Donna Bausch
Law Librarian Norfolk Law Library - Norfolk, VA
Has It Really Been that Long? A New Role Can Be Energizing
Law Library Journal Fall, 2001
Twenty years in and no desire to jump ship yet. Is it an absence of intellectual curiosity, lack of ambition, sloth, or entropy? In my view, it's something far more positive. Responding to circumstances by redefining my professional role has helped keep me totally engaged in a career that I still find satisfying and inspiring.
In the early years of my career, as an urban law firm reference librarian, there was no need to fear boredom; the pace was too frenetic. Later, as library director at several midsize law firms, the job itself remained more than challenging as we faced the early challenges of technology. And by being active in professional associations from the start, the mix of the day-to-day crises with larger issues facing the profession was an ideal balance that engendered motivation and inspiration.
In my second decade of law librarianship, I was compelled by geography to reshape my professional focus. As I followed my oft-transferred corporate nomad husband to smaller cities, I devoted more of my professional energy to association activities. It was clear that there would not be local opportunities for the variety of professional interchange to which I'd become accustomed in the law library communities in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, but I could not imagine giving up the benefits of involvement just because my "local" chapters were now regional and statewide rather than city-based. In fact, these groups have been more important to me since leaving the "big city." And fortunately e-mail and the Web came along just at the right time to support networking beyond the local area.
I also became deeply involved with my local library community. For instance, I taught classes in legal reference for non-law librarians at the local public library, local university libraries, and the state library association. Teaching nurtures the next generation of law librarians while serving the local library community. In addition, coordinating a local informal law library network has been a wonderful way to maintain close ties with the colleagues who make it possible to do my job every day at the highest level of quality.
In law firm and academic law libraries earlier in my career, healthy budgets permitted a focus on collection development and technology applications requiring substantial investments. In recent years, at a public law library with static funding in a high-inflation period, I've had to develop a new vision of law library service—selling research services and developing new products that appeal to our local legal market—while developing fund-raising and grant-writing skills. I've become the rainmaker for my library, not just by attracting paying customers, but also by developing support from the political institutions and professional communities upon which it relies for its funding and continued viability.
It has been in my self-interest to be visible in the local community. Contacts developed through service on the boards of the Friends of the Old Dominion University Library, the Norfolk Public Library, and the Chrysler Museum of Art Library, as well as being active in the League of Women Voters, become valuable in the most unexpected ways. Whenever I'm asked to make a presentation to the local or state bar, paralegal organizations, college classes, or library organizations, I say yes. After a decade in Norfolk, everywhere I go I encounter library customers, and it's a great feeling to be so much a part of the community I serve. The more I give to my community, the more public support my library and its mission receive through successful fund-raising campaigns and the support of the bar association.
The process of creating a new professional role has been energizing rather than exhausting. In my small law library where each of us are reference librarians, money managers, and lobbyists all week long, I continue to utilize every ounce of intellect, diplomacy, and creativity learned over the years from my colleagues.
It has been precisely those colleagues who have provided the oxygen that has powered my career. Without the friendship and support of library school colleagues Peggy Jarrett and Victoria Kahn, this journey would have lacked joy and meaning. Though we all started in law firm librarianship in Washington, D.C., but now live in three different cities and work in three different types of libraries, we continue to rely on one another professionally and personally.1 Supportive mentors have opened doors and served as role models for me.2 Today, colleagues3 in MSLL, the Membership Subscription Law Libraries group, are my touchstones. These leaders from the largest and most entrepreneurial libraries have welcomed the presence of my small law library in their midst and allowed me to learn from the masters. One of the most important lessons has been the importance of finding others in venues like your own who have more experience, resources, and programming and then emulating them. Don't reinvent the wheel; hone what others have created.
How could I fail to be proud of belonging to a profession packed with brilliant overachievers? Whenever I'm tempted to take a hiatus, I think of colleagues with greater personal and professional challenges who consistently do more than I do, and better. They inspire me and make me proud to be a law librarian. I like to think that there are nearly 5,000 of these folks—all my AALL colleagues, each giving their best every day. How could I dream of doing any less?
There have been other secrets to career satisfaction. Not only is regular attendance at professional meetings a must, but travel has been a wonderful hobby. Reading in preparation for trips to Europe, Oceania, Africa, and the Caribbean provides fodder for study about world history, cultures, and politics. There's always something to look forward to, as there will always remain places to be explored. As our economy and legal system become ever more global in nature, there are practical benefits, too.
Find your bliss in your work and in your leisure and find a synergy between them. Law librarianship has been a wonderful profession in which to fashion a life. Lifelong learning and service to the public among outstanding colleagues make this a profession that can inspire at all stages of a career.
1. A great way to develop such "peer mentors" is by attending CONELL, the Conference of Newer Law Librarians, which is conducted each year at the AALL Annual Meeting. My advice is to get such mentors early and stay tight; you'll need one another.
2. See Donna K. Bausch, My Mentors Three—Anne Butler, Jim Heller, and Kay Todd, 91 Law Libr. J. 188 (1999).
3. Alison Alifano, Edgar Bellefontaine, James Brink, Kai-Yun Chiu, Shirley David, Charles Dyer, Anne Grande, Pam Gregory, Jean Holcomb, Richard Iamele, Brenda Kelley, Nancy Joseph, Dorothy Li, Anne Matthewman, Judy Meadows, Maria Sekula, and Regina Smith in recent years.
For More Information About Law Librarianship or the AALL Recruitment Committee, contact committee chair Sarah Mauldin.