Spectrum PR Column
December 1997
Promoting Yourself as an Internet Expert
Carol Bredemeyer, Salmon P. Chase College of Law Library, Northern Kentucky University (Highland Heights, KY).
AALL Spectrum, Volume 2 No. 4 December 1997, p. 40.
Remember when LEXIS and WESTLAW were in their infancy and law librarians were the expert searchers in the organization? Some of us still are considered the experts, but student representatives and desktop access for attorneys have diluted our strength in some institutions. Even though the Internet has been around for awhile, it is still a new tool to many attorneys and librarians again have the opportunity to be the experts.
How can we make the most of this opportunity? Training and orientation are obvious answers, but specific programs geared to particular users can turn previously uninterested patrons into regular Internet users. Preparing training programs like this are time intensive, but the results may make the time spent worthwhile. If the trainee is insecure using a computer, personal attention will make them feel more comfortable than a group session where they are afraid to ask questions and become hopelessly lost.
The library newsletter is a great tool for publicizing our knowledge of the Internet. Top Ten lists - favorite new sites, best legislative sites, or sites geared to practice areas - and brief stories of how we have used the Internet to gather particular information emphasize our knowledge and its importance to the organization (don’t forget to document in reports how often you use the Internet or law-lib to answer reference questions). We can also review web sites in depth, as well as educating our users about how to evaluate web sites on their own. We can help those who develop web sites in our own organizations by critiquing sites from other libraries, firms, or schools.
Law firm librarians could make sure that the attorneys see the web sites of their clients, as well as those of their competitors. We can all make sure that support personnel in our organizations (Human Resources, Marketing, Firm and court administrators, Placement and Admissions Offices) know that there is information on the Internet that can be helpful to their work. We can provide information on Internet Service Providers for patrons who want Internet access at home or for use when traveling for business.
In our organization, we found that our earliest computer users were faculty who had children in school learning to use computers. We can provide information to our patrons about access issues and filtering devices. Just last week at an ORALL program on First Amendment Issues and the Internet, the issue of attorneys who bring their children to the office and let them play with the computers was raised during a discussion of the Child Pornography Protection Act. We need to monitor legislation that affects Internet use and access and keep our institutions informed about the impact the laws could have on how we make Internet access available.
Being "The Internet Expert" can be one more method for justifying our importance to our organizations. The Internet is not going to go away and we should do all we can to maintain our "expert" status.
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