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September 2014 PLL E-News
In This Issue
From the Chair
It's NOT Too Late
A Retiring Conversation
Ciao, Command Line!
Around the Blogosphere
PLL Happenings
Kudos to PLL Members
Welcome New Members

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FROM THE CHAIR

by Cheryl L. Niemeier, Bose McKinney & Evans LLP, Indianapolis, IN

 

 

What's in a Name?

 

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

 

No doubt all are aware that in the tragic tale from whence the above quote comes Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet meet and fall in love in Shakespeare's tale of "star-cross'd" lovers. In this famous line Juliet is telling Romeo that a name is an artificial and meaningless convention, and that she loves the person who is called "Montague," not the Montague name.

 

Juliet's oft quoted declaration in some ways mirrors the debate over the possible name change for our beloved PLL-SIS. Many of us love the name used to define our places of employment - libraries as well as our professional title - librarian.  However, unlike Juliet, I expect most of us would disagree with her statement that a name is simply an "artificial and meaningless convention." Rather we would argue there is meaning in a name.

 

Law libraries, as we know them today are undergoing steady and rapid change. My organization's law firm library is a mere shadow of what it used to be. Its physical footprint is now less that � of what it was in 2003. Furthermore, a good portion of what books so remain are no longer updated, rather they are simply being housed on the shelves until it is deemed the bulk of the attorneys have fully transitioned to our largely virtual collection of resources on WestlawNext and sundry other fee-based and free online Web resources. I expect many of you have experienced quite similar changes within your organizations.

 

The shrinking of our physical space has resulted in seismic changes in our daily tasks and roles as well. The results of the survey sent out last year under Jean O'Grady's leadership indicates that while some of us are still tasked with updating and cataloging print collections and routing current awareness items those tasks are assuredly on the wane, and we are experiencing an upswing in our time involved with negotiating contracts, evaluating and managing electronic resources, budgeting, performing legal, business development and competitive intelligence research, managing staff, projects, and other departments such as conflicts and docketing, conducting training, and heading up strategic planning and knowledge management initiatives for our organizations. In other words - performing many high-level value added duties.

 

This shift in our job responsibilities is also mirrored in the multitude of job titles our PLL members have. While some retain the term library or librarian many more contain the following terms or phrases: knowledge officer, knowledge services, knowledge management, information resources, research services, business development, competitive intelligence, knowledge systems, content analyst, information technology services, digital services, research analyst, or research specialist. If our job titles reflect our changed job responsibilities shouldn't our Special Interest Section's name do the same?

 

So back to the age old question of "What's in a name?" Is it a meaningless convention? Or rather does it convey meaning? Dictionary.com defines it as "a wordoracombinationofwordsbywhichaperson,place,orthing,abodyorclass,oranyobjectofthoughtisdesignated,called,orknown."

 

Thus by definition, a name does indeed convey meaning, begging the question as to whether the combination of words in our SIS name - Private Law Libraries - truly convey that by which we want to be known? If so, then we as a group of people are merely known as law libraries - a place - which does not reflect who and what we are all about. And that combination of words does not convey what we really are, which are professional individuals within our organizations that provide research, knowledge, information, intelligence, analysis, strategy, and more to our customers and organizations. In my view, and I hope in yours too, it does matter what our SIS is called and that you agree that it is time to change our SIS name to better reflect what we as professionals are all about!

 

I am open to hearing from PLL members, so please feel free to share via email  your thoughts regarding the name change initiative that PLL will be undertaking this year.

 

 

It's NOT Too Late ... To Propose a Program for the 2015 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia

The time is now to show AALL what you can do with the Power of Connection in Philadelphia 2015.

This year AALL President, Holly Riccio, AMPC Chair, Carol Watson, and the committee have come up with six general areas of importance to all members of the the profession.  These include Management/Leadership, Technology, Content Management, Collaboration, Raising the Profile of the Library/Librarian, and Legal Research/Reference.  The Content Area Teams then solicited ideas from AALL members to come up with "must-have" topics to help keep the programming as relevant and educational as possible for all members.

 

Remember that you can propose a program on any topic, not just from the must-haves.  Also, feel free to make a proposal that you consider Intermediate or Advanced.  You know what you do better than anyone so let your knowledge and experience shine in a program that goes beyond the basics.


What Now?
Thank you for your willingness to share your knowledge and expertise.

A Retiring Conversation


 

Enjoy this inaugural Member Spotlight Conversation with Jane Holland and Susan Yancey, two longtime Houston law firm librarians set to retire by the end of this year.

 

Ciao, Command Line! : A Quick Look at STN Version Two

 

Review by Alana Bevan, Information Resources Librarian, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP, Washington, DC

Around the Blogosphere this Month


 

Recent social media chatter abounds with posts and articles discussing librarians and the future of our profession. In  Despite Heavy Internet Use, Millenials Think Libraries are Useful is hopeful news that libraries are still relevant and perhaps somewhat surprisingly our relevancy is ranked highest among millenials (i.e. born digital natives) and 62% of all the survey respondents under age 30 "agree that a lot of useful, important information is not available on the Internet." That is good news indeed and indicates that we are making headway in proving our relevance.


 

A recent WSJ article Help Wanted Librarians, Sea Captains indicates that our profession is among those expected to see a shortage of workers to fill library jobs which while not good news is not necessarily an indication that we are not needed, rather we can expect a shortage of librarians to fill the spots of those expected to retire. Nonetheless, this may beg the question: are we a slow-growing profession because current day employers do not see a need for our roles in their organizations and thus will not be replacing us?


 

Finally, in Do Stand Up Comedians Take Knowledge Management More Seriously Than the Average Lawyer? "Can We Talk?" Jean O'Grady reveals the brilliancy of the late comedian Joan Rivers as a true taxonomist and perhaps a librarian at heart in detailing that "she was reported to have written, collected and cataloged over a million jokes during the course of her career. Apparently each joke was assigned descriptors and filed in in a massive catalog which resembled a traditional library card catalog." Clearly, the importance of curation and organization of information is critical to making it easy to find, which is where a great deal of our value resides.

 
PLL Happenings

The inaugural PLL August 28 PLL Summit and AALL Annual Meeting Key Takeaways Tweet-up while not a resounding success was informative. The event had only a few active Tweeters but seemed to have quite a few silent observers. Look for a Spring Tweet-up on a trending topic

 

Every year PLL seeks nominees for our numerous awards! Among the awards are Distinguished Librarian, Advocate of the Year, Innovative Professional of the Year, Best Blogger/Writer of the Year, Hall of Fame, Rookie of the Year, Emerging Leader of the Year, and Service to PLL. It is never too early to begin thinking of colleagues to nominate for these awards. Also, don't be shy and nominate yourselves for an award or two. 

 

SAVE the DATE - upcoming PLL-SIS Webinar
  •   Thursday, November 13th, 2 -3 p.m. ET - CI Essentials: Deliverables

 

Kudos to PLL Members

 

Steve Lastres, Director of Knowledge Management Services with Debevoise & Plimpton LLP received the ILTA - KM PROFESSIONAL OF THE YEAR award for his team's deployment of a new SharePoint intranet with client team sites, matter-centric information and financial dashboards. They also created a new extranet platform to provide clients secure access to their matter information and that will also include budgeting tools. Steve has volunteered for ILTA as a member of the annual conference committee, the Lit-Con Committee and as a speaker at the annual conference and the SharePoint Symposium. He has written extensively on KM topics, including the article "Knowledge Management: A Strategic Role Change for Legal Information Professionals," which was awarded ILTA's 2013 Publication Award Winner for Best Member-Contributed White Paper Article. Steve was the recipient of The Fastcase 50 award bestowed on top innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders. He is one of the founders of the highly collaborative On Firmer Ground blog, which covers the challenges facing contemporary law firm librarians.

Welcome New Members

Jannette Sheffield, New York, NY
Beth Northcutt, Fredrikson & Byron, P.A., Minneapolis, MN
Emily Wells, Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP, Boston