Tag Archives: Featured

Fall 2021, Grants & Chapter Awards

Grantee Report: Law Books: History &; Connoisseurship Rare Books School

This summer, thanks to a CALL grant, I was able to take Law Books: History & Connoisseurship, a course held through the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia.

The course, which was held remotely, took place from August 1-6 and was team taught by Mike Widener, recently retired from the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale Law School, and Ryan Greenwood, of the University of Minnesota Law Library.

The curriculum covered the canon of historical law books, as well as the history of the trade in Europe, America, and Latin America. The course was framed with a view to collection development: assignments required me to think strategically about how I would like to curate a collection, and a rare bookseller was invited as a guest speaker to offer insight into the current market. Continue reading Grantee Report: Law Books: History &; Connoisseurship Rare Books School →

Fall 2021

Committee Roundup: Community Service Montrose Beach Cleanup

October 9th was a beautiful sunny day in Chicago. On that day eight CALL volunteers assembled at Montrose Beach with our garbage bags and rubber gloves and got down to business collecting trash. And there was plenty of garbage to be found, unfortunately. As we walked along the waterfront, everything from food wrappers and pieces of broken toys to Bulls baseball hats and cell phone accessories mingled with the sand and surf. Small bits of plastic are a disproportionately large pollution hazard that can travel well beyond the lakefront shore when wildlife fatally ingest them. Our group sent at least eight garbage bags of trash off to the landfill, a great start to getting some of the mess contained for proper disposal.  Continue reading Committee Roundup: Community Service Montrose Beach Cleanup →

Summer 2021, CALL Executive Board

CALL Executive Board Meeting Minutes – May 2021

Tuesday, May 11, 2021 at 9:00am via Conference Call

Board Members Present: Jamie Sommer, Tom Keefe, Megan Butman, Mandy Lee, Jessie LeMar, and Philip Johnson

Board Members Absent: Lindsey Carpino

Guests: Incoming board members Scott Vanderlin, Sarah Andeen, and Carrie Port

Significant Actions: None

Treasurer’s Report (Section IV)

  • Harris Balance as of May 10, 2021 – $14,835
  • Membership numbers to date – 213
Summer 2021, CALL Executive Board

President’s Letter

Greetings CALL Colleagues,

We are at that time of the year where we feel pulled in two directions.  Trying to squeeze every last bit of relaxation we can into the final weeks of summer while also sprinting into fall, preparing for new students and new associates.  The tension between those tasks feels even more precarious this year as we factor in our “return to work” plans.  Are we going back to the office? How often? What will it look like? One thing we have gotten very good at over the past year is not only making plans, but also making contingency plans and maybe contingencies to those plans too.  The What Ifs loom large over all of our heads, which can be a source of stress, but I am choosing to look at this time as a source of opportunity. Continue reading President’s Letter →

Spring 2021

AALL Management Institute

I would like to thank the PLLIP-SIS for a grant to attend the AALL Management Institute! Attending the management institute has been a goal of mine, so I was happy for the opportunity. The institute was held virtually on March 23-24, 2021.

This year’s institute focused on managing remote and hybrid working environments, training on implicit bias, inclusive decision making, management and leadership responsibilities of managers and improving conflict and professional development planning.

AALL was able to focus the management institute on core principals as well as topics that are vital to everyone, including diversity and inclusion initiatives and workplace changes in the times of COVID. Continue reading AALL Management Institute →

Spring 2021

No Stone Unturned: Leveraging HUMINT Insights

As you sip your shaken-not-stirred martini at the bar, you recognize “As Time Goes By” on the piano.  You sigh impatiently as you look at your Rolex again – your contact is late.  You have very urgent questions only they can answer and you are starting to worry.  Are they having trouble finding parking?   Or is their Aston Martin lying in a ditch, nudged off the road by shadowy figures hidden in the fog?

A very glamorous scenario to be sure, but that type of intelligence imagery belongs to the fictional world of movies.  Competitive (Strategic) Intelligence (CI/SI) certainly does have military roots and practiced by national security agencies and police departments. However, the business world adapted those original techniques with an aim to “leverage insights, best practices, and unimpeachable ethics to drive growth and reduce risk in strategic choice” in their respective industries.  (Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP)). Continue reading No Stone Unturned: Leveraging HUMINT Insights →