May 21, 2026, 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. at Osteria via Stato
President’s comments
Thank you to the Meetings Committee. 60 members registered for today’s meeting.
New members
Nicole Anderson, Madison Casteel, Edison Ellenberger, Christian Miller, Jacqueline Norton, Adam Quigley, Syeda Razeen, Todd Venie, Delia Wadlington, and Frank Young.
Thanks to our sponsor
AI Intel (Risk Management, OSINT, & Compliance Monitoring Experts). AIntel is new to the legal market. They provide comprehensive screening and due Diligence.
Speaker
Matt Messbarger, Archival Specialist for the Office of the City Clerk, City of Chicago
Mr. Messbarger shared information on projects he is working on and where we can access the digitized archives. City Council Archival Resources | Office of the City Clerk
This project was funded in part by a grant to the Office of City Clerk to digitize audio recordings from committee meetings. The collection covers 1970-2012.
Journal of Proceedings goes back to 1981 and the Annual indexes to the journal, 1905 -2004 with work in progress to get more uploaded over time. The plan is to go back to 1864. All resources are currently hosted on Internet Archive to ensure there is not a change in publishing on the City websites dependent on the elected officials at any give time.
Mr. Messbarger encourages us to explore the site. He has also tried to link to other local/regional collections where appropriate.
Questions:
- Can datasets be grabbed and run AI? Yes, it’s all publicly available information.
- Is Cook County listed? No, keeping specific to City.
- What’s the most surprising item you found? Audio recordings during council wars with Vrdolyak and Washington almost coming to blows. And James Baldwin document that some Alders wanted to have banned, but there were write-ins in support of and advocating for allowing the Baldwin material and one of the advocates was Studs Terkel.
- Lyle Benedict has retired but the municipal collection is still available on the 10th floor of City Hall.
- Speaker offered contact info -for any other questions CALL members may have. Matthew.messbarger@cityofchicago.org
Grant Awards with Philip
- Grants:
- Elizabeth Outler and Stacia Stein for ALA
- Joanne Kiley, AALL
- Matt Timko is the recipient of the Agnes and Harvey Reid Award for Outstanding Contribution to Law Librarianship. Congratulations, Matt. He was unable to attend. The award will be presented to him at the September meeting.
- Mary Ann Lenzen is the recipient of the CALL Lifetime Achievement in Law Librarianship award. She recently retired from Ropes and Gray and now volunteers her time working to oppose book bans in Woodstock, IL
- Mary Ann expressed her thanks to CALL community
Committee Announcements
- Government Relations:
- 3 webinars with over 200 people registered, thanks for the support
- Legal Geek is in town on June 2 and they are looking for someone with academic law library experience with multi-generational communication
- Membership:
- Renewal process is ongoing
- if anyone has a transition – change of jobs, etc., do not make a new membership, we will change it on the back-end
- Mentorship – Happy Hour in June 9 at the Green.
Jill expressed her thanks to all the people on the committees and encouraged everyone to consider volunteering.
Door Prize thanks to LexisNexis: winners are Megan Butman, Kathleen Mance
Board Transition
Outgoing: Philip Johnson, Past President, Mike McMillan, Treasurer, and Emily Byrne, Director
New Board: Diana Koppang, Vice President/President Elect, Keith Klein , Treasurer, Ramsey Donnell, Director
Gavel handed over to Todd Hilmer, the new CALL Board President
Compiled by Joanne Kiley