Wrapping up 2013.

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Kate Greene Stanhope, Manager Library & Information Services, McInnes Cooper

 2013 is winding down and planning for 2014 well underway. Historically, end of year was the natural time to evaluate departmental performance and set new goals. However, in 2013, we seemed to be doing this weekly – daily sometimes. Our small Library and Information Services group has moved away from the emphasis on library as a physical space and is focussed on the information services that add value to our firm’s business. Research advisory and reference services are still in high demand, though their value is diminishing in the eyes of some. The recent transition to a sole source environment for online research has resulted in increased requests for assistance finding material previously available at our fingertips. This is not a bad thing, but achieving balance between active participation in firm knowledge and information management projects and availability for “just in time” research is challenging.

So, as I contemplate my 2014 Business Plan, I reached out to colleagues in other Canadian firms. They shared their thoughts on what kept them busy this year and what 2014 might look like. A few common themes emerged.

 Beyond legal research – The intersection of library and marketing:

More law libraries are collaborating with marketing, whether formally or informally, to lend expertise in the areas of Competitive and Business Intelligence. In the past year, our L&IS group has worked with Marketing to produce client and industry profiles and we foresee this continuing. Currently, we are trialling an online research product that will enhance our ability to turn these requests around more efficiently and without sacrificing detail (I learned a lot about CI in law firms at the CALL 2013 conference at a session moderated by Agathe Bujold of McCarthy Tetrault).  

 April Brousseau, Assistant Director, Library and Knowledge Management at Stikeman Elliot, shared that her group works closely with Stikeman’s marketing department to provide in depth company and industry research, and assists in the preparation of related materials for RFPs. Another colleague from a smaller firm notes that marketing related work now approaches 50% of his time and includes input into the use of social media, assisting in the creation and editing of visual advertising, and even assisting with the creation of individual lawyer strategic business plans.  Although this work often gets set aside when a lawyer requires research assistance, he delegates some research to students when things are really tight.

 KM for Library & Information Services  

Legal information professionals continue to drive Knowledge Management within firms, but KM practices have relevance in helping us manage our internal know-how, specifically the collective knowledge amassed in the provision of research and reference services. Leveraging this knowledge through identification, classification, and retrieval of “frequently asked questions” can free up time to devote elsewhere. April’s group at Stikeman’s plans to enhance the database of reference question responses they maintain and my group continues to improve our use of Outlook categories to profile reference answers.  We are also looking for better ways to capture metrics about the kinds of questions we receive and the resources used to answer them (See Eve Ross and Bess Reynolds’ presentations Library Metrics and Metrics 101: Proving Your Value for detailed discussions of the value of metrics for information professionals).

 Prominent Roles in KM and Technology Projects

Fellow Nova Scotia law librarians Linda Matte (Library Manager, Cox and Palmer) and Cyndi Murphy, (Knowledge Manager, Stewart McKelvey and current CALL Past President) devoted significant time this year to projects which introduced new technologies to their lawyers practices.

 The cost of updating of print versions of Civil Procedure Rules (CPR’s) is a significant line item in many library budgets. With 30 subscriptions to manage, Linda sought to reduce these costs while still providing current, convenient access to this information. She investigated the use of iPad’s to access CPR’s and discovered that pdf versions of the rules, freely available online, don’t require wifi to use after they’ve been download. She tested the $5 GoodReader app to manage content (bookmarks, notes, highlighting), and found it to be very effective. The pilot project was optional and was implemented over 11 month, with an initial trial group of 10 lawyers. It was a success from the start and as word spread Linda eventually had 100% buy in, with savings approaching $18,000 by 2014.

 When Stewart McKelvey decided to deploy Recommind’s Decisiv Email Management software to better manage e-mail volume, Cyndi was a key member of the implementation team, along with a project manager, technical advisor, and a member of the Stewart McKelvey IT staff (a consultant was retained to assist with the planning and change management aspects of the project because of its impact on lawyer practices). Reporting to the Chief Professional Resources Officer, who was actively involved in the roll-out, Cyndi took the lead on liaising with the IT trainers to compile one-page handouts on the filing and searching features of Decisiv, created the portal page dedicated to Decisiv, and worked with the trainers to populate it. When Decisiv was rolled out to users throughout the firm, she assisted in conducting training sessions. Cyndi acknowledged that it was difficult at times to balance the demands of the project with her day to day work, especially with the travel required to the firm’s other offices. But, support from her staff and recognition from the firm of the role she played in the success of the project contributed to personal and professional gratification.

 Looking ahead, the dynamic nature of the work we do as Legal Information Professionals will probably be reflected in the changing composition of our groups. At Lawson Lundell, an innovative, team approach is described in the advertisement for a new position, Manager of Information Resources.  And, in 2014, my group will welcome the firm’s Conflict and Audit Coordinators as we become more involved in the life cycle of information within the firm, from new business intake to closed file management, and everything in between.

 Now, if I can just get that Business Plan done before Christmas Eve . . .

 

 

MOOCS: What’s in it for law librarians?

Katie Thomas, Law Librarian, Toronto, Canada

Web: http://katiemthomas.wordpress.com

 “With a MOOC MOOC here,

And a MOOC MOOC there,

Here a MOOC, there a MOOC,

Everywhere a MOOC MOOC…” *

 Law librarians have many options for professional development opportunities. Annual conferences, meet-up groups, webinars, twitter chats, and collaborating with colleagues are just some of the eclectic ways we can keep our ear to the ground. But what about MOOCs (massive open online courses)? What’s in it for librarians or better yet, law librarians? I thought I would find out.

 What’s a MOOC? The idea has been well covered in the professional press and I encourage you to plug the term into your favourite search engine.  As a starter, you may want to read Susan Munro’s piece entitled MOOC, Distance Education and CLE or Judith Gaskell’s MOOCs: What are they good for?, both posted on SLAW.

 This post focuses on the professional development opportunities offered through MOOCs for librarians. I am not so much interested (at least just now!) in how librarians can provide support for MOOC learning to our clients and students as a considerable amount has already been written in this area, especially in the academic librarian literature. And, as Susan Munro and others have pointed out, there is no lack of topics to address. Quality of the educational experience, student engagement, student-teacher interaction, the business model behind the phenomenon and librarian support for the MOOC are just some of the issues that can be explored. 

 So where to start? Well, that’s the thing. There is no “official” place to start looking for MOOCs, never mind just the “librarian-ish” courses. Yes, you can plug the term library, librarian, information, metadata, legal etc. into any of the MOOC websites like Coursera or edX, but expect mixed results.  An aggregator such as ClassCentral helps, but it does not pull some of the iSchool courses I will describe below.

 I began with the article entitled MOOCs to Watch written by librarian Courtney Brown. She provided a helpful list of courses that would be of interest to librarians. They are primarily technology related such as Creative Programming for Digital Media & Mobile Apps.

 iSchool MOOCs which have received rave reviews (based on the website comments and speaking with colleagues who have enrolled) include the New Librarianship Master Class open online course taught by Dave Lankes at the Syracuse University iSchool. Professor Lankes writes that “Through this course, [librarians] will learn how to better capture, store, and disseminate the conversations of their communities.” The videos, slides, readings, and structure have remained available for free on the website but you will first need to register with the provider COURSEsites. By the way, the first MOOC offered at the iSchool was A Brief Introduction to Data Science with R and a second is planned for autumn 2013 entitled Applied Data Science: An Introduction.

 Over at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Dr. Pomerantz at the School of Information and Library Science has been teaching the MOOC, Metadata: Organizing and Discovering Information, again to rave reviews. It is being offered again for the fall of 2013.

Then there is the Hyperlinked Library MOOC at San Jose State University SLIS, which explores how libraries are using emerging technologies to serve their communities. Last I checked, the course had reached its full capacity of 400 students! It is clearly filling a niche for professional development for librarians.

In Canada, Wendy Newman at the University of Toronto iSchool is very excited to be offering, in the winter of 2014, a MOOC on Library Advocacy through edX.  She says, “The MOOC description is not yet fully confirmed, [however]…it is a 6-session adaptation for a wider audience of my regular credit course.” Keep your ear to the ground for further updates.

And what of MOOCs for law librarians? I did not find any that were purposely geared to law and librarians. There are courses on environmental law, criminal law, English common law, constitutional law and more. I think Wendy Reynolds raises a good point when she surmises in a comment on SLAW that, “I also wonder about the value of MOOCs in helping librarians gain exposure to other disciplines and emerging ideas. Are employers willing to treat these programs as “real” learning? Does it matter?” We should be exploring new ideas and thinking outside our box. So yes, as to MOOCs, there’s lots “in it” for law librarians.

Finally, if MOOCs have caught your fancy, you could attend the symposium Pushing the Envelope in Education: Roles for Libraries — MOOCs, eLearning & Gamification taking place in Toronto from Sept. 30 to Oct. 1, 2013 at the University of Toronto. A session on MOOCs for Librarians will cover how to plan and implement a MOOC for the library community. Also, you may want to follow up on any archived materials available from two previous conferences MOOCs and Libraries: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (July 2013, London, UK) and MOOCs and Libraries:  Massive Opportunity or Overwhelming Challenge? (March 2013, Philadelphia, PA).

In researching this paper, I found that the only MOOCs being offered, at least through iSchools, are those that are described above. If there are any I’ve missed please let me know! It would be great to see more. It would also be good to have a repository listing of iSchool MOOCs somewhere. Is this being done? Lots to think about. I think I hear a follow-up article being written!

*With sincerest apologies to Old MacDonald.