Saturday Evening Posts

To tell you guys the truth, I kind of have a lot going on at the moment and don’t really have time for blogging right now. It’s only because I sort of challenged myself with NaBloPoMo that I’m posting anything. Also, I’ve set up an IFTT recipe to automatically post a draft to my WordPress blog when I favorite a link in my Feedly Reader. So! Here are some things that caught my eye this week. I still haven’t really had a chance to read them. Perhaps you’ll also find them interesting?

• The Problem With Discovery Tools and Law Firm Libraries, Slaw

Most legal libraries subscribe to a number of online services, so library users frequently have to search multiple electronic resources as part of their legal research, and trust that they have not inadvertently missed any relevant resources. Researchers need to know what electronic products they have access to, what materials these products contain, and how to best to search them. Other challenges related to online research include the duplication of resources (some materials can be found in multiple online services) and cost containment.

• Add a Fourth Year to Law School, Best Practices for Legal Education

Not everyone agrees that we should reduce law school to two years.  Tax Professor Edward Zelinsky (Cardozo) makes a pitch for a four year law school […]

• New literacies, learning, and libraries: How can frameworks from other fields help us think about the issues?, In the Library with the Lead Pipe

In Brief: In the library world, we may look to other fields to help us make sense of new digital literacies. Their frameworks may offer us new perspectives, challenge our assumptions, or give us greater clarity on the issues. Transliteracy is one non-library-centric framework that has been promoted for this purpose.  […]

• Legal Innovation #RealTalk, SarahGlassmeyer(dot)com

Where’s I’m from, we have a little something called “the come to Jesus talk.” It’s not a religious event. Rather, it is an opportunity to take someone aside, detail the error of their ways and point the way towards their salvation, much like a concerned preacher takes aside an errant member of their flock.

• One Size Doesn’t Fit All in Legal Education, lawschoolvibe 

After digesting the Legal Education and Training Review report (LETR) for three months, England’s largest legal regulator, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), has delivered its response. This is important because the big legal regulators—SRA, Bar Standards Board, Ilex Professional Services—shape the structure of the qualifying law degree, […]

• Every presentation worth doing has just one purpose, Seth Godin’s Blog 

To make a change happen.
No change, no point. A presentation that doesn’t seek to make change is a waste of time and energy. Before you start working on your presentation, the two-part question to answer is, “who will be…

Happy Reading!

#SundayLibrarian

Day 3 of NaBloPoMo. Thought I’d write about questions I got today while on the reference desk. Really hope there are some … you never can tell with Sundays. I don’t think the first-year-students have anything due tomorrow, and I know the Law Review students had their papers due last Friday, so I don’t think I’ll be seeing any of them. (Just in case my boss is reading – I do have other things I’m working on if no patrons have questions!)

• 2:30. Paralegal student wanting to know about the LSA (List of C.F.R. Sections Affected). Helped her find it, and then helped her navigate it to see if a specific section had been affected earlier this year (spoiler alert – it had!).
• 3:10. Patron wondered if the library offered free PACER use to the public. We do not, but I looked up the PACER fees for her and we discussed PACER for a while. She said she thought the courthouse offered free PACER to the public (not sure she meant state or federal courthouse; am assuming federal), but that then she’d have to pay for printing. I suggested she ask the court librarian if she had the option to save documents she wanted and then email them to herself, thus avoiding the printing costs.
• 3:20. Not a patron question, but noticed that a student was walking around, Starbucks in hand, wearing fluffy slippers. Idly wondered how long she had been/was planning on being here today.
• 4:00. Went up to make some tea. Also am wearing cat-eye glasses and have my hair up in a bun-type-thing. If only I were wearing a cardigan, and shushing somebody, I’d be confirming everybody’s stereotype of a librarian in one fell swoop. (I note that it is exceedingly quiet today. Our first floor has an “open voice” policy, but it’s noiseless this afternoon).
• 4:20. Patron asked where he could find the Minnesota Statutes Annotated. That’s hardly even a real question. I can point to them without getting up.
• 4:44. Patron just asked me if public computer needed to be turned on. Me, puzzled by the question, “Is it currently on?” It wasn’t on. I turned it on. (I did not count this as a reference interaction.)
• 5:52. I seriously think nobody else is going to ask me any questions. In the meanwhile, one of the things I’m doing is trying to create a schedule for the conference that I’m going to attend later on this month. The conference website is not interactive (I can’t create a personalized schedule based on the sessions I want to attend), and it’s hard to navigate. Furthermore, there’s about 5 sessions that I want to attend for each time slot. Trying to decide how to rank my choices – sessions that will be helpful to me in creating my own courses, vs. sessions that will help me assist our professors in designing their courses.
• 7:00. 4:44 was my last patron. So, kind of a dead Sunday. You never can tell how it’s going to be.

NaBloPoMo, Day 21: On Passion

Meh. I remain unimpressed with Ms. Lake’s NaBloPoMo prompts. Nothing against her – I’m sure she’s a lovely person – but my gut reaction to her prompts is to go on a rant about how the less privileged among us (and I’m pretty privileged!) just don’t have time and resources to worry overmuch about “passion projects” and the quality of our family time.

Okay! Having gotten that over with … well, no, I’m not really pursuing a passion project right now. I’m pursuing a career that I enjoy, but I don’t think I’d call it a “passion.”

I would say, though, that parts of my job – moments in the day, individual projects – are “fulfilling on many levels,” though. When I track down a tricky source for a prof, see a lightbulb go on in a patron’s head at the reference desk, really connect with the students in a class – that’s immensely gratifying. But it’s work, too, you know? It’s not all fervor and self-actualization, M-F, 9-5 (or 10:30-5, in my case).

I’m not entirely sure how Ricki Lake is defining “passion project,” but I think it’s the rare one among us who get to pursue our passions at that level (I believe here she is referring to a documentary that she produced). I will admit to being similarly lucky, however, in that I am able to be compensated for doing something that, for the most part, I find interesting, challenging, and, well, fun.