[Prodev] External partners
Victoria Trotta
Victoria.Trotta@asu.edu
Wed, 15 May 2002 15:49:18 -0700
This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand
this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.
--Boundary_(ID_Svd6Oif7aYgT+rTGo31KZA)
Content-type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
I've been mulling today's posts and I think my bead on the questions posed
and the discussions following is: To a point, It behooves the library to be
flexible and innovative when it comes to what is properly defined as a
physical library. Law librarians , because of their training and their
service orientations, make natural partners with and would have meaninful
contributions to make in just about all departments within the law school.
For example, law librarians have been pioneers in administering the
information technology function in many law schools with great success.
Having said all of that, academic law libraries still are a physical place
and have their space needs for their still relevant research and curricular
support.
Regardless of what format our information resources are presented, the
philosophical fundamentals of library service and practice are the same. To
the extent we take on other functions within the law school enterprise, we
must either stop doing some of the tasks we currently do, or do the same
tasks more efficiently. And this is much easier said than done. We have
limited staff, the staff and even the law school enterprise to some extent
has an investment in the status quo. Furthermore, we don't know what the new
status quo is going to be, only a glimmer of what it might be. Libraries
are archival institutions and as such, are unable to change dramatically
very quickly. In the long term, this is probably not a bad thing. Moving
into a hybrid collection piecemeal is a way to test out the waters, see what
works what doesn't, how work flow is affected, how patrons use the
information.
For law librarians, everything boils down to this, at least for me. We
have to keep our eye on the ball: identifying our patron groups, analyzing
their current information and research needs, and design and deliver
programs and services that are responsive to those groups and their needs.
To the extent that forging external partnerships both within the law school
and in the University generally help us to accomplish this work, we need to
do so creatively and enthusiastically. Of course we all need to find the
time to study and network and try to think outside the box about thse things
and monitor the situation. But external partnerships for their own sake just
don't make any sense in this environment, because resources are limited and
we are uncertain about what the real benefit to our institutions is going to
be. Even if or when physical libraries were to disappear, we would still
have more meaningful work to do than there are people or time to do it all.
If we take on other roles that are really more tangential to our fundamental
role in the library, we will dilute our abilities to serve our patron groups
fully and competently.
Victoria K. Trotta
Director of the Ross-Blakley Law Library and Associate Dean
Arizona State University
P.O. Box 877806
Tempe, Arizona 85287-7806
Voice (480)965-2521
Fax(480)965-4283
victoria.trotta@asu.edu
--Boundary_(ID_Svd6Oif7aYgT+rTGo31KZA)
Content-type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 5.50.4522.1800" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><SPAN class=809282218-15052002><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>I've
been mulling today's posts and I think my bead on the questions posed and the
discussions following is: To a point, It behooves the library to be
flexible and innovative when it comes to what is properly defined as a physical
library. Law librarians , because of their training and their service
orientations, make natural partners with and would have meaninful contributions
to make in just about all departments within the law school. For example, law
librarians have been pioneers in administering the information technology
function in many law schools with great success. Having said all of that,
academic law libraries still are a physical place and have their space needs for
their still relevant research and curricular support. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=809282218-15052002><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=809282218-15052002><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>Regardless of what format our information resources are presented, the
philosophical fundamentals of library service and practice are the same. To the
extent we take on other functions within the law school enterprise, we must
either stop doing some of the tasks we currently do, or do the same tasks more
efficiently. And this is much easier said than done. We have
limited staff, the staff and even the law school enterprise to some
extent has an investment in the status quo. Furthermore, we don't know what the
new status quo is going to be, only a glimmer of what it might be.
Libraries are archival institutions and as such, are unable to change
dramatically very quickly. In the long term, this is probably not a bad
thing. Moving into a hybrid collection piecemeal is a way to test out the
waters, see what works what doesn't, how work flow is affected, how patrons use
the information. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=809282218-15052002><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=809282218-15052002><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>For
law librarians, everything boils down to this, at least for me.
We have to keep our eye on the ball: identifying our patron groups,
analyzing their current information and research needs, and design and deliver
programs and services that are responsive to those groups and their needs. To
the extent that forging external partnerships both within the law school and in
the University generally help us to accomplish this work, we need to do so
creatively and enthusiastically. Of course we all need to find the time to
study and network and try to think outside the box about thse things and monitor
the situation. But external partnerships for their own sake just don't make any
sense in this environment, because resources are limited and we are uncertain
about what the real benefit to our institutions is going to be. Even if or
when physical libraries were to disappear, we would still have more
meaningful work to do than there are people or time to do it all. If we
take on other roles that are really more tangential to our fundamental role in
the library, we will dilute our abilities to serve our patron groups fully and
competently. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=809282218-15052002><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=809282218-15052002><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Victoria K. Trotta</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial
size=2>Director of the Ross-Blakley Law Library and Associate Dean</FONT>
<BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>Arizona State University</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial
size=2>P.O. Box 877806</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>Tempe, Arizona
85287-7806</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>Voice (480)965-2521</FONT>
<BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>Fax(480)965-4283</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial
size=2>victoria.trotta@asu.edu</FONT> </P></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=809282218-15052002><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2> </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=809282218-15052002><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=809282218-15052002><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2> </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=809282218-15052002><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2><SPAN
class=809282218-15052002></SPAN></FONT> </BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>
--Boundary_(ID_Svd6Oif7aYgT+rTGo31KZA)--