Author: Mary Jenkins, Library and Research Services Manager at Devine, Millimet & Branch, PA
The 2025 AALL Annual Meeting & Conference in Portland this July promises a robust offering of educational programs, from deep dives and 60-minute sessions to discussion dens, poster sessions, and exhibitor showcases. CRIV curated this list of vendor relations-related programs to help you complete your conference schedule. We watched for programs on vendor relations, constructive resolution of issues, negotiating contracts, the future of publishing, the provision of information, and other topics aligned with CRIV’s purpose. The program descriptions below may be shortened for purposes of this post. For presentation times and other details about all of these opportunities and more, view the full schedule and take note of valuable exhibitor showcases. Additionally, we recommend spending time with the vendors in the exhibit hall to view recent product developments and to discuss issues of interest with vendor representatives.
Saturday, July 19
Legal AI Mastery: From Business Strategies to Research Realities in Law Firms (Sponsored by LexisNexis)
(day-long workshop, separate registration required)
This workshop equips law firm librarians with essential skills to integrate AI in legal research and practice. The first half covers business aspects of AI adoption, including product onboarding, benchmarking, pricing strategies, ROI assessment, and the AI implementation lifecycle. Participants will also learn about contract negotiations, licensing agreements, and privacy and security concerns. This workshop empowers law librarians to make informed decisions and maximize AI benefits in legal research and practice.
Sunday, July 20
Selector School Next Gen: Building and Curating Your Library’s Future Collection
What impact will present-day collection development strategies, tactics, and technologies have on our future library collections? With court, state/county, and firm libraries already going increasingly digital and the ABA’s recent revised standards allowing academic law libraries to go increasingly digital, the concern for what this will mean to the selection, acquisition, and access to legal materials is great. Join us as we discuss building and curating the “next generation” of law library collections.
Monday, July 21
I Hate Hallucinations: How to Combat Misconceptions Around GenAI Accuracy (Sponsored by Thomson Reuters)
Generative AI has moved from hypothetical to reality over the past three years, but some barriers still exist before widespread use in the legal industry. Perhaps the most pressing concerns are around using technology that is not 100% accurate. This panel will tackle misconceptions around GenAI’s accuracy, explaining how these tools can be architected to aid while minimizing the risk of hallucinations or false positives. We will discuss prompt engineering, the science of asking GenAI tools questions in the right way, to minimize the risk of inaccuracies and receive more specific, concise answers.
This program will go over the tenets of Universal Design and offer justifications for embracing this philosophy for electronic materials, including resources, intranets, websites, and more. This will include examples of both good and bad design and explain why, and more easily identify potentially challenging design choices. Attendees and presenters will review a website live and conduct an accessibility assessment. This evaluation will highlight how to identify problems on electronic resources.
Automagic, Meet Data-Driven Decision-Making: Using Automation to Up Your Contracts and Renewals Game
Take your contracts process from manual to magic! Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) and Electronic Resource Management (ERM) work hand-in-hand, but existing, out of the box CLM tools do not include the tools necessary for renewal evaluation workflow involving multiple teams. How can libraries address this problem? In this program, we will discuss the process of building an in-house solution for CLM focused on using automation to increase efficiency and share the lessons learned along the way. We will demonstrate the why and how of taking a more holistic approach to the CLM process—spanning the entire life and value of the subscription and not just managing dates and costs. We will cover the impacts of automation on ERM, non-contract cost management, usage stats, user management, technical services, reporting up, reporting across, reporting down, spend management, budgeting, and more.
As law libraries evolve in a rapidly changing digital and data-driven environment, the role of data analytics and technology in optimizing operations and guiding strategic decisions has become increasingly crucial. This program will bring together experts from law school and law firm libraries to discuss how data and technology can be harnessed to enhance the management and operations of today’s law libraries. Through a series of real-world case studies and practical insights, this program will explore how law libraries are utilizing data analytics tools and software applications to drive efficiency, improve decision-making, and support the broader organizational goals of their institutions or firms.
Generative AI Considerations in Licensing Agreements
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is quickly dominating the law library resource market. As more resources take on GenAI features, it becomes increasingly important to establish clear and secure agreements and terms with vendors. This presentation will cover the various GenAI-related topics to consider when reviewing a license agreement.
The Future of a Digitized FDLP and Its Impact
The move of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) to a digital environment has created a number of big shifts in how we receive, process, catalog, and access that information. It has also created some big shifts for our patrons and how we have helped them navigate the changes to the FDLP process. Join us for a one-hour program where we dive into these changes. We will look at the training done to get librarians ready for these changes. We will look at the different National Service Collection Areas (NCSA) in the FDLP and how these changes impacted each area.
Tuesday, July 22
Hot Topic: Preserving Government Information in Changing Times: Preparing for the Unknown
The last few months have seen government information removed from the web at an increasing rate. This program will provide attendees with practical tools to locate government information that has been deleted or moved, preserve government information going forward, and advocate for the retention and restoration of government information.
Don’t Miss the CRIV Vendor Roundtable, June 23
Note that the AALL Committee on Relations with Information Vendors invites you to the annual CRIV Vendor Roundtable. This year’s topic is Shared Responsibility: Navigating Security and Privacy in Library Technology. Register here for the CRIV Vendor Roundtable, happening June 23 at 2:00 (EDT) via a one-hour webinar.
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