Introduction
The recent weather conditions and threat of a flu pandemic reminds us all of the importance of business continuity planning (BCP). If this is not enough, then we also have the Solicitors Regulation Authority's mandatory requirement for all law firms to now have arrangements in place for a continuity event. If you are creating or updating a plan for your law library or information service, it is worth considering how you will continue to provide your users with the information they need should the worst happen. Yes, online services and remote access have eased this burden, but consider how your service would function if your office is inaccessible for a sustained period of time and the providers of your online services are also affected by the same event. It is possible that you and your users could be without access to materials and services and, in a worse-case scenario, they could also be without online services. An effective mitigation is to set up one or more reciprocal agreements with other law libraries.
Definition of reciprocal agreement
A reciprocal agreement is a device where you and another law library can share each others resources and facilities when, for whatever reason, your own are not available. The general idea would be for you to accommodate key members of another library service (depending on your capacity) to enable them to continue to provide a service to their users. Higher education or public law libraries often have reciprocal agreements with other bodies to share specialist collections and such relationships could easily, in theory, be tailored to include BCP. Law firms could also utilise any alliances or arrangements they have with other firms to set up a reciprocal agreement. Law library communities (such as LIS-LAW and various groups on LinkedIn) are useful spaces to find willing participants and to discuss BCP issues.
Normal objectives for a reciprocal agreement
Law firm library reciprocal agreements tend to be restricted to accommodating other library staff only, as allowing in lawyers from elsewhere can be a risk in terms of confidentiality and conflicts of interest. This will be less of a problem for firms with alliances and those who do function as a business, e.g. higher education and public law libraries. Library staff should be able to cater for most of their users' information needs by operating a ‘document delivery’ service from the temporary library site. This service will obviously be dependant on obtaining the necessary permissions from the relevant copyright licensing agencies and vendors of online services, if using another law firm's resources, and operating within the required limits. If these parameters mean that your users cannot view the material they need, it is worth contacting the relevant licensing authority to see if they can assist or provide guidance. It is also worth utilising any goodwill you have with vendors to see if they can provide temporary access to their online book collections. You should also consider what public or professional law libraries are available in your area that your users can visit.
Setting up a reciprocal agreement
Setting up a reciprocal agreement should be relatively simple. First and foremost you should check that your organisation is happy to enter such an agreement. You may need to specify at a later stage the names of the potential candidates to get these cleared. Following this the best policy is to keep the agreement and process as informal as possible, as a binding agreement will be detailed and require more buy-in from the management of each organisation. Inevitably this will entail a more lengthy process and create extra barriers to implementation. Keeping the agreement non-committal could actually be beneficial to each party as it offers a degree of flexibility in a continuity situation. A binding agreement, however, could be more suitable to the specific needs of an organisation that requires more certainty. It would be advisable for those who go down the informal route to set up a few agreements to provide back-up to their preferred choices.
Key provisions to be included
The key elements to consider when setting up an agreement are: location, size of organisation, services, capacity, facilities and resources. In terms of location it would obviously be useful to have an agreement with a library in a similar location to your own, so that travel is not an issue for you or your colleagues. If you are also allowing another organisation's users to attend your site, a similar location to your office (or temporary office) would again be advisable for convenience. It would also be a good idea to have an agreement with a firm outside your region as the continuity situation could also affect all the organisations in your area.
Does size of organisation matter?
The agreement should be with a firm of similar size, as a small firm is unlikely to be able to accommodate several library staff from a large firm. Similarly, it is also worth considering the services offered by the other organisation, as this will have an impact on the resources available, e.g. an agreement between two general service law firms would be beneficial, but one between a property consultancy and a law firm would be less so. Ideally, you should also consider if an organisation has the capacity to house all your library staff and provide the necessary facilities, e.g. PC and telephone. If this is not possible you could have key staff working in the temporary library location, while others can be accommodated elsewhere or work from home. If you find a reasonable match in these areas, then it should follow that the other library is likely to have the necessary resources to meet your users' needs. It may actually be useful for the other library to have a few different resources from your own to give you extra coverage should one or more of your key services become unavailable. If there is a particular resource that is fundamental to your organisation's activity, then this should obviously be at the top of your list when setting up an agreement. It should be noted, however, that it is going to be very difficult to find a perfect match in all the areas mentioned above and there will have to be some compromises.
Once you have an agreed list of organisations with whom you are going to set up reciprocal agreements, you should send them a short Word document for their BCP pack listing your contact details, services, how many people you can accommodate and for how long, key resources, and reminders regarding licensing, copyright and confidentiality. You should also encourage the other party to the agreement to send you a similar document for your records.
Keep the agreement under regular review
The informal nature of these agreements means they can deteriorate very quickly. There are a number of reasons why can this occur. The most common are: organisations relocating firms merging and their size is no longer appropriate, staff leaving and agreements not being carried over; and firms no longer committed to the arrangement. These issues underline the importance of periodically checking with the other party to ensure they are still happy with the agreement and to update your document if necessary and encourage them to do the same. If you have an agreement in place and are going to leave your current position, ensure you pass on the details to your replacement and then let the other party know of the change. If it is not possible to do this in person, leave them a note or pass details on to your HR department.
Conclusion
The success of a reciprocal agreement is largely dependant on the desire of the parties to enter such an arrangement and keeping it active and up-to-date. If managed well it will be a valuable addition to your business continuity plan and it could play an important part in the continuity of your service and firm.
