes to the AALL annual meeting (please see below for a summary of her update).

Dean Wendy Perdue from the University of Richmond School of Law welcoming VALL members. "Libraries are critical to what we do," she said in her opening remarks.

Updates from the Law Library of Congress

The Law Librarian of Congress, David Mao, took time from his first 100 days in office, to give VALL members an update on the goings on in the law library, and reminded us that with 2.78 million volumes in its collection, it is the largest law library in the world.

What has the Law Library of Congress been up to? Keeping up with the Joneses in the world of social media -- it created a FaceBook page in 2009, YouTube & iTunes in 2010, its In Custodia Legis blog in 2010 and launched a Twitter account in 2011.

Next on the list is a redesign of the law library website with a "new visual design" which will include the ability to search for everything through one interface instead of having to conduct multiple searches. Keep an eye out on the Law Library of Congress, many new changes are coming.

Law Librarian of Congress David Mao

 Andrew Weber, legislative information systems manager, talked about changes to THOMAS as well as the law library's work with new media

Tina, Gheen, emerging technologies librarian

Here is the web link to THOMAS: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php To the bottom left are links to the new media including the blog.

Tavener Papers Digitization Project Management

University of Virginia Law Library's digital librarian, Loren Moulds, and digital fellow, Elizabeth Ladner, took VALL members on a journey of how they produced a virtual library from the Frank S. Tavener, Jr. Tokyo War Crimes Trial Papers. They discussed the digitization of 20,000 pages, the creation of a robust website which includes videos of the trial, equipment selection and software tools.

 Digital fellow Elizabeth Ladner



 

Digital librarian Loren Moulds