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Law Libraries Future Impact Value Visibility
- 1. Hello! I’m Jaz’min Quary Questions or Comments? quary@usc.edu (323)360-8324 Connect: http://www.linkedin.com/jazminquary
- 2. The Future of Law Libraries: Identifying Possibilities to Create Value, Visibility and Impact In the 21st Century
- 4. Law is unique among disciplines in the way in which its bibliographic sources constitute a separate body of knowledge accessible and useful only to those within the law school,” “as the laboratory—or, more intimately, the heart—of the law school.” ~Christopher C. Langdell Harvard Law School’s first dean
- 5. Smaller budgets, rising costs, and loss of heart
- 6. Problem Statement Lack in confidence = Less jobs for law students Declining enrollment in law schools Smaller budgets + Rising costs Value of law libraries are being questioned
- 7. Less Money, More Problems Licensing + Access costs = Tension with law school administration Facilities losing funding + Loss of Library Jobs + Threat of closure = More Tension with law school administration
- 8. Adapt Management must adapt to budgetary constraints. Management Goals Visible Management must make itself visible to law school administration. Impact Management must show measurable impact. Value Management must create value with students & faculty to restore it’s place as the heart of the law school.
- 9. Potential Solutions Impact Use of social media to connect. Use of space to congregate, access information, and meet with faculty.
- 10. Potential Solutions Impactful experiences + instructional units Create Value with Knowledge Offering MOOC courses or workshops held within the space of the library.
- 11. More Solutions Impactful experiences + instructional units + Digital Materials Make libraries visible by saving costs Use of digital materials as well as those no longer under copyright or open access.
- 12. 75-80%of the research questions that access these materials come from the Big Two of legal databases Westlaw or LexisNexis
- 13. big concept is possible with small efforts Creating Impact Step One: Social Media Presence A small team or specific person five hours per week.
- 14. big concept is possible with small efforts Creating Impact Step Two: Surrender Space Specify a campus liaison outreach person to work with faculty and administration
- 15. big concept is possible with small efforts Creating Value Online MOOCs and Offline Workshops The technology is in place it’s the collaboration that needs help
- 16. Case Studies Who is actually doing this stuff? ▹ Educational technology librarian ▹ Maintains social media presence ▹ Writes digital reference guides ▹ Assists faculty to incorporate technology into their curricula All social media presence starts with a plan ▹ Time and commitment ▹ decide how, when, and who will post on each social media tool. ▹ One original tweet per day by locating an interesting news story, exhibit, digital photo, court case ▹ Links to open access materials or draws to the library itself,Photo Credit: “Faculty” Retrieved from: http://www.law.indiana.edu/about/people/bio.php?name=ahlbrand-ashley
- 17. Case Studies Who is actually doing this stuff? ▹ Current Director of the Innovation Lab of the Harvard Library at Harvard Law School ▹ Case Law Access Project focuses on making all U.S. case law fully accessible online ▹ Since United States federal and state government court decisions are not accessible online for free, ▹ Dulin and her staff believe that the lack of access to the foundation of case law stifles innovation and harms justice and equality in legal services. ▹ The 42,000 volumes of official print versions in the Harvard Law School Library are being transformed from 40 million pages to digital files made accessible online for free. Photo Credit: “As Libraries Go Digital, Sharing of Data Is at Odds With Tradition of Privacy” Retrieved from: http://www.chronicle.com/article/As- Libraries-Go-Digital/135514
- 18. Case Studies Who is actually doing this stuff? ▹ Dean of Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law ▹ Who leads his institution in a practice- ready program that emphasizes professional development for attorneys- to-be. ▹ Practice ready grads and how their lack of professional knowledge influences clients, time and billing, profit for the law firm, as well as case success. ▹ CUA considers itself a leader in real world experiential programs understanding that legal employers demand practice ready new hires where students are grounded in skills with their coursework. ▹ Best clinics in the country, writing the book on externship programs, and coursework in negotiating strategies, trial advocacy, and how to become a lawyer. Photo Credit: “Welcome from the Dean” (n.d.). Retrieved from: http://www.law.edu/dean/index.cfm
- 19. Brooklyn Law school is one of the few law schools that offer a Technology and Collaboration Space, known as TechCo, designed as a space for students and faculty to practice lawyering skills like interviewing clients, preparing for trial, and negotiation. This space has connections for laptop, projector, online collaboration gear such as, Skype and recording software spaces such as these are meant to provide a space for students to prepare for internships and associateships. Case Studies Who is actually doing this stuff?
- 20. Real Problems with Real Solutions
- 21. thanks! ANY QUESTIONS? References Available Upon Request – A two page document.
Editor's Notes
- Hi Everyone! My Name is Jaz’min Quary feel free to call me Jaz and contact me with questions on any of the connections you see before you. Today’s presentation will focus on academic law libraries and the ideas I have on how they can create value, visibility, and impact to grab the attention from their funding sources, administration, and users again.
- So at this point in our program, we should all be pretty familiar with the lack of attention libraries get from funding sources, administration, or their users for a number of reasons, some of them being - the assumed ease of finding information in the Google-age, changes in the economy, or other innovative disruption.
- Remember these two in the upper left? Rose wore what was called “Heart of the Ocean.” so precious it was the cornerstone of sacrifice and the point of research of the Titanic in the first place before the love story was even told. In the other picture we see a mother and daughter in the kitchen - similar to the priceless diamond - The Kitchen is often called, “The Heart of the Home”. It’s where people congregate as a family, celebrate milestones, and learn about eachother.
- Harvard Law School’s First Dean, Christopher C. Langdell knighted academic law libraries as the HEART OF THE LAW SCHOOL - ala The center of congregation, learning, milestones, to be protected and valued. Law is unique among disciplines in the way in which its bibliographic sources constitute a separate body of knowledge accessible and useful only to those within the law school,” “as the laboratory—or, more intimately, the heart—of the law school.”
- Later in 1962 - Myron Jacobstein wrote that, at least in terms of budgets, “the law library is not the heart of the law school, but it is treated like an appendix and is the first item to be cut.” We are lucky to be in a hybrid program that focuses on the business of managing libraries, learning skills to identify opportunities, for not only creating financial support but promoting innovation and embracing change - however, many in the legal world of academia have not.
- Less undergraduates are choosing to go to law school, for several reasons. Law school doesn’t teach you how to “lawyer” it teaches one how to think, write, and read “lawyer-ese”. Less firms are willing to take the chance on new graduates due to opportunity cost of training and serving clients. Which means less jobs for law grads, declining enrollment for law schools trickling down to smaller budgets to spend on higher costs and the first to go is funding for law libraries.
- University systems and Library systems share funds from donations received from alumni, law firms, and corporations. As discussed, law schools aren’t producing good workers, confidence levels are dropping so there is less money to go around. American Bar Association has a list of required collection materials that are also rising in licensing and access costs are going up. All of this is causing tension and libraries are being threatened to close all together.
- So what’s the plan? Management must adapt to the budget constraints, they aren’t going anywhere. Must make their libraries visible again to administration and show impact with the students to bring about value with administration, students, and donors of financial support. Restoring themselves as the heart of the law school, libraries have to become an asset to alumni, law firms in the community and corporations that fund their purposes.
- Just like a kitchen is the heart of the home, the law library needs to be a space students meet-up to study, learn with faculty and peers. Online law librarians should create these spaces with blogs, Facebook pages, twitter, snapchats, and Instagram. Connecting online to draw students in the library to use the space and host virtual classes, mock trial, clinics, or interviews. If space is used to create impactful experiences with students, it’s hard to justify shutting them down.
- Law school professors teach courses using the Socratic method, teaching mostly memorization of case law and logical thinking. While this helps lawyers learn how to strategize winning, it doesn’t when they actually have to write it down and appear in court. Librarians can step in and help providing practical skills, information literacy, research skills, and continuing education courses both as MOOCs available to students or as workshops held in the library. Working this closely with faculty can help the strained awkward relationship brewing between them as well.
- The ABA states that the core collection must support the research needs of the library’s students, demands of the curriculum, education of the students, interests, pedological needs, and scholarship of the faculty but ABA doesn’t say if these materials have to be digital or print. Acquisitions can be a pricy part of the budget, filling shelves in a law library with updated copies of Federal, State, and International law. There are open access and materials no longer under copyright that can help fill those shelves digitally. Saving money and providing space for other uses.
- Members of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) participated in a survey about the social media use in law libraries 183 members responded – Less than half were using social media, even less were blogging or had a social media marketing plan. Research has shown that no resources have to be eliminated from library duties, special staff isn’t needed and no change in financial resources have to be made to make this happen. Simply devoting a small team or a specific person to five hours per week is enough to accomplish social media presence among students.
- Rather than surrendering the entire library location, a campus liaison should dedicate time to working with faculty and administration to provide classrooms, career services, and clinics, and collaborative workspaces by adding comfortable furniture, lounge areas, webcam computer clusters networked for joint online session use, DVD players connected to large monitors, private study rooms for reserved time slots, and recording space wired with self-service equipment. Research has shown libraries with all of these accommodations receive more funding in the long term.
- Law educators are disinterested in new technologies like MOOCS because of their commitment to traditional methodology, institutional culture, and an emphasis on scholarship above teaching, this makes online learning and small workshops less of a threat to their teachings. This means working within the administration to offer supplemental courses should be offered as a service to faculty supplementing their classroom as means of expanding programs instead of modifying curriculum. Courses should be designed using open access materials as well so they don’t cost and subjects needed in the workplace.
- Meet Ashley Ahlbrand she is the interim Assistant Director for Public Services, Lecturer in Law faculty member at Maurer School of Law at Indiana University her role is educational technology librarian. She maintains social media presence, writes digital reference guides, and assists faculty to incorporate technology in their courses. She believes all social media presence starts with a plan, with specific time and commitment, and decision made in the beginning on how, when, and who will post on each social media tool. A good tip she offered was to provide one original tweet per day by locating an interesting news story, exhibit, digital photo, or court case and make sure to provide links to open access materials or draws to the library itself.
- Meet Kim Dulin is the current director of the Harvard Library Innovation Lab currently housed in Harvard Law Library. Called the Case Law Access Project it focuses on making all U.S. case law fully accessible online. Since United States federal and state government court decisions are not accessible online for free, the innovation lab took this on because the lack of access to case law stifles innovation, harms justice, and equality in legal service. They are taking 42,000 volumes of official print versions in the Harvard Law School Library and transforming them from 40 million pages to digital files made accessible free.
- Meet Daniel Attridge, Dean of Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law As a former attorney himself for 32 years he understands what is required of attorneys in the real world. Also having worked as a manager of a team of 230 attorneys managing client relations, budgets, and strategic planning for the firm he knows how to make students practice ready and how it influences clients, billing, profits, and case success. CUA is a leader in experiential programs having the best clinics in the country, writing the book on externship programs, and coursework in negotiating strategies, trial advocacy, and how to become a lawyer.
- Meet Brooklyn Law School‘s Technology and Collaboration Space, TechCo, designed as a space for students and faculty to practice lawyering skills like interviewing clients, preparing for trial, and negotiation. With connections for laptop, projector, online collaboration gear such as, Skype and recording software spaces providing a space for students to prepare for internships and associateships. Pictured above is Harvard Innovation Labs at Harvard Law Library, they call this space a hallway connecting three rooms of party guests - law, tech, and library folks and invite collaboration on project ideas for the Harvard team to work on. These applications are accepted help with making the offline environment collaborative and the online environment inviting to students and faculty as well.
- Potential solutions were offered to address the issues facing law libraries all surrounding the key words: value, visibility, and impact. Resolving the issue of restoration as the heart of the law school, offers the suggestion of engaging with students using social media, and space in the library to create impactful experiences. To reduce the need for administrators to consider removing libraries from law school campuses presents the option of practical attorney training where librarians collaborate with faculty to provide additional instruction through MOOCs or workshops on professional skills for graduating law students within the space of the library. The third solution is to increase the use of digital materials that are open access, offered through collaborated licensing, or no longer under copyright to save money for the legal institution. All of these are possible, workable solutions that I hope will be helpful for law school administration, library management, and staff.