Blog Every Day in June Day 18: The Past the Present the Future and the User.

Today's post comes from Phil Mullen, who is the Australian Library & Information Services Manager for K&L Gates.

The Past the Present the Future and the User.

There was a time before the Internet when I was starting my life as a law librarian. This world was really just books and indexes, how we loved those indexes and updates. The endless looseleaf filing, missing updates and misfiled pages. We used thousands of stickers very much like postage stamps that updated the Law Reports; happy days.

There was the occasional screaming modem (and babies) with green online screens staring out at you asking you to spend money and incur the wrath of the managing partner for spending 200 dollars on a computer search.

Retrieving an unreported judgment required us to attend the Law Courts Library and photocopy. Large law libraries such as Sydney University Law School Library and the NSW Law Courts Library reigned supreme and seem impermeable and mired in legal tradition.

Looking back today it is hard to believe we are living in the same world. The pace of change in law libraries has gone into overdrive since the GFC, as the legal industry has seen profits fall away and have recognised the economies the internet can bring creating what is called New Law.

We can now access online looseleaf services, Law Reports and books. Who needs indexes when we can access everything on the internet and often free through Austlii. You can see how the internet has torn apart a very comfy cartel between legal publishers, law firms and law librarians.

So where are law libraries going? Are they going? Well, I have no idea nor much of a sense what all this means for law libraries yet.

But I do know we have to recommit ourselves to the user and their information behaviour. Throughout this evolution there has been one constant; we know our users, we know what information they need and when they need it and maybe we have forgotten this.

In this world of New Law our users have to be at the centre of what we do and how we do “things” (not necessarily library "things"). We need to leave behind catalogues and all those back office jobs that simply distract us from our users information needs. We will need to be multitaskers - we are going to have to be training librarians and research librarians and intranet librarians and current awareness librarians and subject specialists and social media librarians.

In 2014 the SLA in association with the Financial Times (note how the SLA is working with publishers to redefine what we do) produced a very influential report called, The Evolving Value of Information Management And Five Essential Attributes of the Modern Information Professional. (2013)

The report asked business executives what they believed information professionals should be doing to add value and then the report identified five common attributes of the successful information professional in the modern era.

The Five Essential Attributes are:

●      Communicate Your Value

●      Understand the drivers

●      Manage the process

●      Keep up on technical skills

●      Provide "decision ready" information

In the rush to  protect and defend the old "law library traditions" we have forgotten our users and the New Law world they occupy. Using the Five Essential Attributes as a starting point we might be able to refocus our efforts back to user and as Sheryl Sandberg says, “Lean In”.

 Add Phil on Twitter!

Blog Every Day in June day 9: Breaking the librarian stereotype – My love/hate relationship with being a librarian by Alex Cato

For day Nine of Blog June we have guest poster Alex Cato, Law Librarian. Alex was on the panel of the "Let's Talk" event held at the Customs House Library in May. 

This post was originally published to Alex's incredible blog under the title "Breaking the librarian stereotype- my love/hate relationship with being a librarian"

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I am a Librarian.

I am a Research Librarian and sometimes I think it would be easier if my job description didn’t have the word librarian in it.

Don’t get me wrong I love my job. I love the trill of the chase, going down the research rabbit hole and coming out the other end with the right answer. I’m addicted to it. But sometimes I find myself not liking or struggling against one of the many versions of the stereotypical librarian.

Like many other professions, the Librarian has some established stereotypes, hey I work in the legal industry and I’m not quite brave enough to ask the lawyers I work with what they think of the lawyer stereotypes.

 

 

Lawyer or librarian are any of the stereotypes actually true today? Now this isn’t an attack against subcultures; the lovers of the 1950s or the hipster librarians. Subcultures are a very different kettle of fish (and great!). What I’m struggling with is the residual perception of what a librarian can and can’t do. We are coming up against the stereotype every time someone says:

 "Oh!, I didn’t know the library could do that!"

Fighting against the perception that Librarians can help you with a select often very traditional set of tasks: find the right book or database, find an article. We can do a lot more and do it EVERY SINGLE DAY!

But sometimes I get a little cranky and think maybe it would be easier if I had a title like information manager, knowledge consultant etc cos hey even the industry itself has been trying to work out for the past 20 years what it actually is…..Being defeatist won’t help. So here are my ideas on how to nip the unhelpful stereotypes in the bud:

• Become a master of the elevator pitch – Its tough but know what people are working on, what issues they are facing and ideas on how you can help them when you come across them. You don’t need to know everyone but choose some select people and read up, if you do a good job they will let people know and word of mouth will do the rest!

• Infiltrate where your clients are meeting – Use the information and hints from the meeting to pre-empt your users needs. This really only applies to corporate, academic or specialist libraries. If your in a public library – don’t infiltrate someones house thats not cool, its a crime.

• Ensure that your service offering is consistent across the board – if one librarian is helping with something and its useful make sure that everyone can do it, is aware of it and offers it.

• If it comes from the library, make sure it has your name on it! Own your awesomeness.

By Alex Cato

Follow Alex on Twitter!

Check out her blog!

Upcoming Workshop- Succeeding with Embedded Librarianship: How to Initiate, Develop, and Sustain New Relationships in Your Organisation

As part of the Australian Law Librarian’s Conference being held in Sydney from 23-25 September. ALLA is hosting a workshop on Monday 23rd September on Embedded Librarianship which will be run by David Shumaker.

Embedded Librarianship offers new opportunities for librarians to become better connected and more valuable than ever. Librarians in leading law firms and academic institutions are adopting the embedded model to upgrade their role in today’s always-on mobile digital information environment. Yet this new way of working poses unique challenges every step of the way: from initiation, through development, ultimately to sustaining the embedded model. The path to success holds obstacles and dead ends for the unwary. In this workshop, David Shumaker, author of The Embedded Librarian (Information Today, 2012) and blogger at www.embeddedlibrarian.com , provides a road map and helps you chart your own course to successful embedded librarianship.

The workshop will run from 9.30am to 1.30pm at Herbert Smith Freehills, 161 Castlereagh Street, Sydney NSW 2000.

See the conference page for more information.

Law Library Landscape

My experience for nearly the last 10 years, has mostly been in corporate environments. I have gained my working portfolio in law libraries, both mid tier and top tier more recently. Even though I have continued to work as a Reference librarian in different law firms, I have found that the thinking, management and culture are distinct and diverse in each organisation’s library. This kind of experience is invaluable to building an understanding of how law libraries operate and create value for the organisation they provide information services to.

What adds a further dimension to gaining an overview of the law library landscape is my direct involvement with the Australian Law Librarian Association in NSW. The beauty of being embedded in a committee is the unique opportunity to develop professional relationships that can often become endearing friendships. What’s more, is your conversations are often a mash of life and aspirations for the direction of your library that you dare to discuss and ponder the possibilities of.

That aside, the position of President I have found myself dedicated to, has really propelled my understanding of the much larger context that law libraries are in. From interacting with the industry at large, my attention has been focused on becoming aware of driving issues influencing the operating activity and future plans in law libraries.

Some current issues experienced in this sector are

• Redesigning delivery of information services such as reducing hardcopy materials and facilitating a change in user research behaviour in a highly online environment, as well as tailoring current awareness services to reduce information overload and making more efficient use of automated delivery tools.
• Reworking the roles of a library team to accommodate changing duties as a result of more automated processes in delivering information services to future proof libraries.
• Technology developments including e-books and social media. Law libraries are testing how their organisations are using e-books and social media and look for ways to implement these tools to assist users to access information and build knowledge more readily. Uniquely e-books are challenging traditional models of loaning requiring law librarians to work with publishers to provide solutions in this kind of environment.
• Staffing. This factor is probably universal. Law libraries are unique in their specialist knowledge, filling vacancies particularly at higher level positions as retiring librarians are moving out of law libraries is calling for communication skills, leadership and the ability to deal with more political internal environments. There are also gaps as existing law librarians move into higher level positions. Follow on positions for new staff to fill existing reference roles are requiring a focus on training, particularly where roles are filled by librarians without law backgrounds. There is also a focus on succession planning in some law libraries, requiring creative position developments to ensure new librarians are equipped with good legal working knowledge to respond to dealing with law research queries.
• Redundancies. Sadly in the last few years there have been a number of management positions as well as sole librarian roles removed from law firms and university law faculties.
• Mergers taking place in law firm environments. With the change in the international economic landscape, a number of law firms have merged with international firms. An interesting effect on libraries is negotiation with publishers regarding extending licensed content to meet information needs of lawyers in new offshore offices.
• Outsourcing of library services is a real factor impacting libraries in the US and UK as a solution to meeting increasing demands of clients of law firms to put down pressure on the cost of legal services. This trend is slowly being documented in literary sources and presented on at conferences. Australian law libraries are following this closely.

Law libraries are certainly a dynamic environment to work in and we are trying to make sense of our landscape and develop solutions to ensure we remain relevant and provide value in our organisations.

Cindy Martin
ALLA NSW Division President

Reference Librarian
Freehills