Law Librarianship Commons^™

A Transition To Retirement, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

Perhaps this article will start you thinking about your own retirement, whether it’s around the corner or many years in the future. You can talk to financial advisers about pensions and health insurance. It’s also important to think about intangibles, like changing your professional identity and what you will miss about your work. You plan your other career moves (job to job, city to city); this transition is worth planning, too.

Ok, Zoomer: Teaching Legal Research To Gen Z, Olivia R. Smith Schlinck

Library Staff Articles

Generation Z has entered law school. With each new generation comes new education preferences. While research on Gen Z in the legal academy has grown over the past few years, to date none deal explicitly with teaching legal research to Gen Z. This article connects Gen Z’s childhood and resulting peer personality to 10 tangible pedagogical changes for teaching legal research to Gen Z.

Voices Across The Spectrum: Grit, Gusto & The Greater Good: The Formation Of A First-Gen Caucus, Rachel S. Evans, Deanne Fix, Joseph Lawson, Sara Monalea Mcmahon, Aimee Pittman

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Article sharing the story of the newly-formed First-Gen Caucus in the American Association of Law Libraries.

No Jd? No Problem: Aall Annual Conference Review, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

This installment of ALL-SIS Newsletter’s short reviews of AALL2020 conference programs is by Rachel Evans, Metadata Services and Special Collections Librarian at the University of Georgia School of Law’s Alexander Campbell King Law Library. It was originally published to the ALL-SIS blog. The session recording is available to conference registrants, and will be available to all members in 2021. The full review will appeared in the fall issue of the Newsletter.

How Intelligent Ci Instruction Gives Law Students A Competitive Edge, Heather Simmons, Beau Steenken, Liz Whittington, Joshua Pluta

Presentations

"Competitive intelligence" (CI) is a term that gets bandied about across many sectors, but how exactly do law firms use it to further their business? Academics are aware of CI as a concept, but teaching students how to conduct competitive intelligence requires a more nuanced understanding of how it is actually used. In a discussion moderated by a newer academic librarian who will be teaching competitive intelligence for the first time, a firm librarian will share insights into how competitive intelligence can and should be used, and an academic librarian who regularly teaches competitive intelligence will offer tips on how …

Data, Stats, Go: Navigating The Intersections Of Cataloging, E-Resource, And Web Analytics Reporting, Rachel S. Evans, Wendy Moore, Jessica Pasquale, Andre Davison

Presentations

Do you trudge through gathering statistics at fiscal or calendar year-end? Do you wonder why you track certain things, thinking many seem outdated or irrelevant? Many places seem to keep counting certain statistics because "that's what they've always done." For e-resources, how do you integrate those with physical counts and reconcile the variations (updated e-resources versus re-cataloged physical items)? What about repository downloads and other web traffic? The quantity of stats that libraries track is staggering and keeps growing. This program will encourage attendees to stop and evaluate what and why they're gathering data and help identify possible alternatives to …

Apps For Actionable Workflows: Tools To Stay In The Loop And On Top Of Tasks, Rachel S. Evans

Presentations

No matter what member of the team you are or what type of library you are in - be it electronic resources manager, cataloger, head of acquisitions, ILS or systems administrator, or even repository coordinator - getting things done and meeting goals depends largely on how you communicate with one another and how you handle your time. Meeting goals and deadlines on both big and small projects in addition to your personal tasks can be achieved less painfully by making effective use of a few on point tools. This session will use the presenter's preferred platforms to show specific examples …

Cool Tools For Time & Project Management, Rachel S. Evans, Geraldine R. Kalim

Presentations

Student Services Librarian Geraldine Kalim and Metadata Services Librarian Rachel Evans shared their favorite web-based applications and smartphone apps. Tools included Kanbanflow, Google Suite, Trello, Slack, Moleskin Journey, and Voice Notes. Screen captures and specific examples of how each presenter uses the apps in their daily worklife in the law library as well as examples of special projects and best apps for team collaboration were given. There was also a short time for questions and discussion following the talk.

Telling Our Stories At Ifla’S 2019 Meeting In Athens, Greece, Anne Burnett

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Anne Burnett summarizes the 85^th World Legal Information Congress (WLIC) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions’ (IFLA) annual meeting held at the Megaron Convention Center, located in the Kolonaki neighborhood of Athens, Greece. Specially Burnett reviews two IFLA sponsored programs held August 26 - 27, 2019.

DipLawMatic Dialogues is the official blog of the Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Special Interest Group of the American Association of Law Libraries. The FCIL-SIS serves as a forum for the exchange of ideas and information on foreign, comparative and international law and legal research. This blog is intended …

Calicon Re-Cap, Jason Tubinis, Rachel S. Evans

Presentations

Rachel Evans and Jason Tubinis shared takeaways with other law librarians from the annual Computer Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) Conference held in Columbia, SC in the summer of 2019.

Conference Recap: #Calicon19, Rachel S. Evans, Jason Tubinis

Presentations

Evans and Tubinis gave a quick review of their favorite sessions from the Computer Assisted Legal Instruction conference in summer 2019 to an audience of law librarians and special library association members.

Quick Question: What About Conferences?, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Rachel Evans targets other merging technical services librarians in this blog post for new members. The post shares personal experience with conferences and other advice as well as offers other members to contribute their own advice and memories in response.

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.

Quick Question: What’S With All Those Acronyms?, Rachel S. Evans, Keelan Weber

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Rachel Evans and Keelan Weber break down the key acronyms and related terminology for other new technical services and online bibliographic services special interest section members in this blog post.

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.

Data Visualization: Tips & Tricks, Amy Taylor, Carol A. Watson

Presentations

Data visualization has quickly become a fixture in daily life, from presentations of charts and graphs by media organizations to presentations of data analytics and case relationships by legal database providers. This program will walk participants through the four conceptualizations of data presentation, as well as an exploration on using data visualization to persuade your audience. We will present law library examples for each concept, using free and low cost data visualization tools.

Tidying-Up Your Digital Life: Knowledgement Management In Law School & Beyond, Amy Taylor

Presentations

Taylor delivered a session full of tips and tricks for gathering information and keeping it all organized in the age of info-overload. Portions of the session focused on apps, cloud storage, label systems, customizing news alerts and developing your own trusted method for intake and synthesis. Specific applications that were discussed in greater detail included Evernote, Pocket, OneNote and AirTable. Attendee's walked away with ideas about how to best manage their own busy inboxes, news and articles by off-loading working memory anxiety's to a personal system that fits their professional life needs.

Buckets, Kincaid C. Brown

Law Librarian Scholarship

Inspired by “‘A Day in My Law Library Life,’ Circa 1997,” this compilation collects descriptions of a day in the lives of law librarians in 2018. The descriptions provide a current snapshot and historical record of the law library profession, with similarities to, and differences from, the profession of 1997.

Ask A Director: Tackling Technology Competencies, Kincaid C. Brown

Law Librarian Scholarship

Question: What technology competencies do librarians and legal information professionals need to assist their organizations as they grapple with issues such as data analytics, artificial intelligence, etc.?

Everything From Soup To Nuts: The Full Plate Of Academic Law Library Directorship, Ronald E. Wheeler

Shorter Faculty Works

Inspired by "A Day in My Law Library Life,' Circa 1997," this compilation collects descriptions of a day in the lives of law librarians in 2018. The descriptions provide a current snapshot and historical record of the law library profession, with similarities to, and differences from, the profession of 1997.

Telling Your Story: Using Metrics To Display Your Value (H2), Wendy E. Moore, Thomas J. Striepe, Steve Lastres, Joy Shoemaker

Presentations

The American Bar Association, academic institutions, law firms, and governments are demanding more and more outcome-based performance. However, displaying these outcomes is difficult for law libraries. Law libraries possess an abundance of data, but determining which metrics will showcase your law library’s value and performance is difficult. Speakers from a law school, law firm, and court library will explain the different metrics they use to display their value to their stakeholders. After these short presentations, a “fishbowl” discussion will provide participants the chance to share and learn about different metrics and tools law libraries are using to best tell their …

Universal Citation In Sixty Seconds, Anne Burnett

Presentations

A large format infographic describing the system for citation which permits reference to legal or law-related information in any medium without requiring reference to proprietary products. Includes a timeline of the Universal Citation Guide from 1993 to 2012, citation elements, a list of states and territories that adopted the practice and an interactive QR code for accessing AALL's page on this citation format. The poster also encouraged viewers to advocate for adopting Universal citation with judges, attorneys and legislators.

In And Out Behind The Desk--In And Out Of The Country, Kimberli Kelmor

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the fifteen-plus years I've been a law librarian, I've been in and out of the closet. Or, more accurately, I've been out, back in, and back out again. That status could change at any time.

The Effect Of Economics And Electronic Resources On The Traditional Law Library Print Collection, Amanda M. Runyon

Librarian Scholarship at Penn Law

The exponential rise in the cost of legal materials and the increasing availability of and expectation for electronic materials have strained the budgets of academic law libraries. The author surveyed directors of academic law libraries to identify trends in collection management, such as canceling, weeding, and signing library maintenance agreements.

Service: The Core Of Law Librarianship, Margaret A. Leary

Law Librarian Scholarship

This guest editorial by Margaret A. Leary describes her vision of one of the core values of our profession: service. It eloquently reminds us of our responsibilities as law librarians.

The Law Librarian's Education And The Autonomous Library, Marian G. Gallagher

Articles

I am concerned with a defense for the law library administrator who has been presented with serious arguments contradicting his beliefs that a law librarian's education should include both law and librarianship, and, often in issue with it, that there are special aspects of law library administration which prevent its fitting neatly into a unified library system. The frequency with which the two beliefs are attacked simultaneously results from the fact that, salary scales being in issue, librarians object more heatedly to the added cost of legal training than do lawyers to the added cost of librarianship training; when they …

The Law Librarianship Course At The University Of Washington, Marian G. Gallagher

Articles

Under the quizzing of maiden aunts, very few five-year-olds express the hope of becoming law librarians when grown. Nor have their attitudes toward the opportunities and fascination of law librarianship altered to any discernible degree by the time they begin filling out applications for admission to law school, or reach that advanced stage in legal education marked by interviews with placement officials. This profession is not one which has distinguished itself as a goal; in short, and baldly, neophyte law librarians do not walk in and apply for positions-they have to be recruited.

Voting membership for University of Washington law …