Week in the Law Library Life: Jessica Silvia, Faculty & Digital Services Assistant

My work weeks can vary greatly. I always have a to do list, but sometimes, as soon as my day starts, I know many items on this list (if any) will not get done. Some weeks, I do a lot of administrative work. Other weeks, I do a lot of website and digital repository work. Other weeks, interlibrary loan requests from faculty and students or outside libraries are very active. Other weeks are busy with events in the library (LP teaching) or in the law school, requiring me to be away from my desk and involved in tasks at hand.  

Our top priority is the law school community. If the students, staff, or faculty need our attention or help, the other items on my “to do” list are paused until the needs of the law school community are met. 

Below is a list of things I participated in or worked on over the last week. 

• Met with the rest of the library staff for our weekly staff huddle. During this brief meeting, we discuss schedule changes, upcoming events, projects, visitors, etc. 
• Met with staff working on special library events to finish preparing for the Valentine Grab n’ Go and to continue preparing for Lawyer March Madness and National Library Week programming.
• Answered reference questions from faculty, staff, and students. These answers point people in the right direction or provide materials needed by faculty for research or class preparation.
• Updated contact information and publication information on various law faculty and staff directory pages found on the law school website.
• Prepared and submitted an upcoming publication for a law faculty member to the Social Science Research Network (SSRN).
• Interlibrary Loan: All the following tasks are done daily for interlibrary loan.
  • Checked to see if other libraries sent any requests to borrow material from the law library collection. This is done at least twice a day (morning and afternoon)
  • Requested items for faculty and students through our interlibrary loan service (OCLC WorldShare). These requests come into the library through lawlibraryhelp@rwu.edu or the Law Library website interlibrary loan form.
  • Contacted RWU Law Library users if items are overdue or will be due soon to see if they would like us to request a renewal from the library that owns the item.
  • Contacted outside libraries for items that are overdue to us.
• Verified and fixed broken links on the law library website and in LawGuides.
• Prepared articles and spreadsheets with metadata for past issues of the Journal of Maritime Law and Commerce to be uploaded onto the Journal of Maritime Law and Commerce website, hosted by Roger Williams University digital repository.
• Handed out treats at the Law Library Grab N’ Go event.
• Worked on marketing content for library events to post on social media. This included creating the content and programming our social media management application.
• Wrote this blog post. Once Dean Raquel Ortiz edits this post, I will post it on the Law Library Blog and promote it on the Law Library social media sites. I post and promote all the Law Library Blogs. I do not write all of them, but I post and promote all of them.