What are libraries best known for? The willingness to share, of course!  This month we are looking at COLLABORATIONS!

• THE PRIME DIRECTIVE – To establish and expand your network of colleagues.
• Become involved in library organizations on all levels – locally, statewide, nationally, and internationally.
• Get to know the librarians whose organizations are located near your own organization.
• To the extent your employer allows, be willing to share advice and resources with all of your colleagues.
• Modern-day tools, like e-mail, discussion lists, and scanning, not to mention FedEx and UPS, are making sharing a lot easier.

BORROWING

• Do your homework before requesting a loan – if possible:
  • Make sure you have the full bibliographic record for the item you are looking for.
  • Find out how quickly your client needs the item and plan accordingly.
  • Determine which libraries may have the item you are looking for.
  • Only contact one library at a time – wait until you hear back from that library before contacting another.
  • Once you find a library willing to loan the item, arrange with the librarian how to pick up the item or have the item sent.
  • Determine any additional costs involved and relay that information to your client.

• Try to limit your use of discussion lists to request interlibrary loans of materials, especially for those items that are commonly available.
• If you are looking for a section from a treatise, consider using online resources that you have available that have tables of contents.
• If you are looking for an article, check the Internet to see whether the article might be available for free or for a reasonable fee online.
• Be aware of all the cost involved in getting a document: your billable time, messenger and/or delivery costs, document retrieval costs (typically, $20-40 for a journal article, $50-$200 for a court filing)

LENDING

• Set a reasonable due date and be willing to extend the loan, if the item is not immediately needed by your own clients.
• Be sure to note that the loan is subject to recall, in the event that your own client needs it back.
• If the book needs to be sent by a delivery service such as FedEx or UPS, consider asking the borrower to provide their company’s account number for the charge.
• If a library only needs a section from a treatise, consider scanning and sending a PDF of the section, rather than loaning the entire book.
• Always be aware of copyright restrictions.

ADVICE

• Imagine what it would be like if you were in the shoes of your colleague who is asking for help.
• Be an active participant in discussion lists.
• Be considerate and respectful of others when posting to discussion lists.
• Be sensitive to your own employer’s policies and procedures concerning interactions with others outside of your own organization.
• Consider being a MENTOR (hint-hint) for your colleagues who are new to the profession – you have a lot to share!

Joan Ogden
SLA Legal Division Mentoring Committee Chair

More and more of our collections, not to mention our budgets, consist of Online Resources. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when managing these valuable resources:

• Find out the terms of the license upfront: Is it a single user license or a five concurrent user license? Any restrictions by location? Copyright restrictions? Redistribution restrictions?
• Weigh the cost of multiple individual licenses versus a firmwide license.
• Try to negotiate with the vendors, to see if they will come down from their initial price quotes.
• If you are opting for a firmwide license, consider getting IP Authentication, so your users will not have to enter logon information when accessing within your network.
• Users may not be able to access IP Authenticated resources if they are using a device that is outside of the network – have the vendor provide you with firmwide logon information for those situations.
• Keep a list of all your online resources that use IP Authentication, along with contact information – If the IP Authentication addresses change, use the list to notify all the vendors of the changes.
• If you have multiple single-user licenses, have the vendor provide you with the logon information for each user.
• Make sure you know how to add and delete users for each resource.
• If the service doesn’t have a management tool for the logon information, keep the information in your own database or spreadsheet – users will come to you if they forget or lose their logon information.
• Try to get the vendors to provide you with meaningful usage statistics – there are not a lot of other ways to determine whether the resource is being used.

A Few Definitions

• Concurrent user – a license that allows multiple users to access the resource, but only one user at any given time.
• Redistribution restrictions – can you forward on an article from an online resource to someone within your organization or to someone outside your organization, such as a client?
• Logon information – usually consisting of a logon/username and a password.
• IP Authentication – way to provide secure access to online content by filtering, based on certain criteria, such as an IP address. There is no need for users to enter logon information.

Joan Ogden
SLA Legal Division Mentoring Committee Chair

Happy New Year!

Time for a new Mentoring topic.  This month I will provide you with some basic tips on managing VENDOR RELATIONS.

• Keep a list of vendor information for those vendors that you call the most often, including customer service phone number and your account number..
• Have your account number handy whenever you call any vendor.
• Be sure to document your interactions – write down the name of the contact, the contact date, and what was said.
• When renewing a subscription, ask for the new expiration date.
• Be sure to ask for a receipt, especially if you are ordering over the phone and charging a credit card.
• At all times, conduct business in a professional manner and always be courteous with vendors.
• Be very clear about what you want and make sure you get all your questions answered before you hang up.
• Be persistent – you may have to make multiple calls to get all the information you need.
• Ask for possible discounts, labels for free shipping of returned items, free replacement materials, etc.
• If you are having a problem resolving an issue, be sure to document your phone contacts and retain all e-mails.
• If you are getting frustrated dealing with your current representative, speak with that person’s manager and/or ask to have a new representative assigned.
• Be polite yet firm during unsolicited calls from vendors – you don’t need to renew an invoice or to agree to a meeting on the spot – remember, they called you.
• If you order materials or renew subscriptions online, be sure to print out your order information and/or your receipt and/or your order number.
• Make sure you don’t press the BUY button more than once when ordering online.
• If you are having problems with ordering online, be sure to call the vendor right away to straighten things out.

Joan Ogden
SLA Legal Division Mentoring Committee Chair

Let’s talk about MARKETING this month.

Marketing is an important part of the law librarian profession. Not only do law librarians do research for marketing personnel in law firms, but we also need to market our services and ourselves within our own organizations. Here are just a few quick tips to keep in mind…

MARKETING YOURSELF AND YOUR LIBRARY

• Make sure your users understand what you can do for them and how you can add value to your organization and your clients’ organizations.
• Speak to users in terms that they can understand and try not to use library jargon.
• Be sure to read research requests carefully, to make sure you understand completely what you are being asked to do.
• Always reply to e-mails promptly and professionally.
• Get in the habit of re-reading e-mails that you are composing before you send them.
• If you are dashing off a response based on an emotional reaction, it may be better to wait awhile before responding.
• Take advantage of the few minutes you are in an elevator with an attorney to market your services and your library resources.
• Try to think up creative ways to connect with your users. For example, one librarian I know started posting a single-page library newsletter in each of the stalls of the washrooms!
• Invite your users to visit you in the library – set up an open house or arrange regular training sessions for online resources.  Food is always a great motivation!
• Be open to visiting your users in their offices and helping them with whatever issues they might be having.
• If possible, get involved with your in-house Intranet website and develop web pages for the library.
• Try to foster a good working relationship with people in your Marketing Department.
• If you get a research request from someone in your Marketing Department, be sure to find out which attorney has requested the information and then copy the attorney on your research results.
• Set up alerts to monitor news about your firm, your particular office, and key members of your organization. Send out articles of interest to key members of the organization.
• Retain copies of all national and global surveys on your industry (For example, AmLaw 100, AmLaw 200, AmLaw Global 100, Of Counsel’s Annual Survey, National Law Journal’s 250 Annual Survey).
• Retain copies of all state and local surveys pertinent to your office as well.
• Retain an archive of at least 5 years of annual surveys.

Joan Ogden
SLA Legal Division Mentoring Committee Chair

Let’s talk about SUPERVISING this month…it’s not unlike coaching football….

There has been a ton of information published on how to supervise, from all different perspectives. My focus will be from a personal development perspective.

Even if you have had a lot of experience working as a professional law librarian, being promoted to a supervisor for the first time can be a little daunting. Suddenly, you are responsible for your entire team’s performance, and you feel like you don’t have any control over how your employees perform. Here are a few things you can do to make the transition to supervisor a little easier:

• Become very familiar with your organization’s policies and procedures.
• Be a model employee – you can’t expect your staff members to arrive on time every day if you are always late.
• Have an open-door policy – let your staff know that you are available if they have any questions or need help with a project.
• Keep the lines of communication open – share information with your staff, if it’s appropriate to do so.
• Be fair and impartial – treat your staff members equally and never play favorites.
• Remain calm and rational, even if you are feeling anger or frustration. Give yourself time before you respond. Sometimes taking a walk helps.

Remember, you’re the coach, not the whole team:

• If an employee is not doing a certain assigned task, work with the employee to make sure she or he understands how to do the task successfully.
• If a staff member is clearly overwhelmed with a particular task, consider adjusting work assignments and asking another staff member to help out.
• Under some circumstances, you may want to pitch in to help out your staff, but never take over and do an assignment for an employee just because you know you can do it more efficiently.
• If a staff member comes to you for a quick answer, try encouraging the staff member to find the answer on his or her own. Alternatively, demonstrate how you got to the answer.
• If an employee complains about another employee, gather all the facts from every side, rather than accepting only one employee’s side of the story.
• When you meet with an employee about a staffing problem, ask questions and be sure to allow the employee to do most of the talking.
• Don’t make any judgments until you have all the facts. You may assume an employee has done something wrong, but there might be a good reason for his or her actions.
• If you’ve identified a serious staffing problem, you will need to document, document, document – dates, times, participants, witnesses, etc.

Be sure to sign up to take any management training offered by your organization.

Take advantage of the knowledgeable staff of your Human Resources Department – remember, they are the experts!

Joan Ogden
SLA Legal Division Mentoring Committee Chair

Whether you are faced with a move of your collection or a downsizing, SPACE MANAGEMENT is an essential skill to have.

Here are some things I’ve learned about space management…

LIBRARY TRUTHS:

• Library space is prime real estate.
• If you give up space today, you likely will need that space tomorrow.
• What you cancel and toss or recycle today, someone probably will want tomorrow.

PREPARING FOR A COLLECTION REDUCTION:

• Always keep a list of possible cancellation candidates, even if you haven’t been told to downsize.
• Try to keep tabs on what is and what is not being used.
• Compare what’s available online versus what you have in print.
• Get the most bang for your cancellation buck – look for larger sets and/or expensive sets that aren’t being used.
• Don’t immediately toss/recycle cancelled or obsolete material; use it as a place-holder on your shelves.
• If you find out that you do need something that you have cancelled, accept the fact that you may have to reorder it.

PREPARING FOR A MOVE:

• Be an active participant in the planning process for the new library space.
• Get accurate floor plans of your new library space.
• Measure your shelving needs in terms of “linear feet” – one linear foot might hold 6 books that are 2″ wide, but remember that not all books are the same width.
• If you have a shelf that is only half-full, count that shelf as an entire shelf.
• Incorporate room for growth into your calculations, especially for periodicals and for sets that tend to add new volumes on a regular basis.
• Incorporate empty shelf space throughout the collection, in the event that you need to shift or if you want to offer some open shelves for your patrons to use.
• Keep in mind the depth and the height of the shelves – if you have a shelf that’s 10″ high, and you have 3-ring looseleaf binders that are 12″ high, you just lost an entire shelf.
• Ideal shelving dimensions to accommodate most print materials: 36″ wide X 12″ deep X 12″ high.
• Make sure you know how to adjust your shelves and that you don’t need extra tools, like a screwdriver, to do so.
• If possible, adjust the shelves before the books are moved.
• A handy tool to have on hand is a metal tape measure that you can lock.
• Find out if the movers you are using have any experience moving books.
• If possible, be around when the movers are working, so you can spot and correct any problems that may arise.

Joan Ogden
SLA Legal Division Mentoring Committee Chair

Because our membership is so spread out geographically, I thought one way to reach some of our newer members would be to post some helpful tips and tricks about various topics affecting legal information professionals everywhere. My intention is to post something each month.

This month, I’m offering some tips and tricks about BUDGETING that I have picked up over the years…

DISCLAIMER:I have no MBA, no formal budget training, and no clue as to various budget models.  However, I come from a long line of accountants, if that counts for anything. I also currently manage budgets for three of my firm’s office libraries.

YOUR GOAL:  To maximize your budget, not to save your organization money.

BUDGET PREPARATION - You may not get all you ask for, so always ask for more than you really want or need.

• Use the current year’s actual expenses to estimate expenses for next year’s budget.
• The 10% rule – increase actual expenses by 10% – this makes estimating increases a lot easier.
• Round up to whole dollar amounts ending in 0 or 5.[EXAMPLE:  $262 actual expense this year, $285 budgeted for next year]
• If you anticipatea new big expense, estimate what month (or months) the expense will hit your budget.
• If you can’t tell exactly when an expensemay hit the budget, you might want to spread out the cost evenly throughout the year.

THROUGHOUT THE FISCAL YEAR - Keep good records – document, document, document.

• Become very familiar with using your organization’s spreadsheet application.
• Keep tabs on current budget figures throughout the year.
• If you can get monthly reports from your Accounting Department, reconcile those reports against your own figures.
• Be sure you can justify any large expenses or variances from your budget figures.
• Keep a list of possible cancellations that you may be able to use to offset any expensive requests for new purchases.
• If you know you don’t have enough money in your budget to cover a new purchase request this year, offer to build it into next year’s budget.

END OF THE FISCAL YEAR - Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

• The ”nothing left” rule — If it looks like you will have money left in your budget at the end of the year, try to use it up.
• Keep a list of non-urgent purchase requests and missing materials you would like to replace.
• Pay attention to when an expense will hit your budget - if you purchase something at the end of your current fiscal year, you may end up paying for it out of next year’s budget.
• No one will give you an award for being underbudget at the end of the fiscal year.
• If you are overbudget at the end of this year, there’s always next year

REMEMBER: Budgeting is both an art and a science.

Joan Ogden
SLA Legal Division Mentoring Committee Chair