Reposted with permission from AALL Spectrum, Volume 24, Number 6 (July/August 2020), pgs. 47-49.
By Cynthia Brown, Sr. Director of Research Services at Littler Mendels; Michelle Hook Dewey, Legal Research Services Manager at BakerHostetler; and Jennifer Mendez, Director of Knowledge Management Innovation at Fisher & Phillips LLP
The term “robot lawyer” has been tossed around for years, but what about “robot librarians” or “robot knowledge managers”? In Singapore, several libraries already have a full-fledged robot named AuRoSS (Autonomous Robotic Shelf Scanning system) wandering the aisles doing shelf reading and collection maintenance. For most folks though, the idea of an actual robot, or “bot,” is a bit too futuristic. Nevertheless, across industries, the concept and implementation of automation continues to grow. This is where robotic process automation, or RPA, comes into play. Though physical robot librarians are probably not on the horizon yet, the potential uses for RPA and other task automation bots in the law library and legal knowledge management are endless.
Sophisticated consumers of legal services are already using task automations such as
RPA in a variety of spaces. Payroll, time and attendance management, compliance
reporting, and benefits administration are just a few of the ways many companies are
using RPA to streamline human resources (HR) functions. For example, HR systems
use RPA to simplify forms by copying the address fields from one form to dozens of
others. Clients are also looking to simplify supply chain management by using RPA
processes for tasks such as inventory management, demand and supply management, and invoice and contract management. In the finance and accounting space, RPA bots have regularly been implemented to facilitate payments, records, sales, and collections. Other forms of task automation, such as chatbots, are used to facilitate simple information gathering undertakings.
Research support is perhaps the most natural next task automation candidate. Libraries and knowledge centers are rife with opportunities to explore the benefits of task automation. Beyond just research tasks, your library may find a variety of ways to employ bots for some of its day-to-day administrative actions, thus allowing your staff
to engage in the highest-caliber, most valued work. As you begin to think about identifying and developing RPA and task automation opportunities in your library, you may find the guidance below to be helpful. Continue reading