On Monday, Hogan Lovells U.S. senior research services manager Emily Florio was formally elevated to president of the American Association of Law Libraries.

Last week, AALL held its all-virtual conference in lieu of its originally scheduled meeting in New Orleans. While COVID-19 caused difficult and laborious replanning, Florio noted the convention was a success with over 1,200 participants. But the novel coronavirus's impact didn't stop at in-person meetings. More broadly, COVID-19 has altered the perception of law librarians and highlighted the advanced legal research librarians can remotely perform, Florio argued.

American Association of Law Libraries president Emily Florio.

Below, Florio discusses how AALL is adapting to COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement, all while promoting law librarians' evolution.

This interview has been been edited for clarity and length.

Legaltech News: What are your goals as president of the American Association of Law Libraries?

Emily Florio: Our main goals have shifted from the pandemic and Black Lives Matter social justice discussions. But everything I'm focusing on for AALL will always tie back to the three pillars of our strategic plan surrounding talent, engagement and alliances.

One thing I have to do is work on appointing committee members to two of our new special committees [including our] Law Librarianship as a Career Guidance Review Special Committee. For the first year of the committee they did a lot of fact gathering and researching what law librarianship programs are taught in law library schools. The second year will probably focus on finding more avenues for bringing people into the profession.

A second special committee we are in the early stages of creating is looking at diversity, inclusion and cultural competencies within law librarianship and AALL. We're looking at our policies and procedures to make sure we're being as inclusive as possible and giving opportunities and clearing up some questions our members have about how some of our committees work or how people are nominated or appointed.

How has the pandemic and discussions regarding social injustice shifted AALL's objective?

We've had many coffee chats as an association around the Black Lives Matter movement, social justice, diversity and equality. We've heard some frightful stories from members about injustices that they've experienced in different places of work. These coffee chats have given them the opportunity to share their stories, help them to talk about the injustices they've experienced and hear from other members on how they have coped with these situations and moved forward from what they've experienced.

On the other side, COVID-19 has drastically changed both what AALL's programming looks like this year and for us as members. For AALL, the coffee chats were implemented as one way to stay connected with each other in an informal fashion. … The biggest thing for us is going from an in-person conference to a virtual conference. We've [now] proven we can have excellent programming online virtually and we're already talking about what our conference will look like next year. We're all hoping we can be together, but we know we will likely offer a hybrid conference, where we have some in-person programming and also virtual programming.

Why is AALL considering a hybrid conference for next year?

We've already heard from some of our members that their budgets for travel and education is already slashed. Even if the health crisis is over, we will have people that won't have the opportunity to travel, and having a virtual conference will allow them to continue with educational offerings but at a lower price point than a flight, hotel and conference registration.

Beyond the coronavirus' impact on the organization, how is legal research, as a profession, changing in light of COVID-19?

We as law librarians and information professionals have talked for a decade about how we're not only just about books. We do far more than pull a book off a shelf and read a book. At my firm we went from being in the office to our whole team being remote for four months now. The two things that stand out for me are that we didn't have access to our print books for four months, and we didn't hear much from the lawyers about it. I think we're finally seeing that shift from being associated with books and being reliant on print books.

I think we're going to see a drastic increase in a return on investment for our online resources. Someone who may have walked down the hall to the print library to pull something off the shelf doesn't have that option [now]. We have people coming to us in those scenarios and we were able to educate them on what their options are to accessing information. There will always be some materials we will have to access in print, but that number is dwindling.

Are there any challenges facing today's law librarians because of COVID-19?

Unfortunately we will continue to see downsizing in law firms, corporate departments and I've heard of furloughs in academia as well. We need to continue our outreach and shouting from the rooftops about how much we can do and how versatile we are.

I think in many institutions, unfortunately, we're still seen as the stereotypical librarian that is reliant on books. We're moving from that, but for some institutions that is ingrained in their blood but we're fighting against that. We are research analysts. At my firm we still bill, we add value, but unfortunately I think there's still a misunderstanding of what we can do and what we should be doing and really what the value is and how versatile we can be.

Are legal research products evolving enough as law librarians' capabilities advance?

It's becoming more and more complex everyday. It's another case of showing how quickly we adapt or learn something new. We jumped on the opportunity to track legislative and regulatory changes related to COVID-19 and presented it to our lawyers. We continued to need specialized research tools, whether it is regarding the environment, energy or infrastructure. Artificial intelligence and computer learning will never replace the complex work we do and our interactions with lawyers.