From the Editors

Greetings Colleagues,

Scott Vanderlin
Scott Vanderlin

As all Chicagoans know, Summer is the briefest and most precious season of the year.  The annual Summer issue of the Bulletin, in turn, is regarded by many as the sweetest of all Bulletins.  As such, I invite all of you to adjust your beach chairs, reapply sunscreen, and settle in for Issue 236 of the award winning CALL Bulletin.

In her final President’s Letter, Margaret Schilt, our fearless leader for the past year, reflects on the projects she has overseen in her time as CALL President.  Margaret’s steady hand has been vital to the continued prosperity and innovation seen in CALL over the past year.  To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, “Are you better off than you were a year ago, CALL member?”  I think that we can all agree that we are, and we have Margaret to thank for that.  Your move, Pabarja.

In this issue, we highlight those CALL members who will be contributing to the AALL annual meeting in Philadelphia–by presenting a program, by representing CALL, or in leadership positions. We should all be proud to be part of such an active and well-represented local chapter.  I would be remiss if I did not draw special attention to our very own Keith Ann Stiverson, who will officially begin her term as AALL President at the conclusion of this year’s meeting.  I think I speak for everyone when I say that it will be exciting to see what kind of preferential treatment we can milk out of this thing. CALL member Sally Holterhoff will also be awarded the Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award–AALL’s highest honor–at this year’s Annual Meeting.

Rising star Kara Dunn is featured in this issue, both as a contributor, with an article detailing best practices for library research guides, and for being named the second Judith M. Wright Fellow at the University of Chicago.  Jona Whipple provides us with a report from the 2015 Law Repositories Conference, and a similar rundown of this year’s ABA TECHSHOW comes to us from Kara Young. Lindsey Ann Carpino also introduces us to a number of useful mobile apps for legal research.

Also in this issue, we hear from Continuing Education Committee Co-Chair Sam Wertime, who gives us a summary of this year’s CALL Institute Day.  We also pay tribute to Mary Lu Linnane, Lorna Tang, JoAnn Hounshell, and Sean Rebstock, who were each honored with awards at our last Business Meeting of the year in May.

Also featured in this issue of the Bulletin are annual reports from the various Committees that make up CALL.  If you haven’t been keeping track of the CALL International Relations Committee* this year, all I can say is buckle up.  These reports provide a full rundown of everything that our organization has accomplished this year.  CALL is nothing without those members who generously volunteer their time to serve on these committees. On behalf of the CALL Bulletin, we would like to thank all CALL members who served on a committee this year.

By the way, CALL member, have I mentioned that the newsletter on your screen (or in your hands, for the print enthusiasts among us) is officially an award winning publication.  That’s right!  The CALL Bulletin will be receiving the Award for Excellence in Marketing – Best Newsletter at this year’s AALL annual meeting in Philadelphia.  It really goes to show you what a ragtag local chapter of a national law library organization can do with a crazy dream and a little functional WordPress training.

To commemorate and highlight our award-winning newsletter, we will be publishing a Special Supplement to  the Summer 2015 issue of the Bulletin! For those of you who cannot attend the AALL Annual Meeting this year (and even for those who are there), we will be publishing live, hard-hitting journalism, on location in Philadelphia. Who is staying up too late in the Fastcase suite? . . . the Bulletin will be there.  Who is still trying to get us to flip our classrooms? . . . tune in to the Bulletin to find out.  Was that drawing for an Apple Watch fixed?! . . . the Bulletin will be scratching around so that you don’t have to.

Ok, maybe we won’t be publishing anything quite so salacious.  We will, however, be publishing daily updates in Philadelphia and in the days following the conference, in order to highlight all that our wonderful chapter members do on a national level. Check in during the conference for pictures, program notes, and interviews with other conference attendees.  The ability to publish content quickly and efficiently is one of the great advantages of the new online format for the Bulletin, and it only seems right that we put the innovation that won our newsletter an award on full display.

These are exciting times for the Bulletin, CALL, and for our profession as a whole.  For those of you going to Philadelphia, stop by the CALL table in the Exhibit Hall to say hi.  For those of you who can’t make it to Philadelphia, check this page for updates as they are published.  And everyone should stay tuned for the Fall 2015 issue of the Bulletin, which will feature a complete roundup of the AALL Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, along with all of the usual great content that you have come to expect from our members.

Cheers!

*There is no International Relations Committee