Public librarianship - a whole new world...

I recently went on a tour of the Barbican public library - which functions as a fantastic lending library bang in the City, and was really struck by the diferences between this kind of librarianship, and the kind we practise in the law library. Now obviously the environments are worlds apart - I realise that! But I have to admit I was quite struck by the differences in the skillsets needed by a corporate librarian, and a public librarian.

In some ways, however, our priorities boil down to the same fundamental issue - proving our worth in a very tough economic climate. The corporate law library within a law firm is always going to be very profit-orientated - and even more so than ever in the current shaky financial climate. We are trying to keep our spending down but our profits up. Our fee-earners want us to provide them with the best possible service in the most cost-effective way for their clients. As a service, we need to prove our worth, however, therefore we also want to carry out as much chargeable work as possible.

Talking to the librarians I met at the Barbican, the public library is equally, if not more, vulnerable in the current financial climate, and so they are trying to find ways of providing an excellent range of services to their users and encourage more and more people to join up, so that they can prove their worth to the local council who provides funding.

The key difference, I guess, is our users. A corporate library is rarely used for pleasure! A public library, although often used for research and so on, is often aiming to encourage people to use it for pleasure, or perhaps to learn a new skill. Therefore there is a far greater opportunity to be creative; to think up new ways to encourage people to use their library. The corporate environment will never be like this, and of course I accept this - but it doesn't mean I am always happy about it!

One other thing that struck me was that in the public library, I think you need to be far more adept at dealing with people from all walks of life, because your users are from a whole spectrum of backgrounds. In the law library, we obviously only deal with lawyers/trainee lawyers, who for the most part, tend to be more than capable of expressing what they want and when they need it. In the public library, however, we were told that when on the enquiry desk you really could be asked anything and everything! Plus, you need to be able to communicate effectively with people of all ages, in order to fully understand what it is they are looking for. I think working in this environment probably makes you a lot more open minded. Of course I don't speak for all us corporate librarians, but from my own perspective, we are probably at risk of becoming a little bit used to only dealing with a certain kind of person. Although dealing with lawyers undoubtedly requires a lot of patience and tact at times, dealing with the general public is a whole different ball game.

One thing that we do share is our outlook on e-books. The librarians I met said that there are no plans as yet to implement e-book lending in British libraries, and furthermore, that they do not foresee the oft-talked about 'death of the book' - but rather a world in which the two different kinds of book co-exist. At present we are encountering the same feeling...e-books are not something that every fee-earner would use; in fact there is a large proportion of our fee-earners who simply refuse to use anything other than a hard copy text. At present, we do not see ourselves venturing into the e-book quagmire any more than we do already, simply because the take-up of such a service would not be high enough to justify the costs involved. This may change as the older fee-earners retire and are replaced by a generation of lawyers who were accustomed to using mainly e-books at law school - but for now, we approach the area with caution and only have a few looseleafs and books available online. Where we have this, we also have the key ones in hard copy anyway.

Some of this post may sound like I am being a little bit negative about my own profession, so for the record: I'm not! All I am doing is critically analysing the kind of librarianship I currently practise. While I enjoy my job for the most part, I think everyone benefits from learning about other kinds of librarianship from time to time - and realising that although we may carry out very different kinds of work, we can still learn from each other, not just those who work in the same field as we do. Again it stresses the importance of good old networking and how we become far more rounded individuals when we have a greater awareness of all the different facets to librarianship.

Image courtesy of: healingdream / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Copyright in the digital age - BIALL Audioconference

I was very fortunate to be able to get a place on an audioconference being organised by the BIALL Solos group (BIALL has a number of spin-off groups for various parts of the country/types of librarian) on 24th Nov 2011. Although not officially a solo librarian any more, I used to be one for some time and so am still part of this group. When I read about this seminar it was of great interest to me, because copyright in the age of technology is a fast-changing and evolving field, and is something that I only have a basic knowledge of - but would like to learn more. One of my managers acts as copyright officer for the firm, therefore she is out 'go-to' person with any queries, but just for my own development, I would like to know more, and this free telephone conference lasting only an hour was the ideal way of doing so.


CLA License
The seminar was hosted by Chris Holland, who used to work at the Law Society. The first part was dedicated to going through the proposed changes to CLA Licenses (Copyright Licensing Agency). Every law firm needs to be in possession of a licence from the CLA in order to allow them to make photocopies and store materials within reason.  The problem with the proposed changes are not just about the potential 40% hike in price, but also because in terms of licensing digital content, this is something that we often have separate agreements for with each of our vendors. Lexis do not want CLA to license their content, nor do we as a firm wish to pay effectively twice for copyright licensing. Another issue that was raised is that firms are increasngly doing less and less hard copy photocopying as a whole, therefore people don't want to pay a full copyright license fee for copying that they rarely actually carry out.

It was clear from the vocal reaction of many participants that the CLA license is a thorny issue and it will be interesting to see how the situation is resolved. At the end of the day, the CLA as a body still need to make money, while the law firms are becoming more and more resistant to paying certain fees, as the way we copy has changed so much. Certainly in our firm I can understand why it is an issue; we really do not copy from hard copies on a regular basis at all anymore - almost everything is online in one shape or another.


NLA Licence
We then moved onto discussing the licensing arrangements that each firm has in place for newspaper usage. At present there a range of licenses depending on your organisation size/turnover and business needs. Changes that affect this side of things, however, are newspapers like The Times and the Financial Times, who have created a paywall in terms of access to their content, and perhaps the biggest issue to date is this year's NLA v Meltwater case. This was a case that attracted a lot of attention because the NLA maintained that users of a news aggregation service (Meltwater) needed a license to receive the info, even though it was just a headline and summary - the judge maintained that the NLA were in the right and their copyright was being infringed - this small amount of info can be classed as a substantial part of an article. But Meltwater were relying on the 'temporary copies' provision of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, which was meant to allow for the titles of work to be used - but things have moved on in the digital age, and this is why we are running into such problems nowadays.

There a number of licenses under discussion at present; it looks like we shall be hearing debate on both the CLA and NLA licenses for some time to come.

I definitely found this part of the discussion to be highly topical to what we do in the library, and it was interesting to learn more about what actual licensing agreements firms have in place, as this is something that at present is negotiated by our copyright officer (one of my managers as already mentioned). However, I think it is vital that in order to progress within this field, I acquire a good grasp of what the issues are in this respect, as adhering to copyright law is an extremely important part of managing any library.


General changes to copyright in the EU/UK
We spent the last half of the audioconference discussing what other issues are impacting upon copyright law at present. One of the biggest issues facing Intellectual Property law in the UK right now is the Hargreaves Review. This is a review of IP law that was commissioned by the Government in order to ascertain what works and what doesn't work/needs revision etc, in light of the digital age we now find ourselves in. Prof Hargreaves was pretty critical of copyright laws in the UK, stating that at present, it is a barrier to economic growth. This is said to be due to the difficulties that people face in obtaining permission to use copyrighted material. He proposes the establishing of a Digital Copyright Exchange, which would be an online, straightforward means of getting clearance rights. Vince Cable announced only a couple of weeks ago that Richard Hooper has been tasked with investigating how to take this proposal forward. The Government are strongly of the opinion that it will open up the UK's IP systems for the better.

Another major issue we touched upon is the EU Copyright Directive. Chris maintained that many believe that the copyright exceptions contained in this directive should be far more generally implemented in UK law - at present, they are not mandatory, only optional. Therefore at present, EU member states can effectively pick and choose what they want and don't want to implement! Hargreaves states that allowing all of the exceptions to be implented would also assist.


Orphan Works
Orphan works are basically pieces of work for which the copyright owner cannot be contacted. This presents a huge problem to an institution like the British Library who want to digitise their collection - how can they do so if they cannot obtain permission for certain works? Furthermore, getting in touch with each individual copyright owner is simply logistically impossible! This is an example of how current copyright restrictions are thought to be standing in the way of letting our cultural heritage evolve. It is certainly a valid point in my opinion, and one to which I hadn't given a lot of thought until now. It does seem rather silly that we have moved on in so many ways in the last 20 years - probably technology has evolved more in that short time than at any other time! - yet we remain bound by what now appear to be somewhat antiquated laws that certainly don't suit today's 'digital economy'.

Digital Economy Act 2010
The Digital Economy Act 2010 is an Act that was pushed through very quickly at the end of Gordon Brown's parliamentary reign. Its purpose is to completely overhaul Intellectual Property law and make it fit for the digital age. There was initially some doubt as to whether the new coalition government would take it forward, but it does seem that they are moderately keen to implement it. One of the main issues they wish to tackle is illegal file sharing/copyright infringement, and Chris mentioned that this does have an effect on libraries - although perhaps not quite so much for corporate libraries such as this one. However, he stated that many librarians are concerned that the legislation has not only been pushed through too quickly, but that the expectations of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are just too high. If ISPs are expected to tackle illegal file sharing, this could have implications for libraries that provide free wi-fi, for example. People believe that there is just too much onus being placed on ISPs to police the Internet - although copyright owners will be the ones who pass the info on to ISPs about people they believe are infringing their copyright.

The Digital Economy Act is an absolute minefield and is something that I have a vested interest in, given the work I do for our IP team. There is a huge amount of debate ongoing over it - we barely scraped the surface in our audioconference as was simply neither the time nor the place.


Conclusion
This was an absolutely fantastic seminar and I am so glad that I decided to participate. It gave me an excellent overview of the issues we face in terms of copyright, not just in the law library but on a more general level too. Chris Holland delivered the points in a concise and clear way that really enabled me to make sense of things. It is definitely an area about which I would love to learn more, and am considering speaking to my manager  who deals with this area, about getting a bit more involved/helping her out with it.

Image courtesy of: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Thing 18 - Jing / screen capture / podcasts (making and following them)

Law library podcasts?

Wow - even including the postponed Thing 17, we don't have many 'Things' left! Can't believe how quickly time is passing...

I have to say, I am really intrigued by Jing - I had NO IDEA that making a visual demo of, say, a particular website, was something that could be done so easily. I don't have a microphone so I cannot do anything with audio, but if we were allowed to incorporate that into the law library, I strongly believe that it would give a lot of value to the fee-earners. There are so many databases that we have to give the same training on throughout the year. Sometimes lawyers just want a refresher - if they have used the resource before, then they just want a reminder of the functionality to ensure they are getting the best out of it. Then there are others who are completely unfamiliar with some resources, so we are starting from scratch. I really do think that there is a lot of scope for us creating demonstrations for at least one of those categories of users - perhaps the refresher training. It is something that the fee-earners could watch at their desk as well, which would be far easier than trying to pin them down to a time for us to come and see them. (You have no idea how good it would be to alleviate that side of things - I have been known to spend weeks hounding certain fee-earners to commit to a short training session!)

I think the only problem would be convincing IT of the merits of this software...


Podcasting
Yet again this is something I was woefully ignorant of. I did pretty much know what they were, but I have never investigated them, only heard people talking about them. Also my iPod is so old that I wasn't even sure it would be set up to handle podcasts!! From a personal point of view, I don't really see the appeal - I am a strictly music kind of girl when I am commuting to work/walking about, and I just don't like the idea of having to concentrate on what a person is saying. Call me lazy but...!

That having been said, the series of podcasts that Maria mentions by the Careers Group - University of London, does sound like it could be interesting from a professional development of view. I do see why it is like an easy way of keeping up with things, because you are definitely using your time on trains etc much better than someone like me who just listens to endless music!

With regard to using podcasts in our workplace, unlike the screencast videos, I am less convinced of the merits of podcasting in the law library. I really don't see any need for this - nor can I see any fee-earners ever taking to the concept. I don't think it would make sense for any of the training we do. Perhaps it would be good as a standard introduction to our department and all that we do - but we do that in a new person's first week at the firm anyway. I don't think a podcast would add more to what we do already in this case.


Conclusions
Definitely found this week's Thing very enjoyable and interesting. It's great to be introduced to more tools, particularly ones that I had no idea existed OR just hadn't bothered to ever explore. And while I am not convinced of the benefits of podcasting myself, I can see why some people find it a great way of taking in information on the move.

I am really excited about the discovery of Jing, and would definitely like to broach it with my managers, to see if they think there is capacity for using it. Watch this space...

The Future of Content Aggregation - 2011 Lexis Nexis White Paper

Is free information really all we need?

I obtained a copy of the above White Paper that explores the future of content aggregation in an age in which we have reams of 'free' information at our fingertips. I found this particularly interesting because this is something that we are constantly coming across in the law library. With so much information available on 'free' sites, there is always the danger that trainees and fee-earners will just rely on this, because sometimes they think it's easier to do a Google search, than a more tailored search on one of our subscription databases. While free information can be authoritative, there is still a huge amount that should not be relied on for legal research - so we often find we are valiantly trying to impart this to trainees as soon as they enter the firm, in the hope that it will mean they develop good habits from the outset.

The White Paper contains data collated via a Panel set up to represent the information profession, called 'The Voice of the Information Professional'.

'Content aggregation' is where publishers make their publications available via a paid-for database - the content is licensed to the provider, and the publishers are paid royalties. The other way that publishers make their content available is by putting it behind a paywall, so much like The Times newspaper did last year. Sometimes when this happens, it is removed from the content aggregators, but not always.


Free Information - how reliable is it?
The Panel were asked 'do you trust free information for work tasks?' 96% of respondents 'sometimes' trust free information for work tasks. I would say this is the view I woul have given as well. Obviously wherever possible, you want to be extracting information from an 'authoritative' source - so for example, I would rather refer a fee-earner to information from a journal article from Westlaw, or a note on PLC, than a random website that could have been written by a teenager! However, that having been said, it is a regular occurence that we get asked a number of weird and wonderful legal research/company information questions, and sometimes there just isn't any information on the more authoritative sources - so it's time like that where I will often have no choice but to use information from a more unknown source. I think so long as the fee-earner is aware of this, it is a reasonable option.

The White Paper also questioned the panel on what kind of 'free' information they would be more inclined to trust. It was generally agreed that content found on goverment-maintained websites, professional news firms such as Reuters or Bloomberg, and content on sites such as the BBC, can be considered 'highly' trustworthy.


The downside of 'free' information
One of the main problems surrounding free information is that it is not designed for the kind of research carried out by information professionals - it is far more focused on just providing an overview of what's going on in the world to the average member of the public sitting at his or her desk at lunchtime. The information is not stored in such a way that always makes finding it easy - therefore carrying out research on such websites can be time consuming and frustrating. This is often because the information is not indexed as well as it is on a content aggregation website. There's also the problem of inconsistency in terms of archiving: "Different websites have different approaches to archiving, and an article found online today may not be available tomorrow."


The benefits of using a content aggregator
The paper sums up the benefits for the user of a content aggregator, by breaking down the argument for why content aggregation is something worth paying for. They create a 'Value Chain' which charts the advantages of using this kind of provider, as opposed to trying to conduct your research over separate websites, all with separate access policies.

1. Save time
2. Save money
3. Increase search accuracy
4. Access an extensive archive
5. Have a single point of access

The Panel were also asked if they believe that a paid-for content aggregator saves times, and 77% said they believed that this does save time in terms of carrying out searches, and the set of results they receive back. Interestingly, the question was also asked whether or not they go to a content aggregator to look for a particular source, even if it may be on the web - and apparently 50% replied yes to this. Lexis Nexis claim that this highlights the value of content aggregation in today's environment - even when so much is apparently available 'free'.

Speaking from my own point of view, I would definitely say that I think the fact that the search interface on a content aggregation website is so good, means that I feel more confident that the searches I am running are going to bring back all of the results that are relevant. A particular publication might well be searchable online, and it might even be possible to obtain the full text of an item in this way. If I know exactly the item I am looking for, then I might well just get it from the 'free' source - particularly because on some of our content aggregation websites, we try and charge back any searches - and in this cost-conscious climate, the fee-earners are always happy if I can avoid doing so! But if I am just searching for articles on a particular topic, for example, I wouldn't be happy about just relying on Google, or Google News. I might well use it as a back up - so I often run searches firstly on the paid-for databases, and then supplement this with the free searches - but never the other way round.

Obviously it always depends on how much time you have, how in-depth your fee-earner wants you to go, and if there is a means of charging back any searches that incur costs. But speaking very generally, I can see where the opinion given in the White Paper is coming from.

Downside to content aggregation: vanishing publications
The Paper also discusses what many people believe is a big disadvantage to services offered by Lexis Nexis, Sweet and Maxwell etc - and that is that sometimes, titles that were once available on there suddenly disappear. Some argue that this is a clear reason why in the age of free information, content aggregation is obviously becoming less important. However, this Paper claims that the main reason for titles suddenly disappearing is simply that they stop being published, or the provider changes publisher and licenses the content to another content aggregator. Sometimes a publisher will also decide to license their own content directly. The argument is simply that new titles become available just as often as others go away, and therefore it is not an indication of the decline of content aggregators.


The future of content aggregation
Lexis Nexis maintain that information professionals can further the case for content aggregators within their organisations. They state that senior management need to understand that 'generic information' does not have the 'added value' that aggregated intelligence can provide. For example, a company report prepared by an authoritative commercial company information and intelligence provider adds so much more than simply giving a fee-earner a set of annual returns on that company, for example. It's time saving as a lot of the work has been done already, so it saves time AND costs, as the information professional doesn't have to spend so long piecing together a lot of information from different sources.

I think there is some truth in this, but at the same time, in our law library, we are always wary of some company information providers, simply because it isn't always clear how authoritative the sources of their information are - sometimes the info doesn't come from the primary source, eg. an annual return - so while yes, there's no denying these flashy, all singing and dancing company information reports can be very useful indeed, you always want to be sure that the sources are authoritative. So my point is, sometimes a set of annual returns being pieced together might well be more time-consuming - but at least you know you have taken your info from a known source.

Anyway, Lexis Nexis end the Paper by outlining the key areas that content aggregators need to focus on going forward:

- Continue to ensure that searching and indexing capabilities develop and keep meeting end user needs
- Retain supply of content through forging strong alliances with publishers
- Address the challenges of incorporating social and online media - there's a lot of information available via these channels
- Invest in their products in order to differentiate themselves from low-cost and free services.
- Build products and solutions that are specifically tailored to particular job functions

There is little doubt that this is a hugely topical issue for law librarians. Content aggregation vs free information, in a very cost-conscious climate, is something that poses a ongoing dilemma for the law librarian who is trying to ensure that they provide their fee-earners with authoritative information - but at the same time keeping costs at a minimum. Lexis Nexis appear to realise that providers like themselves are facing many challenges in order to ensure that customers continue to be able to justify paying for their services in today's environment.

Image courtesy of Graur Cordin: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=982

Thing 16: Advocacy, speaking up for the profession and getting published

Library advocacy: I am ashamed to say that until I read Lauren's post this week, I had never really considered if there was some way I could get involved. As she correctly points out, a lot of recent activities thanks to the public library closures are a bit more like activism than advocacy, and I think it is really helpful that she provided some definition on what advocacy actually means and how we could get involved.

The topic of advocacy can be applied both to my own profession, and to the wider library community. With respect to the public library campaigns, I cannot express enough how much I think these are important. I am sure this is something that a lot of us librarians say, to the point I feel a bit cliched saying it! - but I have been a regular user of the library all my life, and I would be gutted if our local one had been closed. As it is the opening hours have been slashed, but I still feel lucky to have it at all. At the risk of sounding like someone's grandmother, I genuinely believe that so many kids today miss out by not being taken to the library. When I was little, going every Saturday with my dad was one of the things I looked forward to most. And nowadays, even if a kid doesn't want to read, there are still so many other things offered in many libraries now - can't say that I am happy about internet access and so on, but if it gets people using the library, then so be it I guess. But it really does infuriate me when people say that libraries are superfluous in today's society because soon, we'll all have e-readers and with regard to obtaining information, 'everything is online'. AAAAGGGHHH!!!

It does make me pretty sad when I think about how my kids will probably never touch an encyclopaedia for a school project - will they even be taught how to use one at school?? 

That's one of the reasons that I found the Thing 16 post so interesting. I had never heard of the 'That's Not Online' project (although it does make me laugh that it is online!) - but in all seriousness, initiatives like that are exactly what is needed to drive the point home - that while the Internet is obviously another world away from what I had available to me when I was growing up, there is still a need for physical libraries; they still have a lot to offer.


Advocacy in the legal information world
It goes without saying that I have a strong interest in ensuring that law librarians continue to be regarded as a vital cog in the law firm machine. This is something that has been discussed over the years in the professional journals, and is the main reason why there is a constant pressure on us to ensure that we prove our worth to the fee-earners. The recession has led to many acquaintances being made redundant and it is frightening to realise that when it comes to looking for ways to cut costs, the library and its budget seem to be at the top many partners' lists. In my current firm I am fortunate to have a department director who is utterly committed to ensuring that our department exceeds any expectations placed upon us. But even so, we recently had to cope with the suggestion of our library space being reduced to make room for more desks...apparently because 'no one uses the books'.!!!!!! Well that's the view of one fee-earner; fortunately not the majority whose practice areas do actually necessitate the use of textbooks!

There is no doubt that advocating for libraries as a whole has never been more topical. The recession has had a huge impact on our profession, and it's heartening to read about the various initiatives out there which are trying to secure the future of the industry. One of the things I shall take from reading about this topic this week, is giving some thought to how I could promote the law library profession. It was interesting to hear about how people have been published, and I like the idea that even keeping this blog up to date with some of the things I am involved with within the profession is contributing to public awareness.

Image courtesy of: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=112

Thing 15: Attending, presenting at and organising seminars, conferences and other events

Over the years as a law librarian, I have attended a number of different events, although until recently, they were predominantly focused at people working in the legal information domain. Since beginning Chartership, I have begun to understood the benefits in terms of networking, among other things, of going to more general library/information events.

The events I have got the most out of are probably ones which have taught me a new skill, or been a kind of refresher on a particular area of law or legal research. CLIG have run a number of evening seminars over the years on things like researching company financial information, employment law and other areas of relevance to the law firms I have worked in. BIALL, our main legal professional association, also run similar sessions, and, of course, the annual two day Conference. The BIALL Conference is one of the main events in the legal information world, and is definitely one I would like to keep in mind for the future. Unfortunately in the last few years, the credit crunch has meant that spending on such things has been curtailed, therefore getting along to the more expensive events is a bit more problematic than it was when I first started out...

I definitely think there is a lot to be said though, to NOT limiting yourself to events that relate only to your specific profession. One of the best networking opportunities I have had was when I went to one of CILIP's Chartership events - it was a real pleasure to get the chance to talk to people who work in the library/information world, but have a completely different take on it compared to you. I am looking forward to attending a time management session later in the month.


Presenting
I have a lot of admiration for people who present at conferences/seminars etc. In all honesty it's not something I have considered at this stage of my career. I really enjoyed reading Katie's CPD23 post this week though, because she gave some really excellent  tips on how to go about getting prepared for such an event - but right now, I am not sure it's something I would go for - probably because I don't feel I know enough about one thing to merit being up on a stage lecturing others! Maybe that feeling will change in time. It is certainly encouraging to read what Katie said, about just being a professional means that you may have more to talk about than you think! I would like to think that maybe some day I could do it, as I am sure the feeling of achievement after undertaking such a task would be very satisfying.

If I were to choose an area to talk about, I think it would probably be related to some kind of examination of the role of the Information Professional in law firms - just unsure as to what specifically! I would definitely want to stick to what I know best, and I think experience does count for a lot, so having worked in a few different law libraries/law firms, perhaps I do have more to share than I think!


Conferences/events I would like to attend
As mentioned above, I think attending the whole BIALL Conference would be a very enriching experience, as in years gone by I have looked at the programme of events and there are always some sessions that sound like they would be very interesting. Another one I have developed an interest in the more I hear about it, is the SLA Conference, but unfortunately I think that is definitely out of the budget at present!


Conclusion
This has been a really thought provoking Thing this week - simply because reading Katie's post is the first time that I have ever even considered the idea that I might be 'qualified' enough to present at an event of any kind. This is one of the things I love about the CPD23 programme in general - that it's making me think about things that otherwise would never even have been on my radar, most likely!

Image courtesy of: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=905

'The Magical Law Library Staff' - is it true that law librarians are often underrated?

Abracadabra, your research is done...

So I came across this Linex Systems blog post titled The Magical Law Library Staff on another favourite blog of mine, The Running Librarian. It looks like it has struck a chord with a lot of us law librarians out there, which is why I felt I had to mention it myself!

In every law library I have worked in, it has been a long standing joke (although sometimes uttered with more bitterness than at other times, depending on what we have just been asked!) that the fee-earners have no concept of the amount of behind-the-scenes work undertaken by us on their behalf, to make their working lives easier. Journals that appear like clockwork every week on the lawyer's desk can often be the result of a several week-long battle with a particular supplier, trying in vain to understand why, if they have our correspondence details correct on their system as they claim, the journal has been sent to our old address 2 miles up the road for the last 3 months. That beautifully formatted, clear and concise current awareness bulletin is the result of onerous trawls through reams of news bulletins and other online/paper publications. And that neatly laid out and fully referenced answer to a horrible legal research question involved at the very least, a crash course in a very obscure point of law!

Now while some of you might say, well, what do you expect - that's what you're employed to do; that's your job to ensure all of the above and more happens as it should happen. And yes, that is true, of course it's our job - if we weren't actually making a difference to the fee-earners' lives then our existence wouldn't exactly be justified. So it's not so much that I need to be profusely thanked every single time I do something at work - far from it. No, what my own personal bugbear is that without exception, in every law firm I have worked in, there is still a core of people who simply have no clue that we are the ones managing the online databases on which they are so dependent; or that we are the ones constantly keeping abreast of the fee-earning work being done across the firm, and providing a tailored current awareness service as a result. Sadly it seems like there will always be some people who think that 'all' we do is tidy a few shelves every day.

In some ways though, the law firm library is its own worst enemy, as it often seems to me that librarians/information specialists or whatever job title we use, are not by nature the kind of people who blow their own trumpets. We tend to remain very much in the background, not seeking glory for what we do at all. Don't get me wrong - I wouldn't want to be part of a team that did project an image of superiority, because I don't think that makes for great working relations with other departments! No, I just think that sometimes, the law firm library is highly underrated, which is a great shame. And even those general administrative tasks are still important - who wants to come into a library where there is a huge big messy pile of books and journals waiting to be shelved? If we didn't attend to tasks like that, as well as all the other things we do, then people would certainly notice us - and not in a good way. But when these things are all being done without fuss or faddle, you do sometimes wonder if people even stop to think about how much time we spend, making sure the library is a pleasant place to visit, and moreover, a useful stop for research.


I think another part of the problem is that the information profession in general is underrated. In fact, to some people, even calling it a profession is something they would question, because an astonishing number of people have no idea at all that, for example, in order to move up the ladder in law firm libraries, 9 times out of 10 you need to have attained at the very least, a post graduate diploma in information science/library studies etc, although the majority of my colleagues actually have the Masters qualification, or they studied the subject at undergraduate level. But on the rare occasion I have had cause to mention this fact to one of my fee-earners, without fail they react with genuine surprise. Sadly even in this day and age, librarianship is not like, say, accountancy, where it's  pretty well-known fact that you have to sit many exams before you fully qualify. People tend to know about teachers, doctors, nurses - but not many people know how we qualify!

One thing that also makes me laugh (or want to cry!) is the fact that a lot of fee-earners really do seem to think we are in fact magicians. No really, they do. You see,here's an example: fee-earners in my experience tend not to like spending money, and so when they come across an abstract of an article that is apparently exactly what they're looking for, they often find it very difficult to accept that, in some cases, the only way to access it will be for us to pay for it. I think they believe we have access to a magical, cost-free repository of data, which contains everything from that 2003 copy of the Journal of Fracking (yes that is a made up title, although believe it or not I was looking to 'fracking' last week!) to unreported cases from the 19th century! While it is certainly very flattering - perhaps we are just so good at our jobs that the fee-earners simply cannot believe there are things we can't obtain for them without incurring a cost - at the same time it can be frustrating after you have explained for the 3500th time to a new trainee that no, just because when you're at uni you have free access to every journal under the sun, doesn't mean it's the same here - particularly when we're in the cost-cutting climate that we are right now...

The Linex Systems blog post states that:

"The librarians are the ones who take the vague query they’re given, work out the core of it, learn the legal issues around it, collate relevant materials, and pass back a useful and relevant answer…even if sometimes the answer is “there’s no answer”, because nobody’s covered that point before (which happens a LOT more often than is fun for us – it’s not our fault no material exists on certain points!). We know our users, and which ones will expect not only the requested material, but also for you to have read it, and be able to have discussions about the content of that material."

I definitely empathise with this one as well! Sadly, we very often find in our job that what we are trying to prove as much as we can is that there is no answer to a query - and again, that's not something any lawyer likes to hear. While it is a lovely feeling when you discover a passage in a textbook or in a case or journal article that appears to all intents and purposes to be the very answer you're trying to ascertain, sadly this doesn't always happen, and so you end up simply trying to show that nothing appears to have been written about that particular issue yet, and/or that there is just no caselaw debating it.

The blog writer also mentions that:

"...And maintaining a master list of their passwords, because they NEVER do as they’re told, and keep the email with the information on it in a safe place."

Ah, the delightful forgotten password scenario. If I had £1 for every time a fee-earner forgets their login details...well, put it this way, I wouldn't be sat here writing about it! At our firm we are quite fortunate in that the most frequently used resources are now all IP-authenticated, meaning that login is automatic because the database recognises IP address from our office, and I can't tell you the amount of time that is saved in terms of forgotten password queries. That having been said, there are still several specialist databases that require passwords, and so when I set up access to these, I specifically ask if the details can be sent to me first, and then I can send them onto the new user myself, meaning that I can make a note of them on our passwords list and that way it doesn't matter if that new user loses their details down the line. Obviously it is a problem if they change the password they are given and don't tell us, but to be honest, I have only come across a handful of lawyers who ever actually have the time to do that! The other problem is that there are sometimes data protection issues that prevent some database administrators from sending a user's login to someone else, which means that I have to contact that fee-earner, pre-warn them that they will be receiving an email directly and so NOT to delete it assuming it's junk, AND kindly request that they forward it onto me so that I can maintain the password record. And if you're wondering how many people actually do as I ask, then you've probably guessed correctly - not many! AAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!

So I guess the big question is: are law librarians really underrated? In my opinion, I think unfortunately there are some fee-earners who will never see us (if they see us at all) as anything more than book shelf stackers, but before this post puts you off ever contemplating a career in a law firm library, let me reassure you by saying that for every non-appreciative fee-earner, in every firm I have worked in I have had just as many very grateful fee-earners, who truly do seem to appreciate the hours we spend on ensuring that they have access to the most relevant and up-to-date information and resources, and having their research requests answered efficiently and promptly.

Ah, the sweet life of the City law librarian....

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