Late in 2008 I posted to the ALL-SIS and Directors lists an idea for a new SSRN eJournal.
Inspired by the Cleveland workshop and the upcoming San Diego programming on law librarian scholarship, I believe the time is ripe for a journal on SSRN we can call our own. The Legal Writing Journal gives the legal writing field a presence in an arena law faculty and other academics frequent. I propose that a Law Librarianship and Legal Research and Technology Journal would provide similar opportunities for developing our scholarship and reaching a wider audience.
I received many enthusiastic messages in response. The momentum I sensed in Cleveland for extending our scholarly agenda and reach was further confirmed by the “Librarian as Scholar” program in San Diego. Panelists Jonathan Franklin, Julie Jones, Margaret Leary, Lee Peoples, and Marylin Raisch presented examples from their recent research and scholarship to a packed and captivated audience. (The podcast from this stimulating program is available on the AALS web site; for more information go to the Sessions page, January 8, 2009, 10:30 am, Law Libraries.) Conferences like AALS and the one to be held in June on “Legal Information: Scholarship and Teaching” at the University of Colorado provide excellent opportunities for building our scholarly networks.
The SSRN eJournal will provide another avenue for increasing scholarly engagement through sharing works in progress, accepted papers and recent publications. My co-editor, Lee Peoples, and I hope that it will encourage the profession to write more, increase opportunities for obtaining feedback on works and progress, and connect law librarian scholarship to a wider audience both in the legal academy and other academic disciplines.
Lee and I met with members of the journal’s advisory board at AALS in San Diego. I am pleased to report that the Legal Information & Technology eJournal is under construction. This new title (and description below) emphasizes the profession’s legal information expertise both in its scholarship and practice.
This eJournal includes working papers, forthcoming articles, and recently published articles in all areas of legal information scholarship. Topics include (but are not limited to) the impact of legal information on domestic, comparative, and international legal systems; the history of legal information systems including technological advancements; access to legal information and its impact on the justice system; legal information design and assessment; attorney/law student information seeking behaviors; and the relationship of substantive areas of law (such as information law, intellectual freedom, intellectual property, and national security law) and other academic disciplines (e.g., information science) to legal information. This includes the scholarship of law librarians, other legal scholars, and other academic disciplines.
The eJournal also includes working papers, forthcoming articles, recently published articles, and selected documents (such as White Papers, briefings, reports, course materials) on the practice of law librarianship. Submissions are welcome in all areas of law librarianship including: 1) administration, management, and leadership; 2) facility design and construction; 3) evaluating and marketing law library services; 4) all aspects of public, technical, and technology services; 5) collection development, including sample collection development policies and procedures; 6) research services; and 7) legal research instruction teaching methods and substantial or innovative course materials.
We thank MALLCO, the Mid-America Law Library Consortium, for agreeing to be the journal’s founding sponsor. We also thank advisory board members for their support and input. They are Duncan Alford, Barbara Bintliff, Georgia Briscoe, Paul Callister, Michael Chiorazzi, Richard Danner, Mark Engsberg, Penny Hazelton, Marci Hoffman, Mary Hotchkiss, Richard Leiter, John Palfrey, Carol Parker, Marylin Raisch, and Janet Sinder.
Editor’s Update:
Source: Summary from Lee Peoples & Randy Diamond, Editors, Legal Information & Technology eJournal, email, subject: all-sis@aallnet.org, dated Dec. 5, 2007, Subject: [all-sis] previewing the new SSRN eJournal.
We are delighted to present the Legal Information & Technology eJournal to the academic law library community. The archive already includes over 150 papers and is growing daily. Subscribers will soon start receiving email issues announcing works in progress and recent publications. SSRN will issue a formal announcement soon, but we are pleased to provide a pre-launch viewing.
View Papers: www.ssrn.com/link/Legal-Information-Technology.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=Legal-Information-Technology
(If you do not already have an SSRN account, you may subscribe to the ejournal through your law school’s Legal Scholarship Network Site License: www.ssrn.com/SiteLic_orgSubscribers.cfm?netid=201.)
Journal Description: www.ssrn.com/update/lsn/lsn_legal-info-tech.html
We are in the process of inviting LLJ, LRSQ, IJLI, and Perspectives authors to post their works back to 2005 and welcome all other publications from that time frame fitting within the journal’s subject matter. If you already have an SSRN account please upload your paper and classify it under the Legal Scholarship Network > LSN Subject Matter eJournals > Legal Information & Technology eJournal.
If you do not have an SSRN account it is very easy to set one up and upload your paper for free at www.ssrn.com.
We have also attempted to identify papers previously posted to SSRN for inclusion. In the short time frame we have been working, we will surely have missed some. If your paper is already on SSRN and we have not contacted you, please let us know and we can have it reclassified under the Legal Information & Technology eJournal. We hope you enjoy the eJournal and welcome your feedback and suggestions.