Presentation at the Law Librarians of New England Fall 2013 meeting, The New Normal in Law Librarianship.

1. Acquiring and Maintaining
Resources for the New Collection
LLNE Fall Meeting
Boston, MA
October 4, 2013
Bess Reynolds
Technical Services Manager
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP

2. Debevoise
• 650 attorneys
• 8 offices in 6 countries
• 70% + in New York
• 33 practice areas
o 56% corporate
o 35% litigation
o 9% tax
• 4 offices have full time library staff
Presented by Bess Reynolds 2

3. The New Normal
Moving from
Just in Case
to
Just in Time
Presented by Bess Reynolds 3

4. The library
is not a place
Presented by Bess Reynolds 4

5. On the Desktop
• 50,000+ eBooks from NYLI
• 50,000+ digital resources via
Serials Solutions
• 1,000+ RSS feeds
• 500+ direct electronic
subscriptions
• 100 Matthew Bender treatises as
eBooks
Presented by Bess Reynolds 5

6. Available in 2 hours
• 300,000 print volumes of
primary and secondary legal
materials from NYLI
• Resources from Columbia Law
Library by subscription
• Traditional ILL from other
libraries and local firms
Presented by Bess Reynolds 6

7. In the Library
30,000 volumes of print
• Treatises, primary & secondary
legal materials
• Periodicals
• Newspapers
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8. Ratio of Electronic to Print Expenses
Presented by Bess Reynolds 8
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Electronic/Internet Subscriptions Print

9. Growth of Electronic Resources
as a % of Annual Budget
Presented by Bess Reynolds 9

10. • Set a collection development policy for:
o Selection
o Maintenance
o Access
• Centralize acquisitions
• Consult stakeholders
• Evaluate your budget based on practice
groups – size & economic importance
• Require practice head approval for large
purchases
Presented by Bess Reynolds 10

11. Presented by Bess Reynolds 11
How Do Vendor &
Publisher Practices
Affect Your
Collections?

12. Presented by Bess Reynolds 12
• NDAs: Non-disclosure agreements that
prohibit librarians from discussing pricing
of products & contracts
• Contract pricing that devalues print
content even though attorneys prefer
print (tax practitioners for example)
• Lack of meaningful usage statistics for
digital subscriptions
Pain Points

13. Pain Points Continued
• Substituting digital formats for print without
proper notice
• Digital versions of print serials that circulated
to many may come with a prohibitively high
single user price tag
• Creating proprietary platforms for eBooks
thwarting single silo for discovery
Presented by Bess Reynolds 13

14. The Budget
• These new resources have added to the costs
of the collections; many libraries have a
balancing act because the overall allocation
for materials has not increased to take into
account the cost of e-resources, so inevitably
cuts are made to purchases of new paper
books.*
• *Selling the Farm, Ruth Bird. 25 Sept., 2013, consulted 26
September. <http://www.slaw.ca/2013/09/25/selling-the-
farm/>
Presented by Bess Reynolds 14

15. Presented by Bess Reynolds 15
Vendors Have Not Developed
Library Management Tools
Busy lawyers don’t have time:
• To register themselves on web sites
• Manage their passwords
• Learn new platforms
• Find materials to support their practice
areas
IT department restricts the network:
• Attorneys (and librarians) cannot install
applications or vendor plug-ins
• New software requires extensive testing

16. Thank you
Contact me:
breynolds@debevoise.com
Follow me on Twitter*: @bibliobess
*highly personal reflecting my opinions only
Presented by Bess Reynolds 16