Mary Whisner
Head of Reference
Gallagher Law Library
University of Washington
Seattle, WA
It's the Variety
Law Library Journal Spring 1997
February 26, 1997—I often tell people that what I like about librarianship in general and my job in particular—head of reference at a large law school library open to the public—is the variety. When I chose Wednesday, February 26, 1997, as my day to chronicle, I knew it would be a busy day—busy enough to show the variety, but not so exceptionally busy that it would give an unrealistic snapshot of my professional life. Here is my day.
8:10: Stopping by Legal Brew, the espresso cart run by law students, is a good way to stay in touch with the law school community. The coffee is good, too. At the elevator I talk to a professor, who thanks me for a project I did for him on limited liability companies last week.
8:15: Upstairs in my office, I greet my officemates and check my e-mail. I scan for messages that are directly to me; messages from e-mail discussion lists will have to wait.
8:30: I go to a library Collection Development Council (CDC) meeting. CDC includes the four selectors—Rob Britt (Japanese law), Bill McCloy (Chinese and Korean law), Peggy Roebuck Jarrett (state, federal, and international documents), and Reba Turnquist (the rest of the world, including the United States)—plus Penny Hazelton, the library director; Richard Jost, the assistant librarian for technical services; and me. Its purpose is to advise the selectors on tough issues and to set policy.
Today, Richard is taking minutes on the laptop, while the rest of us sit with our piles of paper: the library's Collection Development Policy, minutes of past meetings, publishers' flyers, notepads. Reba begins with several quick items: Internet Legal Reference Services Quarterly, a new journal; Hein's bar exams in microfiche; an ad for United States Statutes at Large on CD-ROM; some audiotapes a professor donated to the library; an ad for a famous trial transcript on floppy disk; and the beginning of the Tenth Decennial Digest, Part 2. I am struck by the proliferation of formats in law libraries: in fifteen minutes, we have discussed a print serial (about the Internet), microfiche, CD-ROM, audiotape, floppy disk, and that most venerable staple of legal bibliography, the West Digest System (in print). A collection development meeting just ten years ago would not have brought up all these formats in such a short time. What will the next ten years bring?
Next we discuss making the Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals available on our campus network (as Legal Resource Index already is). Reba has investigated pricing. Richard will discuss the technical aspects with the head of the Electronic Information Program at the University of Washington Libraries (who, in turn, will deal with the relevant people in Library Systems and UW Computing and Communications). Peggy and I will coordinate testing the database. This is another good illustration of our professional life in 1997: selecting and acquiring this source involves a great deal of teamwork, not just within the law library, but also involving staff members in other campus libraries and in campus computing as well.
10:15: After almost two hours of CDC, I return to Legal Brew. One of Penny's Advanced Legal Research students, also getting coffee, asks me a reference question. He apologizes for bothering me, but I assure him that if I didn't like law students, I wouldn't work in a law school—or at least I wouldn't get my coffee at the coffee cart.
10:25: I quickly check my e-mail in-box again. Then I start on a project for a practicing attorney who the law school has hired to teach a course in negotiations in the spring. On the Web, I find the home page for the Harvard Program on Negotiation1—its clearinghouse of teaching materials should be very useful for the new lecturer.
11:10: I cross the street to buy a sandwich to take to today's LLOPS2 meeting downtown. This month, instead of having a speaker, we will share information around four “resource roundtables.” I will facilitate the discussion on using the Internet for reference. (The other facilitators and topics are: Mary Hotchkiss, training; Rick Stroup, acquisitions; and Monica Luce, serials control.) On the bus with Mary Hotchkiss, I write an outline of discussion points and leaf through the issues of Internet Reference Services Quarterly that Reba gave me at this morning's CDC meeting.
12:00: The LLOPS meeting begins. During the hour my group talks about how we are using the Internet, how we educate and train our patrons, what technical challenges we wrestle with, and what search engines we use. The other groups are also abuzz. As the meeting is breaking up, I talk to the editor of our chapter newsletter and offer to write an article summarizing our discussion.3 I ride the bus back to the University District with several colleagues.
1:45: Back in my office, I check e-mail again. It's gaining on me—I have received many more messages today than I have been able even to skim.
2:00: Tomorrow I am giving a guest lecture on foreign and international legal research in Mary Hotchkiss's Advanced Legal Bibliography class. I have given similar talks recently, so I just need to update the handout a little. I sign on to LEXIS-NEXIS and WESTLAW and discover some new databases to add to the table listing foreign law sources available online. Among other things, I notice that WESTLAW has added a database with case law from Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei. After an hour of tinkering, I decide the handout is ready to reproduce for tomorrow's class.
3:00: I begin a two-hour shift in the Reference Office. I continue gathering materials for the new negotiations lecturer, searching Legal Resource Index, Expanded Academic Index, Business Index, and PsycInfo.
An attorney telephones, asking how to research Singapore law. I tell him about Reynolds and Flores4 and recommend it as a starting point for his research. I also tell him that Singapore cases are now on WESTLAW (pleased to share something I learned so recently). A variety of other patrons telephone and come in during my shift.
5:00: Back in my office, I talk to Peggy about a faculty project she's working on. I return to my e-mail for one last look. There's a message from the associate dean asking for faculty volunteers to lead a colloquium on the effective use of research assistants. I want the library to participate, so I e-mail Penny, the other reference librarians, and the head of circulation services.
5:35: I turn off my monitor and head out of the library.
5:36: I remember that I wanted to send an e-mail message to the faculty adviser for the Jessup moot court team. One of the students had asked me to meet with the team to help them with international law research. I return to my desk, log back on e-mail, and take care of that.
5:50: I turn off my monitor and head home. Another day, and my e-mail and paper have piled up. Again.
1. <http://www.law.harvard.edu/groups/pon/>
2. Law Librarians of Puget Sound, a chapter of AALL.
3. See Mary Whisner, Using the Internet for Reference, LLOPSCited, March 1997, at 1. See also Mary A. Hotchkiss, Resource Roundtable on Training, id. at 4; Rick Stroup, The New Meaning of Acquisitions, id. at 5.
4. Thomas H. Reynolds & Arturo A. Flores, Foreign Law: Current Sources of Codes and Basic Legislation in Jurisdictions of the World (1989).
For More Information About Law Librarianship or the AALL Recruitment Committee, contact committee chair Sarah Mauldin.