Technology and Law Librarianship

AALL was upon us again, this year in beautiful downtown Denver. The convention had a lot to offer in many different areas. Being a techno-geek, I spend most of my time attending the sessions that explored the changes in technology and law librarianship. There was not a tremendous amount to choose from this year. There were a number of great programs but the technology aspect of the conference was down this year. I will review the highlights that I saw, and make recommendations on other places to visit for more information.

The conference was supposed to start with the W4: Creative Commons Implementation Workshop. However, it was cancelled due to lack of registration, so nothing going on there. Where is the interest in technology and copyright going?

CS-SIS had many presentations that highlighted technology and changes. My favorite was the Cool Tools Café. I find this to be an excellent program every year. The selection of technology covered the gamut of new resources available in law librarianship; 14 separate sections on different aspects of technology and librarianship. Where to start?

The concept of the Café is that the speakers each give a 5 minute talk on their respective technology tool. It worked very well as groups crowed around each table and listened to the presentations and moved on. It was flexible enough that people could leave if they felt the information was not applicable to their needs. I won’t describe each section in detail but try to summarize the types of materials presented.

Video Tutorials and Streaming:

Video tutorials are being used more often to illustrate simple tasks or how to use a database. I made one on the use of the library catalog, a skill that law students seem to have lost. This workshop highlighted Tegrity and Jing. Tegrity (www.tegrity.com) is software that lets you screen capture or create materials. It is free for the small version and minimally priced for the professional version. It is simple to use and has a very easy learning curve. Tegrity is simpler to use than Camtasia or Adobe Captivate, and is a viable alternative to these programs for simpler uses.

Jing (http://www.techsmith.com/jing/) is a great piece of free software that is remarkable easy to use. It is a very simple version of Camtasia. For short easy projects it can’t be beat. Camtasia, while it has a great deal to offer, has a fairly steep learning curve and is not very user friendly. Jing solves this problem. It has applications for screen capture and short videos and the ability to post them to the web with no problem.

There was also a demonstration on video streaming for simple presentations. This tool has applications for live streaming to get videos to the web and classroom. If this topic is of interest to you go to http://www.ustream.tv for more information.

Mobile technology: This series of presentations included the Android apps for law librarians, IPhone apps for law librarians, IPads for law libraries, and the ever-present Twitter: micro blogging and communicating. These applications are becoming everyday tools for law libraries. If this topic whetted your appetite for mobile tools, then you would have really liked the expanded version, Going Mobile: New Tools to Keep Your Library’s Information Moving, on Tuesday. This program discussed the mobile applications of interest to law librarians and their users. Mobile technology will happen to all libraries whether we like it or not. This is an area that librarians will need to at least consider in the future.

Online Tools for Librarians: Online file storage (www.dropbox.com ), research and note saving with Evernote (www.evernote.com ), and of course, Zotero (www.zpotero.com) for bibliographies and research organization. These tools are all excellent for their individual functions. Zotero is especially useful for saving time when working with citations and research materials. Unfortunately it is a Firefox only add-on.

Reference Statistics and Tracking: Gimlet (http://gimlet.us). I thought this technology showed real promise. It is designed for recording and tracking reference questions, and searching past questions. I talked to several librarians who use it and they all love it. It also has an analytical component to generate statistics on reference questions. Definitely a system to look at for your reference needs.

Research Guides: Most of you are probably familiar with LibGuides. I had heard of it but did not know all of the details. I found this tool to be a great advance for creating library guides for the web. It allows embedded feeds to videos and will integrate with the library catalog. It is however not free! The prices are reasonable for what you get but some budgets may make this product prohibitive. For those of us who did not get enough of online electronic research guides at the Cool Tools Café, CS-SIS scheduled an expanded section covering library guides on Monday. This program compared products across the board from open source to purchased products. The panelists highlighted their opinions of the various products and the best solution for adapting and utilizing them in your library. It was quite informative and very well attended.

There was also a program on Google Wave (http://wave.google.com). This demonstration showed the properties and uses of Wave for collaboration and online storage. I am not sure about this technology yet and each individual librarian should evaluate their technology skills to see if this type of tool is for their library.

I have very briefly covered the technologies offered at the café. If you want more information on these tools go to the CS-SIS website, (http://cssis.org/cool-tools-cafe-2010/ ) and you will find the handouts and other information on these tools that was given out at the AALL conference. You can also contact the individual speakers of each section listed and check out the links to websites explaining the products.

There were several other programs dealing with information technology and authentication. They were F-2: In PKI We Trust and C-3: A vision of the future: Authenticated and Official Online Legal Resources. These dealt with topics of growing importance to librarianship with the increased use of online authorities. Authentication of all online government documents is also a goal of the new FDsys and more documents carry official seals and authenticated signatures. I think there will be more interest in this type of authentication in the future as electronic media takes over more of the role of print media. I would have liked to have seen these presentations.

There was one other presentation I attended which I think worth mentioning. Pecha Kucha is an intriguing presentation format where you show 20 images and each image is shown for only 20 seconds. The images can be shown independently or on a timed automatic slide presentation. The images keep the presentation simple and on point. This alternative format has a lot going for it and is something that librarians should look into as a new type of presentation.