Do you like hearing about the latest legal cases or staying on top business and legal trends?  Then consider being a Law Librarian!   Law librarians work in many settings including law schools, law firms, government libraries and many public and private companies.  They go by many titles:  law librarian, researcher or information analyst.

If you’re interested in learning more about this exciting field, then join the SLA Legal Division.  SLA Legal Division offers a wide variety of online education opportunities designed to sharpen professional skills throughout your career.  Previous webinar topics have included using social media tools for research, business communication, and career development/job search.  You can also find a mentor to help you learn more about law librarianship.

SLA Legal Division also offers several grants to attend the annual conference.  The conference creates an environment for networking, communication, learning and other developmental opportunities for information professionals. Student membership is only $40.  This includes one chapter and one division.  Here’s the membership link.:  http://www.sla.org/content/membership/joinsla/index.cfm.

As an incentive to join Legal Division, the Student Relations Group will sponsor a contest to win 10 SLA student memberships.  Just write a short paragraph describing your interest in the legal information profession and send this to SLA Student Relations Group Chair Grace Rosales by Friday, June 22, 2012.  Winning entries will receive a one-year free membership with SLA.  We will need a receipt of payment and we will send you reimbursement for payment of your membership.  If you are currently a member, we will pay for your next renewal.  Winners will be notified by Friday, June 29.  Please note that if you are a winner we would like to get a photo of you to include with the winning entries along with a signed waiver so that we can use it for future promotional materials.

Come join us and explore the exciting field of law librarianship!  Send in your entries today!

Any questions?  Feel free to contact the SLA Student Relations Group Chair: Grace Rosales.

Hello Legal Division Members!

It is that time again! Time for us to learn more about you, our members, as we strive to better serve you. To that end, your Division leaders have asked the Strategic Planning Committee to create and administer a survey to you. The goals of this survey are simple, yet so very important:

• To learn more about the Legal Division’s members and the different environments in which they work;
• To learn how effectively the division is meeting the professional needs of its members;
• To effectively plan useful and informative programs at the annual SLA conference and in other venues as appropriate.

The results of this survey will assist the Legal Division in better understanding you and your needs, developing more effective programs at the SLA annual conferences and meeting the evolving professional needs of all our members. They will also be instrumental in developing a new strategic plan for the Division. We will share the results of the survey with you following the SLA conference in Philadelphia in June 2011.

The survey open today, April 1, and will close on April 22. Please take a few minutes and make your voice heard!
You can access the survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PDCKQM9

Thank you!

The Division also extends special thanks to the members of the Strategic Planning Committee: Martha Foote, Constance Ard, and Dagfinn Senturia.

Today I received an email witha  statement about the importance of retired “members” staying in touch with the happenings of their SLA home.  I agree. I think it is important.

I can’t imagine what I would do for entertainment if my SLA friends didn’t spend time with me in our leisure.  I also know that that network of friends is broad based and if I want to stay in touch with them, SLA is the common denominator.  Therefore, I’m pretty certain that as long as I can afford to I will be a paying member of SLA so that I can keep those connections.

This made me wonder why a “listserv” was so important in terms of keeping up for retired members, because  a listserv was the tool in question in the email I received.  Comfortable, easy, non-intrusive.  But definitely not social in the way that Facebook and Blogs and other 2.0 mediums are.

Is it just generational?  Probabably not.  I think its more about educating our members of the new ways to connect.  So I encourage us, my fellow SLA members, to think forward about the tools we use to connect with one another and the value that brings to our professional and personal lives.

Can you put a price on it? I don’t mind paying to be a part of the “cool kids” club and I certainly think I’ll continue to get value when I am  way past the “cool kids” stage.  Oh wait, I am way past that stage.  So if you are a retired member of SLA I highly encourage you to consider staying active.  You can get information about SLA membership online.

Constance Ard March 17, 2011

Author’s Note: This post is also published to the Kentucky Chapter Blog.