Legal librarians' role changing to keep up with the times

The traditional role of the legal librarian has had to evolve to keep up with the digitisation of legal libraries, according to the Australian Law Librarians' Association (ALLA).

Lara Bullock • 08 June 2016 • NewLaw

Elizabeth Langeveldt, the ALLA president, told Lawyers Weekly: "Smart legal organisations know that efficient legal research is enhanced through having a law librarian.

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"[While] digitisation only changes the format of information, the underpinning need remains for the skill set and value add which law librarians bring to law firms as well as our courts and law schools."

According to Ms Langeveldt, the range of material now curated by many law libraries means librarians need new skills to ensure that this material is fully available to lawyers.

"Aligning with the needs of the law firms in which they work, law libraries have moved well beyond only looking after the books and online services purchased from legal publishers," Ms Langeveldt said.

"Our law librarians are often also responsible for maintaining knowledge repositories of high-quality legal documents produced by their lawyers. Law librarians are often also responsible for their organisation’s intranet and to integrate the information systems and tools required in a modern knowledge organisation."

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She continued: "Some law librarians within law firms are even intensely involved with the production of smart, highly automated legal precedents."

While Ms Langeveldt agreed that hard-copy books are not as significant in the collections of law libraries as they were in the past, she believes hard-copy books remain an essential part of many law firms' collections.

She said this is especially the case for many mid-tier firms, to which Australian legal publishers are yet to offer viable models enabling such firms to purchase lendable e-books.

"Our members help lawyers and legal professionals to evaluate and combine authoritative information to provide great outcomes for a firm's clients, regardless of the format of that information," Ms Langeveldt said.

"While we utilise our online services extensively and make use of numerous databases and even of well-evaluated information available on the internet, often a published book remains the only authoritative source of in-depth information on specialised legal topics."

Finally, Ms Langeveldt said that the setting of the law library in law firms is changing as firms move in to new open-plan office spaces, with legal librarians being more physically available to lawyers.

"These new library spaces are usually open plan, centrally located in the firm’s design footprint and noisy spaces where lawyers are learning new skills and exchanging ideas," Ms Langeveldt said.

"Law librarians fortunate enough to work in these new spaces love their libraries, because these spaces enable librarians to be physically where they need to be in the firm – right alongside the lawyers and working with them."

Other law firms are using the embedded librarian model and have moved librarians to practice group floors with a small curated collection of hard copy, with most of the collection material online.

Mrbadrobot Wednesday, 15 June 2016

I actually ended my intitial statement with 'That's just the start. But I hope it helps.' Which implies there are many more things Library's and librarians do, I was not being comprehensive.Onto your wider point, it doesn't matter what you know you do, it's what the rest of the firm understand you to do and believe it or not, most will have a limited understanding. My point is simply about librarians making it clear, marketing it and explaining in plain English for time pressed clients who really don't care.Well done on having a thriving library, but if you're not seeing how many librarians are looking for work or have taken early retirement, you're being wilfully myopic about the state of the profession.

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Alison Jones Tuesday, 14 June 2016

Mrbadrobot, I see you understand law librarians very well in that you know that librarians can find information efficiently. But that is only one of the many, many things that we can do. The reason we can find information efficiently is partly because of all the behind the scenes work we also do to make sure that information is accessible, as you would also know if you happen to be a librarian. I entirely disagree with you that law libraries are a dying breed. I manage a law firm library which has increased our staff hours four-fold in the last eight years. Yes, of course, we look after the books and the online services and we love answering reference questions but we do so much more for our firm, in areas which sometimes no one (even us!) really expected the involvement of librarians. And this is not unique to my firm or to our law library. It is a great pity you chose to remain anonymous as if I knew who you were, I would welcome you to come and visit our library, so that you can see for yourself the scope of work undertaken by a typical, vibrant Australian law firm library.

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Mrbadrobot Friday, 10 June 2016

oh well I'd hope under the cloak of anonymity a discussion of why legal library's are dying could actually be fired up, but as usual we've the same group of voices telling us what to think and everyone else mildly falling in line - slowly walking to the edge of the cliff.

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Mrbadrobot Wednesday, 08 June 2016

selling itself 'internally', by that I'd say the profession is very good at selling itself to itself and then wonders why no one else cares.

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philip mullen Wednesday, 08 June 2016

Clearly just having open plan and a coffee bar is hardly an innovation. That seems very clear from reading material from the experts; for example the ARUP Future Libraries Report.

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Queen of Laksa Wednesday, 08 June 2016

The common misconception persists that librarians are "just" + add adjective. The profession itself is so much more than meets the eye: they are a profession which is used by all areas of the business but looked upon as a cost. It is a profession which is the quiet achiever of an operations, which underpins the smooth running of a case or the failure of an advice. I think the key thing about the visibility of the profession is how it sells itself internally, which harks back to my comment about the quiet achiever.

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Mrbadrobot Wednesday, 08 June 2016

Go talk to your Librarians lawyers! If they don't want to help the firm proactively, find ones that will and pay them the money that comes with the territory. Innovative, proactive knowledge gatherers will reap you more cash, than someone who will make sure there's a link to an ebook on a catalogue no one will ever look at! And most likely you've already sacked them if that's what they do!

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Mrbadrobot Wednesday, 08 June 2016

This is exactly the kind of response that leave non-librarian types none the wiser as to what is the worth of a library and a librarian. Here's some pointers to anyone who got the bottom of the article and actually thinks why don't I just sack all the librarians and rely on a database:- Librarians if they're good at their job, should be able to find you what you need MUCH quicker than you can. Therefore they save you time and money you can't realistically bill to your client.- Librarians if they're good at their job can construct sophisticated search strings, in resources you'd never think to use. Therefore finding you material you would not have found and may be the difference between winning the case and losing it. - Library's no longer rely on physical books, they rely on online material. There is MUCH MORE online material than was ever in your library. Who is going to navigate this material? You? No a librarian who is good at their job. - Librarians are your knowledge gatherers, if they're good at their job they should be able to leverage this knowledge to help find you clients, help keep the ones you have and help you make sure they're client you want! That's just the start. But I hope it helps.

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