I hope everyone did their best to stay warm over the extra cold winter! As I write this message, the snow continues to fall. It has been a year since our last in-person business meeting in February, but CALL continues to keep our members engaged. We hosted a successful virtual business meeting on February 18, 2021 with speaker Robert Ambrogi. Ambrogi spoke about the Essential Role of the Law Librarian. We had 63 members join via Zoom.

The Meetings Committee is busy planning a virtual museum tour of the Pritzker Military Museum & Library on March 18, 2021. The Continuing Education Committee has a few events planned. On February 24, 2021, they hosted a successful webinar in conjunction with vendor Trellis: Legal Intelligence, called: “How AI Powered Analytics Can Improve Your Litigation Strategy for Illinois State Court Litigation.” On March 4, 2021, they are hosting a program called “How MAALL States Deal with Legislative History.”

The Strategic Planning committee has updated our current plan to include a Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) initiative. I encourage our membership to review the enhanced changes to the strategic plan once they are finalized. More to come on this. To celebrate Black History Month, the Community Service Committee has encouraged CALL members to consider donating to the DuSable Museum of African American History. Online donations in support of the museum may be made here.

Voting for our current 2021-2022 CALL executive board runs through March 15, 2021. You can learn more about our candidates here. Good luck to all!

Don’t forget to apply for a grant if interested in attending a conference or other educational opportunity. It is also not too early to start thinking about members to nominate for our CALL awards to be honored in May.

Stay warm! Cheers!