Cindy May
University of Wisconsin, Madison
clmay@facstaff.wisc.edu

In October and November of 2002 I had the golden opportunity to live and work in Sheffield, England, on a "professional development attachment" to the Crookesmoor Library, the law library of the University of Sheffield. This article recounts my experience there and some of the ideas I've brought home. I begin with a little background on the exchange program and on the city of Sheffield itself. Secondly, I give a brief overview of legal education in England and describe the three law libraries I visited. I then highlight the major differences I noted between those three libraries and my own. Next, I summarize what I learned about online catalogs, budget issues, and interlibrary cooperation in the Sheffield area. Finally, I examine the value of this experience both for me and for my institution.

How It All Started

Steve Barkan, University of Wisconsin Law Library Director, visited the University of Sheffield in summer 2001 to set up a law student exchange program. While he was there, Steve met Sheffield's library director, Michael Hannon. The two of them began to explore the idea of a law library staff exchange between our universities, and their discussion quickly came to fruition when Sheffield's Academic Liaison Librarian for law and education, Maria Mawson, came to Madison for four weeks in the spring of 2002. My visit to Sheffield in the fall was Wisconsin's reciprocal half of this first exchange.

Sheffield

Sheffield is a picturesque city just on the eastern edge of the Peak District National Park, probably best known to the American public as the setting for "The Full Monty." The city has moved well beyond its industrial revolution steel town image, with lots of green space and beautiful public buildings. The people I met there were incredibly friendly, and their hospitality more than made up for the rainy fall weather.

Legal Education

In England, law is an undergraduate major. After graduation, students may opt to continue their education at a vocational law school to prepare themselves for a career in law. England retains the distinction between [...continued]