The theme of the meeting was "The Future is Now."  The keynote speaker was Dennis Kennedy, a St. Louis attorney who practices primarily in information technology and e-commerce law.  He spoke about Internet and technology issues, changes in business expectations, and the changing role of librarians.

Most of the meetings were held at Drake University Law School.  MALL sponsored four programs.  Ed Edmonds and Anne Grande shared the podium for a program entitled "Low Carb Librarianship," which addressed how law libraries can improve and enhance services and collections with less money than the year before.  Shawn Swearingen gave a presentation on "Tips and Tricks for Finding Company Information."  In her capacity as a reference librarian at Faegre & Benson, well over 50% of her research is non-legal, with an emphasis on business information.  Minneapolis law firm librarians Donna Trimble and Barb Minor spoke about "Initiating Change in the Law Firm," concentrating on how they prepared for the implementation of knowledge management software.  Ed Edmonds presented a program on "Sports Law 101" where he discussed the origins of sports law and current major issues, with an emphasis on labor relations.

EISIL - Electronic Information System for International Law provides a searchable, Yahoo-like subject arrangement to international materials.  The site was created by the American Society of International Law with the goal of helping web researchers easily locate the highest quality primary materials, authoritative web sites, and helpful research guides to international law on the Internet.

Legal encyclopedias are not primary or citable authority, and we hope that they will no longer be your only source.  But legal encyclopedias do provide background for a topic, based on the leading cases in an area of law, and commentary by the editor or publisher on the complexities and nuances of the subject.  Hennepin County Law Library owns both of the major national encyclopedias:  American Jurisprudence 2d and Corpus Juris Secundum.  If you need an introduction to an unfamiliar area of the law and want to know leading cases, both will refresh your law school memories of the subject.

If you have a real problem from a real client in an unfamiliar subject area, HCLL also owns the legal encyclopedias for 14 states in addition to the always useful Dunnell Minnesota Digest.  The encyclopedias for California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia are all in the Law Library, and all are available for circulation.  As a starting point for research in a new subject area or a new jurisdiction, legal encyclopedias are concise, complete, and substantive and include citations to case authority.  You will find them more relevant and faster than an Internet search.

Minnesota CLE CD-ROMs are shelved at the Public Services Desk and are available for circulation.  As with print MCLE publications, we keep a second copy of the CD-ROM for use only in the library.  Adobe Acrobat on the stand-alone workstation in the library can be used for viewing these reserve copies.