Introduction
The University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, Washington, offers a one-year law librarianship programme for attorneys planning to leave the hectic stress of litigation for the more serene and academic world of law librarians. One of the final components of this programme is a three-week fieldwork period where the fledgling law librarians are given the opportunity to observe and work in a law library outside Washington State.
I am one of these neophyte law librarians from UW and I had the great pleasure of spending my three weeks at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS), Britain's largest law library. IALS serves researchers worldwide, as well as the University of London's many LLM and law PhD programs. Whilst I was there, I had the wonderful opportunity to meet the law librarians at IALS and hear about their work. What follows are a few of my observations of the library, from the rookie perspective.
Co-operative collections
Of course, the IALS collection is vast and includes materials from across the globe and many different legal systems. IALS is a research library, geared toward researchers studying the law of the UK and the former Commonwealth countries, as well as comparative and international law. Their comprehensive collection, composed of a great amount of print material, as well as electronic resources, allows them to maintain their status as a pre-eminent research library.
One aspect of IALS collection policy I found most interesting was that they co-ordinate their collections with Oxford, Cambridge, the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the University College Law Library, so that materials that are not available at IALS are collected by these other institutions. They also have a co-operative agreement with the British Library and are actively working on fostering further collaboration between the UK's law libraries in order to reduce overlap and ensure a distributed and comprehensive national collection of legal materials.
Co-operation among law libraries in acquisitions and collections is not something that was heavily emphasised during my studies. However, law librarianship is a field of co-operation and it struck me as a most wonderful system (particularly in these harsh economic times) to seek out agreements with nearby libraries in order to concentrate a collection and offer the user the best possible range of materials. This is one important lesson I plan to carry with me throughout my career.
Shared reference, issues and enquiries
Of course, in addition to offering so many resources, IALS also offers very comprehensive reference services. It extends research assistance through its many capable reference librarians at the IALS reference desk. The desk is open by appointment and provides comprehensive student training on an as needed basis. The desk is also open to reference phone calls and e-mails from students, researchers, as well as all members of the public.
In addition to working at the “behind-the-scenes” reference desk, however, IALS reference librarians share space with all the other librarians and staff at the very public, and very popular, “issues and enquiry” desk – a hybrid of reference and circulation where all kinds of questions from “I want to check out this book,” to “where are the restrooms” to “how do I find x journal on Westlaw” are answered.
This arrangement of having all librarians and staff share the interaction with the public struck me as an ingenious way to add value to library services as well as enabling all workers in the library to truly understand the patrons and their needs. This model is one that I never came across in my studies, but I think it is one that is worth emulating in the U.S.
Initiatives geared toward a wide user community
In addition to perusing the most international collection of law materials I have ever seen and learning about the user interactions shared by all staff at IALS, it was great to learn about the many projects that IALS undertakes and the valuable service they render to their users with these projects. Some of IALS' most interesting initiatives include:
• Digitisation: IALS is nearing completion of a project digitising their collection of rare and historical maritime and shipping law treatises and they plan to continue these efforts by digitising their other collections of old and rare books. The digitised images are made available online for public viewing via their catalogue.
• FLAG (Foreign Law Guide): a free online database of holdings of foreign law in UK libraries.
• FLARE (Foreign Law Research): collaboration between the major law libraries in the UK to improve access to foreign law materials.
• FLARE (Index to Treaties): a free online database covering basic information about over 1,500 of the most significant multilateral treaties and information about finding the full text treaties. (These databases are discussed in more detail at page XX of this issue).
• BAILII (British and Legal Information Institute): a free online database of full text legislation and law reports from the UK and Ireland.
• Virtual Learning Environment: an online environment for classroom readings and materials. The library used open source software to develop the space and it has been very popular with students, who can access all their electronic readings for their classes through the site.
• E-Repository (SAS-Space): IALS has an e-repository which contains all of the institute's publications from faculty, staff, students and visiting scholars. The site is searchable and accessible to anyone via the internet.
• Intute: IALS contributes to Intute, an online catalogue of the best websites on the internet catalogued by subject matter for student reference.
These are just a few of the many projects undertaken by IALS and show how many roles IALS undertakes. I found it very impressive that the librarians at IALS do not just develop initiatives in aid of their immediate patrons; they also develop a lot of research tools and content helpful to the wider academic and professional legal community. My conversations and observations with the IALS librarians taught me about the many value-added services law libraries can develop and provide to their users, as well as to the wider legal research community. This is one of the most important lessons I will take with me as the field of law librarianship keeps redefining itself to meet changing user needs.
Teaching and mentoring
Another role that IALS serves is teaching and mentoring, a pursuit traditional in libraries. In addition to hosting visiting law librarians and providing numerous professional training programs, IALS hires several trainees each year to rotate through all the departments in the library and learn the ropes of law librarianship before entering library school. Indeed, because of this unique programme, many of the UK's foremost law librarians were trained by IALS. The law librarian's role as teacher and mentor is one that I heard much about during my studies and I truly felt that dedication to teaching from everyone at IALS. Of course, it is IALS commitment to teaching future law librarians that enabled me to join their ranks for three weeks. Not only did I have a wonderful time, I learned more than any classroom-based programme can ever teach.
Thank you IALS
My experience at IALS truly helped solidify the knowledge I had gathered throughout my year of study. Librarians face the same issues – collections, space, serving the user, and remaining valuable to our users – wherever we are. It was so rewarding to share these values across the Atlantic and to meet so many remarkable law librarians in such a unique setting. And thanks to them, I feel I have taken a very valuable step on my new journey from novice to professional law librarian.
