Helen Garner - Skating With Detail

Last night / last week / two weeks ago (this blog post has been slow work in progress), I attended a lecture, part of a three day conference, NonfictioNow, held at Melbourne's RMIT University.  An event bringing together writers from around the world and across Australia, 'inviting them to lay down their pens, step away from their keyboards and swap notes on writing (and reading) non-fiction – right now.'

I had just finished a long day at work and as I found a seat in the elegant Storey Hall (deceptively better looking inside than from from the street) I weighed up whether to get out my iPad and take notes.  Tired and hoping to be entertained I thought better of it - I'd watch Helen Garner rather than allow my fingers to tap dance over the iPad.

We learn the divide between 'real life' and fiction young (and younger now) where any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.  How many writers feel comfortable with that disclaimer?  My Dad often warned me that I wasn't living in the real world, and for large chunks of my adolescence and well into my twenty something-ness I wasn't:  I looked out of windows and longed to be somewhere else.  I didn't listen to music or read books, I lived inside them.  I knew my Dad's real world to be the stuff of fiction, and mine, the only reality, the only one that spoke any kind of truth.  There was a story in my looking out of windows, the longing to escape the tension and unhappiness I found inside a room, especially, inside the family house.

A great writer, of fiction and/or non fiction notices things, picks up, the detail.  There were two significant details in Helen's lecture which haunt me still and leave a trace, a piece of evidence which point to the ‘crime’ a good writer detects.  Their ability to notice, and follow with purpose and determination something very small, nearly hidden, and from there to unravel a story.  Helen described her attempt to become a good ice skater earlier in her life.  Her progress was slow and awkward until one day she noticed an ice skater who looked professionally accomplished.  She described how he looked the part, with his hands clasped behind his back and a zig zagging easy flow as he glided over the ice, body lilting, she imagined a scarf around his neck floating in his wake and followed behind him mimicking his movements, magically skating with ease.  Her description was poetic - mimic, and you will become.

The second detail was an interview Helen had conducted with an arts director years before.  She had asked her questions, written and shaped her article, and, reading back over it realised she had missed a very important admission, had let it slip, a comment about anger, something she hadn't followed up at the time with another question, perhaps opening up the interview in another, unexpected, certainly unplanned direction.  But the point is -  she realised her slip and it haunted her.

Writers remember, they capture, the details others skate over.

http://wheelercentre.com/dailies/post/a04507217d06/

Boston Calling - A plug for applying for Scholarships

I recently finished a piece for the Australian Law Librarian Journal on my experience in Boston earlier in the year at AALL.  Without giving too much away I'm giving you the beginning and the end, minus the middle.  You will have to rush off and read the journal for that (January).

The call to apply for the Annual Fellowship Program offered by ALLA hit my inbox in February, work was busy (work is always busy), life outside work was just as demanding (ditto life), and the thought of filling out an application, summoning up referees and trying to find a CV which had long been languishing in a folder, somewhere, on my laptop, filled me with enough good reasons to delete the email from ALLA instantly.  Curiosity prevailed and I decided not to delete without first having a look at the conferences the Fellowship Program allowed us to choose from, to find out where the conferences were being held, their themes, and to peruse the list of papers and speakers on offer.  This was the second year of the Annual Fellowship Program and the conference choices were difficult enough in themselves: AALL (American Association of Law Libraries); BIALL (British & Irish Association of Law Librarians); CALL (Canadian Association of Law Libraries); IALL (International Association of Law Libraries); IFLA(International Federation of Library Associations & Institutions); JSI (Joint Study Institute) and NZLLA (New Zealand Law Librarians’ Association).

From this impressive list I was able to narrow my choice.  I wanted to experience a large conference with any advances on two hundred and fifty, which is around the high water mark ALLA clocks up.  I had never attended a conference outside of Australia, and as a long time fan of the States albeit as a legal researcher bemused by the US Code Annotated and all those circular, circuit courts, I was naturally inclined to consider AALL.  I was pleased to see it was being held in Boston in 2012, a city I had never visited - eastern sea board, Harvard University, the infamous tea party and all that colonial history.  'Learn Connect Grow' was the title of the Conference and the 88 page Program was BIG, in fact it took me a long time to work out where the program began and if indeed it ended at all - how could all this be squeezed into a handful of days?  The next consideration was when - July, the dates would work as there was nothing around that time which significantly clashed in my Outlook calendar, and it gave me the chance to escape the Melbourne winter for a week.  I had a chat with my boss, retrieved my CV from local drive oblivion, wrote my application, and, joy of joys, was awarded the Scholarship for which I am enormously grateful.

Libraries in Boston

I can't finish up this account of AALL 2012 without mentioning two libraries I visited while in Boston.  As a Librarian by training I am inspired by the architecture, the books, the green lamps, the patrons bending over the millions of words caught up in those books and the reverential hush of libraries. I visited the Harvard Law School Library as I had signed up for a Library tour as part of the conference and was hoping that by breathing the rarified air of Harvard I might inhale some deep learning.  The Library was an impressive collection of books, archival materials, paintings and sculptures of the many famous legal minds that have studied there over nearly two hundred years.  The Law School was founded in 1817 and is described as the largest academic law library in the world .  The Boston Calling Blog includes two photos taken on that tour , one of the Library itself, and a portrait which struck me as the most impressive of the many that lined the walls, of George Lewis Ruffin, the first African American Graduate of Harvard Law School.  He graduated in 1869, the first born son of free African Americans living in Virginia, and later moved to Boston.

The second library I visited was just a couple of blocks away from the conference venue on Boylston Street, the Boston Public Library.  I visited it a couple of times to soak up the art work, the beautiful murals which included work by John Singer Sargent, neo-classical sculptures, and the architecture of the original building which was opened in 1895 and designed by Charles Pollen McKim.  I sat in this ‘Alexandrian’ library with local Bostonians and tapped out an update on my blog.  Later, on my last day in Boston I popped into the Library again and out in the large open courtyard between the old and new Library buildings a Kenyan singer accompanied by two musicians sang her heart out as the sun shined and people tapped their feet and ate lunch.  I jumped into a taxi an hour later for the long, long flight home.

I encourage all of you who read this to apply for the Annual Fellowship Program next year, find your CV, fill out the application, appoint your referees and, you may get the chance to enjoy a very unique experience - good luck!

5th Annual Janders Dean Legal Knowledge & Innovation Conference

Last week I was fortunate enough to attend the 5th Annual Janders Dean Legal Knowledge & Innovation Conference in Sydney.  I had been invited to participate in a panel discussion with an old friend, Katherine Ward, who I hadn't seen for many years as she resides now in Old Blighty, or, Flighty as my spell check insists.  Sydney is always a perfect host, warm after a long Melbourne winter, the conference venue was well positioned, perched on the Rooftop of Cockle Bay Wharf in Darling Park.

Day one began with a Keynote address on The Future of Law by Professor Richard Susskind.  This was a video link up, and a white shirted, occasionally pixelating Susskind addressed us from a basement in London, the walls as white as his shirt, in the very early hours of a London morning.  Having attended Boston AALL (American Association of Law Libraries) two months earlier and listened to Susskind deliver another Keynote [http://boston-calling.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/richard-susskind.html] I experienced a sense of déjà vu as I listened to the story of the Ice Hockey star, the challenges facing the legal industry, the decomposition of work streams, and sustaining v disruptive technologies.  The audience and presenters were different, they included Knowledge Directors and Managers, Technology and Innovation Specialists, Lawyers, Publishers, Legal Project Managers and Consultants, which isn't to say that a number of these people weren't also present in Boston, but the feel was more global and the audience targeted.  I enjoyed a more intimate experience and the chance to meet up with old friends and meet many new ones.  Richard's address was just as pertinent for either audience - play to where the puck is heading, and not where it's at - simple?

The first day also included a session on Lawyer Profiling by Justin North, Director of Janders Dean; a panel session by three lawyers archly titled You Think You Know Me? What Lawyers Really Want, Need and Value; and a thought provoking piece, Innovation in the Law - The Role of Technology by the editor of Legal Technology Insider, Charles Christian.  Day 2 really captured my imagination with some very different and creative approaches to mapping Knowledge processes, graphically, using arrows, tables, flow charts, squiggles and pictures.  I love visuals and there is nothing better in a presentation than examining a process articulated in a one slide diagram, it tells you a lot, to my mind, about the creator, the company it came from and the science of business process mapping.  Sam Dimond was the Keynote speaker on Day 2, Group Director of Knowledge at Norton Rose, he discussed the experience of merging law firms and formulating a truly global Knowledge Management solution.  US firm Seyfarth Shaw dove into their Legal Project Management Case Study which was fascinating, and Buzzword Biopsy by Stuart Barr of HighQ Solutions got us up to speed on IT trends to watch and adopt, as well as the ones to ignore.  I learnt the phrase Shadow IT - where people purchase software outside of their organisation, without approval creating an unsanctioned IT underworld, which sounded like the plot of a William Gibson novel.

After lunch nerves kicked in as Katharine Ward (Vodafone UK) and Justin Moses (Westpac) and I presented a panel discussion on The Views of Clients: The Hidden Power & Influence of Knowledge & Innovation.  No matter how much camomile tea I drink I still get stage fright, talk too fast for the first few minutes, forget to say half the insightful, thought provoking and very clever comments I had scribbled all over my note pad during the conference, and fail to pull off the seamless, witty and relaxed deliveries everyone else manages with aplomb.  Note to self: we are always our harshest critics.  The last paper of the conference was fun and inspiring, and, great to have a speaker in Knowledge Management but outside of law, Felicity McNish, from global architecture and design firm Woods Bagot.  This was a stimulating note to end on, and, what a great job to have.  Much kudos to Justin North and his team for putting on such an inspired agenda, and a really relaxed learning two days.

More on Boston - Marisa Bendeich writes

This post has been uploaded to the On Firmer Ground Blog:

http://firmerground.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/aall-2012-learning-growing-and-connecting-from-an-australian-perspective/

and is posted here:

AALL 2012: Learning, Growing and Connecting from an Australian perspective

I love conferences! Learning something new, meeting vendors, connecting with colleagues, finding new friends, dancing, eating…and did I mention the free pens? What’s not to love!?

So it was with great excitement that I was fortunate to attend my first international law librarians’ conference this year representing the Australian Law Librarians’ Association at the AALL Annual Meeting and Conference held in Boston, Massachusetts.

Below is a reflection on my experiences, both on the conference process and on the programme itself.

The conference process and organisation – some highlights.

What struck me first was the number of people who attend! I am used to the Australian Law Librarians’ Conference, where we get between 150 – 250 delegates. Put yourself in my shoes when faced with 1800 delegates! Overwhelming to say the least.

Congratulations to the organising committee for managing this many people, and for managing to schedule 5 – 6 concurrent sessions over three days! Phew! The online planning tool on my iPad was a lifesaver.

The large number of meetings for special interest groups during the Conference was something that would be great to see more of in Australia. I particularly enjoyed the Private Law Libraries Summit. This really demonstrated to me that while we may be oceans apart, we face the same challenges!

The trade exhibits hall was on a scale we don’t see back home in Australia! The major sponsors had what I could only describe as mini villages full of flat screen TVs, iPads and PCs. There was always a real buzz in the trade exhibition, and because of the various breaks in the programme plus the lunch times, it never felt too crowded despite the large number of delegates.

The conference programme – what I took away.

PLL Summit the path to 2020. As a reader of his blog “Stephen’s Lighthouse” I enjoyed seeing Stephen Abram speak to attendees about climbing the value ladder and using digital behaviours to improve and tune the user experience. Stephen advised us to be “device agnostic” – that format doesn’t matter anymore and to embrace licensing or accessing information, rather than purchasing it.

Richard Susskind’s keynote address. Wow, what a speaker. He spoke of three current drivers of change: doing more for less, liberalisation and technology. The main message I had from this was the photo of a great ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky. Richard referred to an interview where Mr Gretzky was asked why he is the best : “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be”, asking us all to not think about where we are now, but where we are heading. He left us with another great quote by Alan Key – “The best way to predict the future, is to invent it”.

·Karen McCullough’s presentation at the Association Luncheon – “Change is good, you go first”. Karen asked us to reflect on our personal brand and inspired us to “know where you add value”.

Cool Tools Café. This was a fantastic idea where presenters were showcasing “cool tools” they have experience with on their laptops, iPads, iPhones, and other devices. A number of small tables were set up around the room and delegates roamed around, sitting at different tables to learn about the “cool tool” that was of interest to them. This was a fantastic concept and I discovered a lot of new cool tools that I am eager to test out!

A wonderfully informative session on US patent law research. The speakers did such a wonderful job despite the fact that it was the very last session of the conference!

Libraries and marketing. This was a case study of a very successful relationship with the library and marketing teams at a law firm. My key takeaway from this was to question why librarians are so hesitant to do any “analysis” work associated with competitive intelligence or industry research. We analyse all of the time when selecting resources and we’re smart enough to draw conclusions. So why not be more willing to engage with marketing and learn? Their advice was to start small, think big and don’t over promise. Look at research + analysis + packaging. This is where we can add value!

Handouts can be downloaded here http://www.softconference.com/aall/handouts/handouts.html

The social side (aka the really fun part!)

Given the size of the delegation, it isn’t truly possible to have a conference dinner that everyone attends. It seemed that everyone dispersed to a myriad of different events that were being held during the conference. At first, I was a bit lost…which function do I attend? Am I even “invited”? However, I soon met plenty of people who were kind to invite me to events such as the Gen X / Gen Y networking drinks after which I discovered the wonderful Fastcase hospitality suite and realised “Ohhh so this is where everyone is….”

Being at a conference by yourself can be overwhelming. While I knew other people attending, the conference was so big I found I rarely ran in to the same person twice! Being overseas, I had limited mobile (cell) phone access. But I found I just needed to put on my big girl pants, walk in to the room and say “Hi, I am from Australia” and in no time I was making new friends. My other strategy was to find someone else in the room who was standing by themselves and approach them to say hello. They are usually in the exact same boat as you and together you can form a team to meet others!

When attending conferences at home or overseas, remember that everyone is in a similar situation, and they are your colleagues. They are interested in meeting you! Be brave, (have a glass of champagne), and make a new friend! I am so pleased that I did not spend all of my evenings in my hotel room watching trashy TV!

The main thing that I took away from the conference was that law librarians across the globe are all facing similar challenges and looking towards similar solutions. The main challenge we’re of course all looking at is how do we continue to add value to our organisations?

I met so many wonderful, warm and welcoming colleagues (and a few random Aussies!). Exploring beautiful Boston and attending a Red Sox game was also a highlight. And I loved visiting the US Supreme Court and the Library of Congress in my travels around the US (special thanks to Linda Corbelli at the Supreme Court for arranging a tour for me).

Now I look forward to our own Australian Law librarians’ conference in Brisbane this month. Our theme: “Respect the past. Embrace the future”. Papers and presentation slides will be available from the website after the conference concludes.

I’d be interested to hear from you:

Do you love or loathe conferences?

How do you choose your conference session? Do you base it on what you are currently working on, or what just sounds interesting?

What strategies do you use to navigate a conference?

Marisa Bendeich
President, Australian Law Librarians’ Association

A Wind Up - ALLA: from Inc to Ltd

Yesterday, Thursday 13 September, the Australian Law Librarians Association took a historic step in voting to voluntarily wind up the Incorporated Association and become a Limited Company.  The reasons leading up to this decision have been well documented, and work in progress for a dedicated and hard working group on the National Executive Committee these past few years. 

I jettisoned into the final vote yesterday by way of the Committees need at the eleventh hour for a new Secretary, I felt like someone who had turned up to a party just as it hit full stride, I mean, I missed out on all the hard work.  And really, that's what I want to talk about - the hard work and the passion people have for this Association.

I joined the Australian Law Librarians group in 1997, I was new to Melbourne, new to Australia for that matter, and my boss back then was a leading light of a group of Victorian Law Librarians called the VILLANS, who had convened two very successful Symposia in Melbourne.  Joining the Association was a matter of course, you needed to know who was who, and, the group always put on great parties, that was a big draw card and the start of many friendships for me, newbie in town.  But there was more, lunch time seminars, access to a list of serials held across the state, and, new to the profession, an invaluable course called Finding the Law (which frankly I was finding bewildering).  I was struck by the knowledge, expertise and willingness to invest their time by a wide range of professionals, and, the dawning realisation that this was a two way street.  Eventually I took Finding the Law classes myself, co convened a Conference and had a stint as Convenor of the Victorian Association.   

When I attended the AGM yesterday I met old friends I hadn't seen for years, members of the National Executive who have served many years tirelessly, editors of our professional journal, the team that run the website and our social media presence, the Brisbane conference committee who have worked on the two day conference the AGM is one part of.  People who really care about our group, people who voted for, and people who voted against, the special resolution, people who felt passionately about the outcome.  I am very proud of our Association,  the familiar faces, the new faces, the people who make up the body of our Association. 

A History of Reading (from one tablet to another)

National Bookshop Day

Yesterday was National Bookshop Day, supported by the Australian Booksellers Association it's the kind of weekend celebration you would miss unless you follow/friend/favorite your local bookstore, or the media stations which cover these kind of literary events.  Even so, I nearly missed it.  It loops in, in my mind, with the National Year of Reading 2012 (#NYR12) which is a 'collaborative project joining public libraries, government, community groups, media and commercial partners, and of course the public.'  Yes, let's not forget the (reading) public.  Watching the news last night I listened to a bookseller enthuse about hard copy books, how they would never be supplanted by electronic versions because people like touching them.  The tactileness of the reader experience so often referenced by book lovers, and, the smell of books.


It was the smell of books which always put me off libraries, all those hands and food stained fingers wandering over pages.  My first job in a library on the loans desk at The University of Auckland Library rid me of my squeamishness.   In  my interview for that job I told my prospective employer that I loved books which was why I wanted to work there.  He smiled patiently  and told me that there wouldn't be time to read books.  And that was true (well, most of the time).  But the books that passed through my hands as I wanded barcodes, books borrowed by students from every faculty and stage of their degrees, was a thrill to me.  A title I had never heard before, authors I thought I knew well but didn't, a subject unknown breaking into the light.  With a touch of my wand I was learning, soaking up books, knowledge, the secrets displayed on a monitor in front of me, and, due back in four weeks.


Hard copy books and booksellers will become more and more of a rarefied species, but that doesn't make me forlorn.  As long as librarians are recording the titles, cataloguing their presence, digital and physical, catching the metadata and pointing people to the shelf, to the URL, mapping a path and leaving a readable trail.  A book is no less a book because it's pages can only be turned on an iPad, mobile or Kindle, there is still something reverential in that page turning, even if it is mediated by a screen.

Harvard Law School Library

I'm back in Melbourne after the long haul flight home and can finally post the photos I took at Harvard University's Law School Library last week.  

The Library was impressive, not only the architecture, the art, the librarians, and the books, but the reverential buzz which permeates the place.  Past famous graduates were sculpted into every corner, or gazed out at us with their learned, and oily brows from portraits lining almost every wall.  The portrait which struck me most was of George Lewis Ruffin, the first African American Graduate of Harvard Law School.  He graduated in 1869, the first born son of free African Americans living in Virginia, later moved to Boston.  I thought of President Obama who graduated from Harvard Law School in 1991, and then counted up the American presidents who have held law degrees – 26 out of the 44, including, and this still surprises me, Richard Nixon. Eight US presidents have graduated from Harvard University, among them the ill fated John F. Kennedy.

I'd like to thank the Australian Law Librarians' Association for so kindly awarding me the scholarship which allowed me to attend AALL 2012, an opportunity I wouldn't have been able to take up otherwise.  I hope the Blog has given you a sense of (some) of the ideas buzzing in Boston for the three days, and I hope it encourages you to apply next year, I couldn't have had a better time, or been more happy to get acquainted with Boston.

The Library

George Lewis Ruffin

What You Don't Know Can Hurt You

Day 3, and the last day of AALL 2012. I just spent an hour working my way up and down the cavernous exhibitors hall, casting an eye over every stall and picking up a cute black bull stress toy for my nephew, and a tiny Lego man which one publisher had creatively come up with to entice people to his stall, all the parts separated so you could bespoke your own figure. I discovered a couple of databases I had never heard of before and could be really useful back home. My lack of a business card fazed no one, all they had to do was scan the barcode on my name tag hanging around my neck, I felt a little like a package at the supermarket, which made me smile.

The session, What You Don't Know Can Hurt You - An Overview of Social Media Legal Issues and a Deep Dive into Social Media in the Workplace seemed very apt to me as I take my tentative first steps into the land of Blog. I always attend sessions on social media when ever I get the chance to keep up to date and find out something new - and there is always something new. The two presenters, Marcia Burris and Barbara Yuill made the point that we are living in a period of change as significant as the industrial revolution in terms of how we live our lives. When you consider the impact of the Internet and email as it dawned twenty years ago, it pales in significance to social networking and the complimentary enabler of mobile technology.

Social Media Law is developing slowly in relation to the rapid growth that's happening but it's a good point made that we are not the customer of online sites, we are their product. If we keep this front of mind we go a long way towards self vetting our own digital foot print. It's not just the profiles and photos we load up that are eroding traditional notions of a private sphere, it's the cookies that collect data about our online choices, we are in effect, easily read. Privacy laws will change in time. Social media spreads very quickly and it is hard to undo tweets and postings said in a sudden strop, deleted information can be retrieved and is discoverable.

The last session I attended was on valuing library resources and services and it was an excellent way to end the three days. The title of the paper, What Makes a Librarian Worth a Million Bucks? was enough to entice me along. The session tied back neatly to the Keynote presentation by Richard Susskind on day one about our future roles. Walking past the hugely impressive Boston Public Library, and visiting the Harvard Law School Library yesterday, the answer to that question about our value it seems to me is this, we know stuff, we know how to get it, we know where it is, and we know what our lawyers want. Conferences like this keep us looking ahead not at whats coming towards us, but to where it's going.

The Law of the Salem Witch Trials

The thing I love about conferences is the chance to sit in on a really good variety of papers, so kudos to the Boston AALL organisers for putting on such an inspired mix. Choosing the papers to attend today was really hard, I wanted to be in two, or three sessions at once. I'm a believer in eclectic choices, obviously I'll attend the sessions that have direct relevance to my job, but I think we need to mix it up a bit.

First though I'll rewind to yesterday. I won't update you on every session I attended, which isn't to say they weren't all fantastic or of interest. The last session yesterday was as inspiring as the first, held in a smaller room, this was a popular choice with many people - standing room only to listen to Anurag Acharya, one of the two minds who brings us Google Scholar. Acharya discussed Google's approach to publishing and searching US legal opinions. Google is so clean and seamless it's a wonder to me that there are real live mathematicians behind the scenes organizing our (online) world.

Acharya' premise with Scholar was simple, everyone should be able to find and read the laws that govern them, to be free both to read and to search. To search (no surprise to this audience) you need to know things - the right way to formulate queries, and, you need a credit card, or an account. Acharya closely examined case law and citations, how they look on the page to understand them and to find a way to make simple legal queries 'just work'. He wanted to target an Everyman audience, not just for the attorneys and litigators (though it is also for them). Acharya has a very small team (from memory six or eight) to achieve big goals. One point that really resonated with me in relation to legal databases and user testing - he looks at how users use the system rather than just listening to what they say they want - what they actually do online is not always the same thing. My hope is that some of the legal publishers were in the room taking notes.

So back to The Law of the Salem Witch Trials, and my first session for Day 2. When I was studying undergrad in Arts I took a history paper on the European witch hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one among the many papers I happily thought would never be of use in the 'real world'. Right. And wrong. Following your interests is never a waste of time, and, it's amazing sometimes how that knowledge might suddenly come into play in a very useful way. I enjoyed this session and I learnt a lot about the local history of Massachusetts, the troublesome yoking with the UK, colonial American mores, and, that one of the women in the audience traced her ancestry back to two (sadly) executed witches which I thought was impressive.

Richard Susskind

Day one of the conference and Keynote Speaker Richard Susskind stepped up to the podium to address his theme - Tomorrow's Legal Marketplace. Susskind is one of the most influential and thought provoking writers on the legal profession and it's response to new developments, particularly in the IT arena. He mentioned that his book, The End of Lawyers?, published in 2008 could also have marked the end of his own career, and that makes a nice segue into a proposition for all of us, with law and legal services changing at a rate of knots, what about our own careers? How do we stay relevant, or better still indispensable?

Susskind identified three drivers of change in the current legal marketplace, the first being the drive of 'more for less'. As budgets are cut and more quality output is expected from fewer heads, legal process outsourcing making inroads, this issue touches us all. The second driver was 'decomposing' which relates to the way that any piece of work can be decomposed or broken down into its component parts in order to find the most efficient way of sourcing those elements. Finally the last driver, technology. Susskind relayed that in 1995 when he predicted the use of email by lawyers would overtake other forms of delivering legal advice he was accused of bringing the profession into disrepute. Times have changed!

A couple of remarks really caught my imagination. The first was in relation to outsourcing and off shoring and the cry that this development is cannibalising the law. Richard quipped that if there's going to be cannibalisation you want to be the first at feast. I'd add that you want to know as much as possible about these issues in advance, so when the topics are raised at work, you already have an informed response and not just a gut clenching fear of being eaten alive!

Relaying the story of famous Ice Hokey player Wayne Gretzky in an interview, when asked why he was such a genius of the game, he replied he always skated to where the puck was going to be, not to where it was. Susskind has an uncanny ability to do just that with the legal profession and future technologies, his full presentation is not available on the site yet (approximately two weeks I'm told) but it's well worth listening to in full if you get the chance. He asked us to look ahead five years, and have a persuasive concept of what the future will look like. He mentioned that our profession would have four key job groups in tomorrows market - Project Management, Knowledge Engineer, Legal Technologist and Process Analyst. His parting comment was positive - 'The legal sector is moving towards your skills and experience.'

Steve Buscemi

My first morning in Boston (yesterday) hung over with jet lag I left my hotel to find a bagel and coffee, or, cawfeee. Some people visit a city and read every guide book, interview everyone they know who has been there, and Google the living daylights out of the town. I don't see anything wrong with this approach, in fact, I'd like to be the kind of person who performed these thorough searches (and not just when I'm going on holiday). My way is to literally follow my nose, I'll arrive at the hotel and ask for a map, search begins there. Then I'll head out paying careful attention to the road signs in case I can't find my way back, looking for a cafe that looks like it might make good coffee, in a good locale. And so I found myself on the edge of Boston Common ordering coffee and standing next to Steve Buscemi. A star! I was so overcome I couldn't remember what I wanted to order. This says something about search, chance and following your nose. The conference starts in earnest tomorrow with Richard Susskind as keynote speaker. Looking forward to it, and, another star.

Business cards or the tech tools ?

Fancy leaving your business cards at home! Networking is so important and business cards provide us with a nice and easy introductory 'step' in the whole meeting and connecting with people process.
But if without business cards (and we are all caught at one time or other), what else could we use as an ice-breaker, conversation starter and general memory aid at large networking-rich events?
* Could the LinkedIn app help out? I admit I don't have the app on my phone so can't comment on how easy it is to use on the fly for adding connections.
* Maybe you can take a photo of yourself on your phone, set up a standard message, and then text your contact details to everyone you meet?
* Or maybe treat it as a great reason to access your work email and send everyone you meet a nice follow up email?
Will it be technology to the rescue? Or good old pen and paper?
Lianne

One Business Card

The day before I left for Boston (yesterday) I worked through my list of things to do before leaving work. The last being - and my favorite - out of office and forward phone. I said goodbye to my work mates and drove home. It wasn't until I got home and started packing that I realised I had forgotten one very important thing for someone traveling half way across the globe for a conference - my business cards. I only had one left. I had given the second one away the night before. That wasn't exactly business related. I ALWAYS forget to take my business cards with me, to meetings, work dinners, any situation where someone(s) are pressing them eagerly into your hands and you have to demure, saying you forgot to bring your own might suggest you don't actually have one, or, worse, you are not important enough to hand them out. I have boxes of business cards at work, every time my title changes, new business cards arrive and the old box is relegated. I think I have had eight or nine over eleven years. That is almost one box of cards a year. And it certainly says something about the elasticity of our roles these days. I keep the cards, one day I imagine I will give a PowerPoint presentation and flick through them to emphasise the point: it's a long time since I've been called a 'Legal Librarian'. Anyway, back to the one card. I will keep it with me and think hard about who I give it to, I won't drop it into a bowl at a publishers booth keeping my fingers crossed for a prize. This is the first challenge I will set myself over the four days of listening, networking and shaking hands at AALL, Boston. Amanda

Along for the ride

Hi, folks, Anne here with a quick post to make sure I've got the blog system sorted...and I'm looking forward to this interesting opportunity to vicariously share the AALL experience.

Boston Calling

Welcome to the Boston Calling Blog.  A site inspired by an upcoming trip to Boston to attend the 2012 American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting and Conference, and with thanks to the Australian Law Librarians Association for awarding me the Fellowship Scholarship which has allowed me to attend.

To stimulate and to inspire discussion I have asked four other people to Blog with me - Anne Paton, Lianne Forster Knight, Marisa Bendich, just waiting to hear back from the fourth.  The plan is to use the Conference as a spring board to discuss the issues which affect us all, with a particular emphasis on the globalisation of law and our mobile profession.

Amanda Surrey