Barbara Bean's first library job is the one she started in summer 2004--as Reference Librarian, Michigan State University College of Law, with responsibility for FCIL work.

Like many of us, she took an indirect route to law librarianship. After Vassar College and law school at Georgetown, she practiced as a corporate lawyer in New York and L.A., specializing in large bank financing transactions, both domestic and international. When she eventually left practice to stay home with two young children, she fell into the perfect part-time job: working as American counsel to the New York office of a large Netherlands law firm. In 1995, her family moved to Moscow, where they stayed for seven years. (While in Moscow, she acquired what she modestly describes as "workable Russian.") On her return, she went to library school at SUNY-Albany, and from there to Michigan State.

Barbara reports that she's "definitely learning on the job." She adds, "as a newcomer, I have taken advantage of the many excellent research guides in the field prepared by my more experienced colleagues. I hope to be able to develop and contribute some guides myself." Given what she has accomplished so far, this seems likely. Already, Barbara has put together a collection of resources for student projects on international environmental law, and developed the international law component of an advanced legal research course. She also has responsibility for a long-term empirical research project, and supervises many student researchers.

So far, Barbara agrees with a colleague who says librarianship must be the best job in the world. "If curiosity is an essential part of your nature, you will never be bored."

While she hasn't found anything to dislike about her job yet, she finds treaty research the hardest aspect, citing "the confusingly named treaty collections (with many similar acronyms - TIAS, CTIA), the long delay in official treaty publication, the practice of assigning 'temporary' numbers all contribute to a confusing system." Um--yes.

Barbara's hobbies include water sports, travel, hand bells, and reading. She gravitates to books set in remote locales. "Right now I am reading At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels Through Paraguay, having just finished Simon Winchester's Korea." Welcome, Barbara!