Two Arizona Law Students Named as Recipients of the 2026 AALL/LexisNexis Call for Papers Award
The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) has named two University of Arizona students, Safia A. Francis, Master of Arts in Library & Information Sciences (MLIS) student, and Emily Poling, MLIS/rising third-year law student, as the recipients of the 2026 AALL/LexisNexis Call for Papers Award in the Student Division category.
The AALL/LexisNexis Call for Papers Committee promotes scholarship through its annual “Call for Papers” competition, and recognizes outstanding scholarship by law librarians, legal information professionals, and students.
“Receiving the AALL/LexisNexis Call for Papers Award is a tremendous honor,” said Francis. “As I begin my career in library and information science, this recognition is especially meaningful. It affirms that the questions I am most passionate about—the histories embedded in collections and the ways we discover, preserve, and share them—matter to our profession. I am deeply grateful for this recognition. ”
Francis was recognized for “Embassy Libraries and American Information Diplomacy: A Literature Review,” which traces the history of U.S. Embassy libraries abroad from the founding of the republic to present. Francis argues that these institutions functioned not merely as instruments of soft power projection but as reciprocal knowledge-building institutions whose recurrent defunding reflects a persistent failure of American foreign policy to recognize information access as a foundational diplomatic resource.
“I am honored to be recognized with this award,” said Poling. “It’s incredibly encouraging to feel like I have a place in this profession and that I have something valuable to contribute.”
Poling was recognized for her paper “The Reasonable Pro Se Litigant in the Age of AI,” which explores the leniency that pro se litigants have traditionally been afforded by courts and examines the potential impact that AI could have on this leniency.
“It argues for better education around the risks of relying too heavily on generated content, which often contains hallucinations, and ultimately concludes that courts should not hold pro se litigants to higher standards, even with the availability of AI tools,” Polin adds.
Francis and Poling will be recognized at the AALL 2026 Leading with Aloha in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 18–21.