News From the American Association of Law Libraries

From the AALL E-Newsletter, February 2008.*

David Pogue to be Keynote Speaker at AALL Annual Meeting
I am very pleased to announce that David Pogue, the personal-technology columnist for The New York Times, will come to Portland this July as the keynote speaker for the Opening General Session at the AALL Annual Meeting. Each week Pogue contributes a print column, online column, and an online video for the Times. His daily blog, Pogue’s Posts, is the Times’ most popular blog. He is also an Emmy award-winning technology correspondent for CBS News, a frequent guest on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” and a regular on CNBC.

Pogue studied music, English, and computer science, and after college, he spent 10 years conducting and arranging Broadway musicals in New York. When his computer teaching skills turned out to be in more demand than his musical ones, he started teaching the Broadway community how to use their Macs. Since then he has written or co-written seven books in the For Dummies series, as well as the Missing Manual series, a line of printed manuals for computer products that don’t come with any.

Registration for the Annual Meeting opens February 25. Keep an eye out for the e-mail blast that will announce the official opening and allow you to register for the meeting and then go directly to the housing site to book your hotel reservation. The Preliminary Program for the Annual Meeting will mail out to AALL members on February 22 with the March issue of AALL Spectrum.

Check out AALL’s New Blog
The AALL Washington Affairs Office is pleased to announce its new blog! The blog, named AALL’s Washington Blawg, will highlight bills we’re tracking in Congress, Action Alerts, interesting articles and Web sites, exciting events we’re participating in, and more. You can keep up with our regular updates by subscribing to the RSS feed or by visiting the blog for the latest news. We hope the blog serves as another way to keep you informed about the Washington Office. Please let us know what you think. Send an e-mail to ejf33@law.georgetown.edu.

Law Library Journal Turns 100
The Winter 2008 issue of Law Library Journal was recently published and mailed to all AALL members and LLJ subscribers; it is also available on AALLNET. This issue marks a major milestone, as it is volume 100, number 1. Throughout 2008, LLJ will celebrate its 100th birthday with special features about its history. This issue is the first for LLJ Editor Janet Sinder and includes a guide to “The Essential Law Library Journal” by former Editor Frank Houdek.

This issue also features two winning articles from the 2007 AALL Lexis Nexis Call for Papers competition by Margaret A. Leary and by Connie Lenz and Helen Wohl. Other article topics include how to protect the law library’s core missions through updated quality assessment standards, best practices in academic law library hiring, and whether office e-mail is a burden or blessing.
_________________________ * Having attended conferences where David Pogue was the keynote speaker I congratulate AALL on his selection. David is both knowledgable and enertaining. His wide range of interests helps him to relate well to both general and specialized audiences.

Another item of special interest to many is the new AALL Blog. I have checked it out and urge both librarians and non librarians to take a look and let AALL know what you think.

DGB

Contact Information