…how true this is:
How you know you are in the right place – or – slime and substance
July 23, 2010 By 1 Comment
How do you know you have chosen the right profession?
Back in my communications days, my boss and I decided that a good way to give our investors the increasingly voluminous amounts of information they demanded was via a CD. While everything the investors were looking for was on our website, they often wanted to have something physical (I know – I don’t understand it either. But this was also more than three years ago. Much has changed in the intervening years. Or possibly much has not, but one of the things I learned in communications was that giving people what they wanted in the format they wanted it in was infinitely more effective than giving them what they wanted in a format they weren’t particularly interested in).
Since we already offered a standard information kit – a two-pocket folder filled with sheets of 8.5 x 11″ paper – the trick was how to get the CDs in their hands. We didn’t want to abandon all of the paper, since you don’t need a computer to read paper, and an investor who grabbed our kit at a conference out of curiosity wasn’t going to boot up his or her laptop in order to find out if we were interesting enough to merit a visit to our presentation. So we would stick with our folder and some of our paper. But then what? The heavier, odd-shaped CD was likely to slide out of the folder, leaving the meat of our information in some hotel hallway or Manhattan street.
Trust me, we’re getting to the library part soon.
So my boss and I had a conversation that went something like this:
Me: “What we need is some of that sticky goop that peels away.”
Boss: “What sticky goop?”
Me: “You know – the snot they stick plastic gift cards to the cardstock enclosure cards with.”
Boss: ”…” (Here I imagine that if he did not know me better, he would be thinking, “What kind of lunatic have I hired?” Since he knew me quite well, he was probably thinking, “Yep, that’s our lunatic.”)
Me: “That way, the CD will stick to the folder, but the investors can peel the snot away and put it in a file if they want to [edit: I meant put the CD in a file - I am sure nobody wanted to file the snot].”
Surprisingly, this plan was decided to be sound. Here’s where the library bit came in: I did not know how much the snot cost. I did not know how the snot was dispensed. I had no idea who to source the snot from. I did not know what the snot was called in order to find out the answers to any of these questions. But the prospect of finding out was one that intrigued me. I knew this was something that was something, just as a young law student might know that a party-giver who lets someone drunkenly drive away from his home has a possible legal problem on his hands but not how to begin researching it in legal sources until he has learned its name.
I did not know, but found out by a process of iterative searches that the snot is called fugitive adhesive. The law student would find out that their issue is one of social host liability. I hope two things for that imaginary law student: 1.) that he enjoys the process of finding out, and 2.) he does not bore his friends and colleagues with delight from the aptness of the term as I am liable to do to this day.* But I do know that my love of the search and my delight in its result tells me (and not for the first time) that I have chosen the right profession.
*I mean really – how can you not love the term “fugitive adhesive”?
Greetings, Law Librarian Blog visitors
July 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment
I had the good fortune to meet Joe Hodnicki last week at the blogger meetup at AALL in Denver. I had the bad fortune to not get a chance to talk to him at all – rather I just summoned up some hubris, slid him my card and pointed at the door signifying that I had to race off to yet another event. Such is the way of conferences.
So, what did this noob think of AALL? Let me preface by noting that I am, as the British would say, a “mature student.” I’ve not been to this rodeo before, but I’ve been to analogous events in my prior career as a corporate communications professional. I am also not by nature a “joiner.” All of this means that I look at conferences with a somewhat jaded eye, but I have to say I was favorably impressed on my first outing. Here are a few thoughts:
- CONELL: if you are planning on going to AALL for the first time, do this. It makes the biggest difference in the world to have a cohort of people that you can get to know on that first day. It is so worth it: for the rest of the conference (and probably the rest of your career), you will be running into familiar, friendly faces. My “freshman class of 2010″ is a group I am proud to have begun to know.
- Two excellent presentations I attended – “Library Videos: Getting Blockbuster Quality on an Indie Budget” and “Starting Off on the Right Track: Avoiding Mistakes Common to New (and Not-so-New) Instructors” were both fantastic. I generally feel if you get one decent presentation out of a conference you are ahead of the game (see above re: “jaded”). These two surpassed my expectations by miles.
- The keynote presentation by Dr. David Lankes of Syracuse was entertaining and thought provoking (note to AALL – couldn’t you have made this embeddable? You can get it at the link above – he starts about 15 minutes in). I especially liked his notion that our value is not in our collections but ourselves. We are the resources that should be valued, and that valuation needs to start in our own behaviors and attitudes.
- I demonstrated Zotero with Jennifer Duperon of Boston University. (The online handout we created is here). I don’t know how the entire “Cool Tools Cafe” event went: we were absolutely mobbed with people who were interested in learning about this fantastic citation manager and I barely had time to look around.
One thing that stood out for me that was categorically different from the other groups I have been a member of was borne out of a quality that I believe is inherent in most librarians. I am not sure what to call that quality, but I can illustrate it:* with most groups, there seems to be a sense that if I have something then it is something that must necessarily be taken away from someone else – or perhaps a group of someones. The competitive edge is strong in many professions, and seeing someone new creates a sense that there is now one less opportunity for the rest. But librarians just don’t strike me that way. It seems to be our nature. Where a law student might say to him or herself, “Oooh – I found the resource. I must hide it so I have the edge,” a librarian will excitedly say, “Hey – did you see this resource? It’s really cool – let me share it with you!” That collaborative, sharing spirit seems to extend to the entry of the profession as a whole. Our CONELL class was welcomed with open arms by the existing membership.
So, again – to all who are visiting for the first time from Law Librarian Blog, greetings to you and thank you for being such a great group of people. I am proud to be joining you.
*And I admit it is a variation on one of my pet themes.
“A Plagiarism Carol” – or why I wish I had paid attention when my grandmother tried to teach me Norwegian
June 25, 2010 By 1 Comment
If you don’t happen speak Norwegian and the subtitles are not showing, be sure to click the “cc” button to turn the subtitles on. Though I have to say, if you know what the movie is about, you don’t really need the subtitles all that much.
Huge hat tip to the Legal Writing Prof Blog for this one.
Context, Part 2
June 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Comprehensive resources can be dangerous things. Many humans are creatures of habit and will go to the usual well for their answers, but a well that produces fresh, clean water is not much use if what you really want is milk. This can be especially pernicious for law students, who begin to get the idea that the entire universe of knowledge is contained within Lexis or Westlaw. But not all the things a practicing lawyer needs to know are contained in statutes, cases, or treatises.
Consider the case of an accident in a warehouse – your client is injured in a forklift accident and there is some question as to the safety procedures and equipment. ”Quick – find me Jones on Forklifts,“ right? Certainly there is such a treatise in one of the big two databases, right?
Wrong. Also silly. But it would be a safe bet that most law students who have had an introduction to those databases would turn instantly to them and do a keyword search for “forklift.” And there are undoubtedly cases galore having to do with forklift accidents. Perhaps there are even mentions of such accidents in Prosser or other tort resources.
But what does our hypothetical law student really know about the operation of a forklift? Doesn’t the fact pattern turn on the safety equipment and procedures? Some judges can write wonderful, detailed, and educational factual backgrounds that give plenty of context for the cases they are adjudicating, but it is a safe bet that reading through them is a woefully inefficient way of looking for information on the topic of forklift safety. The facts of the particular case at issue are potentially important here: they provide the context for the entire claim.
So, on the one hand we have a doubly expensive resource – a database that costs a great deal to use and is inefficient in terms of providing the factual information that will enable an attorney to assess the potential merits of the case. On the other hand, there are more precise, non-legal resources that can give the attorney the factual grounding in an unfamiliar subject he or she needs (e.g. the public library, OSHA’s website, possibly even Uncle Fred who is a supervisor in a warehouse and has done this kind of work for 20 years). Many or most of these are also free for the user.
Thinking about what sort of non-legal information is necessary to provide context for the claim can save a world of aggravation and grief and make the later search for legal authority far more efficient, cost-effective and fruitful.
(For people interested in teaching the combined use of legal and non-legal resources to solve legal problems, I can highly recommend Carrie Teitcher’s fantastic article, “Rebooting the Approach to Teaching Research: Embracing the Computer Age.”)
Lies we tell ourselves about research (and one way of getting to the truth)
May 28, 2010 By 3 Comments
In an earlier post, I mentioned that “students (in general – not just law students) frequently have a much higher opinion of their ability to find things then their ability actually warrants.” This is not just true of students – I believe many of us, both professionals information-finders and amateurs, think we are very good at finding information. We may well be right in most cases, but in most cases we also may be looking for things that are very easy to find. And as we all know, there are many ways for pieces of information to hide.
You can have information that hides in plain sight – the old saw about how a search for “Turkey” is just as likely to bring up recipes as it is travel guides is a true one. Similarly, we may have many names for the same concept: “fair value accounting” is also commonly called “mark-to-market accounting.” A search for only one of these terms may miss some very valuable information.
This is where I insert a plea for indexes and other finding aids. ”Targeted full-text search” sounds really, really good until you come up against a term like “securities fraud.” It is a very useful descriptive term in its own right; however, it is also maddeningly general. What sort of securities fraud are you talking about? Do you even know? How do you find out? Well, one way is certainly to walk down the tried and true legal research method of consulting a secondary source like a treatise, a hornbook, an encyclopedia, or a nutshell.
Another way of approaching the search process is to consult the index of a publication (if there is one – unfortunately, they have been deemed expendable by many in the era of full text). Now, if you have consulted my “About” page, you may say, “Oh – but you would say that: you work as an index editor!” And yes, I do. But I also used to use this trick as a law student, many years before I even knew what an index editor was.
When you look at an index, you are not looking at a haphazard assortment of keywords. Usually you are looking at a selected set of meaningfully distinguished, specific terms set out in an organized way: a hierarchical map of the work in question. And if there are two terms that mean the same thing, you will encounter a see instruction (e.g. “mark-to-market accounting, see fair value accounting”).
The clues dropped by an index can thereby increase the efficiency of a free-text search. You can scan down the index entries for “securities fraud” and see the various types of fraud that an ingenious fraudster can commit – perhaps those would be more specific, fruitful terms for you to use in your search. You can also get a sense of what alternate terms for your area of interest might be useful.
How often do the search terms we use initially really do the job? Well, as in any enterprise, that depends. But looking at an index is one way of helping to make the search process a targeted, fruitful endeavor.
I promise to move on to another topic soon
May 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment
But this piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education has some wonderful things to say about the fact that there is both room and need for electronic and paper collections.
I was going to select a pull quote, but couldn’t settle on just one.
(Hat tip to the AALL Twitter feed for the link.)
More on “Wrong Question”
May 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment
From Lizzie Skurnick:
That’s two assumptions, both incorrect. (This is why you don’t listen to writers whose publications slap up stories in teeny Times Roman.) 1) That all readers read alike, and 2) that whatever device prevails will accommodate books—not that books will change to accommodate the device.
What does this have to do with the law? A lot. General trends are more than likely to affect legal research and writing. The iTunes model of purchasing specific items is going to reach out to Wexis. And flexibility is still going to be key.
Wrong question
May 21, 2010 By 1 Comment
Quick: are you a cat person or a dog person? Mac or PC? Smooth or crunchy?
As far as I am concerned, there is only one answer to any of these questions: that is the wrong question.
These types of questions all share an underlying premise: the world is simple, and can be divided into two camps. Those camps must then vie for ultimate domination, because one must “win” in this simple, zero-sum world. And the zero-sum debate of the decade in libraries seems to be Books v. Online.
It’s the wrong question, and yet we get suckered into debating it every time. Very few institutions, at least in the near term, are going to be like Cushing Academy and suddenly go electronic in a wholesale manner. And yet, when this happened last year it was hailed or reviled as the inevitable and immediate outcome for all libraries. I saw people in real and virtual space line up to ride the slippery slope to the bottom of their hopes or fears on this mostly imaginary issue. A lot of time and emotional energy was expended in passionate defense of paper or eager anticipation of an all-electronic future. But the choice of format is a complex one based on variables such as availability, licensing, budget, and user preference.
Consider the examples I laid out above. For me, there is not a single simple answer in the bunch. I have three cats and a dog and I love them all. I prefer Macs, but also own a netbook for a slew of reasons. I can’t stand peanut butter in any form. Similarly, while I prefer to read paper, I appreciate and understand the ease, immediacy, and potential for conservation of resources that is made possible by online databases and electronic books. I have read more than one novel on my iPhone’s Kindle application.
While format does matter, it doesn’t necessarily matter the way librarians and other interested parties want it to. Information conveyed by the pulp of trees does not create a holy relic in and of itself. Presenting the same information in an electronic form does not make that information any more progressive or relevant.
So, with all apologies to Marshall McLuhan, it is not necessarily media over message. And every time we automatically take an absolute stand on one side or the other of the so-called “digital divide,” we may be losing the opportunity to have a different conversation about content, situational preference, funding, or any other far more useful topic. I fear that the ultimate outcome of most zero-sum games is that everyone loses, because we are not looking at messy, gray, glorious reality.
So – what to do when presented with a zero-sum game? We can allow others to set the grounds for debate for us, or we can help shift and reframe those grounds so they reflect reality. I believe it is our duty to do the latter.
