Welcome to the latest edition of the ‘ethics round up’ brought to you by your SLA Legal Division ethics ambassador.

In past updates we have explored ethics from a range of perspectives. We have looked at ethics in law librarianship through statements from your fellow Legal Division members. We discussed how best to conduct yourself over the holiday period (and how to approach technology). Most recently, we looked at integrity in relation to ethics. In this newsletter, I would like to encourage us, as information professionals, to broaden our minds from looking at our own service’s best practice, to exploring that of the institutions we work for.

Whilst I’m sure that all SLA members will be aware of the professional ethics guidelines, how many of us are aware of if our organisation has it’s own ethics code? The chances are it isn’t collated together into one neat document – most likely there are a range of conduct guidelines to follow, but is is vital that each of these is adhered to, allowing you to represent yourself and your firm in the best possible light.

Why not try to track down and pull together points that your institution considers key to acting in an ethical manner, and then try to match these against your information service’s approach? An improvement could be something as simple as donating old editions of key law texts to Pro Bono charities instead of recycling them. Or perhaps if your library operates on social media, maybe you need to check if the way in which it is operating also adheres to your organisation’s approach to ensure consistency?

It isn’t just about aligning yourself with your organisation though – as librarians and information professionals we are well equipped to influence others. We have excellent current awareness skills, and are tapped into how others are operating. Hopefully, we also have great relationships with key stakeholders in our institutions. We also tend to be good at thinking on a large, almost grandiose, scale. Perhaps you feel your organisation’s approaches could be updated? If so, try to effect a change (although, please do so respectfully)!

To leave you with some really big ethical ideas to ponder over, and get the creative juices flowing, I give you a link to the University of Oxford’s Practical Ethics Blog. The following post is from back in November 2012 and outlines some of the best new ethical decisions of last year.

Wouldn’t it be great to have an information professional on this list next year? I see that as perfectly achievable. We work in one of the most exciting, fast moving industries around. Information. The time seems right for an information professional to step up and help to think about how we all access information; be it in our homes, our libraries, institutions, or globally. Get thinking!

Best wishes,
Sam Wiggins
SLA Legal Division Ethics Ambassador

¡Buenas Tardes!

This won’t be a full blown Diversity Update, but, given the holiday, I thought that I would share a few posts by our friends at In Custodia Legis (the blog [or, blawg, if you prefer] of the Law Library of Congress).

Enjoy!

• The History of the Mexican Constitution
• Cinco de Mayo is Not Mexican Independence Day?
• 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Puebla (aka Cinco de Mayo!) – Pic of the Week

Keep an eye out for the Committee’s full Diversity Update for May 2013, on Military Law Resources, later in month.

Bacilio Mendez II,  Diversity Committee Chair

On May 8, many people got to watch the Queen’s Speech. No, this wasn’t a sequel to the film The King’s Speech, but a ceremonial event, full of pomp and pageantry, which dates back many years. It is part of the State Opening of Parliament in Westminster and marks the formal start of the Parliamentary year.

The State Opening begins with the Queen’s procession from Buckingham Palace to Westminster and to the House of Lords. After she arrives at the House, Black Rod (a House of Lords official) goes to summon the members of the House of Commons to the Lords. As he does so, the doors to the Commons are shut in his face – a tradition which dates back to the Civil War to symbolise the Commons’ independence. After knocking on the door three times, he enters the Commons and addresses the Speaker, commanding the members of the Commons to “attend her Majesty immediately”. Members of the Commons then follow Black Rod to the House of Lords to listen to the speech.

The length of the speech has varied over the years – the Guardian has compiled some data on the word count of the speeches since 1994. You can see how the length peaked in the late 1990s – the first years of the new Labour government – and the recent speeches have been comparatively quite short.

The Queen doesn’t actually write the speech herself – it is written by the Government and sets out the legislative agenda for the forthcoming Parliamentary term. This year’s speech contained announcements of Bills relating to intellectual property, the High-Speed Two railway line, the reform of long-term care, pensions – along with many more.

Further reading:
•    The Guardian has produced a helpful explanation of what was said in the speech
•    The Daily Telegraph have provided a timeline of events of the day.
•    Follow the hashtag: #QueensSpeech on Twitter.
•    Watch the State Opening on YouTube.
•    Parliament.uk: State Opening of Parliament explained

Anneli Sarkanen
SLA Legal Division International Relations Committee

April is Financial Literacy Month and as law librarians, we sometimes find ourselves spontaneously promoted to the role of hearer of confessions and keeper of secrets. I, myself, have not been immune.

While a graduate student at Pratt, I served the pro se litigants of Kings County (aka Brooklyn), as the Nathan R. Sobel Law Library Fellow of the New York State Unified Court System and, though patrons would come to the Law Library to research one legal issue, more often than not, all roads would lead to them asking me for secondary and/or completely non-legal resources to help them deal with their seemingly insurmountable personal debt. An uncomfortable position to be in at any age, but especially so as a twenty-something Manhattanite standing in front of an elderly patron about to lose their apartment.

My example may never be the case for you, but the fact of the matter is, at some point, be you a public law librarian assisting a walk-in or a corporate/academic law librarian approached in confidence by a colleague or friend, you will be faced with someone in the same boat as Confessions‘ protagonist—barely afloat and in desperate need of something outside of our grab bag of legal resources. Below, I offer you a few oars (ranging from the “highly academic” to the “kid friendly”) to throw their way.

Reports/Testimony/Speeches of Interest

• Payday Loans and Deposit Advance Products: A White Paper of Initial Data Findings — During the past year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has engaged in an indepth review of short-term small dollar loans, specifically payday loans extended by nondepository institutions and deposit advance products offered by a small, but growing, number of depository institutions to their deposit account customers.
• Annual Report on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) — From the report: “This report covers much good work done together over the past year by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission. In the last year, we began an important new chapter in the history of the FDCPA. Under the larger participant rule recently adopted by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau  any firm with more than $10 million in annual receipts from consumer debt collection activities is now subject to our supervisory authority. This authority extends to about 175 debt collectors, which accounts for over 60% of the industry’s annual receipts in the consumer debt collection market. This new federal authority enables us both to protect consumers and to promote a level playing field for all law-abiding debt collectors.”
• The Structure and Practices of the Debt Buying Industry — 2013 report published by the Federal Trade Commission
• Dept. of Commerce Fact Sheet: The Investing In Manufacturing Communities Partnership (IMCP) — The IMCP is a new Administration-wide initiative that will accelerate the resurgence of manufacturing and help communities cultivate an environment for businesses to create well-paying manufacturing jobs in cities across the country.
• Aspects of Inequality in the Recent Business Cycle — Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin at the “Building a Financial Structure for a More Stable and Equitable Economy” 22nd Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference on the State of the U.S. and World Economies, New York, New York, April 18, 2013
• “Who is Too Big to Fail: Does Dodd-Frank Authorize the Government to Break Up Financial Institutions?” — Hearing before the Committee on Financial Services, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. April 16, 2013

Articles/Videos/Webinars of Interest

• USA Today — Be wary of prepaid card protection: ‘Reloadable’ cards are popular, but many are not protected by federal insurance. — Written by Sheila Bair, the former chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and a senior adviser at The Pew Charitable Trusts.
• The DA Focus Archives — Past issues of the the Quarterly World Service Newsletter for the Fellowship of Debtors Anonymous
• The FTC Blog — Helping Victims of the Bombing in Boston — Make Sure Your Donations Count
• Senior Identity Theft: A Problem in This Day and Age — On May 7th the Federal Trade Commission will bring together experts from government, private industry, and public interest groups to discuss the unique challenges facing victims of senior identity theft. The free, in-person forum and webinar will include panels on different types of senior identity theft – tax and government benefits, medical, and long-term care – and will also explore the best consumer education and outreach techniques for reaching seniors.
• In March 2012, Chairman Ben S. Bernanke delivered a four-part lecture series about the Federal Reserve and the financial crisis that emerged in 2007. The series began with a lecture on the origins and missions of central banks, followed by a lecture that discussed the role and actions of the Federal Reserve in the period after World War II. In the final two lectures, the Chairman reviewed some of the causes of, and policy responses to, the recent financial crisis, focusing specifically on the actions of the Federal Reserve. The lectures were offered as part of an undergraduate course  at the George Washington University School of Business. On-demand video, transcripts, and presentation slides are available for each lecture.
• Civil Legal Advice and Resource Office (CLARO) Documentary — Produced by the Feerick Center of Fordham Law School
• The CFPB Blog — Buying a car? Here’s what you need to know

eBooks of Interest

• Managing Debt to Improve Your Mental Wealth — Living underneath the burden of debt is a scary place to be. But there is a way out. First, we will look at the far-reaching impact of debt. Then, we will help you understand your personal situation and relationship with debt. Finally, we will give you the tips and tools you need to create your own plan that can set you on the path to financial freedom.
• The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Personal Finance — Prosperity and success are what many entrepreneurs envision when they start their own business. However, it takes more than a vision for your business to succeed. Capital, the money needed to start, operate, and grow a business is important, as is managing your personal finances while balancing the demands of your business. Fortunately, you have options when it comes to funding your business and the opportunity to gain the skills you need to effectively manage your finances both at work and at home.
• Love & Money — Noticing the polarizing effects finances can have on the most committed of couples, the educators at MMI have addressed both. Part one is a fun, flirty take on love and money, while part two addresses the more pressing concerns of couples by offering advice on making finances a delight, rather than a drain, on your relationship. As a bonus, part three features ideas to spark conversation and candid talk from couples on love and money.

Websites of Interest

• “April has been declared National Financial Literacy Month; and for good reason. Too many Americans are insufficiently educated about their personal finances. In honor of Financial Literacy Month, the experts at Money Management International created the Financial Literacy Month website. No matter what day or month of the year a consumer begins their 30 step path to financial wellness, it will help them to create a successful strategy to better their overall financial position.”
• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — The mission of the Bureau is to make markets for consumer financial products and services work for Americans — whether they are applying for a mortgage, choosing among credit cards, or using any number of other consumer financial products.
• How to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) — The FTC is the nation’s consumer protection agency. If a business doesn’t make good on its promises or cheats you out of your money, the FTC wants to know.
• Filing Consumer Complaints — Advice from USA.gov on how to file a complaint and resolve consumer problems.
• Quick Links for Consumers & Communities compiled by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) — Topics include: Foreclosure Prevention; Identity Theft & Privacy; Financial Education; Banking Tools & Resources; Consumer Protection Assistance; and more.
• OnGuard Online — is the federal government’s website to help you be safe, secure and responsible online. The FTC manages OnGuard Online and is a partner in the Stop Think Connect campaign, led by the Department of Homeland Security, and part of the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education, led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
• Read the Consumer Action Handbook Online — Links to all the consumer topics, from banking to wills (and more).
• The Civil Legal Advice and Resource Office (CLARO) provides limited legal advice to low-income New Yorkers being sued by debt collectors. CLARO is organized through the New York State Courts Access to Justice Program.
• Feerick Center of Fordham Law School: Fighting Poverty Through Partnerships — Fordham Law’s Feerick Center for Social Justice works with students, alumni, lawyers, and community volunteers to connect low-income New Yorkers to the legal resources they need and cannot afford. We train law students and others to engage in social change efforts.
• The College Affordability and Transparency Center (CATC) — The CATC was designed by the U.S. Department of Education to meet requirements in the Higher Education Opportunity Act and to provide better information to student and parent consumers about college costs. It serves as a central point to several tools that allow users to compare colleges tuition and fees, net price, and other characteristics. The CATC is maintained by the Office of Postsecondary Education with support and technical assistance from the National Center of Education Statistics.

Teach Children to Save Day
April 23rd is Teach Children to Save Day; here are some resources to help your patrons talk to their kids about managing their personal finances.

• The “It’s A Habit!” Company, Inc. (IAHC) is a socially conscious startup corporation located in Los Angeles, California that is dedicated to teaching financial literacy and other empowering life skills and habits in a strategic manner (ie. both entertaining and educational) to youths of all ages, with a focus on young children and their families. To achieve this objective, IAHC has spent the last five years developing and testing a children’s character (Sammy Rabbit), messages, products and services. The result of those efforts is Sammy … a rabbit with great habits! Simply put, Sammy is a wholesome, positive, multi media, multilingual message machine everyone can be proud to be associated with. Sammy’s first and favorite great habit is to save money.
• Prosperity4Kids, Inc. — Giving kids the vocabulary, tools, games, and resources that engage them in the wonderful world of money.
• Money As You Grow: 20 Things Kids Need to Know to Live Financially Smart Lives — was developed as an initiative of the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability.
• Money as You Learn — provides teachers with Common Core aligned texts, lessons, and tasks that connect the Common Core to real life applications while also equipping students with the knowledge needed to make smart financial decisions.
• Kiplinger — How Parents Can Be Financial Role Models — Written by Janet Bodnar, editor of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine, author of Money Smart Women and Raising Money Smart Kids

See you next month!

Bacilio Mendez II,  Diversity Committee Chair

Members of the Legal Division may be intrigued to read about a recent decision here in the UK relating to copyright and reading material on the internet. What makes this case interesting is the effect this could have on everyday users of the internet and their day-to-day browsing.

When a webpage is viewed on a computer, temporary copies are made in the internet cache on the hard disk of the computer. No actual copy made unless the webpage is downloaded or printed. Temporary copies of copyright material on a computer is dealt with by section 28A of the Copy, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which gives effect to an EU Directive giving copyright owners various rights.

In this case, a company called Meltwater (often used by marketing departments) provides members of a professional association with programmes to create a daily index of words appearing on newspaper websites in order to monitor news coverage for clients – customers supply Meltwater with search terms and a report is produced listing the results.

The question to be considered was whether Meltwater’s customers needed a licence from the Newspaper Licensing Agency to receive its service as the report is made available only on Meltwater’s website. The lower courts held that a licence would be required.

The Supreme Court judges said that because the temporary copying is necessary for the internet to work, a licence would not be required – if so, then everyday users could be held liable. Lord Sumption clarified: “if it is an infringement merely to view copyright material, without downloading or printing out, then those who browse the internet are likely unintentionally to incur civil liability, at least in principle, by merely coming upon a web-page containing copyright material in the course of browsing. This seems an unacceptable result, which would make infringers of many millions of ordinary users of the internet across the EU who use browsers and search engines for private as well as commercial purposes.”

On Wednesday last week, the UK Supreme Court gave its provisional views on how the Directive should be interpreted and then referred the question to the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) asking them to rule on whether these temporary copies breach copyright laws.

So whilst there is no decision on this issue yet (we will have to wait a while for the ECJ’s decision and then for our courts to rule again) I think it is interesting to consider what impact this may have on everyday users of the internet and the work we do as information professionals, including advising other departments on copyright, if it is decided these temporary copies are held to breach copyright – heaven forbid!

Please note that the above is a summary of the case as I see it.  I am not legally qualified and this should not be taken as legal advice!

Further reading:

• Judgment: Public Relations Consultants Association Limited v Newspaper Licensing Agency and others, [2013] UKSC 18
• Press summary from Supreme Court (pdf)
• Field Fisher Waterhouse e-alerter
• Newspaper Licensing Agency press release (pdf)

Anneli Sarkanen
SLA Legal Division International Relations Committee

Hello and welcome to the first issue of the Legal Division Docket for 2013.  I am excited about this year and this issue, particularly because of all the upcoming conference information that is included!  If you haven’t already made plans and registered, do so now!

We begin this issue with a few words from our Chair, Tricia Thomas, in the From the Boardroom article where she discusses the conference as well as our plans to celebrate the Division’s 20^th Anniversary while in San Diego.  Speaking of parties, the following article from Past Chair, Tracy Maleeff, is a summary of her experience at the SLA New York holiday party and speaks to the importance of going outside of her local chapter to network.  After reading about expanding our professional network, we have a great article about expanding your role from Lynn Oser.

The next couple of articles provide a preview of the The Canadian Association of Law Libraries / Association Canadienne des Bibilothèques de Droit (CALL/ACBD) conference in Montreal this May and the British & Irish Association of Law Librarians this June in Glasgow.  Our international conference preview wraps up with this issue’s Letter from Australia which gives us some background on the Janders Dean Legal Knowledge Management & Innovation Conference and a sneak peak at what is to come this September in Sydney.

In this issue’s Full Disclosure article we learn more about Martha Foote, a Legal Division Past Chair.  This is followed by an interview of our most recent Past Chair, Tracy Maleeff by SLA Europe.  Following our interviews we get a chance to learn a little bit about this year’s Travel Grant Award Winners.  Say congratulations when you see them in San Diego!

We wrap up this issue with some great tips from Bobbi Weaver, representing the San Diego Chapter, and a nice tip about internet access from the SLA Leadership list-serv.  Our final article is from Legal Division Chair-Elect, Caroline Jones, and provides a great preview of what is to come in San Diego!

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this issue.  I welcome any and all ideas for contribution to the newsletter and just as a heads up I will be sending out my call for volunteers to cover conference sessions soon so if you are interested send me an email at jlking40356@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading and see you in San Diego!

 Jessica King, Legal Division Docket Editor

SLA Europe has announced the winners of the 2013 Europe Early Career Conference Awards. The ECCAs are sponsored jointly with the Business & Finance, Leadership & Management, Legal, and Pharmaceutical & Health Technology Divisions of SLA to provide valuable opportunities for new professionals to develop and establish themselves within their chosen sector.

Congratulations to the winners, who will attend the SLA Conference & INFO-EXPO in San Diego from 9th-11th June 2013: Penny Andrews, Lizzie Caperon, Lauren Lawler, and Laura Williams!

Lauren Lawler is co-sponsored by the Legal Division (supported by Jones McClure). She is the Assistant Knowledge Services Manager at A&L Goodbody Solicitors in Dublin. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in Library and Information Studies from University College Dublin, and a postgraduate diploma in Public Relations from the Fitzwilliam Institute.

Announcing the winners, SLA Europe President Stephen Phillips said:

“I would like to congratulate Penny, Lizzie, Lauren, and Laura on being selected for our prestigious Early Career Conference Award. With over 30 applications for the four awards, this year’s judging has been very challenging.  For the lucky winners, this award gives them an amazing opportunity to enhance their careers and invest in their future professional development by attending conference and building a network throughout SLA. 

On behalf of SLA Europe and the divisional sponsors, I would like to thank everyone that applied. I would like to extend my thanks to the judges who gave their time to evaluate all the entries. Finally, I would like to thank Lyndsay Rees-Jones and Simon Barron, co-chairs of the SLA Europe Awards Committee. They have done a fantastic job to coordinate and deliver the whole programme. Without their hard work and dedication, none of this would be possible.

I look forward to meeting all the ECCA winners at the SLA Conference in San Diego in June 2013.  I also hope they will help make SLA Europe an even more vibrant community, by becoming involved in our activities in the coming weeks and months.”

Additional information about the other award recipients is available at SLA Europe’s website.

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.

Enjoy!

Bacilio Mendez II (filling in for Jennifer Dismukes Vail, Diversity Committee Chair)
SLA New York Chapter Diversity Chair

On behalf of the Legal Division, it is with great pleasure to announce the recipients of our 2013 travel grants to the San Diego conference!

• Thomson Reuters Westlaw U.S. Law Librarian New Member Grant – Sonya M. Durney, Business and Government Team Leader at the Portland Public Library in Portland, Maine. Sonya is a member of the New England Chapter.

Sonya Durney is the Business and Government Team Leader at the Portland Public Library in Portland, Maine. She moved to Maine from Boston after completing her MLS at Simmons College in 2010. She currently serves as the Employment Chair for SLA New England. With SLA San Diego being her first conference, she looks forward to networking and learning as much as possible. She also hopes to sneak in a surf session in the warm California water!

• LexisNexis U.S. Law Librarian Veteran Member Grant – Jeffrey M. Nelson, Research Services Manager at Squire Sanders (US) LLP in Miami, Florida. Jeff is a member of the Florida & Caribbean Chapter.

Jeffrey Nelson is the Research Services Manager at the Miami office of Squire Sanders LLP. After accepting his current position less than a year ago, Jeffrey relocated to South Florida from Washington, DC where he had worked in law firms for five years. He currently serves as the South Florida Regional Contact for the SLA Florida & Caribbean Chapter. As a conference first-timer, Jeffrey is looking forward to meeting other SLA members and hopes to gain innovative ideas to share with colleagues at his place of work and in his local library community.

• Non-U.S. Law Librarian Grant – Samuel H. Wiggins, Information Officer at Norton Rose LLP in London, England. Sam is a member of the Europe Chapter.

Sam Wiggins is an Information Officer at Norton Rose LLP in London. Prior to taking up his current role, Sam completed his MA in Librarianship at the University of Sheffield.  He currently serves as the SLA Europe Chapter’s Events Chair, sits on the Chapter’s board, and is the Legal Division’s Ethics Ambassador. Sam also helps to run #uklibchat, a monthly twitter discussion tackling current issues affecting the library and information community. Sam hopes to both bring a UK perspective to the conference, as well as learn about solutions to problems affecting the information industry from North American and international delegates. Sam regularly blogs and tweets in a personal capacity on his thoughts about the issues facing information professionals.

We have a great many extraordinary SLA members, which makes the judges’ job very difficult.

Special thanks to Grants Committee members Jessica King (Pacific Northwest Chapter), Dagfinn Senturia (Rocky Mountain Chapter) and Past Chair Tracy Z. Maleeff (Philadelphia Chapter) for their work on this year’s awards.

Please join me in congratulating our 2013 recipients.

See you in San Diego!

Tricia Thomas
SLA Legal Division Chair