FCIL SIS Strategic Planning for Continuing Education and Professional Development
(Draft document, July 2, 1999)


During the last few years there has been a recognized need for revitalization and renewed course of action for the FCIL SIS. A series of discussions gave way to plans for a strategic planning process at the Anaheim meeting in 1998. The Strategic Planning Committee was formed and the mandate for the committee was to prepare a draft for a five-year plan to be considered at the FCIL Business Meeting in Washington, DC in July, 1999. We hope that this draft document will serve as a tool to assess the ongoing needs of members and provide guidelines for action and at the same time stimulate members to participation in the continuing educational and professional activities of the SIS.

The members of the committee are Charlotte Bynum, Marci Hoffman, Jack McNeill, Gail Partin, Amber Smith, Tracy Thompson, Dan Wade, Stefanie Weigman and Margareta Horiba, Chair.
 

The beginning of the decade saw the development of a plan for Training the Future Generation of International and Foreign Law Librarians. The thorough documentation which must be part of the institutional memory is found in AALL Occasional Papers No. 12, 1992. The strength of the FCIL SIS has rested on the resulting series of five institutes on topics of foreign and international law which took place between 1993 and 1996 and which became the benchmark for educating foreign and international law librarians. As new librarians join the field and as legal developments unfold and sources of information mushroom, similar opportunities are called for on an ongoing basis.

While the recent series of five institutes was highly acclaimed for its usefulness, it is unlikely that the SIS has the resources to reinstate the series any time soon. The series did create five research guides, which may be used by those who were unable to attend. Research guides, however, do not replace the first-hand experience of attending meetings, and their contents are rapidly becoming outdated. Repeating the institutes in the format of one-day workshops in conjunction with the annual meeting is a more realistic target and should attract a broad range of librarians.

Much effort over the years has been spent on planning the programs for the annual meeting. A wide variety of topics have been presented. The programs have often been broad-based and benefited a large constituency of AALL. It is time for the SIS to refocus and concentrate on a coordinated educational program designed to meet the specific needs of foreign and international law librarians at their various stages of development and levels of concentration. Whether such a program, ideal in theory, would meet demands on a sufficient basis and whether it would be supported by the AALL and most importantly by the FCIL SIS members are open questions at this stage. A fundamental issue, therefore, is whether the SIS is going to continue to work towards a coordinated educational program to be outlined and adhered to for the next five years, or longer. Suggested outlines follow below.
 
 

The varying professional or educational needs of the around 400 members at different stages in their careers are not easily pinpointed, nor assuaged. For the purpose of addressing educational needs it is useful to identify a few categories of librarians.

There are the traditional full-time foreign and international law specialists, relied upon by other librarians, by faculty, students, and the practicing bar, who need to stay on top of the profession and the developments of law around the world. These librarians may constitute a minority but they are in need of continuing education at an advanced level.

There are also the part-time specialists and reference librarians who dedicate part of their time to foreign and international law. Their needs may vary greatly depending on their particular work situations. The existing offering of programs may be useful but a selection of programs from a coordinated series on different levels may serve their needs better and it may stimulate to intensify and broaden their background.

An important category consists of those librarians who are new in the field and who are moving into positions as full- or part-time specialists. Some entry level programs must be offered with them in mind, or alternatively, a sequence of programs should be designed to include an introductory component.

Attention must also be drawn to the fact that membership in the SIS itself meets a need and that involvement in committees, the newsletter, webpage contents, social events, or simply networking with other FCIL members, all combine to fill needs of members no matter in what category they may fall.
 

The Marketplace for Committees and Special Interest Sections at CONELL preceding the annual meetings every year provides an excellent opportunity to meet prospective members and a chance to publicize the vantage points and offerings of the SIS that should not be overlooked.

Ideally there should be some way of staying in touch with members, to have a simple dialogue that avoids the strictures of a survey and yet accomplishes some measure of feedback on SIS activities. A set of straightforward questions on the listserv following the annual meeting might spark the reaction of members while memory is still fresh.

Mentoring is a time-honored custom in many professions. There should be some mechanism to encourage the relationship between generations of librarians, maybe in the form of a list of volunteers for new members to contact. We may want to reach out to the AALL Mentoring and Retention Committee for ideas.
 

The FCIL Newsletter has a long and venerable tradition and remains the prime instrument for keeping the members informed of SIS activities. It is available on the FCIL webpage, conveniently, but the hard copy cannot be surpassed for immediacy and physical presence. As such it is much more likely to prompt a reader.

The webpage has developed quickly during its first couple of years and displays membership information and various SIS documentation. It has potential for providing many other resources deemed useful to members, e.g. tutorials, a listings of volunteer specialists and/or specialized collections.

The listserv is only a year old. It is intended as a communications tool for high-priority SIS related business. Members are automatically subscribed.
 

The Clearinghouse for Internships and International Personnel Exchanges continues to work on questionnaires to libraries around the world and continues to identify institutions that welcome interns or visitors. There are occasional reports in the Newsletter from librarians who have taken advantage of such opportunities and found the experience positive but they are few and far between. Does the Clearinghouse information reach library school students and prospective new members?

The cost involved is naturally a factor when relocating for a limited amount of time. Is the SIS in a position to offer scholarships or grants to support internships, exchanges, and other activities?
 

The informal one-hour working group sessions that are held every year, traditionally throughout the day on Sunday, provide an opportunity for librarians with similar interests to get together and exchange ideas. It is the ideal place to get to know others in the field on an informal basis. However, the sessions are not always well utilized and could, without losing its informality, be restructured toward more substantive contents. The sessions on geographical regions could function as a complement to the more intensive series on the jurisdiction or legal system targeted for a particular year. (See program guidelines below) They could also be practical learning sessions for members to prepare and present information on a particular topic, international organization or jurisdiction.

The working group on Electronic Issues could find a new role in compiling lists and making recommendations to the AALL electronic archival project on files and databases in the areas of foreign and international law that merit preservation.

As more and more schools are offering courses in advanced legal research the working group on Teaching Foreign and International Legal Research has become an important support network for librarians sharing teaching techniques, syllabi and notes on publications. The group attracts new librarians every year.
 

The establishment of an online book discussion group is a new and intriguing idea. A list of four or five titles could be proposed on an annual basis around a given theme, perhaps one of the program topics for the next annual meeting. This would provide the program participants with necessary background before attending the program. Participants would be assigned sections to read on a regular schedule and would take turns moderating the discussion following each section of reading. This could take a number of forms, with the moderator simply posting a series of questions with the participants responding, or something more interactive initiated by the participants. Whatever the form, the key would be to have a reading schedule followed by a directed, focused discussion. Another key to the success of such a program would be time limits so that progress would be made through the books assigned.
  Program planning is the most important activity of the SIS with wide-ranging consequences. Long range planning is vital for success. A prime objective for the officers of the SIS should be to maintain and support continuity and cohesion in the activities that are planned for each year without sacrificing emerging needs. Planning guidelines should be widely distributed and permanently accessible on the FCIL webpage.

The following are guidelines for a coordinated education programs which we hope will inspire members to see the potential for enhancing their professional expertise in the coming years through their direct or indirect involvement.

Guideline for Program Contents

Jurisdictions
Understanding foreign jurisdictions is no easy task. Although there are increasing numbers of guides to legal systems of various countries they are not easily assimilated by self-study and for most librarians the sporadic questions that come up on an particular jurisdiction precludes learning from doing. Emphasis should therefore be on foreign law and the establishment of a rotation of programs dedicated to individual jurisdictions or foreign legal systems.

Alternative 1. We propose that at each annual meeting there be a series of four programs on a given jurisdiction, preferably the first allocated slot each morning. The first session would provide more basic, background knowledge, while the later sessions would be conducted with the experienced professional in mind, but at a level which would continue to reinforce the learning experience of the beginners. The fourth session might be optional depending on the importance of the jurisdiction. A less important jurisdiction could be the topic of one regular program slot. The format of sessions held on different days would have the advantage over a workshop in allowing participants to come fresh to each session.

The four sessions envisioned would have a consistent format and each session would build upon the previous:
First session: Introduction, primary sources, research methods and acquisitions
Second session: Constitutional and public law
Third session: Private law
Fourth session: Unique aspects and particular problems or issues

A ten year revolving sequence is suggested:
1) France
2) an African jurisdiction
3) Germany
4) an Asian or Pacific region jurisdiction
5) Spain
6) a Latin American jurisdiction
7) Italy
8) Russian Federation and members of the Commonwealth of Independent States
9) a Western European jurisdiction
10) a Central or Eastern European jurisdiction

Alternative 2. We propose that at each annual meeting there be two sessions on the law of a particular jurisdiction:
First session: Introduction, primary sources, research methods and acquisitions
Second session: Constitutional, public, and private law
These sessions could be supplemented by a working group session which could be used in place of the session on unique aspects and particular problems of a particular jurisdiction.

We could also divide jurisdictions into two categories: 1) jurisdictions of interest to a larger
constituency of AALL (England, Canada, Japan etc.) and 2) jurisdictions of interest only to a smaller audience. The first group could be candidates for the AALL program sessions on a rotating basis and the second group could be the subject of educational sessions in the appropriate working group on a rotating basis. This way we could cover more jurisdictions and not run the risk that nobody would attend a sessions on a minor jurisdiction.

Subjects
The subject matter of other programs should be a mix of public and private law with more emphasis on practical matter than historical or theoretical aspects. The topics of the five institutes could serve as a guideline. They were, other than Foreign Legal Systems (i.e. jurisdictions), International Organizations, Transnational Legal Transactions, Tax and Business, and Public International Law. Such topics should be scheduled in accordance with what is of current interest and, whenever appropriate, draw on resources of the place where the annual meeting is held.
 

A continuing education program could be supplemented by other means. Perhaps the research guides of the American Society of International Law at http://www.asil.org/resource/Home.htm could be made interactive, so that users could correspond with the creators.

Other regularly scheduled meetings have vast educational potential for FCIL SIS members. More and more foreign and international law librarians on the East coast are attending the annual meetings of the American Society of International Law. Fortunate are the few who are able to attend the meetings of the International Association of Law Librarians, which are usually held abroad. A still generally untapped educational source is the International Law Weekends sponsored by the New York Bar Association. Presumably, there could also be regional chapter meetings of AALL which could have programs on foreign, comparative and international law topics.

Academic law librarians may have the opportunity to take or sit in on foreign, comparative and international law courses at the law schools where they work. This is an excellent way to develop expertise, especially if the reading is done.

As technology improves at a dizzying rate additional opportunities will suggest themselves. Perhaps, video conferencing is not too far in the future. Clearly INT-LAW has brought us closer together as a specialized segment of the profession. Regional consortia, such as the Northeast Foreign Law Librarians Group, are excellent ways to learn by working cooperatively.

Our educational opportunities are only limited by the limits of our creativity.
 

The FCIL SIS is represented on the AALL Professional Development Committee. Perhaps the interests and needs of our members can also be addressed through this committee.
 
 

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