Week in the Law Library Life: Kiron Ireland, Research and Faculty Services Librarian
As many of my colleagues have stated, working at the library truly varies every day. Some days are hectic, while others are slower, and I get to bask in my creativity as I develop guides that may be useful to faculty.
Starting the day off right
Typically, I savor my iced coffee or hot cup of tea. While sipping on it, I check my calendar and emails to organize myself. Like many academic law librarians, attending meetings to stay current and learn about changes or advancements in the legal industry is a significant part of my job. The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) and the NELLCO Law Library Consortium are two major organizations I am a part of. These are extremely helpful in seeing what other law libraries are doing and how they are evolving. Every month, I send out a newsletter to faculty to keep them updated about changes in the library and provide them with helpful information. Sometimes, some of our vendors host faculty webinars to help keep faculty members updated about product changes. Westlaw and Lexis are two vendors we subscribe to that constantly hold webinars for faculty members. HeinOnline is another vendor that hosts webinars about its products. Notably, a recent webinar from HeinOnline focused on Altmetric, its new product that enables authors to track how their articles are being used on the open web by picking up data from the digital object identifier (DOI) number assigned to many articles. As the tech bubble is constantly changing, relying on your vendors to see how they are revolutionizing their products is always helpful. After categorizing my emails and identifying useful information for the newsletter, I respond to research or reference requests or tackle the tasks on my to-do list.
Librarian On Call: Let's break things down to more straight-forward steps
As I mentioned previously, a typical week in my current role varies. For instance, as librarians, we provide instruction through Legal Practice classes. This week was all about organization and scheduling our designated Legal Practice sessions. In addition to instruction in the Legal Practice classes, librarians also offer instructional services to clinics and other classes. Most of the time, when you see a law librarian in your class, we will highlight all the primary research databases for your class or projects, in addition to providing you with the best research tips and tricks to tackle your project. As I am one of the newer librarians, whenever I can sit in on a class one of my colleagues teaches, I try to attend to familiarize myself with the material. In addition to potentially seeing a librarian in your class, you can always drop by the reference desk in the Law Library from 8:30am to 5pm Monday-Friday. Usually, I staff the reference desk on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Even if you don't see a librarian at the front desk, we will still be available in the back. Ask a student employee at the circulation desk. Remember, no question is a bad question to ask at the reference desk. The librarians are here to support our students and faculty members. You may have a citation question, or perhaps you're conducting directed research and are unsure which databases to start with. We're just a visit, phone call, chat, or email away.
Faculty Scholarship Support: I'll get it to you by the end of the week
Another major part of my job is to support our faculty members as they pursue their scholarly endeavors and research. The support I offer to faculty may vary depending on the project. For instance, I've researched to aid a faculty member with their panel discussion. However, in another example, I may provide access to specific articles for the professor's research. We have access to many law school and the university library research databases. However, the interface for many of these databases does not make it easy for patrons to find what they need. In addition to directly supporting our faculty members with their scholarship, I also help maintain our school's digital repository, where all faculty members' scholarship is archived. Before uploading any content to our digital repository, we must obtain permission from the article's publisher and the author. Sometimes I feel like I'm always waiting for publisher replies. Typically, I receive a reply from the publisher within a few weeks, permitting me to upload their work to our digital repository. However, I'm fortunate to know where our faculty members work, so I can always visit their office if I don't see a reply in my inbox. Once I get permission for both, I'll add it to my to-do list to be uploaded.
Thank goodness it's Friday
Fridays are my creative days. Given that Fridays are my slowest days in terms of requests, I allocate time to create guides for our faculty members. Currently, I am working on a one-stop publication guide to help our faculty members, regardless of their stage in their scholarship journey, by using LawGuides. LawGuides are web-based, multimedia resources created by librarians using the LibGuides platform, a content management system developed by Springshare. These guides offer users curated resources, research starting points, and information on specific subjects, courses, or topics, effectively serving as mini websites to support library users. Luckily, you don't have to be a coding expert to use the software, but it does help. The guide I am working on will provide information to help professors consider where they want their articles published for improved visibility, the best time to submit their articles to law reviews, law journal rankings based on topic, and more. This is the time when I can truly utilize my creative guide-building skills.
Although I've been working at the law library for about a year, I still have a lot to learn in conjunction with my job. Every day is a new adventure.