Laura (Lolly) Gasaway
Director of Law Library and Professor of Law
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Law Library
Chapel Hill, NC
The Joys of a Long Career as a Law Librarian
Law Library Journal Fall, 2001
After more than three decades as a law librarian, I am still excited about my job; in fact, I really have never considered doing anything else. The work still challenges me and I enjoy interaction with students, staff, and faculty on a daily basis along with mentoring newer librarians.
In June 2001, I completed my thirty-third year as a law librarian. At present, I plan to continue for another ten to fifteen years, so for almost half a century I will have worked in academic law libraries. An early love of books and work in both my school and public libraries when I was a teenager set me on the path to librarianship. A wonderful survey course on types of libraries that I took in my freshman year of college directed me toward law. Upon receiving my M.L.S. in June 1968, I began as a catalog librarian at the University of Houston Law Library, and I started law school there in September. Upon completing law school, I became the director at Houston and started teaching in the spring semester, a seminar on employment rights. I was director at Oklahoma for nearly ten years and have now been at North Carolina for fifteen.
My job has always consisted of two parts: management and teaching. Library administration is challenging and constantly changing. It is hard to believe how much libraries have changed since the late 1960s, including our missions. Although it was fun to organize library collections when the Library of Congress law classification schedule was new and to provide reference help to users, both technical and public services have evolved into more complicated and more challenging areas. Library collections have grown considerably and the array of available resources has increased to the point that just keeping current takes constant effort. Further, users are demanding more and more sophisticated services. What I find fun is working to recruit a talented staff and assemble the financial resources to enable that staff to succeed. Planning and encouraging a team to work together to accomplish a goal is a pleasure.
The other side of my job is law teaching. Through the years I have taught employment rights, employment discrimination, women and the law, intellectual property, and cyberspace law. In the past decade, I have focused on IP and cyberspace law, and I continue to find teaching tremendously rewarding. I also team-teach a course in the library school with the associate director of the law library.
Additionally, I enjoy research and writing, whether it is about librarianship or copyright law. Part of the University of North Carolina Law Library's mission is for all librarians to contribute to the body of scholarly literature in librarianship, law, and legal research. It is very rewarding to help librarians develop strategies for their scholarly work.
Working in professional organizations, whether library or law organizations, provides stimulation and networking with other library and legal professionals. Best of all is the flexibility that a career in law librarianship provides. It is a comfort to know that I could practice law, become a public librarian, or teach law full-time—maybe that's why I have never considered having another career.
For More Information About Law Librarianship or the AALL Recruitment Committee, contact committee chair Sarah Mauldin.