AALLC Business Meeting Minutes
Time: 5:17 - 6:15 PM, July 12, 2004
Location: Hynes Convention Center, Boston, Massachusetts, Room 103
Attendees: 30; Wei-Yau Huang (Santa Clara County Law Library), Frank Liu (Duquesne University), Cindy Wang (Emory University), Pin-sheng Hsiao (Reed Smith LLP), David Mao (Covington & Burling), Andrew Evans (Washburn University), Robert H. Hu (Texas Tech University), Hainan Yu (Brooklyn Law School), Lu Nguyen (Orange County Public Law Library), Joan Liu (New York University), Mon Yin Lung (University of Houston), Chenglin Liu (University of Houston), Yuxin Li (University of Houston), Cossette Sun (Alameda County Law Library), William B. McCloy (Univ. of Washington), Wei Luo (Washington University), Ming Lu (Los Angeles County Law Library), Keiko Okuhara (University of Hawaii), Yuan Yao (Georgetown University), Yan Hong (University of
Connecticut), Clement Lau (Univ. of Baltimore), Achara Stone (Florida A & M Univ.), Raquel Gabriel (CUNY School of Law), Ramon Curva (Cravath, Swaine & Moore), Qian Cui (Georgia State Univ.), Joanne She (U.S. Department of Justice), Yuezeng Shen (Cleveland State Univ.), Frank Bae (New England School of Law), Julie Lim (CUNY School of Law), Yumin Jiang (Univ. of Colorado).
Actions: The meeting was called to order at 5:17 p.m. by President Pin-sheng Hsiao. Robert H. Hu, incoming President, was in attendance. The Secretary/Treasurer was present. Self-introductions of those present were made around the room at the beginning of the session. Attendance sheet was circulated. [See Photo]
I. Approval of the Minutes of the 2003 Business Meeting
The minutes of the 2003 Business Meeting, previously posted on the Caucus’s Web site as part of the October 2003 newsletter, were approved without any discussion.
II. Treasurer’s Report
The treasurer, Yuan Yao, gave his report as follows: The balance on hand as of July 2003, came to a total of $628.32. A contribution to George A. Strait Minority Scholarship Endowment was presented to AALL in the amount of $255.00, while expenditures for AALLC bookmarks for this yea's Conference was $20.00. Receipts from member contributions were $150.00, therefore leaving a balance on hand as of July 12, 2004 of $503.32.
The treasurer's report was filed.
III. Committee Reports
Communications & Publicity Committee (David Mao, chair):
The Communications and Publicity Committee published three issues of the newsletter this year (volume 8, numbers 2 and 3, and volume 9, number 1).
Jessie Tam updated the Web site by "hiding" members' email addresses under the links for their names.
Raquel Gabriel from CUNY School of Law has graciously agreed to be the caucus's new newsletter editor.
Dongfa Zhou designed a new interactive membership form for the caucus's Web site. A PDF version also is available on the Web site. Also, as the AALLC listserv manager, Dongfa reported that as of 7/8/2004, the caucus has one hundred and fifty one listserv members, nineteen which have chosen unsubscribe status (i.e., they are unsubscribed from the list). In addition, twenty four members who subscribed have not emailed back to the list to activate their accounts. Dongfa also reports that two members
subscribed to the list via the new online subscription form. Finally, Pin-sheng confirmed that people can join the caucus's list without being an AALL member. [See Photo]
Membership Committee (Swee Berkey , chair, reported by Keiko Okuhara):
We had a several new members from last year's recruitment by word of mouth at the convention, and added two new members this year.
Diversity Committee: Please also note that the Caucus has been added as a member of the AALL Diversity Committee. They are interested in having a dialog with us to exchange information and ideas, or sponsoring a joint program, etc. We will be added to their listserv and receive information about jobs and their activities. By reaching out to their established base of members, it is hoped we can recruit some of them into our organization.
CONELL: This year, Keiko Okuhara will be helping in our membership recruitment efforts by handing out brochures, flyers and bookmarks that Swee made to potential members that she meets when she is attending CONELL.
Exhibit Hall Table: As we did last year, Swee made more bookmarks as our recruitment tool. Pin-Sheng has also assisted with publicity by putting together brochures containing information on the caucus and flyers advertising our caucus activities. The table will have brochures, our newsletter, bookmarks, a copy of the bylaws draft, and flyers, and publicize the Caucus to more people.
New Online Membership Form: We would like to thank Dongfa Zhou for his work in creating the new very attractive online membership form. Thanks to those who provided input and assisting in making this happen. If you haven't seen it, please check out the Caucus website.
Recruitment Responsibility: Membership recruitment is the responsibility of everyone in the caucus, not just the Membership Committee. The bigger and stronger we are as a group, the greater our voice will be in AALL and more of our members will be able to participate in AALL's policy-making bodies. We encourage everyone to expand our membership by recruiting at least one member this year.
Nomination Committee (Cossette T. Sun, chair):
Members of the Nominations Committee, Cossette Sun (chair), Yan Hong and Cindy Wang, considered and contacted several candidates and decided to nominate Frank Bae as a candidate for the position of Vice President/President Elect for 2004-2005.
Frank Bae, Professor of Law and Law Library Director, at Boston University since 1968, has been a member of AALL for over 20 years. He served on various AALL committees and knows his way around the AALL law librarians' leadership circle. [See Photo]
Program Committee (Robert Hu, chair):
The Program Committee, consisting of Wei Luo (Washington University Law Library), Andrew Evans (Washburn University Law Library, and chairman Robert H. Hu (Texas Tech University Law Library), worked on and submitted program proposals for 2004 AALL Convention as co-sponsors. We were able to get two proposals accepted by the AALL. The programs accepted are listed below:
F-6: A Current Appraisal of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Legal Research, Tuesday, July 13, 2004, 10:15:00 AM - 11:30:00 AM
K-3: U.S. Immigration in the Post 9-11 World, Wednesday, July 14, 2004, 3:00:00 PM - 3:30:00 PM
Thanks are due to Wei and Andrew's hard work.
IV. Elections
Frank Bae was unanimously elected by the group as Vice President/President-Elect for a one-year term.
V. Bylaws Revision
Mon Yin Lung, chair of Bylaws Committee, reported that the committee appointed by Pin-sheng Hsiao worked very hard over several months to revise the Caucus's bylaws. With input and support from the President, committee members (most notably, David Mao and Wei-Yau Huang) spiritedly debated various drafts and ultimately created a draft bylaws document. The draft was posted in the June issue of AALLC newsletter for comments.
In the ensuing discussion, Cossette Sun suggested that a standing committee should be charged with the function of mentoring. After discussion, the consensus was to add this function to the existing membership committee and change the name of that committee to Membership and Mentoring Committee.
Bill McCloy suggested that "promoting research in Asian law" be added to Article II: Object, and he also request that the rule of majority be clarified in Article VI, Sec. 3: Voting.
The group approved the bylaws draft with above modifications. The Bylaws Committee will make changes and post the final version of the bylaws to AALLC web site.
VI. New Business
Mentoring program: This was covered in the discussion of the bylaws.
Next year's programs: Cossette T. Sun suggested a topic on the use of Internet to serve non-English speaking patrons. Robert Hu suggested a program on diversity.
Procedures manual: Pin-sheng Hsiao suggested that a procedures manual be formulated. This procedures manual is intended to detail and describe each officer's and committee member's duties. She and Mon Yin Lung have volunteered to serve the Procedures Manual Special Committee to create such a manual.
VII. Other Business
Out-going President Pin-sheng Hsiao thanked AALLC members, and especially committee members, for their support during her presidency. Pin-sheng announced that the traditional get-together dinner would be at East Ocean City Restaurant in Chinatown, July 13, at 6:30 pm., and that those going should meet at the registration desk at 6 p.m.
At the conclusion of the meeting, Robert H. Hu took over as the new President. He thanked Pin-Sheng and all the past year's officers for their hard work and contributions. Robert asked the members for suggestions on how to make the Caucus more relevant to serving the membership better in the coming year.
Membership donations: At the conclusion of the meeting. Yuan collected $260 in donations from members to the Caucus.
VIII. Adjournment
David Mao moved to adjourn. The motion was seconded. The meeting adjourned at approximately 6:15 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Yuan Yao
Secretary/Treasurer 2003-2005
[Photo]
Annual Banquet Photos
[Photo 1] [Photo 2] [Photo 3] [Photo4] [Photo 5] [Photo 6] [Photo 7]
Words from the Editor
Greetings! Unlike our Caucus President in sunny, warm Texas, I am holed up in my office here in Queens, NY, rain pelting down on the street outside, and mindful I'm already late for a meeting after work. Lexis books are piled precariously on one side of the doorway to be given out to students in this week's class, and a briefcase stuffed with their first major assignment of the semester that I've got to grade and hand back before the next major assignment in November is waiting next to my bedraggled umbrella and other piles of materials that get taken home this evening. I've just fielded a phone call from a faculty member who took a chance I'd still be in the office, and a reference question from a student. In other words, like many of you, and typical of most librarians' days, I'm buried in work, always trying to catch up, read more, make one more phone call, check one more thing, before calling it a day.
Time, for all of us, always tends to be in short supply, but especially now, with holidays around the corner and the usual rush to get certain things done before the end of the year. This newsletter - my first one as editor - is an example of how time gets away. It feels like just yesterday I was sitting in at the meeting in Boston, seeing many of you for the first time!
Given that, it seems that an important part of what I should aim for as Editor is to see if there's anything you'd like to see in this forum that would be helpful to you as a reader who is taking one's own limited precious time to read the Newsletter.
In keeping with Robert's message, I believe that the Newsletter, along with the website, can be a vehicle in which the experiences and knowledge of our members can be shared to promote the Caucus and our mission statement as outlined above. I would ask each of you to think of what would make this Newsletter more interesting, more relevant, more valuable to you in terms of investing your time.
Examples of items that could possibly find some room in a future newsletter, provided there's enough interest: Features on management issues that focus on diversity / Question and answer features with folks about what they do at their jobs and how they handle stress / Links to sites of Asian/American/Librarian interests and concerns / Polls from our members asking them questions about their level of job responsibilities and satisfaction / A listing of members' scholarly work / Recommendations from fellow members regarding sources, or websites that work for them in terms of assisting them at their jobs? Recommendations for sites that have nothing to do with librarianship, but are still of interest to our members.
This list is by no means exhaustive, and as you can see, the possibilities for exploring the topics that are of interest to the membership are only limited by what we deem as "relevant" to us and what we decide to "invest" time in reading and exploring.
So in keeping with Robert's goals of fostering Communication and Promotion, I invite each of you to take a few moments and let me know what you'd like to see in the Newsletter in the future. Published just three times a year, it has the potential to become a major tool for making our views and our voices known to the rest of the Law Library community, and I welcome the opportunity to work with all of you to make our voices heard.
Finally, a warm and belated thanks from myself, and I'm sure the rest of the Caucus, to our past editor, David Mao, into whose mighty footsteps as Editor I am gingerly stepping! Here's hoping with all of your help I can keep up the great work!
To contact the editor, please send email to Raquel Gabriel
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