The Skinny on Law Librarianship

July 11th, 2006

By way of beSpacific (a blog I’ve added back into my aggregator due to my new job) comes the annual piece on law librarians from the American Lawyer. I’m really excited about it this year, for obvious reasons. I’ve done a light skim (more indepth reading will be done on the train tomorrow) and I came across this quote:

“While the reporters may be gone, or going, many other books are harder to replace with online versions. “Getting rid of the reporters is easy,” says Kathleen Martin, director of library services at McKenna Long & Aldridge, which ended its reporter print subscriptions four years ago. “You just call up the cases online and print them out.” Harder, she says, are works like treatises: “That sort of research is more analytical, where you want to spread a lot of books out on a table.” Adds Rochelle Cheifetz, director of libaries at Dechert: “In certain subject areas, it’s extremely difficult to wean lawyers off books. In tax and securities in particular, one matter may impact many regulations and laws, so attorneys want to have six or seven books open at the same time.”

I’m starting work on 2 big weeding projects this month. Basically, we have been asked to cut costs for book purchases and I have been charged with looking at the collection and figuring out what to keep and what to toss. Reporters are easy to toss (we’re keeping a few to make the libraries look like libraries) but the treatises are hard for me to get rid of. I don’t think I will. The Bender and West series’ are so very helpful for not only attorneys, but my research as well. I can’t give them up (don’t make me Ray )

While I’m chatting about work, life at Law Library Management is amazing. I’m doing tons of research, learning the management ropes, and meeting many new people (while reconnecting with old friends). I was only out of “the biz” for a year and a half but lots has changed. For example, The New York Law Journal (a staple for every law librarian in NY) is now on Westlaw and not Lexis. Not a big deal for you maybe, but my two big firm clients are mainly Lexis firms (ie, it costs an arm and a leg to do a Westlaw search). You should have seen the look on my face when I was informed of this little nugget of information.

I really missed the law library field. And I missed my treatises…don’t make me get rid of them. Please.

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