It was late Wednesday morning. Another lively and eventful AALL Annual Meeting was coming to a close. Lavish parties had passed, the exhibit hall was now closed, and only a handful of programs remained on the schedule. Things, it seemed, were beginning to quiet down.
Then came Plenary Session II. And, for one all too short hour, a truly great individual of our profession lit up a large room with his humor, his sincerity, and his optimism for the future of law librarianship.
Robert Berring, Jr., the Walter Perry Johnson Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the law library at Berkeley from 1982 to 2005, warmed his audience with accounts from his storied career in academic law librarianship, yet challenged them to navigate a constantly changing legal information industry by relying on the core values established by the founders of AALL 100 years ago.
In his trademark animated fashion, Professor Berring began by reciting three quotations. The first, from Chairman Mao Tse Tung, holds that: “Everything under heaven is utter chaos; the situation is excellent.” The second, from Admiral James Stockdale, Vice Presidential candidate in 1992, asks: “Who am I? Why am I here?” The third, from the Greek poet Archilochus by way of writer Isaiah Berlin, states that: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
Focusing on the quote from Mao, Professor Berring emphasized that while law librarians might find their current situation somewhat chaotic, given the wide influence that tools such as Google and Wikipedia have had on information retrieval, the situation we are in is excellent because of our expertise. “A democracy of information does not translate to a democracy of authority,” Berring explained, urging law librarians to vigilantly work, as they always have, to preserve access to the very best information available.
Tying the Stockdale and Berlin quotes together, Professor Berring told the audience members who they were and why they were there: they were to be hedgehogs, to define and make available the one “big thing” that trumps the many things that the fox may know. While Wikipedia may be liked by many people and provide much information, Berring noted, the information is not necessarily relevant or even correct. It is up to law librarians, he stated, to ensure that authenticity matters, by being able to tell each patron: “This is the information you need, this is the information correctly presented, and it will be here for you a year from now.”
Looking back at the beginnings of AALL, Professor Berring reminded his listeners of the problems facing law librarians at the first Annual Meeting: gathering materials, organizing them, and, in the words of A.J. Small, the first AALL president, “guaranteeing high quality information to the people that need it.” Such “problems” are precisely the ones we deal with today, within the context of an organization that started small but, according to Berring, has truly grown up over 100 years and is recognized now as a key player in the development of information policy.
Professor Berring concluded his address by reiterating that while the foxes out there may claim to have the most stuff, we hedgehog librarians will continue to have the best stuff as long as we continue to adhere to a sense of ethics and to a sense of responsibility to our law library patrons. It was with these sincere words of wisdom that Plenary Session II came to a close, with appreciation and respect for the past joined by enthusiasm and dedication for the future.
Note: Professor Berring will be honored for his many contributions to the profession of law librarianship at a symposium entitled, “Legal Information and the Development of American Law: Further Thinking about the Thoughts of Bob Berring.” The symposium will be held on Saturday, October 21, 2006, at the University of California, Berkeley. Detailed information on the event is available at: www.law.berkeley.edu/library/conferences/berring06/.