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Episode 075: The Myth of the Looming Recruitment Crisis in Law Librarianship

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Episode 075: Recruiting Lawyers and Librarians to Law LibrarianshipWednesday, November 7, 2007 Playing time: 50:26This is a talk I gave at the Libraries Without Borders conference in Toronto, on Thursday, October 18, 2007. I'm concerned that we may be overselling the profession--there is certainly a demand for qualified law librarians, but how much is that demand, and what really constitutes "qu... read more

Latest Episodes for this Channel

Episode 075: The Myth of the Looming Recruitment Crisis in Law Librarianship

Thu November 08 2007

Episode 075: Recruiting Lawyers and Librarians to Law LibrarianshipWednesday, November 7, 2007 Playing time: 50:26This is a talk I gave at the Libra... read more

Episode 074: Lawyerswithdepression.com

Thu June 21 2007

Episode 074: Lawyerswithdepression.com Friday, June 22, 2007 Playing time: 20:39 Dan Lukasik is a successful Buffalo lawyer who struggles with sever... read more

Episode 073: Susan Drummond and Her Neighbor, Mr. Rogers

Fri June 15 2007

Episode 073: Susan Drummond and Her Neighbor, Mr. Rogers Friday, June 15, 2007 Playing time: 42:18 In August 2005, York University Law Professor Sus... read more

Episode 072: The Yirka Question

Tue June 12 2007

Episode 072: The Yirka Question Tuesday, June 12, 2007 Playing time: 28:43 Guest:Carl Yirka, Director of theJulien and Virginia Cornell Library and... read more

Episode 072: The Yirka Question Tuesday, June 12, 2007 Playing time: 28:43 Guest:Carl Yirka, Director of theJulien and Virginia Cornell Library and Professor of Law, Vermont Law School. I speak with Carl about making hard decisions: what traditional library services should we stop doing, so that we can do other things that are a better fit with our institutional priorities? Atul Gawande, "The Bell Curve," New Yorker, December 6, 2004; Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance (2007). Email from Carl Yirka to lawlibdir listserv, May 31, 2007: Greetings from Vermont: I'm writing a report for my Deans and am discussing some of the things we have consciously stopped doing, or are doing less than we have in the past. One of the questions we try to ask is: what can we stop doing, in order to do other higher priority items? After I once asked this question at a faculty meeting, the former CFO began to call this "the Yirka question"... not to honor me in any way, but so he could ask the question without anyone getting angry at him. It is of course the sort of question that raises issues of turf. Here's a brief list of what we have stopped doing: We are not binding law journals that appear in HeinOnline; we are collecting less government documents; less actively collecting of archival materials; not offering ref service from the Ref Desk - now offered from our offices; not sending "of interest" notices to (mostly) faculty for new books; not doing "prepare to practice/research review" research workshops previously done at the end of spring term; faculty research workshops - not done for a few years; not having 4 librarians each teach 2 sections of Legal Research. Now we have 3 teaching 3; we've cut back on the number of research classes for MSEL (Master of Science in Environmental Law) students taught by a librarian. --The writing instructor incorporated basic legal research into the Writing classes, and a librarian introduced them to our subscription databases and the Free Environmental Sites Guide; not administering CALI - now administered by Academic Success office; not assisting faculty with TWEN and PowerPoint - the faculty administrative assistants are doing that; In recent conversation with my sister, who is a librarian in a special library, she told me they no longer check in periodicals. After getting over the shock of that, I began to wonder whether we are too constrained in what we feel we must do. So, I am curious as to what your libraries have stopped doing. Best regards, Carl Email from Carl Yirka to lawlibdir listserv, June 1, 2007: Several of you have asked 1) why are you stopping these things, and 2) what are we now doing that is more important than the services we have discontinued? We made the stop decisions consciously. In part we were short staffed, and were doing a work redesign, so wanted to stop doing things that we felt were not worth it. We were not doing these things badly, but in spite of doing them well no one seemed to care whether we were doing these things. Penny Hazelton pointed out to me that one of Don Dunn's favorite questions is, "What are you doing well that you don't need to do at all?" Our Dean had not specifically asked us to do this exercise; I'm trying to be ahead of the curve. We are not yet at the point of doing the new services. As part of our redesign we have hired a new Lawyer/Librarian starting 2 July, and are moving a librarian from collection development to a second lawyer/librarian position this summer. We will soon be in the market for an librarian for collection development and technology; we'll be interviewing at AALL I trust. Here's a bit of background explaining how we got here. I have heard from many of you that your deans feel that your libraries are doing a good job, that you run a good library, but that in spite of that deans are cutting staffing and book budgets, and taking library space for other purposes. I have not heard it described quite this brusquely, but the conversation I imagine go something like this: Dean to Library Director: "The library is doing a good job for the budget you have; but what can you do if I cut your budget by 10%.... 20%..... 30%..... I know, I know.. Library directors for decades have made the claim that budgets must get bigger.. publishers charge more, we can't control that... new technologies cost a lot.... you need lots of staff to do the library stuff....the library needs more space...you never want to get rid of anything... Let's try something different. Cut the budget, do your best on collection and services, and let me tell you when we reach a level that hurts the institution." In other words, I think some deans don't value what we have been doing, (despite our efforts to educate deans) or to put it a different way - what we have been doing is not in synch with institutional priorities. If they were, deans would be putting more money toward libraries. They seem to find money for their priorities. So what institutional priorities are there that the Library might take on? The new goal that we have identified is that the Library needs to do more to help faculty be more productive scholars. Yes... that means to help them publish more. Clearly this is an institutional goal, and one that is on the margin of running a good library. Providing the book and electronic materials for faculty to do their research is a traditional library goal;, we are talking about doing something more. I've been surveying our faculty asking what sort of things they would like the Library to do in order for them to be more productive scholars. I've said that at this point I can't make any firm commitments; but I want them to "dream no small dreams." I realize that this is a bit scary. I realize that the things faculty might want to outsource to the library are those things that are not working at all, or are not working well. That's the way life is: the opportunities lie where things are not going well. There are risks here. Will I get their hopes up for things we can't produce? Will some of their hopes be far outside the scope of traditional library work? (I have heard of one law library that now supervises faculty secretaries, and makes faculty travel arrangements). Might we become glorified (or unglorified) research assistants or secretaries? I think the benefits outweigh the risks. Doing merely the more traditional library goals seems to me a recipe for slow death. I provide you here with the unedited list of faculty desires. Some of these things we already do, but perhaps not to the level faculty would like, or they don't realize we have done them. Some items are not clearly keyed to faculty scholarly productivity. You will note that "footnotes" comes up more than once. Suggestions so far: understand the rankings of law reviews, and which law review would be the best place to submit articles of on various topicsDraft the footnotes; draft some of the footnotes;write the complex research footnotes: e.g determine the cites to similar statutes in the other 49 states.review drafts of faculty articles and determine whether there are better footnotes.Research Fellows* have a research assistant pool in library supervised by librarians; have librarians do the paperwork and training of research assistants;librarians review research assistant's work producthave electronic feeds come to a Librarian, and only forward the most relevant to the faculty member.Create complete SSRN files for faculty, include all historical literature as wellcreate a portal for every upper level class whether faculty ask for it or not.Current awareness services: CLIP, RSS feeds, Google readertake over responsibility for plagiarism reviews of student papersLibrarians as consultants on faculty web page: cv creation; click thru to articles, SSRNWord/Powerpoint expertise & creationFootnotes: do them? Clean them up? Know blue book well.supplement the work of the Communications office: understand the publishers, book, periodical, newspaper culture well enough to act as a consultant for faculty considering unique publication places: literary agent for the facultyUnderstand the pecking order of law reviews better, especially for interdisciplinary journalsUnderstand the timing and template issues for law journal publicationWhich law reviews take unsolicited manuscriptsContent creators for blogsLiaison lunch with faculty member every semester; individual and group lunchCreate on demand bibliographies for faculty membersManage faculty contact with other libraries: (Several faculty members pay for privileges to use Dartmouth College Library) renew books, etc.Librarian *embedded* near where faculty workProvide competitive intelligence: how do other law schools do XProvide lunch table consults in the faculty dining areaProvide more Science databasesClean up blue book sitesLaw review rankingsBlogs; act as content creators for blogsTrain RAs to do social science research & govdocs researchAdditional classroom support: review and prep video clipsDevelop better video collectionDevelop course reserves for classesbecome the experts for Citation 9Play a role in the hierarchy between faculty and RA: mid level associateDevelop brief bank for clinic Perhaps you think this is completely crazy, or perhaps you already do all this. I would enjoy your comments. If nothing else, I've got down a rough draft that will help me write my memo.best regards,Carl Theme Music: T. Nile, Get Together. (T. Nile's CD, At My Table, is available from Festival Distribution and CD Baby and through iTunes.) Blog: http://checkthisoutpodcast.com Email: jim.milles@gmail.com Comment line: (716) 989-4422 or Skype "jmilles" read less

Episode 071: Full Frontal Feminism, with Jessica Valenti

Wed June 06 2007

Episode 071: Full Frontal Feminism, with Jessica ValentiWednesday, June 6, 2007 Playing time: 27:43 Jessica Valenti is the founder and Executive Edi... read more

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Episode 075: The Myth of the Looming Recruitment Crisis in Law Librarianship

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