ALL-SIS Newsletter
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1 , Issue 35 ALL-SIS Newsletter news from the ACADEMIC LAW LIBRARIES–SPECIAL INTEREST SECTION AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF LAW LIBRARIES Volume Volume Fall 2015 ISSN 2169-0715 Message from the Chair Inside this issue: t was great to see so many of you at college business administration class. Law Libraries as this year’s business meeting and That’s where I learned about strategic 2 Publishers I reception. For those unable to and tactical planning. attend, we missed you! It occurs to me that we may be Great Ideas from By now the discordant roar of the first relying too much on tactic and not the Halls of 4 weeks of school should be settling into a enough on strategy. If your organization Academe gentle hum. The leaves are already was tactical about its changes, it was turning here in Connecticut and my addressing present issues in the Program Reviews: memory of AALL is beginning to fade environment – adapting to the changes Highlights from 6 AALL 2015 with the bright green of summer. on the ground as they exist. Tactical I have been thinking a lot about action is like deciding to wear long johns Member News 14 change lately. As I speak with our in the morning because it is chilly. If your colleagues across the country, my sense organization was strategic about these Bloomberg Law's is that we are collectively suffering from changes, they were the result of either far Academic Plan: change fatigue. I can’t speak for each of future thinking or an awareness of future 16 A Conversation you specifically, but I am guessing that in events on the horizon. Strategic action is with David Perla the last year your organization has done like wearing a sweater over your short ALL-SIS at least one of the following: altered sleeves because you know the Committee 17 services; cut budgets; reorganized temperature will change by the end of Roundtables staffing; cross‐trained; added new the day. programs; changed hours; or took on Shifting between tactical and strategic AALL2go: CPE new tasks. It is exhausting to be in action can make change less fatiguing. Picks of the 26 constant motion. In thinking about the Strategic action provides time for Month rapid changes in our profession and preparation and space to think through organizations I am reminded of my the action. It can leave room for the continued on page 2 From the Editor Contribute! t feels like the excitement of the Annual Meeting and Conference has barely worn Your Member off, and here we already are in the new academic year. Since there’s never enough News to Marlene I time during the conference to see and do all the things you wanted to experience, Harmon or Nina AALL’s session recordings (sponsored by Thomson Reuters) and online program Scholtz. See p. 14. materials are a real boon to multitasking law librarians. This issue’s program reviews Your Great Ideas (page 6‐13, 18‐26) can help point you to some gems you may have missed. to Ruth Levor. See p. 4. Did you see Bloomberg Law at AALL 2015? From sponsoring the ALL‐SIS Reception Your experiences and Awards Ceremony, to hosting exhibitor showcase events and focus group sessions with Law Libraries with academic law librarians, this legal information provider—once the “new kid on the as Publishers to Ben block”—is making itself heard in the academic market. The Newsletter’s Nina Scholtz Keele. See p. 2. and Ben Keele sat down with David Perla, the president of Bloomberg BNA Legal, to continued on page 2 Page 2 ALL-SIS Newsletter continued from page 1 tactics you can use right now to improve your services Message from the Chair or learn a new skill. The ALL‐SIS Strategic Planning Committee is getting under way to build our next strategic plan. So unknown—we are, after all, planning for events that start thinking about directions you’d like to see ALL‐ have yet to occur—and the space is also there to make SIS move toward. There has never been a more critical adjustments and course corrections. Tactical action time for being strategic and thoughtful about our allows us to respond immediately to particular future. I hope you will engage with ALL‐SIS over the situations while, ideally, triggering the strategic next year on our strategic plan and other issues that are thinking process. Both provide space for creativity, important to you. innovation and meaningful engagement, so long as Warmly, they are deployed thoughtfully and with clear purpose. Jocelyn Kennedy, Chair Strategic and tactical actions are not solely for the use of organizations either. As individuals we have a lot of room in our work to do both. But how can you continued from page 1 become both a strategist and a tactician? From the Editor This summer’s AALL programs, reviewed in this edition of the newsletter, highlight areas where we all talk about what the company sees as its role and can be thinking (and acting) both strategically and direction in the academic law library environment tactically for ourselves and our institutions. Topics like (page 16). value proposition design, learning outcomes, financial Fall is also a time to get revved up for new projects. literacy, communication and content management are Looking for a way to create vibrant and dynamic great cornerstones for designing a strategic framework, marketing materials? This issue’s Great Ideas column while topics like adapting research guides to new (page 4) showcases one school’s interactive, formats, supporting incubators, teaching legal multimedia annual report. Keep the ideas flowing— technology and working with LLMs are examples of Contact the Editor at [email protected]. Law Libraries as Publishers Counting Things, with Citations and Downloads Benjamin J. Keele, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law hen it comes to legal scholarship, metrics. Libraries should also educate authors and professors and librarians seem to enjoy readers about what these numbers mean and W counting things: downloads, citations, discourage overreliance on them. views, mentions, tweets, references, and the like. Keeping the limits of each impact metric in mind is Perhaps “enjoy” is not quite the right word; rather, we important. Evaluating the value of an article based on need a phrase encompassing “anxiously counting any downloads, citations and social media mentions is a bit indicia of importance, influence, recognition or merit like deciding the worth of with the hope of not comparing unfavorably to one’s a person based on his or actual or aspirational peer group.” Keeping the limits her weight, LSAT score Publishers and information services vendors have and salary. Each number developed a number of ways to count and compare of each impact means something, but it is how different scholarly works have been accessed, read metric in mind is ridiculously easy to give and used. When law libraries act as publishers, they important. them too much weight or should pay attention to scholarly impact metrics and to use them in situations consider the tools that calculate and display such for which that number is continued on page 3 Volume 35, Issue 1 Page 3 continued from page 2 inclusion in a string cite. As shown by discredited cases Law Libraries as Publishers—Counting with high citation counts, a bare number does not indicate whether an article was acclaimed or reviled. A not very relevant. Kept in proper perspective, though, low count may indicate mediocrity, or may suggest the impact metrics have their uses. This column will paper’s value has not yet been recognized. Just as a red discuss counting citations and downloads, and the next citator signal does not mean one can skip reading a column will consider mentions in social media. case, citation counts do not substitute for substantive evaluation of scholarly work. Citations In the legal academe, citations are the gold coin of Downloads the realm. (I do not want to stretch the currency I always enjoy getting emails from SSRN or analogy too far, but downloads strike me as silver, and bepress’s Digital Commons telling me how many social media mentions as copper.) Every major legal downloads my articles have received (setting aside research service collects and counts citations between how many of those downloads are me checking what I cases, statutes, and secondary materials. For most law wrote because it is easier review articles, almost all citations listed in these to search Google Scholar databases (such as Westlaw, Lexis, Bloomberg Law or than my Dropbox). While I download HeinOnline) come from other law review articles. A my ego relishes the image many more cite from a judicial opinion merits throwing confetti of people all over the articles than I around the author’s office. world eagerly reading my Citation counts indicate some level of readership work, one look at my eventually read and influence—“My article has been cited 25 times.” “maybe read this or find relevant There are two major limits to what this number means: sometime” folder reminds database coverage and type of citation. There is no me that I download many universal citation list. more articles than I eventually read or find relevant to a bare number Westlaw’s KeyCite, Lexis’s my research questions. Academics do not write to be Shepard’s, Hein’s downloaded but to be read, and while downloading is does not indicate ScholarCheck, Bloomberg often necessary, it is not sufficient for reading. whether an Law’s BCite and Google Libraries publishing scholarly works should track article was Scholar all have different and display download rates because SSRN and bepress scopes.