Welcome New Member!

Barbara Ryan
Information Specialist
City of Virginia Beach / Wahab Public Law Library
2425 Nimmo Parkway
Judicial Center, 10B
Virginia Beach, VA 23456
(o) 757.385.4419
(f) 757.385.8742
BRyan@VBgov.com

Slate of Officers 2014 Executive Board

Vice President/President-Elect: Stephanie Miller, Washington & Lee University School of Law

Secretary: Christina Vassey, Thomson Reuters
Director: Andrew Winston, University of Richmond School of Law

Per VALL by-laws:
- Further nominations may be delivered to the Chair of the Nominating Committee by February 15.
- If no nominations from the membership are received by the Chair of the Nominating Committee by February 15, each candidate presented to the membership as the only candidate for a particular office shall be deemed elected as of February 28.

VLA Council Meeting 1/10/14

By Terry Long, VALL Liaison to VLA



Highlights of the VLA Council Meeting:

President Kevin Smith said his objectives this year would be: he would like to see more articles in Virginia Libraries; he is working on a statement on the value of a graduate degree in library and information science; and, he wants to make VLA more relative to newer members.

Lisa Varga, Executive Director of VLA, presented a prototype to the redesigned and streamlined VLA web site; there will be a soft launch on February 1st.

Successful fundraising by the Scholarship Committee has resulted in a carryover of $1600 toward the next year’s fund. Currently, they have two scholarships available of $2500 each for VLA members pursuing their library science degree.

The VLA Paraprofessional Forum will be held May 18-20 at the Double Tree Koger Conference Center in Richmond.

New Members Roundtable Forum has a Facebook page with activities listed for each region. They hope to increase twitter chats each month on a designated topic. The Forum also is considering a mentoring program.

The College and Research Libraries Roundtable has a program in March, Communicating the Value of Academic Libraries. It will be held at the Twin Hickory Library in Glen Allen on March 31. For more information visit http://www.vla.org/vla-units/forums/virginia-library-association-college-research-libraries-chapter-2/

Agents of Change: the Library Spy Conference is the theme of the next VLA Annual Conference to be held in Williamsburg at the DoubleTree Hotel on October 22-24.

Congratulations to the Almoite family!

Vice President/President Elect Ben Almoite and his wife Andrea received an early Christmas present -- their son Kevin Benjamin, was born on Dec. 12 at 10:36 pm. Kevin weighed 7 lb. 3.8 oz and was 20 1/4 inch long. VALL wishes the family well!



Andrea, Kevin and Ben



Baby Kevin



A Life in Retirement: My View

by Jean Holcomb

If graded on a work-life balance, my pre-retirement score would have reflected a tendency to tip toward the work side of the scale. In retirement, I’ve worked hard to acquire the needed skills to live in the moment. No longer focused on anticipating challenges to the library’s funding sources or space allocation in the courthouse, I’ve tried to design a life that contains elements of what made me happy at work while leaving behind the stressors that managing a public law library bring.

If a retiree’s new job is to build a happy life, what elements should be a part of the plan to create such a life? How do you measure success now that you’re no longer involved in a formal performance review process? What are your goals? How often should you review your progress?

The old adage that “old age is not for “sissies,” no matter what number we assign to old age, rings true for a reason. Leading a happy life after work requires much of the same skill development and determination we applied to our law library careers.

To begin the task of designing a fulfilling life, I spent time reflecting about the parts of my work life that I would miss the most. I realized that the list of things I liked about my job was a pretty extensive one. At the top of my list was idea generation: the excitement of coming up with an idea. I loved the collaborative process involved in turning that idea into reality. The sense of mission fulfillment project management brought fed personal satisfaction. I loved being involved with something bigger than me: the sense that my contribution helped move a project or a more intangible goal to completion.

In looking for common threads, I came to realize that happiness for me rested on a two basic elements; learning something new and sharing the experience with others. To design a post-career life, I would need to find ways to be an active learner. Maintaining my existing network of friends and expanding this network to match my changing interests would be vital.

I did little formal planning about what the structure of my everyday life would be like in advance of leaving the library. I knew that not having a rigid schedule would be central to my design. I wanted the flexibility to take a rainy day, or even a sunny day, to settle down with a good book without feeling that I had to or should be doing something more important.

To chase away the blues brought on by gloomy Seattle days, I had spent time daily on my Nordic track. I learned that exercise and time for reflective thinking went hand in hand for me. Living out in the country with a husband with a serious green thumb and 36 acres to plant, water and harvest gave me all of the fine weather outdoor exercise I wanted. Becoming the gardener’s assistant gave me the opportunity to learn about what could grow and how to keep what I planted alive. After taking a yoga class on a vacation with a friend, I found that our county YMCA offered not only daily yoga classes, but an indoor walking track, and opportunities to make new friends.

In part to satisfy my need to collaborate, I found that friends and family enjoyed having me put my research skills to use to plan vacations. Collaboration also plays a role in my newest interest. While Seattle is famous as a “foodie” city, the same cannot be said about my new neighborhood. Driving into Winston Salem for dinner dodging deer and other nighttime critters didn’t prove to be a very satisfying option for a fine dining experience.

To up my culinary skills, I started buying more food focused magazines. My daughter, who had long shared with me a love of baking zillion calorie goodies, and I took a week long cooking class at the John C. Campbell Folk School in far western North Carolina. In our California cuisine class we learned techniques and methods for a healthy lifestyle. We’ve been back twice to learn more. We’re now collaborating on a cookbook for which I’ve mastered a data management tool, a skill I never envisioned needing or learning.

As a library manager, the annual performance review process was a highlight of my year. Because the ground rules we established as a staff rested on the principle that there would be no “bad news” surprises at the time of the annual review, the annual review focus rested on an evaluation of what had gone right during the past year. Discussion of work habit issues occurred at the point of awareness not at the end of the year. The annual review offered an opportunity to discuss not only goals for the year ahead, but consideration of what resources needed to be made available to support goal setting.

Because we always held our performance reviews in the library in May away from the pressures that occurred during the end of the calendar budget adoption process, I have continued that schedule for my life in retirement. Rather than think about what I want to accomplish in the year ahead in the New Year’s resolution timeframe. I set aside time to reflect and set goals for myself in the spring. Because I’ve made an effort to deal with my own work habit issues like avoiding procrastination with writing deadlines, I’m pretty sure of a good review!

If there’s a moral to my story or a theme to these articles, it’s that the skills you worked so hard to acquire in your library career will continue to be of use to you in retirement. While you might not aspire to bake the world’s best triple chocolate cake, I’m confident that you’ll find something equally satisfying when you leave your library for retirement.

Looking for a few good people ...

Candidates are needed to fill three positions on the Executive Board: Vice President/President-Elect, and two-year terms for Secretary and Director.  The Vice President must be a member of AALL.  Any VALL member may serve as Secretary or Director regardless of AALL membership status.

Please contact any member of the Nominating Committee to nominate yourself or a fellow VALL member as a candidate for any/all open positions.


Please submit any nominations by January 15, 2014.

Candidates will be announced via the Chapter listserv on or before February 1, 2014.

Jane Baugh: baugh@woodsrogers.com 540-983-7531

Michele Gernhardt: mgernhardt@hunton.com 804-788-7355

Bill Magee: willmag@regent.edu 757-352-4098

Three New VALL Committees

From President Amy Wharton:

The Executive Board is currently recruiting for three important committees. The charges for each are listed below. A few people have already expressed interest in serving, but we’re looking for many more. For the 30th Anniversary Committee, we’re looking for celebration planners as well as those who know our history well and have ideas for how we can highlight that history for the benefit of future librarians and the world at large. Second, spurred by Gail Warner’s recent appointment to the Virginia Access to Justice Commission, we’ve been called to focus as a group on supporting the legal information needs of Virginians. Librarians who work with public patrons are particularly needed for this committee. Last but certainly not least, for our Strategic Planning Committee 2017, we’re hoping to have a wide range of experience levels and perspectives to help establish a path for the VALL of the future. Clairvoyance is preferred, but is by no means required!

What resonates with you? Please email and let me know as we establish committee chairs and rosters. We’ll be rolling up our sleeves and getting to work in early January, so there’ll be no added stress before the holidays! Time is precious for all of us, but your generous service will be deeply appreciated and will make a difference.

The Committees:

30th Anniversary Committee

This committee will explore ways to honor, celebrate and commemorate VALL’s 30 year history and will submit a report to the Executive Board with recommendations, including resource and expenditure requests, by January 31, 2014. The committee will then oversee execution of the approved plan.


VALL Access to Justice Committee

This committee will be comprised of members who have an interested in supporting the legal information needs of members of the public.
The committee will:

•  advise the law librarian appointee to the Virginia Access to Justice Commission about the public’s needs for access to legal information and legal information literacy instruction, about initiatives of law librarians statewide in serving those needs, and issues concerning access to and use of legal information by this population.
• coordinate efforts of law librarians across the state to improve public access to legal information and legal information literacy instruction.
• report to VALL’s leaders and members about the relevant activities and interests of entities beyond Virginia’s borders and, conversely, share information about VALL’s activities and interests with outside organizations as appropriate.

VALL 2017 Strategic Planning Committee

This committee will develop a three-year strategic plan for VALL, taking into account current trends and potential future developments in law librarianship, law practice, access to legal information, AALL’s strategic plan, and association management, practices and services. The committee will draft a plan report and present it to the VALL Executive Board by May 31, 2014. The Executive Board will review the report and work with the committee to finalize the VALL 2017 Strategic Plan, which the president will present to the membership for approval at the Fall 2014 Annual Meeting.