The Legal Division is proud to feature Bobbi Weaver in its June/July Profiles in Law Librarianship series:

A Little Bit About Bobbi:

I am a native of Southern NJ, but I now live and work in San Diego.  I earned my J.D. from Temple University, and worked for the U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters after law school.  While working and living in the D.C. area, I attended and earned my M.S.L.S. from The Catholic University of America.  I have been working as a reference librarian at California Western School of Law in San Diego since October 1997.  Currently, I am the Foreign & International Law Reference Librarian.  I’ve also held part-time librarian jobs at area community colleges.

I’ve been involved in SLA since library school.  I am a past-president of the San Diego Chapter, and a past-chair of the Environment & Resource Management Division (ERMD).  Currently, I serve as the newsletter editor for ERMD.  In 2009, I was awarded the Business & Finance Division’s Distinguished Leadership and Service Award for my volunteer work with Haiti Reads, a nonprofit organization which operates a small community library in Carrefour, Haiti.  I am currently the Library Consultant and Vice-President of Haiti Reads, and I spend my limited free time working on cataloging the library’s collection remotely and helping with fundraising events.

My interests lie mostly in environmental and animal protection.  In the past, I’ve assisted with legal research for organizations with missions in these areas.  Last October, my bibliographical article on pet food safety and regulation was published in the Journal of Agricultural & Food Information.  In 2002, I wrote a bibliographical article on animal law from an international perspective, which was published in the International Journal of Legal Information.

A Few Questions for Bobbi:

What brought you to the legal information industry?

I’ve been working in the legal field for many years.  After graduating Rider University in Lawrenceville, NJ with my B.A. in Communications, I spent one year in retail management.  Not finding much fulfillment in that field, I enrolled and completed a program for paralegal training in Philadelphia.  I worked as a paralegal for a legal database company in Trenton, NJ.  I became more interested in the law, and applied for law school.

After graduating from law school, I found a job as a regulatory analyst at the U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, DC.  I attended library school part-time at Catholic.  While at the Coast Guard, I organized a small library for our department’s staff.  The department in which I worked was responsible for environmental regulations, and our staff consisted of attorneys, economists and environmental scientists.  Shortly after completing my studies at Catholic, I was offered a position as a reference librarian at California Western School of Law, so I moved from Northern Virginia out to the West Coast.

Where do you see our industry in 10 years?

For academic librarians, I think there is going to be an increased use of distance learning as well as more part-time programs for working students.  Professional school students and some undergraduates are now dreading the loan payments they face upon graduation.  Enabling students to earn a full-time income while studying to advance will alleviate some of these financial concerns.  I obtained both of my graduate degrees while working full-time, mostly because of financial reasons.  That was many years ago, but I found it frustrating that I often could not consult with a professional librarian when doing research or attend to administrative matters after traditional work hours.  We are going to have to learn more ways to deliver information remotely to distance-learners, and we are going to have to make adjustments to support more non-traditional students.

What are you doing to get Future Ready?

The best way to stay Future Ready is to continue to network with other professionals so that you can stay on top of new developments in the field.  Since the law is becoming more and more cross-disciplinary, I’ve found my membership in SLA to be the most beneficial.  The annual conferences provide a wide variety of programs where I can obtain useful information that I can share with my employer, patrons, and students.

I think books are still going to be around in the near future, but I think there is going to be an increased use of electronic resources, especially for distance-learners and for our other patrons in foreign countries.  My biggest problem with electronic resources in the recent past has been the lack of good indexing.  However, some services are making improvements in these areas.  As information professionals, we should communicate with our vendors to help make electronic interfaces more seamless in the future.

Do you have any advice for people looking to break into the legal information industry?

Get work experience, even if you won’t get paid for it.  It took some researching on my part, but I was able to find an internship at the George Mason University Law Library where I could work on Saturdays.  If you’ve already graduated, seek volunteer opportunities with non-profit organizations.  Many that deal with the environment do have a need for volunteers to do legal research.  Some communities also have public law libraries that could benefit from the use of volunteers.  Even if organizations do not actively solicit volunteers in the legal information field, call them and inquire.  Do not just email prospects.  Emails are too easy to delete or get lost in cyberspace.   A good place to search for volunteer opportunities and jobs in the nonprofit arena is Idealist.org.  Also, if you are interested in environmental issues, check with your local chapter of the Sierra Club.  Even at the local level, this organization is often involved in environmental protection through litigation or through promoting legislation.   The funding available to many non-profit organizations is especially tight right now, so an offer for free help might be well-received.

The Legal Division is proud to feature John Miller in its April/May Profiles in Law Librarianship series:

A Little Bit About John:

A native of Aberdeen in Scotland, John Miller has been Senior Librarian at the African Law Library since November 2012. He’s based at Globethics.net in Geneva but travels around Africa.

He was previously UNESCO’s Chief Librarian in Paris for six years (with two jobs – running the Library plus carbon auditing UNESCO’s operations worldwide and developing UNESCO’s and the UN System’s Emissions Reduction). Before then, he was Library Director at College of Europe in Bruges for 8 years and prior to that was the Regional Coordinator for British Council Information Services in Eastern and Southern Europe, including Russia and the former Soviet Union. Interesting highlights included the British Council party held inside the Kremlin, and the visiting academic who fell in the carp pond while attempting to get on stage with the belly dancer at the BP Reception in the Baku caravanserai … ! Poignant moments included visiting the British Council offices in Sarajevo several times and walking through No Man’s Land between the Greek and Turkish halves of Nicosia. Previous existences have included stints with USAID in Kazakhstan, running Radio Free Europe Library and being Library Director at Central European University Library in Prague, complete with an unforgettable budget meeting held at 7 AM in the Chief Executive’s Wenceslas Square hotel room, crunching the numbers while assorted bras, underwear and other bits of lingerie flew back and forth over the screens as she got dressed.

In the UK earlier, John was Information Services Director at McKenna’s for six years and at Allen and Overy before that, having come back from seven years with the EU Commission in Luxembourg, Brussels and at the EU Press and Information Office in Paris. Before the EU adventures, there was a brief stint in Falkirk Public Library (where he met his wife – agreeing to go out with him being perhaps her worst ever decision), two years running Ayrshire and Arran Nursing College Library and two years in the Science Library at Aberdeen University. In addition to salaried jobs, John has also done consultancy work with law firms in England and for the EU and ASEAN in Albania, Malaysia and Laos, where he spent several months setting up an Information Centre in the Lao PDR Foreign Ministry. Some of these exploits are chronicled in an article in the Law Librarian ‘Wanderings in Foreign Parts’ Legal Information Management (Volume 1 – Number 4 Winter 2001/02, pp. 40-44).

John has a BA Honours from the Open University, mostly in History and Politics (management of the KGB having proved a useful topic in office warfare ever since) plus half a Scots Law degree from Aberdeen University, in addition to a Certificate in the Identification of Potato Diseases qualifying him to go through a field and tell you why your potatoes are, in fact, dead. He has been a Chartered Librarian since 1977, having studied Librarianship at Manchester Polytechnic, and in 2012 collected a Certificate in Carbon Accounting from Swinburne University in Melbourne. He has recently been asked if he would like to carbon audit Liverpool Cathedral. The Miller family home is in Liverpool, where his wife also works in libraries, the cat occupies the sofa, and four of the kids are still in residence (the other four having scattered to the four winds – eldest daughter is now a solicitor).

John has made presentations at numerous conferences around the world, including SLA in 2008 when he spoke about UNESCO. He has been Chair of the Greening UNESCO Working Group, Vice-Chair of BIALL, Chair of the City Law Librarians Group, Member of the UK Joint Copyright Committee and a Member of Eurolib. Current Memberships include SLA, CALL, IALL, and CILIP. His interests include information service management, climate change, copyright and copyright compliance and legal issues generally, politics and international relations – especially African-related, military history, not sitting beside people who snore on long flights, trying to keep vast hordes of Miller offspring fed, clothed and suitably amused or financially afloat, and living to see freedom from imperialist tyranny at last in 2014 if the Scottish Referendum goes the right way (which, rather sadly, he suspects it won’t).

A Few Questions for John:

What brought you to the legal information industry?

I had been dealing with legal information at the EU Press and Info Office in Paris and worked on the Official Journal in Luxembourg. I first got into mainstream legal information work in 1985 when I resigned from the EU Commission rather than accept a transfer back to the Transport Directorate in Brussels there to crunch statistics. Instead I ended up running the Law Library at Allen and Overy, which in those days had just me (later two assistants) and reported to the Partner responsible for the choice of wallpaper in the firm’s offices. I moved to McKenna and Co the following year and went up with the boom times on an escalating salary until George Soros sank the £ in 1992. This led to a big bloodbath in City law firms –in ours 40% of support staff and many partners were fired. Leading lights in BIALL were falling off their professional perches left, right and centre and it was a scary time. But I’m now glad it happened because it was the big push that forced me to polish up my job-hunting skills and set off really globe-trotting …. and I’ve never stopped since!

Where do you see our industry in 10 years?

I hesitate to engage in futuristic speculations. I recall going to the Library Association Conference in Sheffield in 1980 where there were great crystal ball gazing sessions with Charles Oppenheim etc. and the general feeling on leaving was that paper would be dead within 10 years …. but it simply wasn’t (and even now in large chunks of the world it isn’t). We still employed loose-leaf filers into the 90s. Nobody at Sheffield predicted the internet and everyone got the speed and timescale of change wrong. But change IS now happening faster than it was back in the 1980s when expectations of change were not matched by speed of change.

In fact, there are several legal information ‘industries’ – the information producers and publishers, the business sector (like law firms), the government sector, the academic sector, etc. – they’re all different. Many of the future jobs will be in the production of information resources – as we are doing at African Law Library – and less in the area of reference and reader services, where end-users are increasingly doing all their own research and institutions are building knowledge resources which allow practitioners direct access to what they need to know without going through the middle-man of the librarian. I have spent close to 40 years mostly working in a reader services environment. I came into libraries because I liked answering questions not because I loved cataloguing and classification, but even now I am working almost entirely in a ‘technical services’ capacity creating a new resource. Reference librarians will become like full service gas station attendants, a rare breed. There will be jobs in creating information resources and managing them, but there will be relatively few jobs in personally helping people to find information.

The other big change coming (and indeed already here in the case of China, Russia and certain Arab countries) is the decline in the dominance of English on the Internet. We will see huge efforts coming to fruition in terms of making available legal content in other languages. I was already working on content in Russian for our USAID project 15 years ago. The legal information resource we are creating for Africa will be quadri-lingual from the very start but will eventually encompass more languages, including indigenous African languages as opposed to colonial-era legacy tongues only.

What are you doing to get Future Ready?

Well, first of all, I try to ignore all the ads for Funeral Plans which start arriving once the mailing lists realise you’ve reached ‘a certain age’!!! We are planning accessibility via mobile devices into our African legal information resource. Large numbers of people in Africa have a mobile phone but very few have a computer or even a smartphone and are actively targeting local content, in local languages where resources exist, and information related to Customary Law which is likely to be of increasing importance in Africa in years to come as countries across the continent grow and develop further beyond their colonial legacy frameworks from the past.

And we are looking to develop business and professional contacts further in Kenya, Africa’s ‘Silicon Valley’ and a world leader in things like money transfers by mobile phone, and other fast-developing parts of the continent.

Looking to donor income for project support, India and China rather than the ‘usual suspects’ in the West will be the way to go as their economies grow, and it will be increasingly realistic to look for financial support from Africa. In fact, funding for our current law Library project already comes entirely from African sources.

On a more personal level, it’s important to keep professionally up to date. This means keeping up with the literature (online and off) and keeping in contact with colleagues, and attending relevant meetings and conferences (if possible, speaking at them because information flows then become more 2-way, networking at receptions is easier because people know who you are, and if you’re a speaker it’s easier to get agreement from employers to attend!!

Do you have any advice for people looking to break into the legal information industry?

It clearly helps to have some idea of the law or a willingness to learn because, although of course it’s lawyers who have to advise clients, it may be you who has to actually find it for them. If you plan to work in the US, you’ll probably need a JD but elsewhere you don’t. I only have half a Scots Law degree, for example, and have never found that anyone cared just as long as my employment track record has looked interesting. But it’s harder now to GET that track record, so a law degree could be helpful at the outset.

Other things you will need to do include putting yourself about at meetings or on social networks, because a surprising number of jobs are not advertised. Often times they’ve been filled before expensive advertising has become necessary. Polish up your interview skills too, and learn foreign languages. Business is international. I personally have found that it helps not to be fussy. If offered the job I always say ‘Yes’ because potential employers are looking for commitment and not to quibble about location, which is how I’ve ended up working in places like Kazakhstan and Albania. Most people are not willing or not able to be geographically mobile, so if you are, you have an immediate advantage. Going into the legal information sector may not be the most obvious way to see the world, but it’s worked for me. 60% of my working life has been spent outside the UK.

The Legal Division is proud to feature Howard E. Trivers in its February/March Profiles in Law Librarianship series:

A Little Bit About Howard:

Howard E. Trivers has been a librarian for 18 years at Faegre Baker Daniels LLP (formerly Baker & Daniels, LLP) in Indianapolis, Indiana.  He started as a Reference Librarian – when we used books – and has held various titles along the way.  His title changed to Research Librarian after the merger of Baker & Daniels and Faegre & Benson.  This merger created Faegre Baker Daniels in 2012 as  a AmLaw 100 firm with over 750 attorneys.

Previous to his stint at Faegre Baker Daniels, Trivers was a branch librarian for Davis Wright Tremaine in Washington, D.C.  While working his way up the ladder in Washington D.C. he held numerous para-professional jobs, which included such exciting work as filing loose leafs, shelving books, locating old files and interlibrary-loans.

Trivers’ claim to fame is that he is known as the “dirtmeister” within Faegre and SLA legal division.  He is a frequent author and presenter to lawyers, paralegals, law librarians, and information professionals on research related topics.  He presented “Find Facts Fast, Free or for a Fee:  Successful Due Diligence and Investigation Research,” at the Ohio Regional Association of Law Libraries (ORALL) in Cincinnati, OH, (October, 2011).  The largest audiences were present at “Law Librarian:  The New Private Investigator”, American Association of Law Libraries’ conference in Washington D.C. (July 2009), and “Information Professional:  The New Private Investigator”, Special Libraries Association annual conference in Seattle, WA (2008).  Both presentations drew large, enthusiastic crowds and rave reviews.

Trivers has published numerous articles on research related topics.  He authored “Conference Review:  Delivering Value:  Making an Impact on Your Firm,” 18 Legal Division Quarterly #3, Summer 2011 and “People-Finder Database:  Which Ones to Use and Why,” 21 Legal Information Alert #7, July/Aug. 2002, p.1.

Trivers has been a long-time member of SLA.  He was President Elect, President, and currently serves as Past President of the Indiana Chapter of the Special Libraries Association.  In addition to the presentations mentioned, Trivers has given his time freely to SLA sponsored events either for regional, local and annual conferences.

Trivers received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in Russian History from Indiana University-Bloomington.  He earned an M.S.L.S. from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

A Few Questions for Howard:

What brought you to the legal information industry?

My story is interesting, but different.  I went to Washington, D.C. to get my fame and fortune.  Armed with an M.A. in Russian history degree, I hoped to land a position in the intelligence field.  I had studied the Soviet Union (remember them) and Russian language at Indiana University-Bloomington.  While waiting for the review process to be completed (it can take up to two years to get security clearance), I took a job with a temporary library staffing agency.  I had enjoyed library work in graduate school so this seemed to be a good fit.

The staffing agency sent me to a large law firm library for many months.  Six weeks before I was to marry, the intelligence agency rescinded their offer and, soon after, a glorious library career began in 1986.

Where do you see our industry in 10 years?

After the economic meltdown of 2008, I am quite bearish on the future of the legal industry and law librarians in particular.  Frankly, law firms and corporations are going to need less librarians, lawyers and paralegals in the future.  Simply put, automation is the reason. It is a dirty word that the politicians do not want to discuss because automation helps to create and sustain high levels of unemployment.  As information professionals, we are more productive than we used to be.  In the last two years alone, I can perform more tasks in greater speed thus leading to the need for fewer librarians to manage the same workload

The technical services side of law libraries is diminishing as we move more and more to Web access.  Less people are needed to process, catalogue or distribute print material.  I work in a cavernous library built in 1989 with predominantly books, periodicals and treatises that have been superseded.  It is a beautiful place to work, but does little to bolster confidence for long-term employment.

What are you doing to get Future Ready?

Change was forced upon me by the merger of Faegre & Benson LLP and Baker & Daniels LLP.  The Faegre side was more technologically advanced than the Baker side.  This forced me to learn new software programs and databases in record speed.  On a personal side note, I joined the 21^st century with the purchase of an iPhone.  The iPhone opened up a whole new way of living.  There is no doubt that mobile is the trend.

It is a struggle to stay on top of the increasing changes in my professional and personal world.  SLA webinars with Scott Brown and August Jackson are helpful as well as professional journals, blogs and listservs.  Finally, I try to stay current on capital markets and business trends since I am an investor in companies through my 401(k) and brokerage accounts.  I also pay particular attention to local companies because many of these businesses are our clients.

Do you have any advice for people looking to break into the legal information industry?

Get to know people by networking.  Contact information professionals in your area to be visible.  Ask them to go to lunch.  Use LinkedIn as a personal marketing tool –  I am a huge fan of LinkedIn.  Attend local and national SLA events.  Finally, I end with a success story.  In 2011, my supervisor received an email introduction from a business librarian who had been laid off from a local newspaper.  A couple months later, we suddenly had a need for a temporary researcher dealing with the numerous conflicts arising because of the Faegre & Benson LLP and Baker & Daniels LLP pending merger.  He was interviewed and hired.  We kept him on our staff for eight months.  While the work was not glamorous, it took the sting of being laid off away and was a good segue into full time employment.

The Legal Division is proud to feature Marie Grace Cannon in its December/January Profiles in Law Librarianship feature:

A Little Bit About Marie:

Marie gained her undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Literature from Warwick University in 2010, before beginning her career in librarianship as a graduate trainee for the international law firm Norton Rose LLP. Following her traineeship Marie studied at UCL, completing her MA in Library and Information Studies in November 2012. While studying, Marie ventured in to the academic sector through volunteering at Senate House Library and working at the London Business School. It was also during this time that she first got involved with the SLA when she was awarded the SLA Early Career Conference Award co-sponsored by the Legal Division, and attended the annual conference in Chicago.

Since then she has become a board member of SLA Europe and runs the SLA Europe blog as its editor. Marie has also secured her first professional post at Trowers & Hamlins LLP where she has been an Information Officer for nearly 6 months, and she is looking forward to presenting on the subject of new professionals at the BIALL conference in Glasgow 2013.

Marie is particularly interested in social media, open access and the development of new professionals, and blogs regularly here and can be found on Twitter as @mariegcannon.

A Few Questions for Marie:

What brought you to the legal information industry?

After deciding that librarianship was the career for me, I kind of fell in to the legal sector by accident. As I graduated from university there happened to be a graduate traineeship opening at Norton Rose LLP, which I loved. After testing the waters of academic and public libraries through work experience while studying my Library MA, I realised how much I enjoyed the dynamic and challenging atmosphere of the corporate legal sector.

Where do you see our industry in 10 years?

As someone who has grown up with the Internet, I have seen how much the Web has developed and revolutionized the way people think about organising and searching for information. I think it is extremely difficult to predict what our sector will look like in the future, but I do think there is a great possibility that legal libraries will become paperless, and that this will inevitably create a number of challenges for us as professionals to deal with. Our role will become increasingly focused on training on the use of online resources, marketing the library to reflect its evolved nature, and I also think we may find ourselves advising practitioners on the use of social media, which I find to be playing an increasingly important role in the legal sector.

What are you doing to get Future Ready?

I am doing my best to keep myself up to date on how the library world is developing both inside and outside of the legal sector, and the potential problems that we may face as a profession in the future. In particular I use Twitter to learn what my peers and professional colleagues think is important enough to share with others. I also try and attend as many conferences and events as possible, where I find that meeting and networking with other professionals can give rise to really good discussions on the topics that people feel are of the greatest importance to our work.

Do you have any advice for people looking to break into the legal information industry?

As a new professional, what has become increasingly clear to me is the importance of networking and being willing to get involved, whether through informal discussions on Twitter or more formal activities with professional associations such as the SLA. By volunteering with associations you can learn a variety of transferable skills, and you will get to meet professionals in the industry who can give you advice and support during the early stages of your career, and hopefully beyond. Also, there are a number of conference awards available to new professionals, and I would strongly recommend applying for as many of these as possible as they offer great opportunities to network and further personal development.

The Legal Division is proud to feature Joan Ogden in its October/November Profiles in Law Librarianship feature:

A Little Bit About Joan:

Joan Ogden is Supervisor of the Chicago Office Library of McGuireWoods LLP, an AmLaw 100 law firm based in Richmond, Virginia. Joan has been with McGuireWoods since 2000. Prior to that time, she spent three years as an Information Specialist in the Health Law Division of the American Medical Association, and sixteen years working at the law firm Sidley & Austin in Chicago. Prior to working in law libraries, she worked for six years at the Newberry Library, a world-renowned research library in Chicago.

She has been active in the SLA Legal Division, the SLA Illinois Chapter, and the Chicago Association of Law Libraries, her local chapter of AALL, having written articles and served on a number of committees. Most recently, she has agreed to be the Chair of the SLA Legal Division’s Mentoring Committee for 2012-2013.

A Few Questions for Joan:

What brought you to the legal information industry?

I began my career in law librarianship in 1981. That year, I began working full time in the law library of Sidley & Austin. I also began law school at IIT/Chicago-Kent College of Law, attending classes at night. The early 1980’s was an exciting time to be working in the field of law. LexisNexis and Westlaw were just beginning to offer their online services to law firms. I immediately appreciated the value of doing legal research electronically, as opposed to using books exclusively for legal research.

I graduated from law school in 1985 and passed the Illinois State Bar that same year. While interviewing for positions as an attorney, I began to realize that I would be much happier if I stayed in the field of law librarianship. Since I had a great deal of experience working in law libraries, but no degree in information science, I decided to return to graduate school and get that degree. In 1990, I earned my master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Rosary College, now Dominican University, in River Forest, Illinois.

Soon after I completed my master’s degree, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to begin working as a professional law librarian with Sidley & Austin. In 1998, I decided to try something new, so I took a job as an Information Specialist in the Health Law Division of the American Medical Association. Then, in 2000, I returned to the world of large law firms when I took a job as a librarian with McGuireWoods LLP. I am still with that firm today.

Where do you see our industry in 10 years?

Honestly, I have no idea. When I think about how much the legal information field has changed just in the last few years, I find it very hard to imagine where our industry will be next year, let alone 10 years down the line. I’m sure technological advances will make accessing information easier and easier. I can only hope that publishers will catch up with the technology. I’d like to see more consistent and realistic pricing models for online resources someday.

As many law librarians, including myself, begin to retire, the legal information field will be made up of a much younger demographic. Having worked with some of these young professionals, I am confident that they will have the same enthusiasm and dedication that my generation has had over the years. They will be prepared to overcome obstacles that we cannot even begin to imagine today.

What are you doing to get Future Ready?

I think that the key to being Future Ready is to keep in touch with your colleagues and to stay on top of the latest trends influencing your profession. Of course, I try to keep current on trends affecting the legal information world and the legal profession by browsing national legal publications such as the National Law Journal and American Lawyer. I also review legal and business publications specific to my locality, such as Chicago Lawyer and Crain’s Chicago Business. As part of my job, I regularly review articles from websites such as CNET, ComputerWorld, InformationWeek, ArsTechnica, and TechDirt, which makes it easy for me to stay up-to-date on the latest trends in technology. I share articles that I think might be of interest to my co-workers and colleagues. I also attend local professional association meetings on a regular basis, to network with colleagues and make new friends.

Do you have any advice for people looking to break into the legal information industry?

Embrace change and new challenges, even if you have to go outside of your comfort zone. Stay in touch with what is going on around you. Make sure you understand how your organization works, and how your library and/or department functions within the organization. Always keep your resume up-to-date. Stay active within your professional associations, and add your achievements to your resume. Cultivate a sense of humor. Be positive, creative and enthusiastic!

The Legal Division is proud to feature John DiGilio in its August/September Profiles in Law Librarianship feature:

A Little Bit About John:

John DiGilio is the National Manager of Research Services for Reed Smith, LLP. He has over 15 years of large law firm library and legal information vendor experience. John has proudly been affiliated with such industry standouts as Thomson Reuters, where he served as a Librarian Relations Manager, and K&L Gates, where he was the Firmwide Legal and Business Research Librarian/ Instructor for many years.

John is very active in the law and law library communities. He has written for numerous regional and national publications as well as taught college and graduate courses in such topics as business ethics, e-commerce, fair employment practices, research methodology and business law. John is very active in the Special Libraries Association. As an SLA member, he is a two-time award recipient – once for Member Achievement and once for Authorship. He is the Past-Chair of SLA’s Legal Division, Chair of the Legal Division’s Professional Development Committee, and a 2012 candidate for SLA Treasurer. John is also active in the Baseball Caucus (webmaster), the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Transgendered Issues Caucus (former Co-Convener), the Illinois Chapter, the Business & Finance Division and the Leadership & Management Division. He is a past-president of the Pittsburgh Chapter and has been actively involved in the initiative to upgrade unit sites to WordPress (Legal Division, ENCORE, Baseball Caucus). Most recently, John was part of the special Committee on Conference Continuing Education appointed by then SLA President, Cindy Romaine.

John has been presenting the wildly popular “60 Sites in 60 Minutes” at the SLA Annual Meeting and Conference for many years now. He and speaking partner, Gayle Lynn-Nelson, still attract a standing room only audience every year. John also enjoys talking about technology and leadership to various library organizations and has spoken all over the United States, Canada, and even the Caribbean. There is never a speaker’s fee, as he believes in giving something back to the profession that has given him so much. This is the focus of and reason behind his popular iBraryGuy 2.0 blog.

John earned his Juris Doctorate from Pepperdine University School of Law and his Master of Library & Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Information Sciences. He is currently pursuing a Licentiate of Sacred Theology from Saint Raphael the Archangel Theological Seminary. John is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of On Firmer Ground, a blog by and for law firm librarians. It is an international collaboration by law library groups from Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, and the United States. This is his latest project and a real labor of love.

A Few Questions for John:

What brought you to the legal information industry?

Strangely enough, in my case, it seems like destiny.  I have been working in libraries since I was about 16 years old.  What started in high school as something to do for fun quickly became gainful employment in college, law school, grad school and beyond.  I was not thinking about a career in librarianship all of those years.  It was not until I was out of law school and trying to figure out why I was not happy with my work situation that things finally dawned me.  Libraries were what I knew and loved.  I was always taught to do what I love and love what I do.  I had been obtuse for so long, not realizing that I was being “called” to a profession, that I almost missed out on a truly fulfilling career. With my legal education, law librarianship was a natural transition.

Where do you see our industry in 10 years?

Though it is not going to look the same, I see our industry right where it is now – at the very heart of the industry.  Law librarians have always been integral to the success of their institutions.  Whether we can actually see it on the surface, the changes to technology and information access and availability have only heightened our importance, not diminished it.  We may work differently and with newer tools, but we work harder now than ever before.  This is not going to change.  The information economy is giving way to a fast-paced and robust marketplace of real knowledge.  This knowledge (of subject matter, best practices for research, etc.) has always been our secret super power.  In ten years, I expect we will have blown the doors off and be functioning openly as the heroes we are.

What are you doing to get Future Ready?

I am keeping my eyes on the ball.  Change is inevitable – change in what we do, how we do it, and even where we do it.  It behooves us to keep on top of and prepare for the changes as they come.  Proactivity is where it is at these days and we librarians and info types need to demonstrate our indefatigability to stay relevant.  I look at the future with healthy doses of anticipation, excitement and, most of all, optimism.  It is a great time to be in this industry!

Do you have any advice for people looking to break into the legal information industry?

If you want to be a law librarian or work in the legal information industry, my best advice is to set a course for development and pursue it with tenacity.  Serendipity is great, but let’s face it, falling into something great is a rare occurrence.  Get as much as exposure and experience as you can before you head out as a newly minted legal professional.  Classes, internships, work experiences – whatever it takes.  The legal information industry is fast-paced and go-getters are rewarded.  The old days of getting up to speed while on the job seem to be well behind us.  You need to be able to hit the ground running.  This is especially true in the rapid world of law firms, where time is money and solid skills command a premium.  As my dad would have said, “You gotta get out there and show them what you’re made of.”

The Legal Division is proud to feature Nicole Snyder in its June/July Profiles in Law Librarianship feature:

A Little Bit About Nicole:

Nicole Snyder is Director of Library Services at Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz LLP in Wilmington, Delaware. Nicole has been with Connolly Bove for six years this coming September. Prior to entering the legal industry, Nicole worked in the library at the Polisher Research Institute as well as a suburban Philadelphia public library. Prior to entering the library profession Nicole was an outreach educator at the Philadelphia Zoo.

Nicole is an alumnus of the iSchool at Drexel University as well as the College of Liberal Arts at Temple University. She is a proud member of the Advisory Board of the Philadelphia Chapter of SLA, serving as its Publications Chair. She previously served as Secretary on the Executive Board of the Philadelphia Chapter.

A Few Questions for Nicole:

What brought you to the legal information industry?

I was working two part time library gigs after completing my Master’s program at the iSchool at Drexel and  I was looking to enter a new field with new challenges. I began applying to a whole variety of positions that I was desperately interested in. After applying to entry level positions and getting nowhere I wildly began applying to everything and anything regardless of the field.  One afternoon I got a call from a law firm that I had applied to on a whim. After several interviews a brave Human Resources Director decided to offer me the position. We took a gamble on each other—the firm never having had a qualified librarian and me never having had worked in law. Six years later we’ve completely changed everything about the library, from its function to its staffing. It’s awesome.

Where do you see our industry in 10 years?

I’ve never really worked in the industry that a lot of people are saying goodbye to. I’ve never had a fat budget or a large collection to manage and eventually downsize. I just haven’t ever lived in that world. I also have no idea what it is like to work with a big staff or a large firm. My vision is admittedly shaped by my own experience, but I do think that the trends in small law are sometimes echoed in big law.

I see us touching nearly everything at the firm—we’ll provide service to or on the behalf of clients for sure but we’ll also see our firm and our attorneys as clients. We’ll be instrumental in making every other administrator smarter and every process more efficient. We’ll become trusted analysts and advisers. We’ll be the agile department in the firm that can be trusted to fix problems. I just don’t see us having any other option.

What are you doing to get Future Ready?

I’ve been fortunate enough to have had mentors and colleagues who have allowed me to pitch wild ideas and take risks. For example, a few years ago I came back from a Conference bent on the fact that we needed to adopt Share point for our intranet and internal KM type projects (which didn’t exist at the time). It took a while, and a lot of reading and planning; but we did, and it was the library that did it. Later, we moved conflicts/new business intake over into the library. I pitched the possibility that we could hire another librarian to do the conflicts work. It was an unconventional idea but one that I knew would get me the talent that I needed to work on the big business development  and prospecting projects that I saw in our future. I’m really fortunate to report to people who have faith in me because they almost always allow me to try out my idea. So, in order to get Future Ready, I’m asking for forgiveness, not for permission.

More practically, I read the Business Journals in my firm’s geography so that I can speak knowledgeably of economic trends. I read the Harvard Business Review each month. I read Barron’s on Mondays to keep tabs on larger trends in certain industries. I also scan the Linkedin communities relating to the Information profession. I’ve also come to rely quite heavily on several twitter users who break stories and convey information far quicker than any other source does.

Do you have any advice for people looking to break into the legal information industry?

 Work hard and be really great at what you do.

The Legal Division is proud to feature Danielle Devore in its May Profiles in Law Librarianship feature:

A Little Bit About Danielle:

I am a 2012 Master of Information candidate at the University of Toronto, specializing in both Library & Information Science and Archives & Records Management.  After graduation in June, I hope to find work in either a law firm or an academic law library.  In the meantime, I plan on taking advantage of valuable networking and skill-building opportunities such as this year’s CALL conference in Toronto, and the 2012 New Law Librarians Institute in London, Ontario.

My interest in law librarianship stems partly from the encouragement of family and friends who have entered the law profession themselves, as well as a few good professors who have helped me to see law librarianship as a challenging and enriching career option.  What I appreciate the most about this field is its depth and breadth: the fact that there are so many places for law librarians (courthouses, universities, firms), and so many options for further learning and development (professional associations, attainment of the J.D. degree).

I am a fairly new member of the SLA, but I have tried to contribute as best I can.  So far, I have joined the Public Relations committee of SLA’s Legal Division, and the Newsletter committee of SLA’s Military Libraries Division.  I also contributed a short biographical piece for SLA’s Western Canada chapter.  Earlier this semester, as part of the University of Toronto’s Job Shadowing program, I had the opportunity to visit the Hamilton Law Association library in Hamilton, Ontario, and contributed a short bio for the Hamilton Law Association journal.  I also recently volunteered as an Editorial Assistant for Management Science and Economic Review, an academic journal focusing on emerging Asian markets.

A Few Questions for Danielle:

What brought you to the legal information industry?

I took a Legal Literature and Librarianship class as part of my M.I. program at the University of Toronto, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I also received encouragement from friends, family, and a few of my professors during the course of my degree – not to mention all the support that I’ve received thus far from the Legal division!

Where do you see our industry in 10 years?

It’s difficult for me to speculate on the future of law librarianship since I’m still so new to the field.  However, I believe that digital literacy skills will be important in order to deal with the increasing volumes of information delivered online.  I also think that KM (Knowledge Management) will have a significant role to play in creating more collaborative, innovative work environments.  There will probably be more reciprocity between law librarians and other legal information professionals.

What are you doing to get Future Ready?

As an aspiring law librarian, I’m trying to involve myself in every professional development opportunity that comes my way, including conferences, courses, and seminars.  I’m also experimenting with different types of social media, hoping to find creative ways to implement these technologies in a law library environment.  I try to push myself outside of my comfort zone so that I will be more flexible and adaptable in different work environments.

Do you have any advice for people looking to break into the legal information industry?

It’s difficult for me to answer this question, because I’m still in the process of breaking into the legal information industry myself!  Nevertheless, I would recommend AALL, CALL or SLA’s annual conference as they provide valuable networking opportunities.  It’s also helpful to volunteer for a law library-related professional association.  If you are a student, it’s probably a good idea to work or volunteer in a law library before graduation so that you can gain some practical experience before entering the workforce.  It’s beneficial to take specialized courses in law librarianship or government documents, and to attend institutes focusing on law librarianship.

The Legal Division is proud to feature Philip Mullen in its April Profiles in Law Librarianship feature:

A Little Bit About Phil:

I have been working as a Librarian for some time. I started out in public libraries and then moved to Fairfax Magazines and then the newspaper side of the business.

Finally, luckily I received a job at a small one person Law Library in Sydney called Moore and Bevins and nobody has caught me out yet and I have been at it ever since. It has been a fascinating ride as the firm and the law has changed so many times. At present I am the Information Services Manager at Middletons in Sydney.

I have a Bachelor of Arts and Diploma of Information Management (UNSW) and a Bachelor of Legal Studies (Macquarie University). Recently I completed a Diploma of Knowledge Management at UTS.

This year I am the New South Wales CPD Coordinator for the Australian Law Librarian Association, which is a great organisation for Australian Law Librarians. I am also the treasurer for Sterling Group, which is a group of Sydney Law Firm Librarians.

I have been a member of the SLA for a long time, distance and time differences makes participation difficult. But the ability to attend the conferences virtually has really helped me understand that distance and time need not stop me being more involved in the future.

A Few Questions for Phil:

What brought you to the legal information industry?

I wish I could say I planned it. But really, I got lucky and worked for an incredibly generous group of partners who were willing to help me learn on the job.

Where do you see our industry in 10 years?

Well, it will be a totally online world, eBooks will reign supreme. But how our clients, information services people and the courts use these online resources will be interesting.

At present we seem to exist in two worlds, the old information world of books and loose-leaf and the new world of online. As the old world falls away we will all have to create new ways of working and interacting with the legal environment. But really I have no clear idea how this new environment will operate.

What are you doing to get Future Ready?

The SLA’s Future Ready program is one of the greatest initiatives ever developed by the SLA. The ideas and concepts developed by the Future Ready program have been an important source of professional development and ideas for me. I will be eternally grateful for the program.

This year the Information Services team has decided the time has come for us to move most of our resources online and by mid September the Information Services team will be embedded with the practice groups. It will be an interesting time for both the team and the lawyers.

Do you have any advice for people looking to break into the legal information industry?

The Australian Legal industry is very very small compared to the United Kingdom and the United States, so it is hard. There are just not that many jobs. But some exposure to the legal environment would be good; so take any law related job and get exposure to the legal environment. Joining the Australian Law Librarian Association would also be a good start.

The Legal Division is proud to feature Laura Woods in its March Profiles in Law Librarianship feature:

A Little Bit About Laura:

Laura has been involved in SLA since winning an Early Career Conference Award from SLA Europe and the Leadership and Management Division in 2009, and attending that year’s Annual Conference in Washington DC. She attended her second conference last year in Philadelphia, courtesy of a travel grant from the Legal Division, of which she is an enthusiastic member.

She has worked in law libraries for almost the whole of her short but eventful library career: beginning with a graduate trainee position in 2007-08 at Gray’s Inn, one of the UK’s four historical Inns of Court; and progressing through roles at two UK law firms. Since February 2011 she has worked for Addleshaw Goddard in Leeds, providing business and markets intelligence to select practice groups within the firm.

Laura blogs about her professional development at Organising Chaos, runs the SLA Europe blog, and has contributed articles to SLA’s Information Outlook, CILIP Update, and the BIALL newsletter.

A Few Questions for Laura:

What brought you to the legal information industry?

I arrived at law librarianship purely through chance! Following an enjoyable but not wholly successful few years working as a freelance photographer (photography was my first degree, and my first love) I was looking for an alternative career path. A careers adviser suggested librarianship to me, based on my transferable skills and interest, and it was like a lightbulb going on: the more I read about librarianship as a career, the more it sounded like a perfect fit for me. I applied to a number of graduate trainee opportunities in various types of libraries, and took the first that was offered: at Gray’s Inn, one of the four Inns of Court, member organisations for all barristers in England and Wales. In my year at Gray’s, I found that I really enjoyed the fast-paced and varied nature of legal research – I love that you never know what you might be asked next! Since then, apart from eight months working part-time in a university library while I studied for my MSc in Library and Information Science, I have exclusively worked in law libraries.

Where do you see our industry in 10 years?

Good question – I wish I knew! My hunch is that there will be more of a move towards embedded librarianship – my own firm is working towards this model now, but I think UK law firms are a little behind US firms in this respect. I think there is an opportunity for law librarians to become subject specialists, working closely with particular practice groups to provide knowledge and insights rather than just information.

What are you doing to get Future Ready?

As much as I can! I read numerous professional blogs and newsletters – some on law librarianship, some on librarianship in general, and some on the law and developments in the practice area I support, which is property and real estate. My job is to provide insight and intelligence, so I see it as vital to my role that I keep up to speed with any new developments.

I also try to expand my skills wherever possible, for example through shadowing people in different but related roles within my own firm to see what I could learn from them and how I could support them. For example, a lot of my work involves supporting the business development teams on pitches for new business, so I’ve been trying to get to know that team better by hot-desking with them and making sure I am included on department emails. This will not only make me better at my job now, but will hopefully give me good experience and extra skills to add to my CV for the next time I’m job hunting.

Do you have any advice for people looking to break into the legal information industry?

Learn as much as you can about the legal industry – you’ll need that knowledge alongside your information skills. To fill in any gaps in your knowledge, talk to other law librarians – we’re a friendly bunch! Networking is vital: make use of organisations like SLA legal and other local and national organisations (if you’re in the UK, BIALL is a great one to join). Don’t worry too much if you don’t have a background in law: work on your core information skills, and your transferable “soft” skills, and trust that you’ll be able to pick up the sector-specific stuff as you go along.