AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF LAW LIBRARIES

FIRST SESSION (June 24, 1913, at 8:30 p. m., at the Hotel Kaaterskill.)

The meeting was called to order by President Poole, twenty-eight members being present.

The address of welcome, which was to have been delivered by Mr. Frank B. Gilbert, of the Department of Education of New York State, was given in the form of a telegram from him, as he was unavoidably prevented from attending.

President Poole addressed the association as follows:

This is the eighth annual meeting of this Association. We had hoped to have with us Mr. Frank B. Gilbert, who is one of the charter members, formerly of the New York State Law library, but this morning I received the following telegram:

"Unable to be present tomorrow night. Unexpected official business requires attention tomorrow afternoon. Hope your meeting will be successful."

I think we will have to take the welcome from the last six words.

The next item on the program is the President's address. I am not going to make any address because you would not be edified.

I would call your attention, however, to a few things which have appealed to me during the past year, and which, with suggestions which will come from the members present, will make perhaps a basis for our work during the coming year.

In my library, and I have no doubt in a good many of the libraries represented here, there have been calls for practice and form books, and perhaps for other local books of states outside of one's own state, and you have all probably experienced difficulty in getting proper information regarding such material. This need is coincident with the possibility of developing our Law Library Journal. It occurs to me that we might organize a committee to publish in our Law Library Journal, once a year, a list of local practice and form books, giving the title, author, number of the edition, date of publication, cost and publisher—the idea being to include in the list, not all the books, but the best books, and to place the choosing of that list in the hands of parties familiar with such books. If a list could be published every year it would be of considerable advantage.

Another suggestion has come to me—I think from Mr. Hewitt—that we put in the Law Library Journal, in some such way as described above, references to the court rules of the highest courts of the several states and any important local courts that are represented in the published reports. I do not refer to the text of the rules and the many amendments, but where they can be found, date of adoption, etc.

There is another matter which will come up at one of the sessions, viz., the movement for uniformity in the publication of session laws. You will hear more about that later, but it is worth our consideration. You all know the rather baffling way in which session laws are published; hardly any two states are alike, and the states change their methods from year to

year, causing a great deal of confusion and difficulty in finding material.

You are perfectly familiar with the chief work which this Association has accomplished, viz., the publication of the Index to Legal Periodicals and Law Library Journal. We can congratulate ourselves, I think, on a fairly successful year. The editorial work has been done very well, and the promptness of publication has shown some improvement. Mechanically, we have it on a better basis than ever before, and there is no reason why the publication should not continue and become actually self-supporting. Now, as you know, it only partially pays for itself. The Association pays a certain amount of the costs. We hope to increase the subscriptions among practicing lawyers, and plans have already been made for doing this.

We should, I think, take more pains with the Law Journal portion. We have not done with that all that is possible. Personally I think that the editor, working as he does at present—I mean by that, under his present contract and with the time at his disposal—can hardly be expected to do very much more; but we can make a good deal more out of the publication if we improve the Law Journal—make it more readable, so that people will subscribe for the Journal alone. I do not think you can say that anyone would pay $5 a year for what is in the Law Journal now. I wish that matter could be taken up later and discussed, and that steps might be taken to bring about an improvement in that respect.

The report of the Treasurer was read by Mr. Redstone of the Social Law library in Boston.

Under the head of the Report of the Executive Committee, the letter from Chairman C. W. Andrews, of the special committee on the relations between the American Library Association and affiliated societies, was considered.

Reports of the special committees were made by Mr. A. J. Small, of the Iowa State Law library, chairman of the committee on legal bibliography; by Dr. G. E. Wire, of the Worcester County (Mass.) law library, chairman of the committee on reprinting session laws; by Mr. O. J. Field, of the Department of Justice, chairman of the committee on Latin-American laws.

The first Round Table was held on Wednesday, June 25, 1913, at 9:30 a. m.

The report of the committee to confer with the Library of Congress on subject headings was given by Mr. Hewitt of Philadelphia, and a discussion ensued. This was followed by a symposium on architectural plans and furnishings for law libraries, participated in by Mr. Frederick D. Colson, of the New York State law library, Mr. Godard, Mr. Poole, Mr. Hicks, Mr. Schenk and Mr. Hewitt.

At the second session, Wednesday, June 25th, at 2:30 p. m., Mr. Colson gave an account of the destruction and rebuilding of the New York State library. Mr. Frederick C. Hicks, of the Columbia University library, read a paper on "Law libraries and the public," which was followed by a statement by Dr. Wire on the Massachusetts system of county law libraries.

A paper on the work in the University of Minnesota law library, by Mr. Arthur C. Pulling, librarian, will be printed in a future issue of the Journal, Mr. Pulling being unable to attend.

The nominating and auditing committees were appointed by President Poole, as follows:

Nominating Committee: George S. Godard, chairman; Mrs. M. C. Klingelsmith, E. J. Lien.

Auditing Committee: O. J. Field, chairman; William R. Reinick, Mary V. Fisk.

The vouchers, etc., sent by Mr. Whitney, not having arrived owing to the delay of the express company, the auditing committee were instructed to report to the executive committee as soon as the material could be examined.

The committee on resolutions, consisting of Mr. A. J. Small, Mrs. Klingelsmith and Mrs. Hoover, reported the following resolution on the death of Charles J. Babbitt, which was ordered spread upon the minutes:

"WHEREAS, after a long and untiring service in his life work our friend and fellow member Charles J. Babbitt has this year completed his work and become a graduate member of our fellowship, and through his death this Association has lost an active member, a kind friend and valued associate, who has left behind him an enduring memorial in the good work which while living he accomplished:

"BE IT RESOLVED, that this Association has met with an irreparable loss, and that we extend our sympathy to the bereaved family, and that this resolution shall become a part of the record."

Then followed the report of the committee on shelf classification of law textbooks, consisting of Miss Gertrude E. Woodard, George N. Cheney, E. A. Feazel.

Remarks on cataloging and classifying law textbooks in the Library of Congress were made by Mr. Martel of the Library of Congress.

Messrs. Schenk and Butler spoke on the matter of increasing the efficiency of the Index to Legal Periodicals and Law Library Journal. Additional features of the Journal were considered, and Mr. Schenk was authorized to include in the Journal during the coming year:

List of Reports as currently issued.

List of textbooks dealing with local forms, practice, etc.

References showing where to find the court rules of the local courts, the decisions of which appear in the published Reports.

The following officers were elected for the year 1913-14:

President—Franklin O. Poole, Association of the Bar of the City of New York; First Vice-President—Frederick W. Schenk, Law Library, University of Chicago; Second Vice-President—O. J. Field, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C.; Secretary—Miss Gertrude E. Woodard, Law Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Treasurer—E. Lee Whitney, Vermont State Library, Montpelier; Executive Committee—President, ex-officio, First Vice-President, ex-officio, Second Vice-President, ex-officio, Secretary, ex-officio, Treasurer, ex-officio, E. O. S. Scholefield, British Columbia Legislative Library, Victoria; A. J. Small, State Law Library, Des Moines, Iowa; C. Will Schaffer, Washington State Law Library.

The meeting adjourned with a resolution by Mr. A. J. Small thanking each officer and member of the association who had contributed to its work; and with a final word from Mr. Butler urging all to work for the success of the Index during the coming year.