TRIALL and AALL Report, Orlando, Florida, July 18 - 24, 2002
Faye Hadley, Native American Resources/Instructional Services Law Librarian
I arrived in Orlando, Florida late Wednesday night, July 17. My old (ten-years-younger than I) boss from Indiana University School of Law Library, where I was a circulation desk attendant for four years in the mid-1990s, joined me at the Extended Stay American Wednesday night. We were up early the next morning in time to catch the first I-Ride Trolley to the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC). We disembarked the trolley at the OCCC, which at over 1 million square feet is one of the largest convention centers in the world, and will include another 6 million square feet when the expansion is completed in the fall of 2003. Down one very long corridor we found the cluster of rooms that would be our spot for the next two days of TRIALL (Teaching Research in Academic Law Libraries). We registered for the pre-conference workshop and we settled in for a morning of short, but well-planned, presentations that gave us the lay-of-the-land, so to speak. During the afternoon sessions we had exercises that we completed in small groups focusing on planning a legal research course and some of the considerations that we should take into account as we prepare a curriculum. That evening Lexis-Nexis went all out and treated us to a lovely meal at Bergamo’s, complete with singing waiters! The next day we had a special presentation by Sandra Yancey, who spoke about giving presentations and how to handle problems that may come up in a less-than-attentive audience. The final afternoon of TRIALL was again spent in small groups that each prepared an outline for an entire course, after receiving a specific scenario that we each were to address. It all wound down at a cocktail reception in the Peabody Hotel.
The next day I got up in time to attend the MALSLC meeting at 5:00pm at the Peabody Hotel. It turned out to be a good and productive meeting and a great chance to meet others in the Mid-America Law School Library Consortium. After the meeting was another TRIALL reception (for all TRIALL alums) where I met several other law librarians. The next day AALL kicked off with a flurry of activities including the daily drawing for a lap-top computer, a digital camera, and a Palm Pilot, a drawing I was never lucky enough to win. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t come back with goodies galore. But lest the reader think that the Conference was all fun, food and games, I did attend a few educational and informative sessions, one of the best ones being a session that focused on evaluating students in an “Advanced Legal Research” course that was presented with a video from South Carolina that was hilarious and it made an excellent point: that students learn in different ways. The actual title of the program was “Practical Legal Research Exams: The Connection between Theory and Practice.” Other programs that I attended: “Connecting with the Worldwide Effort to Combat Crimes against Humanity: The Creation of the International Criminal Court,” “Using Online Tutorials to Teach Legal Research” and finally Dan Bell’s program “Creating Better Connections: Access to Website Content for the Sight-Impaired.” It was another excellent program and one in which I learned a lot, as I knew very little about the topic beforehand. All in all, it was a good week, that included some fun moments (like getting splashed by Shamu, all 12,000 pounds of him, and hanging out at the Hard Rock Cafe in Orlando, as well as groovin’ to a steel drum combo at Barry University’s newly-accredited law school). It was, as always, a great place to catch up with old friends and colleagues and meet newly-minted law librarians. During the annual meeting of the Native Peoples Law Caucus, the baton was passed to me to serve as coordinator, so that means that I’m in charge of planning the meeting next year in Seattle and coming up with a newsletter. Thanks to TU and the directors of the MLIC for their great support!