Photo of Emily Barney
Winter 2016, Grants & Chapter Awards, Meetings

2015 AALL Meeting Recap (CALL Grantee Report)

Much of my participation in the 2015 AALL Annual Meeting has already been fully documented in the 2015 Summer Supplement Issue I helped publish live during the conference.

In this post I’ve also collected resources for the two sessions I presented in and compiled notes for some of the conference sessions I attended with links to the videos you can watch online together with book recommendations, online resources, and Twitter coverage.

Live Coverage

Here are the primary articles I contributed to during the event to help attendees explore the city beyond the conference sessions:

This mural covers a portion of the parking lot you’ll pass walking down Market toward City Hall. Call 215-525-1577 to hear the stories behind the murals. Press 3# to hear about this mural.
neon sign
CALL Librarians at AALL Party

My Presentations

I also participated in the Cool Tools Café presentation (Surface Pro 3: Interactivity of a Tablet, Productivity of a Laptop) and a panel presentation on Training Law Students and Lawyers on Legal Technology Skills (In the Wake of the Kia Audit) – you can watch that panel’s recording online through the AALLnet website now.

In the Wake of the Kia Audit Presenters: Emily Barney, Michael Blix, Debbie Ginsberg, and Patricia Schminke

[Ed. note: In Emily’s Surface Pro 3 presentation, she discussed the various ways she uses her Surface, including keeping notes at conferences, posting related social media, and image editing and coding on the go. In the discussion of the Kia audit, Emily covered planning, implementing, and marketing technology training programs. You can find more in-depth coverage of the Kia audit presentation here and reprinted in this issue.]

Conference Sessions:

The Power of Connection in Academic Libraries

Brian Matthews, a non-legal academic library director described the collaborative strategies that have helped them transform their library to include spaces for social events and institutional partners.

Focusing on engaging their institution and becoming trusted advisors led them to building deeper relationships and credibility, but meant a shift in focus from the collection to the culture of the library and the larger roles they could play.

Watch program recording on the AALLnet website

Recommended reading:

Things Every Librarian Needs to Know About Coding

Leslie Grove and Jason Tubinis gave a whirlwind discussion of basic computer programming concepts (compiled vs. interpreted, variables, object oriented coding) that went on to discuss the common applications of many languages: C, Java/JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, ASP, etc. and value of APIs.

Watch program recording on the AALLnet website

Recommended Resources:

Enterprise Social Media: A Business Tool for the Future

A panel of speakers (Steven Antonio Lastres, June Liebert, Katherine Lowry, and Jill Smith) discussed tools designed to create internal social platforms that can be used to facilitate sharing information across teams outside of the usual email or document management systems. Some can be branded for use with clients, others are better used for internal staff alone.

Watch the program recording on the AALLnet website

This was a session I managed to “live tweet” for my notes, so I’ll include those here:

Understanding Your Users through Process Mapping

With CALL’s own June Liebert presenting alongside Cheryl Smith and Katherine Lowry, this session at the very end of the conference was one of my favorites. As they pointed out, every job can benefit from improved efficiency!

Watch program recording on the AALLnet website

While, of course, you have to begin by gathering information about what you’re doing to complete a process map, it’s also important to communicate clearly at the beginning or you won’t get accurate information. It’s important to have factual information about what’s working and where you have gaps.

How do you fix or retool your processes? Organize, document, and analyze your information around functions and/or decisions.

What about the user portion of process mapping? Look for similar characteristics, group by goals – aim for broad targets that will help you create profiles or personas you can use to focus on your patrons / customers more effectively.

How can process mapping help an organization? It helps identify solutions to common problems, define which tools will be best for a job (and save money), identify specific requirements for users or projects, and put together more efficient teams.