The Nominations and Elections Committee sought nominations for the 2024-2025 CALL Executive Board: Director, Treasurer, and Vice-President/President-Elect via the CALL listserv. The slate was announced on the CALL listserv.
Voting took place February 26, 2024 thru March 22, 2024. The committee worked with Chris Siwa from AALL Headquarters to set up the online election, and the election ran efficiently.
The 2023-24 CALL Board charged the Archives Committee with exploring cloud storage options for the organization’s digital media assets, such as digital photos taken during CALL events and Zoom recordings of CALL events (as our Zoom account was approaching its maximum allowable storage level).
The Committee landed on Google One, which can be tied to the existing CALL Gmail account, for the cloud storage solution. CALL President Mandy Lee downloaded all Zoom recordings from the start of 2020 through March 2022 into CALL’s Google Drive account, which freed up space for storage in our Zoom account.
Looking ahead, next year we will be aiming to post our videos on a CALL YouTube account with a “private” listing and making them available on a members-only page of the CALL website. Keep an eye out for more information on that in the upcoming CALL business year.
Thanks to our committee members and to Board Liaison Todd Hillmer for their great work this year!
Additionally, in conjunction with each of the quarterly CALL Business Meetings, a specific organization was selected that met the charitable organization selection criteria created by the Executive Board. CALL membership was encouraged to make monetary donations to the following entities:
This approach of direct donation did not permit us to track the total number or dollar amount of donations made by CALL membership to each organization.
However, each organization could accept donations via credit card and/or PayPal, so we are confident that CALL members who wished to make donations were able to do so quickly and conveniently.
The Continuing Education Committee had another successful year, sponsoring three presentations during the 2023-24 CALL year. The committee tried to identify topics that would interest all of our members, whether they work for private law firms, academic institutions, or courts or government agencies. Following a practice that began during the pandemic, all three presentations were webinars held over Zoom:
AI Awareness for Law Librarians: Navigating the Impact and Key Platforms, presented by Emily Florio, Director of Knowledge Research & Resources at DLA Piper LLP (US) and June Hsiao Liebert, Director of Information Services at O’Melveny & Myers LLP and current President of the American Association of Law Libraries, April 12, 2023
All of our presentations this year garnered immense interest and were well-attended by our CALL Members.
This year’s programs were all recorded and made available on the CALL website. The committee used Zoom to create webinar invites, host the programs, and record the programs. The cloud storage in Zoom became a concern as we were at about 98% usage. Shari brought this to the attention of the Board, and they began looking at a number of solutions for increasing capacity for future recordings.
The committee stayed within budget and did not need to pay any speaking or other fees this year.
All of this year’s programs were driven by our volunteer committee members. Special thanks go to this year’s committee members Caitlin Archer-Helke, Joe Mitzenmacher, and Amy Tomaszewski for their work in putting together our programs. I would also like to thank our Board liaison Todd Hillmer for his input.
The committee’s main charge is updating and management of the online directory, which replaced the print directory. This included eliminating duplicate accounts, standardizing firm and company names, and coordinating with the CALL Listserv admins to update the member emails.
CALL members must now contact Membership Committee members directly to make changes to their account in Neon after the initial creation of their account. This helps to maintain the accuracy and standardization of data.
The Committee Activity:
Update membership directory with member-submitted edits.
Provide list of current members for CALL Board meetings and to AALL for annual election.
Provide invoicing, as needed, for memberships and renewals.
Coordinate with Listserv admin to keep email list current.
Send membership renewal emails in May.
Annual review of current members and outreach to lapsed members.
Projects and Initiatives:
The following projects were begun in 2023, but need to be continued in the new year.
Review the Committee charge and submit edits to the Board.
Update the Committee “cookbook” of processes and procedures in Neon.
Obtain administrative access to the Listserv so that Membership Committee Chair can make requested edits to contact information.
The committee coordinated 4 business meetings. Two were virtual, and two in-person meetings.
Business Meeting Logistics
In-person versus Zoom/virtual. Committee suggests First and Last meetings to be in person due to weather and celebratory events. Middle two meetings on Zoom.
Meeting dates. We recommend setting the dates for all Business Meetings at the beginning of the year. This makes it easier to plan and coordinate with venues and should also make it easier for Vice President to coordinate with speakers. Tuesdays tend to work best as it tends to accommodate more people with hybrid office/remote schedules. Always best to avoid Mondays and Fridays.
Food/meeting cost for members. Meeting costs for members increased to $30 for 2023/2024. Would a bump to $35 be tolerable and help CALL with associated costs and perhaps expand venue options with slightly higher price points?
In-Person Meeting Materials. Name tags and check-in sheets is always something to consider for in-person meetings.
Dietary restrictions? We didn’t hear any complaints. Neon does have option for “dietary restrictions” along with the vendor opt-out option, but not something that we used. Carrie and Mike tried to consider vegetarian options when making menu selections.
AV Equipment. Good to try figuring this out on front end when coordinating with venues. Do we have a budget?
Some venues seemed to lose some of their capabilities during Covid, but have maybe rebuilt those options. For a previous meeting, we used Craig Schultz at AV Pro Connections (craig@avproconnections). He was great helping accommodate us last minute, but was a bit expensive.
Projectors add extra challenges. Some folks have them at work and can bring them, but it can be hard to coordinate. Are there any low-cost very portable options already within CALL or something to invest in maybe?
Guest speakers. Make sure to include them in luncheon headcounts. It’s definitely nice to have speakers, but it’s probably OK if we don’t get anyone. It allows for more time for CALL business and networking. We’re not totally clear on how much time speakers have and/or if that should be enforced somehow.
Zoom testing for virtual meetings. Some technical issues getting things set up on Zoom, partly due to login/password issues. We recommend running test runs a few days ahead of time, including any guest speakers and/or others who might have presentations they want to include.
Event Registration. Neon can be difficult to figure out when setting up events. It’s not always super-intuitive and finding certain settings (vendor opt-out, dietary restrictions) seems to be tricky.
We had a few sponsors who asked if they could make sponsorship payments with credit card. We were able to create a separate event in Neon for 1 attendee and the sponsorship cost to facilitate. This system seemed to work well.
Sponsor/vendor reps. We need to know how many are coming. What is the policy and how flexible is it?
Raffle prizes. Bridget MacMillan at Lexis has been great about keeping an open invitation for these and we then coordinate with the winners via e-mail. Someone mentioned that Blythe McCoy at Westlaw also threw the idea out there that they would be interested at some point, but that’s hasn’t been explored.
Other committee members. Mike wishes he would have done a better job keeping the other committee members (Jesse and Amy) involved. It might be good to suggest that other members feel free to proactively insert themselves along the way. This committee is also a good option for newer members as they could help out at sign-in/welcome table and get to know other people.
Other Meetings
The committee suggests that the monthly happy hours are hosted by different committees. That way there is always someone that will attend and the different committee chairs can choose a venue/time convenient to them. Also, these would not be canceled last minute causing issues for members’ schedules.
Mandy, as President, tried to coordinate some less formal gatherings (lunches, happy hours, other?) that seemed like a great idea, but not sure how successful those gatherings were.
Other meetings have fallen to the wayside a bit as it seems a bit much for Chairs to coordinate on top of meeting planning duties. Book/Media clubs have been suggested.
The happy hour at 320 S. Canal in August was very successful – maybe this could be run by the board to kick off the year?
Committee Coordination
Community Service. Mike also served as member on the committee and tried to coordinate for community service and donations messaging to go with meeting announcements.
Speaker Connections: It’s nice for Community Service to know our speakers so they can consider charities/organizations that speakers might be connected to for fund-raising, and/or avoid possible conflicts.
Secretary provides write-up for Bulletin. Should photos be included?
Outreach
Surveys. What do members want? We ended up skipping on surveys. Should Meetings Committee be doing them? Are they useful? It seems that a fairly simplified version might be advisable to make the feedback easier to consume and implement.
Communications/Social Media.Besides e-mails, where else do we post meeting information and who is responsible for making the updates? I know that previous years, there was confusion caused by info posted on the website, but we can’t recall who was updating that info. Carrie posted the information on the website but a new committee member should be trained on WordPress.
New Members. Talk to membership coordinator prior to the May in-person meeting for the list of new members for the year. Either Meetings or Mentorship committee sends email to new members letting them know about their 1 free meeting perk. Members who accept are entered manually into the event (same as speakers and sponsors) and given free admission to the May meeting.
2023-2024 Meeting Details
CALL Meetings organized between August 2023 and May 2024:
August 8, 2023– Happy Hour at The Green.
September 20, 2023– Maggiano’s Little Italy with Steven Schwinn.
56 registered.
Great food and service and good general venue for meetings and they had the A/V equipment we needed.
Sponsors: Trellis and TRG Screen
November 16, 2023– virtual Business Meeting with breakout rooms in place of speaker who had to cancel.
50 registered.
Breakout rooms seemed to work out OK, but something we had to scramble on a bit due to speaker cancelation.
February 22, 2023 – virtual Business Meeting with Justices Aurelia Pucinski and Cynthia Cobbs.
63 registered.
May 16, 2024– Wildfire with AALL President June Hsiao Liebert.
67 registered
Great food and service and decent space for our event with accommodating A/V equipment for our needs.
Sponsor: Thomson Reuters
Considering Venues
The committee gathered costs and/or minimums at the time, which are also available.
Lettuce Entertain You is a great option as they have lots of great restaurants and a form for entering meeting criteria and selecting multiple restaurants. The restaurants still have to be dealt with individually, but it does help streamline things a bit.
City Winery– probably too expensive for our budget.
Il Porcelino– nice looking space, but looks like 50 max so maybe not flexible enough. Additional cost per person to add dessert.
Osteria Via Stato– worked out great for previous meeting. Lots of good feedback from members.
Carnivale – $32 a person – could be an option for the future
Hub 51 – 65 max.
Lil’ Ba Ba Reeba– can check out space. Tapas charged per person. Maybe a decent option.
Harry Caray’s Italian Steak House – might be fun – was booked for our dates, so we didn’t pursue pricing info.
Beatrix River North – 65 max with a $3000 minimum.
The committee was fairly inactive in the 2023-24 CALL year except for periodic updates to the CALL website for events like CALL meetings and meet-ups.
Eugene would especially like to thank Jesse Bowman for his continued stewardship of the CALL website, including all updates during the 2023-24 season.
Recommendations for the forthcoming year
The committee recommends to the CALL board that the charge of the Public Relations Committee be reviewed such that it can be better utilized as a resource for all CALL committees and a more effective external voice for CALL.
Coming out of the pandemic, the Committee attempted to continue the ongoing task of trying to digitize the print archives and to account for and catalog photographs and other digital objects. Continue reading Archives Committee Annual Report 2022-2023→
The Bulletin Committee produces 4 issues of the CALL Bulletin each year. The Bulletin will contain information concerning the governance of the Association, including summary minutes of Board and business meetings as well as committee reports and other items of interest to the Membership. Issues will be published in Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer. Continue reading Bulletin Committee Annual Report 2022-2023→
The Bylaws committee met quarterly last year to discuss CALL business and did not receive any suggestions from the membership for Bylaws changes or recommendations for Bylaws changes from the Board. Continue reading Bylaws Committee Annual Report 2022-2023→
Newsletter of the Chicago Association of Law Libraries
