Digital Commons Network^™

A Body Without A Soul: Why Print Still Matters In Legal Research, Mari Cheney, Heather Simmons

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

This article argues that print still has a place in legal research pedagogy and that some materials should still be collected in print in addition to online should the budget allow for it due to five primary reasons: (1) stability of legal information; (2) context; (3) information literacy; (4) algorithm bias; and (5) the discovery of information. Since many law library budgets are shrinking, there are creative ways for online legal publishers to make online material more print-like should libraries be unable to purchase both print and online material.

Review Of Becoming A Library Leader: Seven Stages Of Leadership Development For Academic Librarians, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Review of Freedman, James M. and Freedman, Shin (Ed.) (2020). Becoming a Library Leader: Seven Stages of Leadership Development for Academic Librarians. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries.

Best International Poster Presentations: Connectedness @ The Alex, Anne Burnett, Rachel S. Evans

Presentations

The mission was to determine effective combination of apps to support both the workflows and the social connectedness of a collegial staff forced to pivot to working from home with one week’s notice.

The University of Georgia’s Alexander Campbell King Law Library has a staff of around 25 with a strong culture of face-to-face communication, collegiality and socialization. Our work is often team-driven, and small groups walk to nearby coffee shops nearly daily for informal meetings and camaraderie. When we transitioned rapidly to a work-from-home environment in mid-March, the library’s leadership was concerned not only that every staff member would …

Reprogramming To Unplug During Covid-19: My Never Ending Story, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

In this short candid article member Rachel Evans provides effective strategies for unwinding during COVID-19 including practicing more mindfulness and other activities to find balance while teleworking.

AALL's New Voices is for members to share insights on any aspect of law librarianship. Pieces in this series also appear on the Members Open Forum in addition to being published as part of the AALL monthly eNewsletter. Topics in the series include: starting a new role, insights on professional development, recommending a favorite resource, providing an overview of an AALL webinar, or your take on an article from AALL Spectrum, …

Top 5 Ts-Centric Webinar & Virtual Conference Highlights, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

The increase of wonderful, FREE programming being delivered virtually right now and available to audiences around the world is truly amazing. It can be overwhelming to sift through the options (especially if your inbox has exponentially exploded as mine has over the past 3 months). Take a trip back in time with me as I share below my favorite sessions that I feel offered the most valuable content to those of us in technical services positions.

TechScans is a blog to share the latest trends and technology tools for technical services law librarians. The official blog of the TS-SIS and …

Resources For Work & Play: Gems From The Internet Archive, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Who doesn’t love the Internet Archive? As one of the longest running vehicles for capturing content generated online, it also serves as one of the primary databases for Public Domain and Creative Commons licensed media. Founded in 1996, the vast archive includes more than 430 billion web pages, but the fun doesn’t stop with the web. As a non-profit library, it also presents a broad spectrum of collections, from live audio to feature films, ebooks to software, and even patents and other government documents. In this post I wanted to share some favorites from the archive I’ve enjoyed recently, …

Review Of The 360 Librarian: Integrating Mindfulness, Emotional Intelligence, And Critical Reflection In The Workplace, Geraldine R. Kalim

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Review of Owens, T.M. and Daul-Elhindi, C.A. (2020).The 360 librarian: A framework for integrating mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and critical reflection in the workplace. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries. 164pp.

Power Projects For Quarantined Librarians, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Some of us are approaching the two month mark of our library's closure to the public. Though it has definitely had ups and downs, I have found it has helped me better carve out time for professional development activities, dedicate more of my day to clean-up projects I have just not had time to follow through on, and even start new projects with the help of colleagues who found themselves needing a little more to do from home. I hope this post will elaborate on that topic to give specific project examples for those working in collection services, technical services, …

Taking The Office Home: Telework With Trello & Slack, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Amidst the anxiety, fear and overwhelm we are all feeling, many of us across the country have been scrambling to figure out teleworking for our libraries while setting up physical spaces at home. Evans outlines the solutions UGA Law Library deployed as they transitioned during a time of rapid change.

On Being A New Voice, A New Everything, Geraldine R. Kalim

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

In this thoughtful post, member Geraldine Kalim reflects on being a new librarian, a new University of Georgia employee, a new/returning resident of the state of Georgia, and a new mother.

AALL's New Voices is for members to share insights on any aspect of law librarianship. Pieces in this series also appear on the Members Open Forum in addition to being published as part of the AALL monthly eNewsletter. Topics in the series include: starting a new role, insights on professional development, recommending a favorite resource, providing an overview of an AALL webinar, or your take on an article …

Conference Roundup: Workshop Report On Digitization For Small Institutions, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Evans reviews a recent Georgia Library Association (GLA) preconference workshop presented by the Digital Library of Georgia (DLG). Evans shares takeaways from the half-day experience including resources related to the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and the Digital Library Foundation (DLF). The report also presents learning objective in the context of the author's own work responsibilities and details how they will be useful and relate to current projects. Topics discussed include metadata, digitization, archiving digital-born photographs, repository standards, cataloging standards, and more.

Technical Services Law Librarian (ISSN 0195-4857) is an official publication of the Technical Services Special Interest Section …

Review Of The Future Academic Librarian's Toolkit: Finding Success On The Job Hunt And In Your First Job, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Review of Hodge, Megan (Ed.) (2019). The Future Academic Librarian's Toolkit: Finding Success on the Job Hunt and in Your First Job. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries.

Gla Conference Review: Workshop On Digitization For Small Institutions, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Rachel Evans summarizes the recent Georgia Library Association (GLA) conference held in Macon, GA in October 2019. Specifically Evans reviews in detail a workshop on digitization for small institutions. The workshop and by extension the blog post review share valuable resources for project managers working on digitization in their libraries and within their digital repositories as well as information about metadata standards and best practices.

TechScans is a blog to share the latest trends and technology tools for technical services law librarians. The official blog of the TS-SIS and OBS-SIS AALL groups.

How To Hack Outreach: An A To Z Guide Of Collaborative Ideas, Tips & Tools, Rachel S. Evans, Sharon Bradley, Marie Mize, Szilvia Somodi, David Rutland

Presentations

In an increasingly digital word, how do we communicate to library users? How can librarians and staff collaborate effectively on a variety of outreach efforts? In this session, panelists from UGA Law Library take turns sharing an alphabetically organized catalog of favorite tools, tips and general ideas including library displays, social media, and face-to-face offerings. At the close of the presentation attendees will have a chance to ask questions, participate in an open discussion about what has worked or not for them and why, and take a handout of our complete A to Z guide with resource links and examples.

Maximizing Your Faculty's Scholarly Impact: Techniques To Increase Findability, Carol A. Watson, Thomas J. Striepe, Caroline Osborne

Presentations

Increasing the impact of faculty scholarship is consistently a top priority at law schools. Law librarians are uniquely positioned to offer a significant amount of assistance to faculty and law administration in achieving this goal and enhancing the reputation of the law school. Understanding the differences between the tools and techniques available to assist on this topic can be a complex endeavor. This program focused on providing the best strategies to increase the impact of faculty scholarship. Speakers discussed the various social media platforms available to upload scholarship, as well as how to increase findability in search results and take …

Better With Science: Strengthening Patron Learning, Heather Simmons, Alyson Drake, Joseph Lawson

Presentations

A baseline understanding of cognitive theory and educational psychology concepts is critical to successful student learning. With librarians in all settings providing more teaching and training than ever, designing educational experiences with these concepts in mind will result in greater retention and understanding for their patrons. This program will discuss five important ideas from cognitive learning science and give examples of how librarians and other information professionals can incorporate those theories into their instructional offerings. Participants will then work in groups to brainstorm ways various theories can be applied as they design or restructure their own instructional programs.

Takeaways:

1) …

Time Traveling With Timelines: Web Apps For Storytelling In Libraries, Sharon Bradley, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

From online embeds to interactive displays, timelines can serve many purposes and tell powerful stories. At the University of Georgia’s Law Library we have teamed up with faculty and staff to bring history to life, engage students, and preserve scholarly and institutional milestones. Through trial and error we have found a variety of tools for creating timelines digitally. In this article we share our four favorite web-based applications for creating timelines including Tiki-Toki, TimeToast, Prezi and Piktochart.

Time Lords & Timelines Panel, Sharon Bradley, Rachel S. Evans, David Rutland

Presentations

From self-guided online embeds to immersive live displays, timelines can serve many purposes and tell powerful stories. In this panel three members of UGA's Law Library shared how they bring history to life, engage students, and preserve the scholarly and institutional milestones of the Law School with timelines by enhancing guide and repository collections, complimenting physical item displays and interacting with patrons at special events using multimedia. A variety of tools for creating digital timelines and gathering content were discussed including our four favorite applications: Prezi, TimeToast, Tiki-Toki, and Piktochart. Comparisons were given based on cost, technical limitations, collaborative potential, …

Essentials Of A Publication Agreement, Stephen Wolfson, Mariann Burright

Presentations

This session will focus on authors' rights and publishing contracts. When academic publishers agree to publish academic works, they require the authors to sign agreements before doing so. In the past, these “agreements” – contracts, by another name – often have contained provisions that primarily benefit the publishers, including assigning intellectual property rights in the works to the publishers and limiting authors’ abilities to use their works after transferring their rights. Faculty authors often ask librarians for their guidance on how to read and negotiate publication agreements. As such, this session will discuss common provisions found in publishing contracts to …

What's In A Licensing Agreement?, Stephen Wolfson, Mariann Burright

Presentations

Now that you know the foundations of enforceable contracts, and want to have more familiarity with some nuts and bolts of contract language to become a better negotiator for your institutions, you will want to take this second webinar.
Participants will learn:
• What are the basic provisions or clauses of a contract?
• What do these provisions obligate my institution to do?
• What do these provisions obligate the other party to do?
• What rights does my institution have if the other party breaks its obligations?

Project Management Madness: 3 Key Programs For Communication, Personal Tasks And Large Projects, Rachel S. Evans

Presentations

No matter what member of a team you are, be it content editor, web designer, database manager or systems administrator, getting things done and meeting goals depends largely on how you communicate with one another, handle your time and effectively collaborate on small and big projects. This session will use our own team's preferred platforms to show specific examples of how we are managing our taskflow across three different programs to tackle business as usual, short and long term work, and major special projects.

The three programs that will be compared for pros, cons, and their integration with one another …

Contract Basics For Librarians And Others In Higher Ed, Stephen Wolfson, Mariann Burright

Presentations

If you have signature or negotiation authority for your institution, and would like to get an overview of contracts to learn what your institution’s rights and obligations may be under a contract, this session is for you! Participants will learn:

• Why it is important to understand how contracts work?
• What does it mean for a contract to be enforceable in a US court?
• How is an enforceable contract formed?
• What could lead to contract breach?

Setting Priorities, Meeting Deadlines, And Managing Projects For Law Librarians, Thomas J. Striepe, Deborah Schander, George Taoultsides, Austin Williams

Presentations

Have you ever looked at your “To Do” list and thought, “I have back-to-back meetings this afternoon and three team projects due in the next couple weeks. I keep putting off writing that article, and, oh look! I just got an emergency email that’s going to take up my morning. How am I supposed to get all of this done on time?” If so, you aren’t alone. Some of the most fundamental skills a librarian can develop are learning to manage projects and competing priorities. In this program, the speakers will highlight some of the tools, software, and personal ideas …

The Changing Landscape Of Digitization And Preservation, Sharon Bradley

Presentations

Digitization and the preservation of digitized materials presents many complex legal questions, like ownership, copyright, and conflicting laws. Digital materials may be subject to many levels of legal restrictions like copying, storage, access, and modification of content. The speaker will probably confuse things even more by talking about some issues that are coming over the hill including legally enforceable duties of stewardship, loss of academic scholarship and legal authority, and arguments against strict enforcement of copyright law. It’s also time to move from collaborations, because they’re good idea, to legally established partnerships, because they have teeth.

Cultivating Team And Project Management: A Hybrid Mix, Rachel S. Evans, Karen Manning, Alexis D. Linoski, Sofia Slutskaya

Presentations

Managing project and team-based work within libraries can be challenging and often involves people from multiple departments performing crossfunctional tasks. Supporting collaborative efforts is a strategy that leads to improved productivity and successful outcomes. Join this session to learn informal approaches and collaborative techniques to work more efficiently and effectively among groups (cross-training, project management, team-building) and with tools such as Trello and KanbanFlow. These methods will help you connect with your peers for project and team success.

Digitize Your To-Do List, Rachel S. Evans

Presentations

This lightning talk will revolve around the Kanban method as a successful project management method. KanbanFlow.com will be introduced as a user-friendly tool for implementing Kanban in the workplace to improve performance outcomes and deal with shifting and measuring priorities. A comparison will be made of digital versus paper to-do lists for librarians and library staff. Features of this free web-based application will be covered including: collaboration between team members, Pomodoro time-tracking, dates and deadlines, recurring tasks, sub-tasks, and digital board customization.

Digitize Your To-Do List: A Librarian's Introduction To Kanbanflow, Rachel S. Evans

Presentations

This session discussed the various ways in which the Kanban method of task management, and specifically the online application KanbanFlow can turn a librarian's paper to-do lists into digital lists with auto-reminders, timers for enhancing focus, and many other tools for increasing productivity.