Showcase Your Great Ideas
Always a popular feature at our AALL Annual Meeting, posters are on display in the exhibit hall throughout the entirety of the Annual Meeting.
Creators of posters should plan to be available during the poster session presentation period on Tuesday, July 23 from 9:45 a.m.–11:15 a.m. CDT to answer questions and discuss their work. Creators are also encouraged to be on hand during the Opening Reception on Saturday evening, and the Sunday and Monday exhibit hall breaks, since these no-conflict events see increased traffic in the exhibit hall. An award will be given to the poster deemed best by the Annual Meeting Poster Session Award Jury.
Submission forms are due by June 14. Please review the frequently asked questions below for more information.
Please note everyone participating must be registered for the Conference with either a full conference registration or for the days they will be available to answer questions and discuss the poster (single day registration).
Contact Ashley Laverty, AALL manager of conference programs & education with any questions.
SUBMISSION FORM
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RESOURCES
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Frequently Asked Questions 1. What is a poster session? A poster session is a visual forum for presenters to highlight their libraries and to share their successful ideas with colleagues by presenting a research study, a practical problem-solving effort, or an innovative library program. These sessions are suitable for a presentation of topics that may not be meaty enough for an entire paper or formal presentation and allow for works in progress. Posters combine text and graphics to present information in a clear, visual manner, and allow conference participants to become quickly and easily acquainted with the topic on their own.
2. What topics are appropriate? A poster can cover any topic related to law libraries and legal information. Example topics would be a description of an innovative library program, a discussion of classroom techniques, or findings from a research project. They are not vendor sponsored advertisements, although independent product discussions and analysis are welcome.
3. What should poster session proposals include? The proposal must include a title, name(s) of the creator(s), and an abstract of 50–200 words describing the information to be presented in the poster. As with the conference educational programming, posters must be categorized into one or two content areas, and support AALL’s Body of Knowledge or the Strategic Plan.
4. If my poster is accepted, what do I have to do? Create an engaging visual display that explains your topic to be affixed to a free-standing board. You will have one side of an 8 ft x 4 ft board for your display; usable space is 7’6″ ft wide by 3’8″ ft tall. Pushpins will be provided to affix the displays. Please note you are responsible for printing and shipping costs. Plan to set up your poster between 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. CST on Saturday, July 20. Poster creators and co-creators will need to be present during the poster session presentation period on Tuesday, July 23 from 9:45 a.m.–11:15 a.m. CST to answer questions and discuss your poster. You must remove your display once the exhibit hall closes on Tuesday at noon.
5. Are there any available resources for creating posters? Yes, please review these two resources as well as the submissions from last year’s Annual Meeting & Conference below.
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Read the 2023 Submissions Professionalism + Leadership at Every Level
Creating the Drive to Foster Literacy
Do you feel driven to support community organizations that promote and build literacy? We do, too! The Social Responsibilities SIS (SR-SIS) has held a book drive annually since 1999, to support a literacy organization in the AALL Annual Meeting’s host city. We have raised thousands of dollars to support early childhood literacy, reading achievement, and lifelong reading.
Using tried-and-true examples from the SR-SIS Book Drive, here are some best practices you can use to foster the love of reading in your own community. Considerations include vetting literacy organizations; branding and marketing the book drive; accommodating a variety of donation approaches; communicating effectively with the recipient organization and your own organization; and reporting on the drive’s impact. Librarians demonstrate their commitment to social responsibility, access to information, information literacy, and even the pipeline to the profession when we support effective, impactful organizations that build the transformative power of reading in the communities we serve.
Mary Jenkins; Devine, Millimet & Branch, P.A.; Stacy Etheredge; University of Idaho, College of Law (Boise)
Prison Mail: Modeling ILL Processes to Serve the Underserved
The Georgetown Law Library in Washington, DC provides a national prison mail program that provides incarcerated individuals with copies of U.S. federal and state primary legal materials for free. While the Law Library’s program has been rooted in reference services for at least the past decade, we shifted our approach in 2022 to support prison mail by leveraging the proficiency in processing document delivery found through the Law Library’s interlibrary loan office.
Through this poster, we will offer practical, on-the-ground tips on how to launch a document-delivery based prison mail program, as well as identify issues to consider when establishing a program that can be customized to an individual library’s available staffing, resources, and budget. While the Georgetown Law Library is an academic law library, we believe our document delivery model of processing prison mail through an interlibrary loan workflow may be adopted by any library.
Cattleya Concepcion, Erie Taniuchi; Georgetown Law Library
Research + Analysis
Addressing Environmental Justice Together: Community and Holistic Approaches
Environmental justice (EJ) is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, national origin, or income, in developing, implementing, and enforcing laws, regulations, and policies related to the environment, climate, and food. The field of environmental justice is broad and intersectional. The best approach to creating positive change is through grassroots holistic measures at the community level. Holistic efforts include revitalizing the cultural and ecological landscape. Digging deeper under the surface issues illuminates the more profound, systemic crises perpetuating EJ disparities in historically excluded communities. This poster will examine community and holistic responses to environmental justice issues, including federal legislation and programs on food and nutrition, economics, sovereignty, and ecological management. The display will include selected tools and resources that identify holistic and community-based approaches and success stories.
Kirstin Nelson, Jamie Flood; USDA National Agricultural Library
Human by Design: Transformation of The Columbia Law Library
Leading architectural firm, Perkins Eastman, in partnership with Columbia University, will share the strategies and processes undertaken to facilitate Columbia’s Law Library renovation. The current library facility opened in 1961, and has remained mostly unchanged for over 60 years. Planning for a large-scale renovation began in 2017 (interrupted by the pandemic), with construction scheduled from May 2024 through August 2025. The poster will focus on place-making to support different learning styles and improve user experience while showcasing a modern, forward-thinking, sustainable, and inclusive academic law library environment. The poster will also address research, planning, and design processes, including evaluation of patron needs and integration of diverse stakeholder viewpoints.
Mindy No, Simon Canick, R. Martin Witt; Columbia University Law Library
The Partnership Experiment: Law Librarians and Faculty Expand Scholarship from the Academy to the Public Sphere
Historically, law faculty promotion committees have promoted and awarded tenure to faculty based heavily on scholarly impact. The conventional measures of scholarly impact are HeinOnline citation counts, SSRN download data and rankings, Google Scholar data, law school institutional repository data, law school faculty profile data, the level of prestige of the law journals that publish the legal scholarship, and the strength of the journal articles’ content. However, these metrics do not capture the complete impact of legal scholarship. Legal scholarship impacts both future legal and interdisciplinary scholarship and the development of binding legislation, judicial precedent, and social change. Thus, additional metrics beyond the conventional scholarly impact criterion are useful to assist faculty promotion committees in holistically evaluating a law professor’s writings with respect to academic rigor and relevance to the legal community and society. To balance law faculty interest in protecting rigorous tenure criteria and public interest in consuming high-quality scholarship in an accessible format, law faculty appointments committees should work closely with law librarians. This poster will accomplish two goals: (1) It will display an experiment explaining how law librarians and faculty appointments committees can partner together to disseminate scholarship through non-traditional platforms such as podcasts, social media, blogs, and other media to help expand law faculty scholarship outside of formal platforms and into more publicly accessible and relatable media platforms; and (2) It will show how law librarians can aid law faculty appointments committees with developing a clear set of guidelines describing the types of media activities that qualify towards obtaining promotion and tenure.
Quinterrion Waits; Cornell Law School
Information Management
On the Right Track: A New Approach to Access to Justice in the District of Columbia
JusticeAccess is a one-of-a-kind law library, operating independently as a nonprofit. Unlike approaches to access to justice that come from committees of lawyers, our approach begins with law librarians. Law librarians whose only patrons are members of the public. We identify the hurdles faced by individuals without legal training when they need access to legal information and adapt our services to lower or even clear those hurdles. Come see how we are different and experience why our work is so important.
Rebecca Katz; JusticeAccess
Teaching + Training
Mapping the Future of the Profession: Innovative Pathways to Law Librarianship
Many educational and employment pathways can lead to a career in law librarianship. This poster will highlight some of the innovative educational programs the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona is implementing to prepare students for a successful and gratifying career in law librarianship, including: 1) an Accelerated Masters Program combining a Bachelor of Arts in Law with a Masters in Library and Information Science; 2) a dual degree program combining a Juris Doctor with a Masters in Library and Information Science; 3) a dual degree program combining a Masters in Legal Studies with a Masters in Library and Information Science; 4) a Legal Information Certificate; and 5) the Daniel F. Cracchiolo Law Library Fellows Program, both onsite in Tucson and at partner law libraries. The curricula, financial incentives, mentorship structure, and experiential components are all keys to each of these pathways and are tailored to each program and for each student. Our hope is that all of these programs will help reduce barriers to entry into our profession and increase the total number of people entering into the profession while simultaneously diversifying the profession.
Jennifer Bedier, Samantha Ginsburg, Sophia Kingsley; James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona
Effective Design and Delivery of Online/Remote Courses and Instructional Sessions
Online/remote courses and instructional sessions are increasing exponentially, meeting the needs of online degree and remote students, as well as busy practitioners. Following the frenzied remote instructional developments during the COVID pandemic, instructors are now seeking to truly design online courses. This poster discusses key elements for the effective design and delivery of online/remote courses and instructional sessions. The foundation is interpreting instructional design (eg, ADDIE) and active learning through technological and multimedia components. Seemingly obvious, but not always achieved, an instructor must be thoroughly trained on the course platform and available digital tools. Also imperative is assessing available organizational technical support of students – the level of available support may put borders around online/remote course development. An instructor should also consider collaborating with instructional designers, AV technicians, and librarians, particularly when creating multimedia content and identifying relevant existing content. Online/remote courses and instructional sessions can provide learner-centered instruction through humanization and connection methodologies. Design around presence and interaction, not content delivery. Use digital tools that help create and maintain instructor presence, as well as promote learner engagement, interaction, and collaboration. Online/remote courses should have a comprehensive syllabus that includes information on how to access content, available technology support, as well as online discussion room and virtual classroom etiquette expectations. Multimedia content in online/remote courses and instructional sessions should enhance the learning process, adhere to Web Accessibility Initiative guidelines, and be well produced. Poor design and recording gaffs are magnified in online/remote courses/sessions, and negatively affect learner engagement. Finally, endeavor to use interactive and collaborative activities in online/remote courses and instructional sessions. Questions and feedback can be inserted into videos, and most course platforms and learning management systems have polling tools and features. If using collaborative work spaces, try to maintain some type of instructor presence to promote a respectful environment and provide timely feedback.
Laura Ray; Cleveland State University College of Law
Don’t Get Too Spicy: Effective Use of Humor in the Gen Z Classroom
When wielded carefully, humor in the classroom can boost student mental health and bolster student-instructor rapport, leading to improved learning outcomes. To best employ humor, instructors should be aware of cultural and generational considerations that can impact the success of a joke. This poster will explore themes and common tropes of Gen Z humor while inviting instructors to consider their own use of humor in the classroom.
Alison Shea, Sarah Lane; Cornell Law School
Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries, Law About Pages
The “Massachusetts Law About…” pages are a valuable and free resource offered by the Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries. They are available online at mass.gov/lawlib day and night to anyone who needs help with legal research and general legal or governmental questions. They cover a wide range of topics from abortion to zoning with both Massachusetts and federal laws, regulations, and cases as well as a carefully selected list of internet and book resources. The pages are created and continuously updated by law librarians to ensure accuracy. This poster aims to showcase what someone would find in an average law about page.
Mikolaj Galazka; Massachusetts Trial Court Law Library
The Road to Retention
Learning for long-term retention should be a goal for anyone who instructs or trains. This poster will highlight roadblocks that take learners off course on their road to retention and identify evidence-based pathways that will make long-term retention of learning a smoother journey.
Alyson Drake, Rob Brownell; University of Houston Law Center
Critical Legal Research in the Classroom
Whether as a module in an Advanced Legal Research class or as a stand-alone course, interest in teaching Critical Legal Research is on the rise. From the evolution of CLR, to content selection, to the process undertaken to get the course approved at the University of Missouri School of Law, this poster will share the background information the presenter found helpful throughout the process of developing first an independent CLR lesson and then a credit-bearing social justice research course.
Laura Wilcoxon, University of Missouri School of Law
Marketing + Outreach
Percolating Ideas: Fresh Strategies for Encouraging Student Engagement
This poster highlights the dynamic measures undertaken by the UNT Dallas College of Law Library to augment student engagement in a post-COVID era and following a challenging physical relocation of the law school across a bustling downtown street. In addition, a comprehensive review of innovative strategies that helped the library exceed pre-pandemic and pre-relocation patronage levels will be showcased.
The UNT Dallas College of Law Library faced unique challenges as its companion law school relocated across a busy street, distancing the physical connection between the students and the library. Coupled with the aftermath of COVID-19, the library embarked on an ambitious plan to reconnect students with its physical space.
Several creative strategies were implemented, which significantly elevated student interaction. Firstly, the introduction of a coffee bar within the library grounds created a welcoming and relaxed environment that encouraged students to utilize the library space for extended periods. Furthermore, planning various contests and events within the library fostered a vibrant and inclusive atmosphere that stimulated community spirit.
Employing law students to manage the front desk served a dual purpose; it provided valuable work experience for the students and fostered a peer-friendly environment, thereby reducing potential intimidation barriers often associated with formal library settings.
Lastly, the library championed a culture of empathy and responsiveness among its librarians. These empathetic librarians not only provided tailored assistance to students but also helped to build trust and approachability, further reinforcing the library as a supportive learning hub.
These initiatives led to a surge in hourly counts that surpassed pre-COVID and pre-move peaks. The poster will showcase these successful endeavors, providing valuable insights for libraries facing similar challenges. With student engagement at the heart of the library’s mission, this poster will illustrate the power of innovative solutions in creating an inviting and effective library space.
Lewis Giles, Tracy Eaton; University of North Texas at Dallas College of Law