Spectrum PR Column
March 1998
Continuing the Legacy
Carol Bredemeyer, Salmon P. Chase College of Law Library, Northern Kentucky University (Highland Heights, KY).
AALL Spectrum, Volume 2 No. 6 March 1998, p. 23.
Recent testimonials to the career of the late Janet Wallin (former Director of the University of Toledo Law Library) on law-lib indicate that she was a major reason the authors chose law librarianship as a career. This is the ultimate display of professionalism - that we can inspire others to join our ranks. We all have mentors or others we admire in the profession . How can we turn around and play this role for others?
Many future law librarians are right under our noses - support staff, student employees, and students in our research courses. When I was attending library school, nearly half of my classmates (including myself) were already working in libraries and going to school to advance in the profession. If they see that you enjoy your job and the good days outnumber the bad, they may feel that the same career path is right for them.
What kinds of active measures can we take to influence the up and comers? Take an interest in those in your library or chapter who are attending library school. Offer to supervise an internship or project. You’ll not only help someone’s career, you might also get a project completed for your library that you simply didn’t have time for.
Sign up for the AALL’s or your chapter’s mentor/mentee program. Encourage new members to request committee assignments (remember that AALL always tries to appoint some committee members who haven’t previously served on a committee) or volunteer to serve a special interest section.
Say yes if you are asked to speak to students about our profession. Let them know that in addition to Reference , Cataloging, and other traditional library activities that today’s librarians are knowledgeable about computers, deal with million dollar budgets, and testify before Congress and other entities about copyright, the effects of publisher mergers, and medium neutral citation systems.
Speak up when you feel strongly about an issue. We don’t all think alike so there are bound to be differences of opinion in the profession. We just need to speak with authority and not let the debate become personal. The up and comers can decide whether we speak with conviction or just to hear ourselves talk. When we speak at a public forum we are trying to persuade others of our opinion. If we show that we can respect our differences, we will all be winners.
We all have a story about how we came to be librarians and particularly law librarians. Perhaps we should look for more ways to tell those stories and thank those former employees of Janet Wallin who told theirs.
Last Updated: January 28, 2003
©
2003, American Association of Law Libraries
AALLNET is hosted in cooperation with Washburn
University School of Law