Teaching librarians are routinely tasked with instructing on how to use subscription databases. This is true in both undergraduate and graduate settings, but something I try to keep in mind when I’m teaching legal research is what will my students actually have access to post gradation?  It’s true that Lexis, Westlaw, and Bloomberg are common tools at this point that students need to be familiar with. Electronic legal research has drastically impacted the landscape of how lawyers work. It is not guaranteed that they will have access to all or even one of these products, however. That’s wh ..read more

Brian Merchant, a technology columnist at the LA Times, recently wrote a piece in the Atlantic titled “The New Luddites Aren’t Backing Down,” discussing the historical movement borne during the Industrial Revolution in England and the “New Luddite” movement surging now against what feels like an invincible wave of generative AI.  His book, Blood in the Machine (2023), goes into greater detail about the history of the Luddites and draws parallels between them and the current tech-driven gig economy. For a quick summary, the popular understanding of Luddites is that they were a group of Eng ..read more

I often teach one-off academic research instruction sessions for law students, for either those working on a journal or those in a writing seminar.   My approach to these sessions is relatively standard—demonstrate the sources and strategies for academic legal research—but tailored to the individual needs and overall topic of each course. One of my favorite ways to personalize a session is to demonstrate the research process using a topic that matches the class itself. A “fake paper,” if you will. Coming up with these fake paper topics is always a fun challenge. I try to pick something re ..read more

Guest post by Cornelius Pereira, Head of Technical Services and Rebecca Plevel, Reference Librarian, University of South Carolina Rice School of Law, Law Library  In informal discussions over the past couple of months, the authors have stumbled against issues related to how siloed we can all be, how the law school faculty and staff perceive librarians, and even how librarians are sometimes isolated within our libraries.    Photo by Doreen LT on Pexels  It has been said that recognizing and defining a problem is halfway to solving it. In many law schools, the ..read more

When I was very young, we would visit my paternal grandmother in San Jose, where my father had grown up. She had a big backyard entirely devoted to a fruit and vegetable garden. I remember the sheer joy of eating vine-ripened strawberries under the summer sun. She was a crossword puzzle aficionado and had even developed her very own crossword dictionary over the years. And she always had a jigsaw puzzle on the kitchen table. I recall sitting with her at the kitchen table for hours working on a puzzle. And I’m not the only one who enjoyed this intergenerational experience. Jigsaw puzzles are ve ..read more

I recently had the pleasure of teaching Legal Research Fundamentals for the Litigator to second and third-year law students. The course focused on research tools and resources used in litigation. Dockets were the topic of the final class, and my goal for the in-class exercise was to give the students an overview of the docket tools on Westlaw, Lexis, Bloomberg, and Court Listener’s RECAP Archive, followed by an in-class exercise that provided hands-on experience using the docket tools on these platforms to find case information and court filings. Court Listener is a platform I used often in pr ..read more

Generations in the workplace – a topic that increasingly has been on my mind. Seeing the number of job postings, searches reopened and re-postings of openings for law librarians through AALL makes it clear that most libraries are not getting the pools of candidates they may have in the past decades.  After I attended last week’s NELLCO Third Thursday Discussion and took part in several recent job searches at the library where I work, I began to think more about the role generational membership plays in library recruitment and staffing.   Libraries are not alone in feeling t ..read more

Digital escape rooms were trending a few years ago at a university teaching conference I attended. Last year I finally got around to creating one of my own. After deploying it with two different groups of students, I’ve found that it’s a fun and useful tool for practicing and reviewing legal research skills. Gamification and a silly story line engage students more effectively than yet another round of slides or even PollEverywhere or clicker questions. The digital escape room I use acts as a “warm-up” review when we get back together after a long legal research break in the second semester. I ..read more

Ageism and aging are getting more attention, due in part to the media’s unabashed negative commentary about the age of those running in the Presidential election, but also because gerontologists are releasing more studies on the aging process. These studies are revealing, not only regarding how society views aging but also by findings that show how our attitude affects our health as we age. Gerontologists also understand that negative social messaging about aging is an expression of ageism or age discrimination.  Although negative opinions about aging existed, society didn’t always view a ..read more

We all have a professional wish list. Yes, admit it. Even if it’s not written down, you have one in the back of your mind. Some items are more basic. Update the collection development plan. Review job descriptions. Sit in on a webinar about cataloging trends. Other items are more grand and take more planning. Attend an ALA conference. Write a chapter for a book. Run for an AALL officer position. My personal list used to trend more like a typical director with several grand items. As a nearly 35-year member of this profession, however, over the last 10 years, my wish list has taken a more outsi ..read more