Over the last 70 years, CALL and the Chicago legal academic libraries have been integral in adapting library services to changing legal environments so that a law student today will be a successful lawyer tomorrow. There is no doubt that CALL will continue to be a valuable and innovative presence in the Chicago legal community through the collaborative efforts of all the member institutions. It is this spirit of collaboration, and after interactions with fellow librarians, faculty, and students, that I describe three library services that would be valuable additions to all academic libraries in their missions to produce successful lawyers. Whether these proposals are tentatively practiced, formally adopted, or ignored completely, I present them here for consideration. Continue reading Three Proposals for Academic Law Libraries
Matthew Timko
- CALL Position: Bulletin Editor
- Academic Technologies and Outreach Services Librarian and Assistant Professor at Northern Illinois University College of Law
Biography
A First Timer’s AALL Grantee Report
At the time of the AALL conference in July, I was about two weeks from finally becoming a bona fide librarian, and I was excited to see what a national conference in my chosen profession would look like. My experiences with CALL have been wonderful, specifically because the CALL community is so close knit and collaborative, and I wondered whether the national conference would be the inverse since the geographic regions represented were so vast. I quickly found my concerns could not have been less warranted. I met librarians from Tennessee, Massachusetts, Hawaii, California, Florida and elsewhere, and I was struck by how similar my interactions with them were to those with Chicago librarians. This was tremendously encouraging: as a new librarian, I am very happy to have chosen a field where there are so many supportive and friendly colleagues, not just locally, but nationally. This was my biggest, and most relieving, takeaway from the conference. Continue reading A First Timer’s AALL Grantee Report
Introduction to Chicago International
Chicago, for all of its local flare and idiosyncrasies, is really a city of the world, chock full of foreign influences and international customs. Since nothing exists in a vacuum, Chicago’s international personality impacts the makeup and quality of materials and resources within the city’s law libraries.
In this special section, Chicago International, guest editors Sharon Nelson and Matthew Timko have received and compiled many great articles demonstrating the rich international institutions and resources that the city has to offer law librarians and interested residents alike.
Karl Pettitt has created a city map with the locations of many ethnic heritage museums, and Jill Meyer has included a review of one such museum, the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture. Delving into the unique international collections within the city, Jean Wenger goes through Cook County’s foreign and international collections and services while Anne Abramson describes John Marshall’s Chinese Intellectual Property materials. Continue reading Introduction to Chicago International
The Invisible Benefits of Library School
I have worked in libraries for the last 14 years in a variety of roles, but it was only last year that I decided to attend a graduate program in Library and Information Sciences. Since I am a full time staff member at Loyola University Chicago’s Law Library and commute almost 3 hours a day to my home in the Western Suburbs, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s online program was the most obvious choice for me. The convenience of online classes for scheduling, comfort, and flexibility are obvious, but, in the last year, I have discovered so many additional, “invisible” benefits for students and full time librarians. Continue reading The Invisible Benefits of Library School
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