How law firm librarians are reinventing themselves - Reuters
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(Reuters) - When I started covering the business of law 25 years ago and first made the Big Law meet-and-greet rounds, the tours invariably included a peek at the firm’s library.
The showcase spaces conveyed both intellectual gravitas and quiet luxury: shelves laden with gold, black and red-spined volumes, flanked by racks of newspapers and magazines.
Such grand libraries were already on their way out as firms have moved to shrink their real estate footprints.
The pandemic all but sealed their fate. During the last two years of remote work, not a single lawyer I spoke to ever mentioned being hampered by lack of access to a firm’s physical books.
But what of the law librarians, those kings and queens without castles?
Once easily pigeonholed within a firm – they were the people who worked in the library – their roles now spill over into IT, marketing, business development, client services and beyond. Need a new database to track deals? Competitive intelligence? ESG expertise? Melding research and tech skills, a law librarian might be the go-to person.
Already operating in a largely virtual environment, some librarians say the pandemic actually provided an opportunity to increase their visibility within their firms. But will it last?
Greg Lambert, the chief knowledge services officer at 400-lawyer Jackson Walker, told me that when practice group leaders shifted to holding their meetings on Zoom, they broadened the invitees to include firm librarians as well as other staff.
“People who weren’t normally included were there,” Lambert said. “It enabled us to step up and point to resources,” reminding lawyers directly of the value that librarians can add.
Lambert said he’s worried about retaining this access when meetings stop being virtual. He fears that the lawyers, good intentions aside, may slide back into their old ways and neglect to invite those outside their group. (Flashback to middle school cool-kid parties.)
“I tell my research team they have to get in the room,” Lambert said. “Otherwise, if you wait around for (the lawyers) to think of you, they’re not going to think of you.”
An amorphous sense of what law librarians actually do may be partly to blame. The title “librarian” does little to clear it up.
“The library, is that a space? And is the librarian tied to that space?” said HBR Consulting director Colleen Cable, who specializes in issues related to law firm libraries, research and information services.
The title “isn’t a reflection of what the role is today,” she continued. “It’s a service profession, focused on providing and finding solutions to questions and queries.”
Her HBR colleague, senior director Kris Martin, added, “What makes a librarian a librarian? It’s a skill set.”
Still, the alternative job titles I’ve come across don’t strike me as much better. They’re mostly a mix-and-match of terms like knowledge manager, information resources director, global research analyst and knowledge strategy officer.
Lambert, whose title is “chief knowledge services officer,” said he’s been asked, “What the hell is knowledge services?”
“The librarian,” he answers. To which he said the typical reaction is, “OK, I get it.”
Two years ago, when John DiGilio joined Sidley Austin as firmwide director of library services, he said it was the first time “in a long time” that he had “library” in his title.
“I was a little nervous about it at first,” said DiGilio, who earned a master’s degree in library and information sciences in 1997 following his J.D. in 1996.
But sophisticated attorneys get it, he said. They “understand the library is an actual service versus an old-school physical location.”
Sullivan & Cromwell co-chair Robert Giuffra agreed, noting that his firm "has long had a skilled group of research librarians."
"We still have a law library with books, but (the librarians') most important work is now done online,” Giuffra told me. “I’m amazed about how they can research information about almost any topic, including the most technical and obscure."
In some ways, law librarians are finding it liberating to be untethered from a physical space.
“The library is bigger now than ever before,” Sidley's DiGilio said. “We’re no longer limited to what fits in the confines of our space. The universe is digital.”
The question for the librarian becomes: “Of all the resources that change almost daily, which ones should our attorneys be using? If you told me 20 years ago where we’d be today, it would almost have seemed like science fiction.”
Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.
Jenna Greene writes about legal business and culture, taking a broad look at trends in the profession, faces behind the cases, and quirky courtroom dramas. A longtime chronicler of the legal industry and high-profile litigation, she lives in Northern California. Reach Greene at [email protected]
source: https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/how-law-firm-librarians-are-reinventing-themselves-2022-02-18/
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