Living in the Washington DC area has been very advantageous this year, with both SLA and AALL annual meetings in town. On July 26-28 I attended the AALL meeting, like
SLA held at the DC Convention Center.

AALL has fewer programs than SLA, so it’s actually possible to print out all session details on a six-column, three page document! Many sessions are geared for academic law librarians who make up the majority of attendees, but the private law librarians
group is active as well.

Here are my highlights: the AALL Computing Services section put on a great program on their 5-week Web 2.0 challenge last August, where librarian-students learned about Web 2.0 tools and then applied what they learned …. Georgetown University law librarians presented their findings on using virtual chat for reference. Two law firm librarians gave an overview of the current awareness tools they use to deliver content to their attorneys. Expert trademark searchers in three law firm libraries presented an overview of trademarks and how to research them on various vendor platforms. Five law school librarians had 10 minutes to show how they teach legal research to first-year law students and keep them engaged (use ripped-from-the-headlines legal examples and keep it fun!). Finally, government librarians gave a status report on the digital authentication of state and federal government information.