Written by: Gloria Kosir
The University of Iowa Law Library hosted its second annual Law Collections Symposium in the Boyd Law Building in October. The symposium, entitled “Cultivating Collections in Times of Change,” was bookended by meetings for the Society of Academic Law Library Directors (SALLD) and the Society for Law Librarians (SALL).
The symposium drew 57 attendees from 44 different institutions. Carissa Vogel, professor of instruction and director of the Iowa Law Library, co-organized the symposium with Amanda Runyon, associate dean and director of the Biddle Law Library at Penn Carey Law.
During the morning sessions, participants discussed six papers related to law libraries and their collections of legal materials. The papers ranged in topics, covering the implications of artificial intelligence for collections, the pertinence of law libraries in upholding democracy, and how smaller academic law libraries care for specialty legal collections.
Afternoon sessions featured development camps and breakout groups designed to build skills on the basics of collection development and curation. Participants explored topics such as writing dens, preservation standards, collaborative collecting, and using data to inform analysis and advocacy.
“In that ‘cultivating collections’ idea, we're cultivating the scholarship and the thinking about collections, but also cultivating that hands-on, ‘how do we do this, how do we build these particular kinds of skills’ purpose,” Vogel said.
Presenters represented leading institutions from across the country, including Amanda Watson from Harvard Law School, Nicholas Mignanelli from Yale Law School, and Seth Quidachay-Swan from the University of Michigan Law School, among others.
The breadth of perspectives and institutional representation underscored the symposium’s growing national significance.
“The Iowa Law Collection Symposium is the talk of our field, and the University of Iowa Law Library has secured its place as the intellectual center for the study of the law book and the future of law library collections,” said Mignanelli, then-lecturer and assistant director for reference at the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale Law School.
According to Vogel, the weekend was an incredible success, with overwhelmingly positive feedback from attendees. She is especially proud of the range of schools, professionals, and regions represented, as well as Iowa Law’s ability to host.
“There are about as many flavors of academic law libraries as there are academic law librarians, so I value these kinds of gatherings so much because I learn from different people’s perspectives,” she said.
The Iowa Law Library also welcomed 15 law library directors before the symposium to outline workplace challenges and prepare for upcoming meetings for SALLD. Carla Wale, chair of the executive committee and director of Gallagher Law Library at the University of Washington School of Law, joined Vogel in leading the meeting.
The weekend concluded with the Society for Law Librarians’ (SALL) inaugural meeting co-hosted by Vogel and Runyon. SALL was launched in April 2025 and is a new organization that aims to build a community for those who work in academic law libraries. The group seeks to advocate for the importance of law librarians and legal collections in academia, support professional development, and preserve legal knowledge for the public good.
“Our core goal is to build a dynamic, member-driven community empowered to advocate for critical issues, drive innovation in the field, and ensure equitable access to legal information for all. We are deeply committed to creating professional development and skills training for members and to supporting law librarian scholarship,” Runyon said.
More than 90 participants attended in person and virtually.
“There is something that all these people coming together at Iowa Law has created that is unique to anything I've experienced in my years of academic librarianship. I think both the focus and the expansive way that we think about and view our collections makes the gathering invigorating and rigorous,” Vogel said.
The University of Iowa Law Library is a premier research library with more than 3 million volumes and is one of the largest and finest collections of print, microform, and electronic legal materials in the United States. To learn more, visit the Iowa Law Library website.