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Meeting Minutes & Resources for Major Microform
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NIDL
The meeting began at approximately 9:50 a.m. Two changes were made to the minutes from the fall, 2001 meeting. Once the minutes were revised, they were approved. Paulette called introduced our first speaker Mike Ragen, our depository coordinator, at the Illinois State Library. Illinois Legislative History Research by Mike Ragen Mike Ragen introduced himself and quoted from Bismark about the making of laws and sausages. Mike was a policy analyst at the Illinois House and Senate before becoming a librarian. Mike referred to Art. IV of the State Constitution, which sets the parameters of the Illinois legislature. The Constitution requires the reading of a bill on three separate occasions. The reasons are historical predating the days of mass copying. Also the 3 reading requirement serves as a “speed bump”, a protection to insure that legislation is not passed hurriedly. The Legislative Synopsis and Digest contains a weekly summary. At the end of the G.A, there is a summary for the entire session of the action that year. It is created by the Legislative Research Unit. The Journal of the House and Senate is the official record assembled by the journal rooms; it reflects the actual flow of legislation. Transcripts of the House and Senate Debates were mandated by the 1970
Constitution. Laws of Illinois was the prior publication of the session laws, pre1970. The Laws of the State of Illinois contain the new laws. Amendments are underlined and deletions are lined through. The Handbook of the G.A. contains rules and membership lists. Each chamber has its own rules. Mike used the Library Confidentiality Act to demonstrate how a bill
is passed and referred to the packet of handouts he had prepared for
us. For example, a bill is introduced in the Senate. The House proposes
amendment(s). The Senate disagrees. In the Legislative Synopsis and Digest, we saw that Henry Yourrell introduced the Library Confidentiality Act bill. The summary is not always reliable for a large bill. For example, this bill increases taxes but that is not mentioned in the summary. In the first reading, the bill is introduced; it may be referred to
Committee under the “short debate” procedure. Every amendment
proposed in committee does not necessarily get journalized unless adopted.
The “master bill file” may include it, but it is not accessible
to the public. Amendments proposed on the floor do get journalized. The
short debate procedure was initiated to deal with the huge amount of
proposed legislation. The “Agreed Bill Process” allows the leaders, Senate Minority Leader, to put the least objectionable bills on one list. Then the legislature moves on all such bills at once. They are not debated and there are no transcripts or amendments. For such noncontroversial bills, no legislative guidance is available. Courts try to use transcripts to determine legislative intent. Transcripts can provide indication of intent. The Index Dept. will go through transcripts for a fee for outside callers. The Official journals do not show recognition of agreed bill list. The House Consent Calendar is in transcript and journal; House short debate is also journalized; there are audio recordings of House Committee debates. As for the Senate, there are no official recordings or transcripts of Committee proceedings. New Constitution requires ordering of the public acts. The Illinois Blue Book contains a roster of Public Acts. It is a good quick reference to numbering and corresponding years of the G.A. Appropriations Bills are journalized and in the public laws. The State Appropriations Report published by State Comptroller’s Office is useful to track appropriations. Under the Illinois Constitution, appropriations cannot be made within the same bill. Two separate pieces of legislation are required and the text of the bill isn’t actually “read” into transcripts. It is possible to get the text of the bill in fiche. Per Article V of the Constitution, the Governor can change the composition of state agencies by means of an Executive Order rather than via Public Act. The House or Senate can block an Executive Order by negative vote only. Proclamations recognize i.e Engineers Week, Abe Lincoln Day. Rules of the chambers can be changed via a House or Senate Resolution. Joint Resolutions are often procedural or rule related. Only the G.A. can propose changes to the State Constitution. Any change is voted on by the public. There are never more than three on the public ballot. Conference Committee Reports are a hybrid of legislation. Sometimes they can be used to avoid the three readings rule, but the Illinois Supreme Court has imposed restrictions. One cannot throw additional issues into a bill via a Conference Committee Report. Conference Committee Reports are a fused version of the bill from the two houses. The Illinois Constitution defines the kind of vetoes allowed. All get journalized. The Governor’s amendatory veto is not part of the bill, until the G.A. acts on it. Motions insure that all parties, both democrats and republicans, get heard. The process is generally good, albeit cumbersome. Presentation by Joe Natale Joe worked at the Index Dept. and IL. State Library. He took us to the Find It Illinois website and showed us how to go to Government, Legislative Branch. The transition from print to electronic began in the 1990s. Laws of Illinois (public acts) are downloaded from website and edited; they add indexes, dates passed and effective date. The website also provides access to the Illinois Compiled Statutes and Legislative Reports, which cover the daily action of the G.A. You can use this website to find your state legislator, see redistricting maps and view Senate and House schedules. The Illinois Administrative Code and Illinois Register are also being made available online. Transcripts of debates are now available but will probably not go back retrospectively. The best way to search the transcripts and bills is to use the “find” command. Paulette explained that there is only one official copy of the Illinois Administrative Code, which is maintained at the Secretary of State Index Department. Joe indicated that the table of contents is available at the Secretary of State website, Index Dept. For assistance with legislation, he suggested we contact J. P. Schwartz at Index Dept. (217)782-4414. Lunch break at 12:20 p.m. Presentation by Pegeen Bassett on Helping the Pro Se Patron Use Electronic Legal Resources Free of Charge Pegeen focused on Lexis One. She explained that it doesn’t have its own content, but it’s a well organized guide. She uses it to give pro se patrons free legal information, including free forms (i.e. Power of Attorney). The following sequence of links--“Find State Materials Online”, Illinois, Judicial Branch--provides free access to cases from courts, down to the county level. There are also quick links to Illinois Compiled Statutes and Illinois Human Rights decisions. The database is searchable by party name. Other frequent pro se questions include: how do I find a lawyer? Are
there any disciplinary actions or complaints against him? Try the link
to the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission at
www.iardc.org/lawyersearch At the Round Robin Reports Aimee Quinn & Marjorie Bengtson (UIC) spoke about the 5 year contract with the Dept. of State, the DOSFAN project and the homeless project. The Local Community Fact book is due to be published in 2003 with a website. They are adding a GIS component based on the Decennial Census. It covers 77 communities and suburbs. It was started at U of C and discontinued. Now UIC published the Fact Book. Other features of the Fact Book are the history and ethnicity sections i.e. Italian immigrants in Chicago. Marjorie added that the Library is also changing to another computer system. Gloria Hamilton (University of Chicago) spoke from an acquisitions, technical services viewpoint. Her library is getting fiche of unpublished hearings of the House and Senate. It is also engaged in space planning. Pegeen Bassett (Northwestern Law) remarked that her library is losing the ABA, which is moving to Quaker Tower. They still face a space problem because of the increased number of faculty. Lots of space planning is required. They are reorganizing the whole library, especially as more materials are going electronic. The plan for future documents is to still have a physical presence. Paulette Harding (Poplar Creek Public Library) noted that in order to fill the Gov Docs Desk, they have lowered their requirements for the position to an associate’s degree. An architectural consultant is examining their space. Bob Pruter (Lewis University) has created a gov docs web page. He inherited a horrendous situation, piles and piles of unprocessed materials. He has deaccessioned 15,000 documents and is now trying to reach out to patrons. His school has a Criminal Justice Dept but the students are not using the Dept of Justice documents. Walt Baumann (Depaul Law) remarked that his school has a new dean, who appears to be “library friendly”. The main Library is migrating to a new system, from DRA to Endeavor. The Law Library is using Innopac; those records are not yet in the new system, but will be in next few months. Recently, a new buzz in and swipe card and i.d. system was implemented as a result of a lap top incident. However, depository rules say you can request but not require i.d. The Head of Reference has not implemented this rule. Beth Clausen (Northwestern U., Evanston) indicated that their library’s new federal documents librarian will be here next fall. He has experience from the University of Iowa. The School bought 1910-1932 Executive Branch documents (fiche), which are available via ILL. Beth gave the following news from the Mobile meeting: GPO promotional materials have been revamped. They can now be requested online. George Barnum talked about a partnership with OCLC for archival back up. Robin Haun Mohammed spoke about how more and more libraries are restricting access by people outside the academic community. There will be a new public printer. Mike is leaving. The “Competencies” program was mostly about what people do at their respective libraries. Anne Abramson (John Marshall Law School) announced the imminent elimination of the CBA briefs collection. The Library conducted its first online survey in honor of National Library Week. The School adopted a strategic plan and recently had an ABA inspection. The Library hopes to gain space this summer with the elimination of the CBA 50 states collection and the integration of the collection on 7M into the general collection. Ilynne Kiviluoma (Chicago Public Library) explained that early retirement was offered by the City. Gov Docs has been moved to the Social Sciences Division. They are getting a new Division Chief. Diane Pertil has retired. Roberta updated listings of our fiche sets. The Municipal Reference Library at City Hall is closed and the whole collection was brought over to CPL. CPL is deleting and cleaning up its catalog records and adding new records; they are cataloging the collection slowly. CPL has the clipping files i.e approx. 40 local papers. It keeps the political fliers also. Linda Chia reported that her position at Loyola was eliminated last June. She is presently studying computer science at IIT and doing “e business”. She is looking for a Gov Docs position. Kristina Waldron (Northwestern University, Evanston) stated that there is a new UN depository libraries coordinator, Kiko Miyama. There is more talk about making UN documents available free of charge. Rebecca Miller (Lake Forest College) started in her current position last fall. She is revising government documents part of library website. John Brandt has moved to CA and is no longer at Lake Forest. Paulette gave the attendees several handouts regarding Illinois Legislative History and made the following announcements: Per P.A. 90-666, Il. Admin. Code and IL Register must be made available
on-line. Nominees for NIDL officers Next NIDL meeting to be scheduled on a Thursday or Friday in September
or October. An announcement will be emailed regarding hosting of the
meeting. ILA conference is 9/24 to 9/27. Proposed date: Friday, October
11 (Monday is Columbus Day). Meeting adjourned at 2:45 p.m. approximately and was followed by a Library
tour lead by Aimee Quinn. |