tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88443190673303797422017-02-16T20:12:49.585-08:00The Ginger (Law) LibrarianJamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.comBlogger678125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-23980870746061641332017-02-15T08:45:00.000-08:002017-02-15T09:39:54.129-08:00Designing a Law Library Learning SpaceBarbara Fister over at <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/library-babel-fish/best-and-worst-practices-designing-learning-spaces">InsideHigherEd recently discussed</a> practices for designing learning spaces in libraries<i>. </i>Her post was informed by a new report published by&nbsp;<a href="http://www.projectinfolit.org/">Project Information Literacy</a>&nbsp;called <i>Planning and Designing Academic Library Learning Spaces.</i><br /><i><br /></i>The report<i> involved interviewing 49 librarians, architects, and consultants involved in 22 library construction projects that were completed between 2011 and 2016. The research probes how these three parties negotiate their values and incorporate them into designs, what kinds of learning are these new and renovated spaces meant to support, and what best practices (and worst practices) might inform libraries embarking on a renovation.&nbsp;</i><br /><br />Fister noted a surprising finding that <i>[s]tudents weren’t part of the discussion, or at least not in any depth, in a majority of these projects. Apart from gate counts and a focus group or survey here and there, studying student needs or asking their opinion wasn’t part of the planning process (though some libraries gave students a chance to try out furniture before it was purchased). Librarians were more likely to get ideas from other librarians through touring other libraries or going to conferences than from their own user community.</i><br /><i><br /></i>Ultimately, the major recommendations from the report are as follows:<br /><ul><li>We must do better to study students use of space before and after renovations.&nbsp;</li><li>Librarians must be part of campus-wide conversations long before a renovation is approved, not simply told after decisions are made.&nbsp;</li><li>Flexible spaces should be designed with the <b>unique needs of the local community in mind</b>, including both students and faculty- needs of today and those we can anticipate for the next few decades.</li></ul>Like many of the libraries involved in the study, it seems that most law library planning decisions are based on some qualitative data - like gate counts and check-out stats. But these decisions are also often based on library trends across the country without truly taking into account the individual needs of the local community.<br /><br />For example, if you are a law library at a regional law school that prides itself on practical education and has a low publishing requirement for tenure, should you spend large sums of money on specialized monographs that few will actually use?<br /><br />Of course, we all want a wonderful archive of material, but should this particular law library at this particular law school be concerned with collecting vast amounts of esoteric print content?<br /><br />Or should this law library be more concerned with creating spaces that facilitate and support practical education, <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2016/11/legal-research-clinic-bridges-gap-to.html">like clinic space</a>, while also creating stronger institutional lending partnerships with libraries that can act as a major archive?<br /><br />On the flipside, if you are a law library that can and should act as a major archive, do you have a responsibility to share your resources (think <a href="https://www.hathitrust.org/">HathiTrust</a>)?<br /><br />It's difficult to fully assess these things while working with limited information. Many law libraries do not have the <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2016/11/librarianship-as-profession.html">ability to support meaningful research</a> that provides the information necessary to make truly informed decisions at the local level. Certainly talking with students and faculty before renovations and ensuring that librarians are involved in the planning process are important components. So is understanding your local community in the broader scheme of library trends.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-45021374376895656192017-02-14T08:11:00.000-08:002017-02-15T07:59:52.760-08:00Law Schools "Obsessed With Smartness"The Chronicle of Higher Education ran an article this week on colleges being "<a href="http://www.chronicle.com/article/Obsessed-With-Smartness/239156/">obsessed with smartness</a>."&nbsp;<i>The "pecking order" of higher education — and the ratings that we use to establish the quality of our colleges and universities — has come to depend almost entirely on acquiring smart students.... Colleges receive their place in the latest magazine rankings, in large part, based on their selectivity in admissions, and upon factors like retention and degree-completion rates. Guarding those rates leads us to select the best possible students — because, of course, they are the ones most easily retained and most likely to graduate.</i><br /><i><br /></i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Df1vrgtypQc/WKMrmYUcTSI/AAAAAAAABCA/AdO4fmHnZGEaRyYPti0tqNMrQBtcY9wFACLcB/s1600/images.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Df1vrgtypQc/WKMrmYUcTSI/AAAAAAAABCA/AdO4fmHnZGEaRyYPti0tqNMrQBtcY9wFACLcB/s200/images.png" width="200" /></a></div><i><b>The real purpose of a college education, by contrast, should be to develop smart students.</b> Their development depends not on the quality of the entering class but on the quality of our teaching and the ability of our institutions to cultivate intellectual and affective skills. If our campuses were driven primarily by a desire to develop student talents, the quality of the incoming class would matter far less than it does now. Our concern would shift away from acquisition and toward development.</i><br /><i><br /></i>Like undergraduate institutions, <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2016/08/aba-adversely-reviewing-schools-in.html">law schools are doing the same thing</a>. But law schools are squeezed at both ends. US News ranks law schools, in part, by incoming student credentials AND on bar passage rates after graduation. Thus law schools place a huge importance on incoming credentials - particularly a prospective student's LSAT score - to help determine the likelihood of bar passage. There is <i>some</i> correlation between LSAT and bar passage (not perfect but some).<br /><br /><a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2016/08/aba-adversely-reviewing-schools-in.html">As I've written before on this issue</a>:<br /><i>We already have issues with diversity in the legal field, and this sort of gatekeeping will continue to exacerbate the problem. This isn't because minorities or poor nonminority students are inherently stupid. It's because the current state of legal education and higher education, in general, advances students who have been supported [financially and other] and encouraged throughout their education with better schools and test prep, etc.... Instead of gatekeeping before law school, we should consider innovative ways of teaching during law school that will ensure success in the legal field on a broader scale. Of course there are other issues with the cost of legal education and making sure that students who take on the huge debt load for a JD degree can successfully take a bar exam, but that isn't done with LSAT score alone.</i><br /><i><br /></i>We have predictive analytics for nearly everything now - think <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyball">Moneyball</a> or <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/">Nate Silver</a>&nbsp;- why haven't we adopted a more well-rounded approach to law school admissions? A well-rounded approach that <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Undoing-Project-Friendship-Changed-Minds/dp/0393254593">also includes a human element</a>. For any law school relying on LSAT as a sole (or nearly sole) predictor of success, it is adding to the economically biased admissions culture and making a professional degree all but unattainable for a large number of people.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-48263809061700778902017-02-08T13:01:00.000-08:002017-02-08T13:01:24.471-08:00Using Scrivener for ScholarshipA wonderful colleague who pumps out an admirable amount of scholarship recently turned me onto <a href="https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php">Scrivener</a>.<br /><br />Scrivener is great for its ability to organize research and act as a word-processing tool. It was originally created for writing novels or screenplays, but more and more law professors are adopting it.<br /><br />The beauty of a tenure-track law librarian position is that it attempts to give law librarians full citizenship in a law school, which as any law librarian knows, is an uphill battle. My law school wasn't ready for it either, so they created a new tenure-track line for "law library faculty." This designation comes with the great responsibility to teach, research, and provide service akin to a "normal" tenure-track law faculty member. It also comes with the responsibility to provide all of the support that a law librarian gives.<br /><br />All of this to say that anything that helps me write more and write faster is a friend of mine. Scrivener has been invaluable for that.<br /><br />Scrivener allows you to personalize it for your own writing style. As I was also forewarned - WATCH THE INTERACTIVE TUTORIAL! There is a plethora of components that are customizable.<br /><br />With that said, here's my method:<br /><br /><ul><li>I start a blank project (this is helpful for folks not writing in the template areas):</li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FQjCFw2hAuc/WJuDzYbLJtI/AAAAAAAABBI/-zMCoX0BmRUxFO6GZ_lbOEduTy7im6hrwCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-02-08%2Bat%2B2.46.41%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FQjCFw2hAuc/WJuDzYbLJtI/AAAAAAAABBI/-zMCoX0BmRUxFO6GZ_lbOEduTy7im6hrwCLcB/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-02-08%2Bat%2B2.46.41%2BPM.png" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><ul><li>Within the project, I add a document that is my outline and another that is my draft:</li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z9h06CtWc-c/WJuELUZN1-I/AAAAAAAABBM/dW32bIp1_uM_cEnH5lX4Sc_hNc2B6oI-wCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-02-08%2Bat%2B2.48.20%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="107" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z9h06CtWc-c/WJuELUZN1-I/AAAAAAAABBM/dW32bIp1_uM_cEnH5lX4Sc_hNc2B6oI-wCLcB/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-02-08%2Bat%2B2.48.20%2BPM.png" width="320" /></a></div><ul><li>I then create folders for my research&nbsp;</li><ul><li>Main folders titled with my main headings and</li><li>Subfolders for each subpart</li></ul></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bxrH1owRcnY/WJuEq0FOQTI/AAAAAAAABBU/PwdkF1XNv0ICKNx_D7wzcnWzDEShQUF9wCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-02-08%2Bat%2B2.50.22%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bxrH1owRcnY/WJuEq0FOQTI/AAAAAAAABBU/PwdkF1XNv0ICKNx_D7wzcnWzDEShQUF9wCLcB/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-02-08%2Bat%2B2.50.22%2BPM.png" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><ul><li>I then dump PDFs of all of my research into the designated folder</li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D0yzlbJcOzo/WJuE4APTeNI/AAAAAAAABBc/WIlKRQOyvjwz2ePcenleSHcaRl39lvLfgCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-02-08%2Bat%2B2.51.21%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D0yzlbJcOzo/WJuE4APTeNI/AAAAAAAABBc/WIlKRQOyvjwz2ePcenleSHcaRl39lvLfgCLcB/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-02-08%2Bat%2B2.51.21%2BPM.png" width="67" /></a></div><div><br /></div><ul><li>As I'm working, I split the screen between my draft and the relevant research</li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-InPlRMYF-Oo/WJuFCWEIpAI/AAAAAAAABBg/-8-9Qej1cwYsWcpQPCcp2FLXX4GhOJ2ywCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-02-08%2Bat%2B2.51.57%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-InPlRMYF-Oo/WJuFCWEIpAI/AAAAAAAABBg/-8-9Qej1cwYsWcpQPCcp2FLXX4GhOJ2ywCLcB/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-02-08%2Bat%2B2.51.57%2BPM.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Rather than sifting through printouts of research trying to find relevant passages, all of my research is readily available. I can easily enter footnotes, and when my article is finished, it can be exported to Word for final formatting before submission.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As mentioned, this is only one writer's way of using this customizable tool.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If you still aren't sold on Scrivener, they will give you a 30-day free trial. As in 30 actual days of use - not just 30 calendar days. Try it. Watch the Tutorial. See how you can make it work for you.&nbsp;</div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-71033797407671058002017-02-03T08:22:00.000-08:002017-02-03T08:22:01.766-08:00A Young Librarian in the Field: Digital ArchivistTo go along with a recent blog post on <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2017/02/practical-considerations-for-law.html">practical considerations for a career is law librarianship</a>, I thought I would highlight a type of librarian that is needed now more than ever.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8NeVJcmfFks/WJStv-KBxsI/AAAAAAAABAw/Vy-b8l3jjksajBc85kKqVidVwO9c0H8CgCLcB/s1600/future-469x375.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="158" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8NeVJcmfFks/WJStv-KBxsI/AAAAAAAABAw/Vy-b8l3jjksajBc85kKqVidVwO9c0H8CgCLcB/s200/future-469x375.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2017/02/practical-considerations-for-law.html">Newsworks profiled a young librarian</a> working as a digital archivist to highlight the librarian of the future. As mentioned in the article, <i>several years ago, Forbes Magazine listed the advanced degrees with the worst job prospects—and a master's in library sciences was No. 1 on the list. Despite that gloomy prediction and some staid image problems, young librarians say their work is relevant in the 21st Century and is as needed now as it has ever been.</i><br /><i><br /></i><br /><i>Jarrett Drake learned librarianship at the University of Michigan School of Information. He's Princeton University's first-ever digital archivist, which is a librarian who preserves things created on computing devices. His job is to figure out how to safeguard ones and zeros, and to do that, he gets help from a $10,000 machine called "FRED," a Forensic Recovery of Evidence Device. It looks like a big server with a dozen ports on the front. Beside the machine, Drake keeps a stack of cables, FireWires and USB cords to upload documents from just about any kind of computer.&nbsp;The F.B.I. and D.E.A. use the same kind of machine to detect computer crimes. Drake says his library work follows a similar forensic approach. He wants to collect without contaminating.&nbsp;Drake protects documents from bit rot and FRED stamps every file with a digital fingerprint.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i><b>Some of the science of the work is giving future library patrons access in some of the same ways that the original users interacted with and experienced the digital information.</b></i><br /><br />This type of library work is increasingly important as <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/21-things-that-became-obsolete-this-decade-2009-12">technologies become outmoded</a> at a faster pace. If we don't have digital archivists like Drake working to archive and protect digital content from bit rot, there is a real threat of losing out on <a href="https://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/bigdata/what-is-big-data.html">vast amounts of important data</a>. <br /><br />To attract people to the profession, we'll need to overcome antiquated librarian stereotypes.<i> "Shushing in the digital age will just get spit on your computer screen."</i><br /><br />A librarian's work is arguably more important than ever. As noted, <i>Google's search engine can't replace [us]; it just [thankfully] frees up information professionals to help with more complicated information needs.</i>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-40912513769412125062017-02-01T13:14:00.000-08:002017-02-03T14:13:38.900-08:00Practical Considerations for Law Librarianship as CareerIs a career in law librarianship right for you? <a href="http://blogs.findlaw.com/greedy_associates/2015/11/should-you-consider-a-career-as-a-law-librarian.html">The Findlaw blog</a> asked this question to highlight law librarianship as an alternative to a traditional legal career.<br /><br />The post asks <i>Like books? Like the law? Worried about the crushing debt of a J.D. or the soul-sucking hours of a young associate? Maybe it's time to consider being a law librarian.&nbsp;</i><br /><i><br /></i>For law firm librarians, these are precise questions to consider. For academic law librarians, however, salvation from the crushing debt of a J.D. is generally out of the question (save for independent wealth or &nbsp;an increasingly rare full scholarship). The majority of academic law librarian positions require both a J.D. and a Master's of Library Science (or similar variation).<br /><br />Law firm librarian positions, on the other hand, generally require just the M.L.S. And with the cost-savings associated with avoiding the J.D. degree, the starting salary of $62,000 noted in the Findlaw post offers a decent cost-benefit analysis.<br /><br />As noted in a <a href="http://www.aallnet.org/mm/Publications/spectrum/archives/Vol-21/No-3/Striking-the-Right-WorkLife-Balance.pdf">recent AALL Spectrum article</a>, that may not be the case for academic law librarians. <i>To be a law librarian in the twenty first century (with the increasingly required JD), expect to have $100,000 to $180,000 in student loans, but do not expect your salary to keep pace with your debt ratio. According to an October 2015 New York Times article, the average law school graduate’s loan debt is $140,000. The American Bar Association puts the average school loan debt from those graduating from state law schools at a more modest $84,000. Master’s degrees in librarianship or information science are not necessarily a bargain either. Tuition alone for the information schools at Drexel, University of Texas, University of Washington, University of Illinois, and University of North Carolina ranges between $32,000 and $55,000 to complete the degree.&nbsp;</i><br /><br /><i>Currently, newer law librarians can expect to make between $50,000 and $80,000 until they become senior managers, according to <a href="http://www.aallnet.org/Documents/Careers/lawlibrarycareers/Law-Librarianship-by-the-Numbers-2014.pdf">AALL’s Law Librarianship by the Numbers 2014 report</a>.&nbsp;</i><br /><br />Aside from the monetary concerns, however, you'd be hard pressed to find a career with higher satisfaction. As noted in the Spectrum article, <i>for the law librarians we spoke with, day-to-day job satisfaction was incredibly high. Getting paid to help others, confront intellectual challenges, and solve problems is rewarding.</i><br /><br />Because the work of law librarians is so varied, it is intellectually stimulating and never gets boring.&nbsp;&nbsp; <i><a href="http://abovethelaw.com/2016/07/have-you-thanked-your-law-librarian/">Law librarians perform tasks</a> such as researching, analyzing, and evaluating the quality, accuracy, and validity of sources; teaching and training; writing; managing; and procuring and classifying library materials.</i><br /><br />For example, in roughly 3 hours this morning, I helped multiple professors with course management system issues; researched, retrieved, and organized a variety of cases on religious discrimination; received clarification on public performance rights for a documentary; prepared a monthly newsletter for the law library; prepped research instruction; and worked with my research assistants on faculty research. My work will be as varied tomorrow morning.<br /><br /><b>For anyone with an intellectually curious mind, you truly can't beat this profession</b>.<br /><br />But the other practical considerations can seem overwhelming at times. The strict hours and the need to relocate for work make balancing family a challenge. And ever-shrinking budgets with the call to do more with less money is a real concern.<br /><br />Anna Russell &amp; Ingrid Mattson, the authors of the AALL Spectrum article, would like to keep this conversation going. To that end, they request that you take a short, five-minute work/life balance survey at <a href="http://bit.ly/JF17survey">bit.ly/JF17survey</a>.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-60061944204259308162017-01-30T13:36:00.000-08:002017-01-30T13:36:18.882-08:00Is .Gov Reputable? <div class="separator" style="clear: both;">During information-literacy instruction, librarians generally count on the .gov domain suffix to lead to reputable information.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">For example, <a href="http://www.usg.edu/galileo/skills/unit07/internet07_08.phtml">this site on evaluating internet information</a> plainly states:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><i>.gov</i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>Government. If you come across a site with this domain, then you're viewing a federal government site. All branches of the United States federal government use this domain. Information such as Census statistics, Congressional hearings, and Supreme Court rulings would be included in sites with this domain. <b>The information is considered to be from a credible source</b>.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://nccih.nih.gov/health/webresources">And another site</a> also states:&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i><b>You can trust sites with “.gov” addresses</b>. You can also trust sites with “.edu” addresses if they’re produced by the educational institution. Personal pages of individuals at an educational institution may not be trustworthy, even though they have “.edu” addresses. The presence of “.org” in an address doesn’t guarantee that a site is reputable; there have been instances where phony “.org” sites were set up to mislead consumers. Also, some legitimate “.org” sites belong to organizations that promote a specific agenda; their content may be biased.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I'd wager that nearly any source on evaluating internet information has a similar statement.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">During the last few weeks, however, I've started to ask myself if this is still true. Do we find ourselves in a time when even .gov information should be evaluated for bias or in furtherance of a particular agenda?&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Or maybe this was always the case.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Either way, the popular rhetoric points to being hyper-vigilant about the information that we rely on and <a href="https://ripslawlibrarian.wordpress.com/2016/12/06/information-literacy-outside-the-walls-of-the-library/">share with the world</a>. No longer should we rely on certain domains to provide reputable information. We should all use our <a href="http://iue.libguides.com/fakenews">evaluation skills</a> to vet any and all information.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Challenge accepted.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XX8nw16ruZk/WEgwaR0ClmI/AAAAAAAAA9g/c9d-e6T54s0zxPgMTgbakZF8gD_ah5z5ACLcB/s1600/Fake%2BNews%2BImage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XX8nw16ruZk/WEgwaR0ClmI/AAAAAAAAA9g/c9d-e6T54s0zxPgMTgbakZF8gD_ah5z5ACLcB/s320/Fake%2BNews%2BImage.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-45797091930411279372017-01-25T08:05:00.000-08:002017-01-25T10:54:25.426-08:00Law Librarians Filling Gaps in Law School CurriculaMany law librarians try to find creative ways to incorporate research into the law school curriculum. Some try to integrate fully into the 1L program to ensure that all law students get a proper legal-research foundation. Others may hit roadblocks taking that route and instead start <a href="https://ripslawlibrarian.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/law-library-administered-legal-research-programs/">law library administered legal research programs</a>.<br /><br />Whichever method you use to instill the importance of efficient and effective legal research, and aside from the importance of <a href="https://ripslawlibrarian.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/researching-across-the-law-school-curriculum/">researching across the law school curriculum</a>, there are a couple of gaps to note in student ability that have run consistent throughout my time as a teaching law librarian.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XpYPeFl7gV8/WIeNNdb93FI/AAAAAAAABAI/ZyGQ6cWmgA8TxqciY1uuBZjqydl1ThGLACLcB/s1600/knowledge-gap-logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XpYPeFl7gV8/WIeNNdb93FI/AAAAAAAABAI/ZyGQ6cWmgA8TxqciY1uuBZjqydl1ThGLACLcB/s200/knowledge-gap-logo.png" width="177" /></a></div>One is the understanding of the interplay between statutes and regulations. I regularly ask my students to explain it, and I've only had a few who could do it. If students don't understand that statutes enable administrative agencies to enforce the law and that administrative agencies create regulations that further the goals of enforcement, then how will students understand how to successfully research and analyze a complex issue on point?<br /><br />During a recent session on federal statutory research, I asked a room full of 3Ls (who are about to graduate in May) to articulate this distinction. Only one could do it. Everyone else looked stunned.<br /><br />Another consistent gap that I see is the lack of understanding of the civil trial process. I usually get more students who can name the parts of the civil trial process than the difference between statutes and regulations, but it's still rather abysmal. To that end, I created a full-length civil trial research course for spring 2017.<br /><br />During our first session, in a room mostly made up of 3Ls, I did a pre-assessment on the parts of the civil trial process after introductions. The results of the pre-assessment were pretty awful. After we discussed the parts of the process, generally, the post-assessment results were much better.<br /><br />For the next 14 weeks, we will talk about "best practices" for the particular part of the civil trial process, and I will show them how to find sample forms relevant to that part of the process. They will then complete an in-class exercise to put that knowledge into action. Their final project will be to create a packet of relevant forms based on the parts of the civil trial process dealing with a particular fact pattern.<br /><br />When I consider what I think a law student should know upon graduation, these are just a couple of examples. Teaching law librarians would do well to <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2014/07/librarians-need-to-bridge-knowledge-in.html">fill these practical gaps in knowledge</a>.<br /><br />Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-57863340260261885892017-01-23T12:22:00.000-08:002017-01-23T12:22:28.140-08:00Find FREE Books with Google Chrome Library ExtensionThere's a cool new tool in the <a href="https://www.libraryextension.com/">Library Extension for Google Chrome</a>. Like many people (and even as a librarian), I often find myself clicking "purchase" on Amazon before checking with my local library for a book that I am interested in.<br /><br />As mentioned <a href="http://lifehacker.com/library-extension-finds-books-at-your-local-library-whi-1791110485?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+lifehacker%2Ffull+%28Lifehacker%29&amp;utm_content=FaceBook">on Lifehacker</a>, <i>Amazon may be convenient, but nothing beats free. After you install the Library Extension for Chrome, any searches that you do on Amazon will yield results from your local library, too.&nbsp;</i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://lifehacker.com/library-extension-finds-books-at-your-local-library-whi-1791110485?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+lifehacker%2Ffull+%28Lifehacker%29&amp;utm_content=FaceBook"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8InkbnRMl2w/WIZlNM3Y2HI/AAAAAAAAA_w/TvarrJkydRgAeYz6B2cltyQiOOgAxwH_QCLcB/s400/bhtyext1fvjqjqdr5sat%255B1%255D.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />From <a href="https://www.libraryextension.com/">Library Extension's website</a>: <i>Easily see what titles are available at your local library as you browse for books! As you browse books and e-books, the Library Extension can check your library's online catalog and display the availability of that item on the same page. If the book is available at your library, you'll know instantly – and have a quick, convenient link to reserve the title!&nbsp;</i><br /><br />The extension allows you to pick your favorite local libraries and add them to a list. Then, when you shop for books on Amazon (or other), the extension adds a box that will let you know if those books are available at your library.<br /><br />It's a wonderfully ingenious extension, and it will be available for Firefox soon.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-54079510081851423102017-01-11T14:54:00.000-08:002017-01-11T14:54:18.959-08:00AI & The Duty of Technological Competence<div><br /></div>The use of artificial intelligence has many potential pitfalls regarding attorney professional responsibility rules. One such pitfall has to do with the duty of technological competence.&nbsp;<div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.lawsitesblog.com/2016/12/another-state-adopts-duty-technology-competence-makes-26.html">As Robert Ambrogi points out over on Law Sites</a>, there are <a href="http://www.lawsitesblog.com/2015/03/11-states-have-adopted-ethical-duty-of-technology-competence.html">now 26 states</a> that have adopted the duty of technological competence for lawyers - first noted in Comment 8 to ABA Model Rule 1.1.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5SXoIfyp0uc/WHa3Nf6ynnI/AAAAAAAAA_U/D33hHiAA2fkZlxeKGxlhHcUUCkbjnQZkACLcB/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5SXoIfyp0uc/WHa3Nf6ynnI/AAAAAAAAA_U/D33hHiAA2fkZlxeKGxlhHcUUCkbjnQZkACLcB/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></div><div>The ABA version states:&nbsp;</div><div>To maintain the requisite knowledge and skill, a lawyer should keep abreast of changes in the law and its practice, <i>including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology</i>, engage in continuing study and education and comply with all continuing legal education requirements to which the lawyer is subject. (Emphasis added.)</div><div><br /></div><div>While the states may differ in the exact language of their rules, these rules will likely have an ongoing effect on a lawyer's duty to learn various aspects of ever-changing technology.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Down the road, there may be a time when attorneys must know and understand how artificial intelligence works to be able to rely on technology to <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2016/12/ai-as-premature-law-librarian-disruptor.html">perform the more sophisticated functions of law</a> practice.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>As lawyers begin to use <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2015/08/ibm-watson-for-legal-research-dubbed.html">ROSS</a>, say, to perform legal research or even draft simple memos, it is not unreasonable to presume that a lawyer would need to understand how ROSS decided on a particular issue to have true <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2015/12/bias-in-machine-reading-artificial.html">algorithmic accountability</a>. Because something like ROSS cannot be subject to the same professional responsibility rules as a living, breathing lawyer, it is up to the lawyer to maintain a duty of technological competence to understand and vet the work of the software.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>This is tricky because we are currently at a point where most algorithms are proprietary and there is little transparency about the results that are generated. It is unlikely that this competing issue with be resolved anytime soon.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Until such time when the AI developers release the very decision trees for how an algorithm came to a particular result, law librarians will be helpful in teaching lawyers to understand the current state of AI technology. During our legal research instruction, we should offer pointers to lawyers on the results generated and how to spot possible issues, <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2015/12/bias-in-machine-reading-artificial.html">such as bias</a>.</div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-47761880624461924052017-01-09T10:07:00.000-08:002017-01-20T15:31:49.140-08:00Ravel Law for Judicial AnalyticsIn December, <a href="http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/ravel_law_launches_analytics_tool_for_entire_court_systems_and_jurisdiction">the ABA Journal reported on</a>&nbsp;a new judicial analytics tool by <a href="http://ravellaw.com/">Ravel Law</a>.<br /><br />As mentioned, <i>currently, the field of judicial analytics mainly focuses on individual judges and what their histories and tendencies are, so that lawyers will be able to make more informed decisions regarding litigation strategy.&nbsp;</i><br /><br />Ravel Law knew that the individual-judge strategy was cumbersome and limited. With that, Ravel Law <i>launched <a href="http://ravellaw.com/products/">Court Analytics</a>, a comprehensive analytical tool that covers more than 400 federal and state courts. Court Analytics allows users to search through a jurisdiction, filtering out over 90 types of motions and topics. The tool analyzes case outcomes, language patterns and citation history, among other things, to give practitioners insight as to how courts and judges throughout a jurisdiction have ruled on certain types of motions or cases in the past. The tool also highlights the most-cited precedents and cases within a jurisdiction</i><br /><br />Ravel Law intends for the analytics tool to be used to determine the best forum or whether the case should be filed in state or federal court. <i>“You can look at the stats to see what are the best courts to file in. Are they plaintiff-friendly? Do they have experience in a certain area?” Lewis says.</i><br /><br />There are also other creative uses of the analytics. <i>For instance, users can hone in on specific fact patterns and case law to determine their likelihood of success within a given jurisdiction. If a lawyer wants to see every mesothelioma case within a certain court system where there was a successful motion for summary judgment, Court Analytics can identify common patterns amongst those cases, including the language the judges used in their decisions and what standard they applied, among other things.</i><br /><br />As I prepare to teach a civil trial research course for the first time this spring, I absolutely plan to show my students the features of Court Analytics. I spend a class period discussing forum selection and venue, and Court Analytics will be a perfect companion to that lecture with hands-on application showing use of a very practical tool.<br /><br />This is just the beginning when it comes to the possibilities of legal data mining. It's a perfect example of technology being used to make lawyers more efficient by taking a historically cumbersome process and making it as easy as a few clicks of a mouse.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-73174371402430679572017-01-02T14:11:00.001-08:002017-01-02T14:11:32.294-08:00A Rollout of Staff-less Libraries<a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/librarians-staffless-library-beginning-of-the-end-3083733-Nov2016/">In Dublin, Ireland,</a> twenty-three library branches will offer a new Open Library service in 2017, meaning libraries will stay open and operate without staff during the evenings and weekends.<br /><br />This initiative has made the library staff uneasy.&nbsp;And the librarians have come out against the initiative stating “We truly believe that this move is the beginning of the end for our Public Library Service.”<br /><br />This has become a bit of a hot-button political issue as the Dublin City Councillors voted against the initiative to show support for librarians and library staff. <i>However, the Minister of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government Simon Coveney said, “There will be no closure of library branches as a result of the Open Library service. Similarly, there will be no reduction in staffing levels or staffed hours as a result of the service, either in the short or long term." He added that “funding is allocated to libraries on the basis of applications received from local authorities interested in rolling out the service in their respective areas. My Department received 27 applications under the My Open Library initiative following a call for proposals from interested local authorities in June 2016.”</i><br /><br />It's a difficult situation because of the potential future ramifications of such an initiative. In the short-term, it's wonderful that the libraries will be open to the public during the evenings and on weekends for greater access to materials. In the long-term, however, if the initiative is deemed successful by the powers that be, what's to say that the Minister of Housing won't cut staff as a future cost-savings measure?<br /><br /><a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-generalist-librarian.html">Library staff are such an important part</a>&nbsp;of what makes a public library the heart of any community. To cut the very people who are the glue of the institution would be a grievous error. If this initiative is truly about creating greater access to information, then bravo! We should, however, keep a watchful eye on this trend.<br /><br />To learn more about staff-less libraries, <a href="http://store.elsevier.com/Staff-Less-Libraries-Innovative-Staffing-Design/Carl-Gustav-Johannsen/isbn-9780081019238/">see a forthcoming book to be released in March 2017</a>.<br /><br />From the book's description:<br /><i>Staff-Less Libraries: Innovative Staff Design</i> <i>considers the challenges of this approach, its pros and cons, identifies international experiences, and discusses best practices. It presents a step-by-step approach to implementing a staffless library and/or services, and seeks to inspire professionals to share experiences and optimize their library. Staff-less public libraries, enabled by technological developments, represent a significant and innovative aspect of the development of public libraries. The concept radically enlarges the availability of user access to public libraries. Some Danish public library branches have, for example, increased their weekly opening hours from 20 to 80 hours per week. In Denmark, the concept has been quite successful, increasing the number of staff-less libraries from 81 public library units in 2011 to 260 in 2014.</i>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-34532189534016556212016-12-15T08:35:00.001-08:002016-12-15T09:39:20.555-08:00The Examined Life: A Reading ListA fairly recent <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-need-to-read-1480083086">Saturday Essay in the Wall Street Journal</a> started out by noting: <i>We all ask each other a lot of questions. But we should all ask one question a lot more often: “What are you reading?”</i><br /><br /><i>It’s a simple question but a powerful one, and it can change lives.</i> Here is a sampling of my reading list for the past year:<br /><br /><ul><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Homegoing-novel-Yaa-Gyasi/dp/1101947136">Homegoing</a> by Yaa Gyasi</li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ecFOMYWhuPs/WFLFIP5EGYI/AAAAAAAAA-s/YGRBLk2216A6uTqebHlkOb8Yn2v_ydQogCLcB/s1600/HG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ecFOMYWhuPs/WFLFIP5EGYI/AAAAAAAAA-s/YGRBLk2216A6uTqebHlkOb8Yn2v_ydQogCLcB/s200/HG.jpg" width="132" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>"It’s impossible not to admire the ambition and scope of <i>Homegoing</i>, and thanks to Ms. Gyasi’s instinctive storytelling gifts, the book leaves the reader with a visceral understanding of both the savage realities of slavery and the emotional damage that is handed down, over the centuries, from mothers to daughters, fathers to sons. At its best, the novel makes us experience the horrors of slavery on an intimate, personal level; by its conclusion, the characters’ tales of loss and resilience have acquired an inexorable and cumulative emotional weight."</div><div><br /></div><div>—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times</div><div><br /></div><ul><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hillbilly-Elegy-Memoir-Family-Culture/dp/0062300547">Hillbilly Elegy</a> by J.D. Vance</li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-t_JRHyoRK6o/WFLE74DSXdI/AAAAAAAAA-o/0NncMW4l3S03NiULT8SnbccRnPLoWd-hACLcB/s1600/HE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-t_JRHyoRK6o/WFLE74DSXdI/AAAAAAAAA-o/0NncMW4l3S03NiULT8SnbccRnPLoWd-hACLcB/s200/HE.jpg" width="132" /></a></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>"Hillbilly Elegy</i> is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of poor, white Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for over forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. In <i>Hillbilly Elegy</i>, J.D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hanging around your neck."</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><ul><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Evicted-Poverty-Profit-American-City/dp/0553447432">Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City</a> by Matthew Desmond</li></ul><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wyGk_avOdB8/WFLFReH6WfI/AAAAAAAAA-w/WpzVkkc1GbIfQSuJDxusclXDOuoPEFNWwCLcB/s1600/Evicted.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wyGk_avOdB8/WFLFReH6WfI/AAAAAAAAA-w/WpzVkkc1GbIfQSuJDxusclXDOuoPEFNWwCLcB/s200/Evicted.jpg" width="134" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>“An exhaustively researched, vividly realized and above all, unignorable book—after <i>Evicted</i>, it will no longer be possible to have a serious discussion about poverty without having a serious discussion about housing.”</div><div><br /></div><div>—Jennifer Senior, New York Times</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><ul><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Good-Girls-Revolt-Newsweek-Workplace/dp/1610397460/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1481818563&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=the+good+girls+revolt">The Good Girls Revolt</a> by Lynn Povich</li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-njsHlMofFpw/WFLFc1w9ceI/AAAAAAAAA-0/1JALWvsUvWQLV_kyyZvRINI3ICJapdkRwCLcB/s1600/GGR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-njsHlMofFpw/WFLFc1w9ceI/AAAAAAAAA-0/1JALWvsUvWQLV_kyyZvRINI3ICJapdkRwCLcB/s200/GGR.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>"<i>The Good Girls Revolt</i> is as compelling as any novel, and also an accurate, intimate history of new women journalists invading the male journalistic world of the 1970s. Lynn Povich turns this epic revolt into a lesson on why and how we've just begun."</div><div><br /></div><div>—Gloria Steinem</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><ul><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tribe-Homecoming-Belonging-Sebastian-Junger/dp/1455566381/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1481818701&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=the+tribe">Tribe</a> by Sebastian Junger</li></ul><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lHYsLmNq3ww/WFLFn1t01bI/AAAAAAAAA-4/AmL6hUKaS34MjOtVEqPF98xuJ1MtB72jwCLcB/s1600/Tribe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lHYsLmNq3ww/WFLFn1t01bI/AAAAAAAAA-4/AmL6hUKaS34MjOtVEqPF98xuJ1MtB72jwCLcB/s200/Tribe.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>"I first read about this history several months ago in Sebastian Junger's excellent book, TRIBE. It has haunted me since. It raises the possibility that our culture is built on some fundamental error about what makes people happy and fulfilled."</div><div><br /></div><div>―David Brooks, The New York Times</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><ul><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/We-Should-All-Be-Feminists/dp/110191176X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1481818665&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=we+should+all+be+feminists+chimamanda+ngozi+adichie">We Should All Be Feminists</a> by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie</li></ul><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V_EIRuBV3hI/WFLFwbXI5aI/AAAAAAAAA-8/Zzsogn8wIFIwNdCOKdWADWC8BEVT7ujNQCLcB/s1600/Fem.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V_EIRuBV3hI/WFLFwbXI5aI/AAAAAAAAA-8/Zzsogn8wIFIwNdCOKdWADWC8BEVT7ujNQCLcB/s200/Fem.jpg" width="140" /></a></div><br />"Drawing on anecdotes from her adolescence and adult life, Adichie attempts to strike down stereotypes and unpack the baggage usually associated with the term. She argues that an emphasis on feminism is necessary because to focus only on the general "human rights" is "to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded."<br /><br />—Shelley Diaz, School Library Journal<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The author of the Saturday Essay noted, <i>At the trial in which he would be sentenced to death, Socrates (as quoted by Plato) said that the unexamined life isn’t worth living. Reading is the best way I know to learn how to examine your life. By comparing what you’ve done to what others have done, and your thoughts and theories and feelings to those of others, you learn about yourself and the world around you.</i><br /><i><br /></i>Each of these books have given me the wonderful opportunity to examine this life and learn about myself and the world around me.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-20685959836797021032016-12-12T08:13:00.000-08:002016-12-13T07:58:32.053-08:00Law Librarians Teaching Research Skills for Hire<div>Law librarians know <a href="https://ripslawlibrarian.wordpress.com/2015/03/29/the-importance-of-legal-research-skills-for-practice/">how important legal research skills are for practice</a>.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div>It appears that the legal industry is starting to understand how to parse through potential hires to find those with the best legal research skills.&nbsp;<a href="http://blog.legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com/legal-research/what-to-look-for-when-interviewing-for-the-best-legal-researcher/?cid=social_20161207_68514316&amp;adbid=10154008715537190&amp;adbpl=fb&amp;adbpr=212022732189">The Thomson Reuters Legal Solution Blog</a> recently posted a series of tips for evaluating a potential hire's research skills.<b>&nbsp;</b>As noted, <i><b>one of the key tasks that an attorney will be expected to complete throughout his or her career is legal research</b>. When hiring or interviewing prospective candidates, a Partner will often want to ensure that the candidate has top notch legal research skills that can be put to use by the firm.&nbsp;</i><br /><div><br /></div><div>These skills include:</div><div><ul><li><b>Flexibility</b> - knowing when to use natural language versus boolean searching</li><li><b>Creativity</b> - using creativity to distinguish or analogize a case to a results list instead of searching for the "perfect case" that may not exist</li><li><b>Familiarity</b> - looking beyond cases and statutes to other sources such as Trial Court Documents</li><li><b>Exhaustive</b> - knowing when to stop researching</li></ul><span id="goog_1713824255"></span><span id="goog_1713824256"></span>These skills are important skills that law students must learn from law librarians. There is inevitably a "back and forth" that goes on in legal research. Legal researchers must be able to find meaningful sources AND analyze results to understand what they still need to find.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xWeMFcab8Ic/WE7McdnxsBI/AAAAAAAAA-M/DO5l6taFYyQyy1Ag5ZBhtBtGkxb5d9YWACLcB/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xWeMFcab8Ic/WE7McdnxsBI/AAAAAAAAA-M/DO5l6taFYyQyy1Ag5ZBhtBtGkxb5d9YWACLcB/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></div><a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2014/07/librarians-need-to-bridge-knowledge-in.html">Law librarians must bridge the knowledge in action gap</a> to ensure that law students can <a href="https://ripslawlibrarian.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/research-process-in-the-databases/">find familiar resources</a> while maintaining flexibility. Students must also have the analytical skills to creatively find answers and <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2016/09/legal-research-knowing-when-to-stop.html">know when to stop researching</a>.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>If law librarians leave it up to legal writing professors to teach the analysis portion, we are doing the students a disservice by providing the steps to find resources without having them practice the difficult task of analysis and revising searches. The students must&nbsp;<a href="https://ripslawlibrarian.wordpress.com/2016/10/11/uncertainty-and-legal-research/">struggle through the entire process</a> to truly absorb the skills necessary for effective and efficient legal research.&nbsp;</div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-83751028319864010122016-12-07T07:44:00.001-08:002016-12-07T07:45:47.247-08:00Gaming the Article Title<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--71Gl9qRo7I/WEguOQtY7fI/AAAAAAAAA9Y/Ha1FWT2JqUI3QpaX0xDvQPjERyO78wNOgCLcB/s1600/421975855_1280x720.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--71Gl9qRo7I/WEguOQtY7fI/AAAAAAAAA9Y/Ha1FWT2JqUI3QpaX0xDvQPjERyO78wNOgCLcB/s320/421975855_1280x720.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />In past posts, I have highlighted the importance of a well-optimized article&nbsp;<a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2014/06/law-review-article-titles.html">title</a> and <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-well-optimized-abstract.html">abstract</a>&nbsp;for discoverability. Titles, in particular, are important because researchers often use keyword searching in the title field to find articles that are highly relevant to their research.<br /><br />Not only is a title important for discoverability, it's also important to catch the attention of a potential reader and up article views and downloads for impact purposes.<br /><br /><a href="http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2016/12/a-case-study-in-ssrn-downloads-or-fuck-redux.html">Brian Leiter over at the Law Professor Blogs Network</a> recently highlighted a story illustrating how to game the article title to increase downloads.<br /><i><br /></i><i>I have an article with the (admittedly extremely boring) title "Rethinking Assignor Estoppel" coming out in the Houston Law Review. It has been on SSRN for nine months. I have posted about it twice on Facebook and Twitter, and it has shown up in all the SSRN journals. In that nine months it has garnered 982 views and 172 SSRN downloads.</i><br /><br /><i>Late Friday afternoon, prompted by some friends teasing me for the boring headline, I posted the exact same article, with the exact same abstract, but with a new, click-baity title: "Inventor Sued for Infringing His Own Patent. You Won't Believe What Happened Next." I did this in part as a joke, and in part as an unscientific test to see how susceptible law professors were to clickbait.</i><br /><br /><i>The answer is, quite susceptible indeed. In less than two hours on a Friday night the number of views for this "new" article surpassed the old one. In 26 hours, by late Saturday, more people had downloaded the new article than the old one, even though before downloading you are exposed to the same old boring abstract. And by the end of the weekend, the article had been viewed nearly six times as often as the original and downloaded three times as often as the original.</i><br /><br /><i>The article will soon appear in the Houston Law Review under its old, boring title. But it sure looks like titles matter.</i><br /><i><br /></i>Authors would do well to keep this in mind when naming an article. This, <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2015/06/long-jargon-filled-abstracts-win.html">coupled with a long, jargon-filled abstract</a>, may just be the key to article impact success.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-3953003095758244822016-12-05T09:41:00.000-08:002016-12-06T13:11:41.493-08:00How the Librarians Saved History: Harvesting Government Information<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/nyregion/harvesting-government-history-one-web-page-at-a-time.html?_r=0">The NYTimes recently highlighted</a> the work of the <a href="http://digital2.library.unt.edu/nomination/eth2016/about/">End of Term Presidential Harvest 2016</a> --&nbsp;a volunteer, collaborative effort by a small group of university, government and nonprofit libraries to find and save valuable pages now on federal websites.<br /><br /><i>With the arrival of any new president, vast troves of information on government websites are at risk of vanishing within days. The fragility of digital federal records, reports and research is astounding.&nbsp;</i><br /><br />Currently, <i>no law protects much of it, no automated machine records it for history, and the National Archives and Records Administration <a href="https://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/memos/nwm13-2008-brief.html">announced in 2008</a> that it would not take on the job. “Large portions of dot-gov have no mandate to be taken care of,” said Mark Phillips, a library dean at the University of North Texas, referring to government websites. “Nobody is really responsible for doing this.”</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Enter the End of Term Presidential Harvest 2016.&nbsp;The project began before the 2008 elections, when George W. Bush was serving his second term, and returned in 2012.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>The ritual has taken on greater urgency this year, Mr. Phillips said, out of concern that certain pages may be more vulnerable than usual because they contain scientific data for which Mr. Trump and some of his allies have expressed hostility or contempt.</i><br /><br />And this small group can use all of the help it can get. <b>People can contribute to the effort by proposing a web page for preservation by the archives. Proposed pages should be on federal websites, since many states also use .gov in their addresses.&nbsp;</b><b>A simple tool for nominating a page is at</b> <a href="http://digital2.library.unt.edu/nomination/eth2016/">digital2.library.unt.edu/nomination/eth2016/</a>.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://digital2.library.unt.edu/nomination/eth2016/about/"><img border="0" height="85" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tnU8S_XauvM/WEWmlZGy2EI/AAAAAAAAA80/5lerxYISrO8GoaYw4rpEyy-bckzbCzN7gCLcB/s400/End%2Bof%2BTerm%2BPresidential%2BHarvest.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />As the article author notes, <i>for the 10 people working on laptops at the academy, hunting for important federal records, another title might serve: How the Librarians Saved History.</i>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-51329059714014987762016-12-02T07:48:00.000-08:002016-12-02T08:49:16.616-08:00AI as Premature Law Librarian DisruptorLaw librarians do similarly creative work as lawyers, so <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2015/08/ibm-watson-for-legal-research-dubbed.html">a computer program like ROSS</a> won’t be able to replace us in the near future. That being said, there may be a time in the future when computer programs will be more adept at many of our tasks.<br /><br />Artificial intelligence relies on machine learning, which is highly dependent on natural language processing.<br /><br />There are three main levels of natural language processing:<br /><ul><li>Syntactic (sentence structure/grammar)</li><li>Semantic (understanding phrases)</li><li>Pragmatic (understanding context)</li></ul><br />Computer science experts and philosophers have estimated a processing curve based on where computers are now and when computers will master pragmatic natural language processing.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RysPlFBp_TY/WEGULz8h5sI/AAAAAAAAA8U/_vrC2l8YScAmsJ-OWZRjrpBBi4G09NSWQCLcB/s1600/Picture1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RysPlFBp_TY/WEGULz8h5sI/AAAAAAAAA8U/_vrC2l8YScAmsJ-OWZRjrpBBi4G09NSWQCLcB/s320/Picture1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Based on the curve, we see that computer programs are currently at the end of the syntactics curve and are just beginning the semantics curve (think Siri). We still have a long way to go before computers do the high level pragmatic natural language processing, with estimates being close to year 2100 and beyond.<br /><br />Even when a computer program starts to do pragmatic-level natural language processing, it will still take time for it to master and emulate what the human brain can do on the pragmatic front. The more low-level tasks of lawyers and law librarians will go quickly (think finding a case by citation or party name).<br /><br />But the high level, context driven, creative tasks will take much more time for computers to master. We may inevitably need fewer lawyers and law librarians over time, but AI will mostly work to augment our human brains. Personally, I would love them help.<br /><br />What we all must be cognizant of is the notion of "premature disruption" – losing valuable players (lawyers and librarians) before the technology is truly ready to replace them. ROSS, for example, is really good at PR, but stakeholders must be careful to avoid premature disruption. ROSS is a great tool that will augment lawyers and librarians, but it will not replace us. And it won't replace us for the foreseeable future.<br /><br />It's important that we all arm ourselves with this information so that the various stakeholders understand AI's current capabilities. I will spend December &amp; January finalizing a full-length piece on this topic. More to come...<br /><div><br /></div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-17465348471446471052016-11-30T10:45:00.001-08:002016-11-30T10:45:34.997-08:00Legal Research Clinic Bridges Gap to Help Community<a href="http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2016/11/law-students-resolve-questions-residents-nonprofits">Cornell Law School has started a Legal Research Clinic</a> where 2Ls &amp; 3Ls help local residents, nonprofit organizations, and entrepreneurs with specific questions that do not require full legal representation. The students also assist public-interest lawyers who need legal research assistance, which is a wonderful way to provide greater access to justice.<br /><br />The director of the Legal Research Clinic, Amy Emerson, noted that she was often trying to construct artificial issues for students to research. At the same time, people from the community were coming to the library with legal questions, but librarians are not supposed to give legal advice.<br /><br />As Emerson noted, the Legal Research Clinic was a way to bridge the gap. The Clinic meets the community's needs while giving the students very practical experience.<br /><br /><i>The broad range of topics is what makes this legal clinic unique, said Emerson. Most clinics focus on a defined area of law, forcing them to turn away requests outside of their specialty. In this clinic, students and their instructors (students cannot give legal advice, so the instructors, who are attorneys, are always present) research and offer answers in many areas of law to specific questions, large or small.</i><br /><i><br /></i>Great work Amy Emerson &amp; Cornell! There is no better way to teach legal research than with real clients asking a wide variety of questions.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-48386762813203345332016-11-29T08:10:00.000-08:002016-11-29T08:19:04.572-08:00ABA Journal Names The Ginger (Law) Librarian to Blawg 100Editors of the <i>ABA Journal</i> announced today they have named The Ginger (Law) Librarian to the Blawg 100 &nbsp;-- one of the 100 best blogs for a legal audience.<br /><br /><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rkYCPYr4cCM/WD2oImGeSHI/AAAAAAAAA7g/BAolaVjUKxA21-DwQ-iF2wUGI5cnwryKQCLcB/s1600/HonoreeBadge300.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rkYCPYr4cCM/WD2oImGeSHI/AAAAAAAAA7g/BAolaVjUKxA21-DwQ-iF2wUGI5cnwryKQCLcB/s1600/HonoreeBadge300.png" /></a>“For 10 years, the Blawg 100 has helped shine a light on the stunning breadth of legal topics and voices to found in the legal blogosphere,” Acting Editor-Publisher Molly McDonough said. “Journal editors have selected yet another stellar list of blogs. We hope you’ll find legal information sources in this list that are completely new to you and bookmark them for regular reading.”<br /><br />Other law librarian honorees include, <a href="http://deweybstrategic.blogspot.com/">Dewey B Strategic</a>, Jean P. O'Grady; <a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/law/">In Custodia Legis</a>, Law Library Congress; and <a href="http://www.bespacific.com/">beSpacific</a>, Sabrina Pacifici.<br /><br />Thanks to the ABA and Molly McDonough for this wonderful honor.<br /><br />About the <i>ABA Journal</i>:<br />The <i>ABA Journal</i> is the flagship magazine of the American Bar Association, and it is read by half of the nation’s 1.1 million lawyers every month. It covers the trends, people and finances of the legal profession from Wall Street to Main Street to Pennsylvania Avenue. ABAJournal.com features breaking legal news updated as it happens by staff reporters throughout every business day, a directory of more than 4,000 lawyer blogs, and the full contents of the magazine.<br /><br />About the ABA:<br />With nearly 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-66184446501742302902016-11-21T11:35:00.000-08:002016-11-21T11:35:22.752-08:00Information Literacy Now: Most Students Can't Spot Fake News<a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/most-students-dont-know-when-news-is-fake-stanford-study-finds-1479752576?mod=e2fb">The Wall Street Journal is reporting</a> on a new study out of Stanford that shows that preteens and teens are clueless about evaluating the accuracy and trustworthiness of "news."<br /><i><br /></i><i>Some 82% of middle schoolers couldn’t distinguish between an ad labeled “sponsored content” and a real news story on a website, according to a Stanford University study of 7,804 students from middle school through college.&nbsp;</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>The study, set for release Tuesday, is the biggest so far on how teens evaluate information they find online. Many students judged the credibility of newsy tweets based on how much detail they contained or whether a large photo was attached, rather than on the source.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>More than two out of three middle-schoolers couldn’t see any valid reason to mistrust a post written by a bank executive arguing that young adults need more financial-planning help. And nearly four in 10 high-school students believed, based on the headline, that a photo of deformed daisies on a photo-sharing site provided strong evidence of toxic conditions near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, even though no source or location was given for the photo.</i><br /><i><br /></i><a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2016/11/librarians-at-forefront-on-war-against.html">As mentioned in a previous post</a>, librarians are at the forefront of the war on fake news. Our main mission is to teach information literacy. Or maybe the correct terminology is that librarians should be on the forefront of the war on fake news. <i>Fewer schools now have librarians, who traditionally taught research skills. And media literacy has slipped to the margins in many classrooms, to make room for increased instruction in basic reading and math skills.</i><br /><i><br /></i>Many think that the value of librarians is decreasing now that "everything is online." However, the fake news phenomena is a perfect example of why, in this day and age, <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2015/07/libraries-matter-more-than-ever.html">librarians are more important than ever</a>.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-8190089144901397882016-11-17T13:59:00.000-08:002016-11-17T13:59:17.780-08:00Librarians at Forefront on War Against Fake News<a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/16/13637294/school-libraries-information-literacy-fake-news-election-2016">The Verge recently interviewed a librarian</a> about the abundance of fake news. It's a real problem, and concern has escalated since the presidential election.<br /><br /><i>The central focus of the concern is <b>Facebook</b>, which has grown beyond a social platform and <b>is now a key information distributor from which 44 percent of Americans get their news.</b> Google and Facebook both recently announced that they would block fake news sources from using their ad networks.&nbsp;All of this is compounded by the reality that a lot of people don’t know fake news when they see it, sensationalized reports are more likely to go viral on social media than sane ones, and distrust of traditional (and genuinely more reliable) media sources is rising.</i><br /><br />As Verge points out, librarians are well positioned to tackle the fake news problem. <i>Librarians... we’ve always talked about information literacy. Information literacy is just trying to get people to be savvy consumers of information, and getting them to be able to really interrogate the information that is available to them, to see what is quality, to evaluate sources, et cetera.&nbsp;</i><br /><br />And many librarians see this as a problem of information overload. <i>We’re just inundated with so much information it becomes just more difficult to parse out where the quality information is. And these fake news sites are increasingly savvy. We used to talk to students about “How does the website look? Does it look like you could have done it on your laptop or does it look like there’s a corporation behind it?” We used to and still do look at the url: “Is it a .net, is it a .org?” But these new sites are so savvy, the interfaces can be really slick, and they can look a lot like what we consider to be reputable sources. There’s is also now a lot of manipulation of the domains. I saw something not too long ago that had “.edu.co.” We say that if it has an “edu” it’s a reputable site but there’s that added manipulation with the “.co.” It becomes trickier to identify these deceitful sites right away unless you’re really paying attention and doing due diligence.&nbsp;</i><br /><br />The main takeaway to reduce fake news sources is to actually take the time to evaluate a source before you decide to forward it as truth.<i> If you see something on Facebook or Twitter, a lot of people get caught up with just forwarding information without actually reading the article or examining the site. When you see a very salacious headline or something that’s challenging, sometimes the inclination is to forward it without checking. You have to ask: does this appear in multiple places or did you only see it on Facebook? This misinformation is perpetuated because people aren’t taking the time to evaluate sources before they accept it as truth and / or pass it on to others.&nbsp;</i>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-20971439593892179982016-11-14T10:55:00.001-08:002016-11-14T10:55:21.422-08:00Library as Heart of Institution not "Vanity Projects"In an <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BMPAsXSDcpV/?hl=en">Instagram video</a>, former Fox News host Greta Van Susteren proclaimed that she is “scandalized” by the cost of education and how college students are saddled with “gigantic student loans.” Law schools are certainly at the forefront of this criticism as nearly&nbsp;<a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2013/04/in-rare-twist-story-about-chronic.html">85% of law students graduate with over $100,000 in student debt</a>.<br /><br />Van Susteren went on to post similar comments on Twitter, exclaiming, “Colleges should stop building vanity projects like huge libraries and billing students -- full libraries are on our smartphones!”<br /><br /><a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2016/11/10/why-academic-libraries-arent-just-expensive-vanity-projects-essay">As noted on InsideHigherEd</a>, <i>those comments ... are destructively misleading to the general public as well as higher education administrators and legislative decision makers about the significant contributions academic libraries make to teaching and learning.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Academic librarians play a vital part in the education ecosystem, putting information into context for students by distinguishing information from knowledge and offering direct assistance to constituents in a personal way that cannot be replicated by an electronic device.&nbsp;In addition, students who receive information-literacy instruction as part of their courses achieve higher grades and demonstrate increased research fluency than students who do not receive such instruction. Further, a library’s research and study areas offer a destination for those who can’t afford quiet space as well as fostering social and academic community among students.&nbsp;</i><br /><br /><i>Far from being tangential to the learning process on our college campuses, libraries -- the physical buildings themselves -- are as essential to the classroom as an artery is to the heart.</i> Or as I have previously posted, maybe it's the other way around with the <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2014/02/question-for-academic-library.html">classroom being an artery to the heart of the institution, i.e, the library</a>.<br /><br />Academic libraries provide, in part:<br /><br /><ul><li><i>(for the haves and the have-nots) spaces or commons -- primarily “high-tech ready” in nature -- that offer general and subject-specific equipment, software and web-delivered content for individual access and study. They also offer collaborative spaces for students to work together with each other in small groups and with classroom faculty to study and create content.</i></li><li><i>spaces for STEM and STEAM discovery or maker space environments for students anywhere in the program or the curriculum -- especially those who don’t have access to departmental labs, where spaces are often reserved for students majoring in those specific areas.</i></li><li><i>open labs and flexible, individual computer spaces with equipment and software unique to special research or subject area populations, such as geographic information systems or statistical software packages to process data used in the study of social and natural sciences. They also serve special needs students, faculty members and staff.</i></li></ul><br /><div><i>Academic libraries provide not only access to content within their buildings but also equipment and technology that students can check out and use in their educational pursuits. (This takes space for not only storage but also delivery of resources.)</i></div><div><div><br /></div><div>Additionally, academic library professionals, <i>often faculty members themselves, are experts in areas of research, and they work in partnership with classroom instructors in the design and delivery of curricula. They also:</i></div><div><ul><li><i>partner with classroom faculty members in the design and delivery of courses requiring critical thinking and information literacy as well as subject-targeted assignments;</i></li><li><i>are champions for and leaders in open educational resources that provide vetted, free content for students who can’t afford textbooks, a large part of the price tag of college;</i></li><li><i>build digital as well as print collections to reflect classroom faculty research, recommended research by other experts and subject content required by external regional and national accreditation bodies -- such as digital and print content for the health sciences and business-management curricula; and,</i></li><li><i>acquire, curate, design and deliver online content and competency lessons (online tutorials, streamed office hours with library experts) for students to access on their smartphones.</i></li></ul><div>While facilities are a huge issue for keeping costs under control, it is shortsighted to take aim at the library.&nbsp;</div></div></div>Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-6812862376128806822016-11-11T09:52:00.001-08:002016-11-11T09:52:06.275-08:00RIPS Law Librarian Blog - The Skills Needed for Summer Associate ResearchLexis released a new report outlining the time that summer associates spend on legal research. The report also highlights where additional research instruction is needed.<br /><br />Check out the full announcement over at the <a href="https://ripslawlibrarian.wordpress.com/2016/11/11/the-skills-needed-for-summer-associate-research/">RIPS Law Librarian Blog</a>.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-43864321373273724472016-11-08T08:50:00.003-08:002016-11-08T08:50:57.491-08:00Librarianship as ProfessionI was completely inspired by reading <a href="https://ripslawlibrarian.wordpress.com/2016/11/08/the-s-in-rips-and-the-value-of-libraries/">a post on the RIPS Law Librarian Blog</a> by my friend and colleague, Paul Gatz.<br /><br />The post, in essence, is a reminder that librarianship is its own profession. We need this reminder because we are often relegated to a "supplementary or secondary character" within our institutions. And, to be sure, law librarians do provide the service that is often thought of as supplementary or secondary. As noted: <i>We pride ourselves on the high level and quality of service that we provide to our patrons – performing research, developing collections, and even crafting mission statements based on the needs of our primary institutions, whether law school, firm, or court</i><br /><br />But we are more than that.&nbsp;<i>Service is no doubt a necessary function of any library, but that recognition need not commit us to the idea that the library is a secondary or supplementary institution or that service occupies the whole of our professional identity as librarians.&nbsp;</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Indeed, at first glance, the library’s function is to provide information services of a high quality. But, with a sudden shift in perspective, we may see that the work we do in providing that service itself creates the library, an information system the value of which transcends any particular service.</i><br /><i><br /></i>What a wonderful, well-stated reminder that law librarianship is a profession with an identity far beyond the supplementary or secondary nature that it is often characterized as. Especially on the days when others think that this career is a default for people who didn't do well at something else. The reality is that many of us chose this profession because we saw value and believed in it.<br /><br />This leads me to a post on InsideHigherEd where the author argues that <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2016/10/17/how-library-and-information-studies-research-shortchanging-libraries-essay">librarians are falling short of their profession's needs</a>. The author notes that when researching libraries, there's not enough information from the profession itself. To round out his literature review on libraries, the author had to "tap deeply into non-library and information studies literature." The author erroneously determines that LIS educators and researchers must not recognize the value in "library as place" ideals because they do not write about it. He notes that people outside of the profession and "already overworked library practitioners" have taken the initiative to research and write about the profession, and asks "where is the LIS research community?"<br /><br />This may be the wrong question to ask, however. My first inclination, based on my knowledge of academia and the number of <a href="https://www.aaup.org/report/status-non-tenure-track-faculty">tenure-track positions nationwide</a>&nbsp;(and where LIS faculty fall in funding), is that would-be LIS researchers can't meaningfully exist. How many faculty members in LIS programs across the country are tenure track with the full support to research and write in-depth studies on "longitudinal studies evaluating library activities...?"<br /><br />It's important work that must be done, but it's nearly impossible to perform meaningful research while not being supported to do so. The right question to ask would be "where are the LIS programs that support a meaningful LIS research community?"<br /><br />Librarianship is an important profession that has a lot to say. However ,because we are often treated as supplementary or secondary within our institutions, we don't have a lot of time or support to say it.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-37059525565084321532016-11-02T07:06:00.000-07:002016-11-02T07:06:14.481-07:00FREE GPO Webinars In NovemberCheck out these free, educational webinars from the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO), taking place this November.<br /><br /><ul><li>Beyond Google – Another Look at Finding Government Information, November 9, 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. (Eastern): <a href="https://www.fdlp.gov/about-the-fdlp/fdlp-events-calendar/event/220-beyond-google-another-look-at-finding-government-information">https://www.fdlp.gov/about-the-fdlp/fdlp-events-calendar/event/220-beyond-google-another-look-at-finding-government-information</a>&nbsp;</li></ul><ul><li>OSHA’s Web Pages: A Wealth of Occupational Safety Information, November 10, 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. (Eastern): <a href="https://www.fdlp.gov/about-the-fdlp/fdlp-events-calendar/event/223-osha-s-web-pages-a-wealth-of-occupational-safety-information">https://www.fdlp.gov/about-the-fdlp/fdlp-events-calendar/event/223-osha-s-web-pages-a-wealth-of-occupational-safety-information</a></li></ul><ul><li>Measuring America Series: Accessing International Data, November 16, 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. (Eastern): <a href="https://www.fdlp.gov/about-the-fdlp/fdlp-events-calendar/event/221-measuring-america-series-accessing-international-data">https://www.fdlp.gov/about-the-fdlp/fdlp-events-calendar/event/221-measuring-america-series-accessing-international-data</a> &nbsp;</li></ul><ul><li>U.S. Naval War College Information Resources: Maritime, Naval History, Geopolitical, and Educational Treasures, November 17, 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. (Eastern): <a href="https://www.fdlp.gov/about-the-fdlp/fdlp-events-calendar/event/222-u-s-naval-war-college-information-resources-maritime-naval-history-geopolitical-and-educational-treasures">https://www.fdlp.gov/about-the-fdlp/fdlp-events-calendar/event/222-u-s-naval-war-college-information-resources-maritime-naval-history-geopolitical-and-educational-treasures</a>&nbsp;</li></ul><ul><li>Science Soup: Mix Your Way through the Ingredients of Some Major Science Databases: Science.gov, PubMed, and WorldWideScience, November 29, 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. (Eastern): <a href="https://www.fdlp.gov/about-the-fdlp/fdlp-events-calendar/event/226-science-soup-mix-your-way-through-the-ingredients-of-some-major-science-databases-scitence-gov-pubmed-and-worldwidescience">https://www.fdlp.gov/about-the-fdlp/fdlp-events-calendar/event/226-science-soup-mix-your-way-through-the-ingredients-of-some-major-science-databases-scitence-gov-pubmed-and-worldwidescience</a>&nbsp;</li></ul><ul><li>Using the BEA Interactive Data Tool to get Local Data, November 30, 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. (Eastern): <a href="https://www.fdlp.gov/about-the-fdlp/fdlp-events-calendar/event/224-using-the-bea-interactive-data-tool-to-get-local-data">https://www.fdlp.gov/about-the-fdlp/fdlp-events-calendar/event/224-using-the-bea-interactive-data-tool-to-get-local-data</a>&nbsp;</li></ul><br />Presenters from GPO, other Federal Government agencies, and from Federal depository libraries across the Nation will present on topics related to Federal Government information and the Federal Depository Library Program. All sessions are presented virtually through GPO's FDLP Academy: <a href="https://www.fdlp.gov/about-the-fdlp/fdlp-academy">https://www.fdlp.gov/about-the-fdlp/fdlp-academy</a>.<br /><br />Attendees will receive a Certificate of Participation from GPO for each webinar they attend. Closed captioning is available for all webinars. Registrants will be sent access information upon registering.<br /><br />View the complete archive of recorded webinars and webcasts at: <a href="http://login.icohere.com/public/topics.cfm?cseq=1172">http://login.icohere.com/public/topics.cfm?cseq=1172</a>.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8844319067330379742.post-8702171554896731672016-11-01T08:32:00.000-07:002016-11-01T08:32:14.736-07:00PBS Column Asks, "Do We Need Librarians Now That We Have the Internet?"A recent <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/column-need-librarians-internet/">PBS column asked the question</a> that librarians get <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2013/05/why-do-i-need-book-when-everything-is.html">all.the time</a>: "Do We Need Librarians Now That We Have the Internet?"<br /><br />The column author astutely compares librarians to doctors to observe that, in fact, we do still need librarians.<br /><br /><i>Observe librarians, and you’ll learn quite a bit about 21st century physicians. Digital technologies are hurling both professions into disintermediated worlds where they are no longer sole providers of vital services. Both must change their skills year by year and prove their value day by day. Both must choose whether the change is liberating or suffocating.</i><br /><br />When the question is posed next to the same question for doctors, it starts to be apparent that librarians still have a place.<br /><br />“Why do we need libraries now that we have the internet?”<br /><br />“Why do we need doctors now that there are computers?”<br /><br />Take, for example, Rich Schieken, who <i>retired after a 40-year career as a pediatric cardiologist and medical school professor.</i> He recently stated that he was sort of glad to be stepping down. When asked "why?," <i>Rich’s answer went something like this: “I do love it, but my world has changed. When I began, parents brought their sick and dying children to me. I said, ‘This is what we’ll do,’ and they said, ‘Yes, doctor.’ Nowadays, they bring 300 pages of internet printouts. When I offer a prognosis and suggest treatment, they point to the papers and ask, ‘Why not do this or this or that?’” He added, “Don’t get me wrong. This new world is better than the old one. It’s just quite a bit to get used to.”</i><br /><br />Like librarianship, technology is changing medicine in radical ways. <i>Cardiologist Eric Topol writes extensively about how converging technologies are democratizing medicine. With inexpensive smartphone apps, patients can check their children’s ears for infections, differentiate between bronchitis and pneumonia, and perform myriad other services that were once the exclusive domain of physicians. A patient with atrial fibrillation can use a smartphone and a tiny AliveCor peripheral to take an electrocardiogram in 30 seconds. (I have one on my own iPhone.)</i><br /><br /><i>Ponder this for a moment: Topol argues that the smartphone will soon be the most important device in medical history and that, relieved of rote tasks, physicians will be free to use their minds and talents where they are truly indispensable.</i><br /><br />Like medicine, libraries have changed dramatically with technological advances. Librarians have moved from granting access to material (although there is some of that) to helping people navigate the overabundance of information.&nbsp;<i>For centuries, the librarian’s job was providing scarce information to dependent patrons. Now, the job is helping patrons navigate superabundant information of wildly varying quality and uncertain provenance. The new job, unlike the old, requires marketing — librarians must persuade patrons that a navigator is worth the time and trouble. For better or worse, the digital age forces experts to make the case that a Google search doesn’t replace the librarian, and WebMD doesn’t replace the doctor.</i><br /><br />And very few people are likely to argue that technology should replace all physicians any time soon. Likewise, very few people <i>should</i> argue that <a href="http://gingerlibrarian.blogspot.com/2015/10/library-as-clinic-of-soul.html">technology will replace all librarians any time soon</a>.Jamie J. Baker, JD, MLIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16573342022828603782noreply@blogger.com0
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