Laura Orr
Senior Reference Librarian
Lillian Goldman Law Library
Yale Law School
New Haven, CT
It's a Small Fiche—Someone's Got to Duplicate It
Law Library Journal Spring 1997
Today started with reference desk duty from 8:30 to 1 P.M. This is not common. Usually the shift is two or three hours, but we're a bit short-staffed today. Our part-time reference assistant is not in today so I made arrangements to have her back-up do the library office mail delivery. I then cranked up the Reading Room PCs (the absent reference assistant usually does this) and tidied up the mess from overnight (we're open twenty-four hours a day to our law students). I checked on the supply of golf pencils (where do those little buggers go—maybe with the paper clips to some kind of well-stocked desk in the sky?) and scrap paper. Thought about why I went to law school and decided, all in all, this was a lot more fun than talking every day to people in grey suits. Besides, where else can I wear sandals to work all year 'round? The students here are super. They learn the easy stuff in a flash, and then we have fun together with the tough reference questions.
Warming up, I answer a series of miscellaneous quickie "where is?" and "how do I?" reference questions.
During a lull at the reference desk, I talk with my boss about how to cover the pregnancy leave of my documents-microforms reference assistant, a leave that we hope and pray won't occur any sooner than expected.
I take a phone call from a librarian in Cleveland trying to track down a transcript of a speech given here by A_S_, Jr. Try Law School and University offices, Public Affairs, and Alumni but no luck, which I report back to the librarian. She'll phone "the great man" himself and let me know if he has a copy of his own speech. (I heard from her later and we had a good laugh. A_S_, Jr. says our Dean's Office should have the transcript. That's what he thinks—it's like those law review article footnotes that say "on file in the __ law library." Hah!)
A faculty member calls from home with a request for information on the history of law firm incorporation which is needed for a class in two hours. (We're actually safe from a lot of faculty questions, thanks to our genius of a faculty services librarian and really get only the questions that leave him totally stumped.) I find a few books, one of which was slated for weeding, for the professor. I make a note to talk again to the powers-that-be about this mania for weeding.
A student needs a dozen or so pre-Ninety-Sixth Congress bills. I check with the government documents library, hoping they got a windfall and gave it to Congressional Information Service (CIS) for a retrospective congressional bills fiche collection. No such luck. I call our CIS rep (a dream-come-true of a rep!) to find out if any of her customers have the pre-Ninety-Sixth Congress bills fiche sets. We will get these fiche eventually but because of space (its absence), not until after the renovations. Unfortunately, renovations won't be complete until 1999, though the microforms room might be ready before then.
An interlibrary loan staff member needs to find out who can do fiche-to-fiche copying. Our machine isn't working. The Government Documents Center (the only other library on campus with a fiche-to-fiche copier) can't do it because the only person there who can use the machine is pregnant and the fumes nauseate her. And we can't send over our person. She's pregnant, too. (I make a note to e-mail all women friends of child-bearing age and warn them to stay away from duplicating machines.)
The Career Development Office (CDO) phones to ask questions about their book collection and how to organize it. I suggest they phone Blair (Kauffman, our director) to ask about putting the records in MORRIS (our law library catalog). CDO also says they have an old InMagic database of a lot of their books and wants to know if it is of any use. I tell them I'll ask our local InMagic representative to get in touch with someone at CDO.
The CIS rep calls back with a list of area libraries that have pre-Ninety-Sixth congressional bills on fiche. Whew! She really is a saint. I pass this information on to the ILL staff.
Our index to the microfiche set of bills from the 103d Congress has gone missing. I spend ages searching high and low, then e-mail everyone to keep an eye or two out for it while making a note to arrange for a copy to be made of the Government Documents Center index if ours doesn't show up soon.
A faculty member's student research assistant needs the source of a quotation. Nowhere in sight. She and I check every quotation book here and online (and that's a lot of quotation books!). Everyone seems to quote it but no one seems to believe in verifying where, when, and if it was really said.
My one o'clock reference desk relief arrives. So do the latest architectural plans for the renovation of the reading room, including the ref desk area. Two different layouts are presented. The architects prefer the more symmetrical one. Yeah, yeah—symmetry is always a good basis for the design of work areas.1 Sigh. We all share stories of architectural design disasters. I'm reminded of that wonderful book by Margo Kaufman, This Damn House, dedicated to any homeowner who ever looked at a weight-bearing wall and said, "Boy, this room sure would look great without that." We, the reference staff, prefer the "unsymmetrical" layout. The one that allows us to move around, to reach things—in other words, to do our work.
I eat lunch in my office while reading and answering e-mail. I also look over a few new book ads (I do the U.K. selection).
I browse through a faculty member's recent publication and am not impressed, but it is tough to crank these out so often. I look at our latest law school newsletter for faculty research assistant ads; this is a good place to see what new ideas faculty are exploring so I can keep an eye out for relevant articles, books, etc. I then go to the main library across the street to check their quotation books for that elusive E.B. White quotation. Still no luck, but I do take out two E.B. White essay collections. (These are so wonderful I spend most of the next few evenings at home with them.)
I check in with my documents assistant, who tells me that a volume of the FCC Record wasn't received and everything she tried to do to replace it was unsuccessful. I add the title to our "Please Please Show Up on the N&O and Hope No One Gets There Before I Do List." The documents assistant also tells me that "they" finally got her PC set up. But now, of course, the network connection doesn't work. She does have Windows 95, which is more than the reference librarians have, though I'm not sure I'm unhappy about this.
As our part-time reference assistant who delivers the mail is out, people are starting to fuss about not getting their YDN (the university's daily paper). (Under my breath: These newspapers are piled up at nearly every door on campus, for heaven's sake. You have to have it delivered? Even members of Congress are now believed to be capable of getting their own ice.) I keep my temper, but resolve to keep looking for another job. This is right up there with the six-figure faculty members who fuss when the New York Times isn't "right here where it is supposed to be!" on the day their op-ed articles appear. They can't step outside the front door and put a buck into the newspaper box? Actually, I've been in this business long enough to find this type of behavior more funny than aggravating. I joke with a student about how lucky we are to have the face-book, otherwise I'd never know what any of the professors look like. With about four exceptions, we never see any of them in the library.
I return to my office to find that my husband has faxed me a great joke. We live three hundred miles apart. Although this may be the secret of a happy marriage, I am grateful to live in an era of fax and e-mail.
I spend the remainder of the afternoon returning phone calls, tracking down some elusive SEC documents for a professor, and scanning a few of the librarian, law, and publisher journals routed to me.
I have a Friends of the New Haven Free Public Library meeting tonight (I'm on their board), so I leave work a little early to check before the meeting the public library's collection of quotation books for the missing quotation. While at the public library I run into the very professor who is seeking the source of this quote. This is not a little embarrassing for me, but she is very amused at my perseverance. Then again, she is one of my favorites and we have a good laugh.
1. The italics are used here as a print manifestation of the sarcasm dripping in my voice.
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