Yale Law School lillian goldman law library in memory of Sol Goldman annual report 2010–2011 message from the director The Lillian Goldman Law Library is back and firing on vendor to expand the reach of our online catalog. all cylinders. We’ve pulled away from the challenges MORRIS, our catalog, gives enriched descriptions of budget cuts brought on by the financial collapse of our print materials and provides clear links to of 2008-09, and this past year moved closer to a full digital resources, seamlessly connecting researchers recovery. The lean years prompted us to accelerate to resources. Also, in response to user input and ongoing changes in our collecting practices and testing, we launched a new library website late in workflows. We recalibrated our mix of digital and the year which allows for easier navigation of our print resources and restructured our staffing and expanded online presence and provides a plethora of processes to focus on our core mission and goals, new features. which in turn allowed us to reshape the library in Several of the library services we introduced are a manner more capable of fully supporting the intended to remove obstacles to accessing print ever more complex research needs of our user materials. For example, we began a paging service, community. No two-dimensional report can convey which allows users to request a printed book from the vibrant and creative energy pulsing through our collection for a staff member to retrieve from this library on a daily basis, but hopefully this the stacks and make available at the circulation annual report helps give some sense of the many desk. Also, the library launched a scan-on-demand accomplishments we achieved over the past year. service, allowing students to request digital scans It’s an exciting time to be a librarian, especially here of printed materials within the bounds of copyright. at the Yale Law School. We are privileged to work Further, we are one of the few law libraries to with highly engaged, information hungry faculty, join a borrowing consortium of research libraries, students, and scholars from across the world. We which allows our users to directly borrow materials also are fortunate to be situated in a stunningly from their collections without the need for staff beautiful facility with access to the richest array of intermediation. information resources available anywhere. Our reference librarians continued to expand Recalibration of the collection means we continue research instruction opportunities for our students, to rely more heavily on digital resources to support seeking to make instruction available at the point of the information demands of our users, while also need. They developed a series of impressive online maintaining a commitment to print where prudent. tutorials covering most of the basic areas of legal Our patrons clearly prefer digital resources for research. Students may now view a short tutorial materials such as journal articles and court reports; before consulting with a librarian for more in-depth last year over twenty percent of our collections assistance. This increased involvement of librarians budget was allocated to licensing databases. At the in the instructional program may have contributed same time, print continues to be the most chosen to the record number of reference questions (more medium for a large swath of our information than 5,000) received over the year. While most resources, such as codes and monographs. Our questions continue to be asked directly at our circulation of print remains at record numbers, reference desk, a growing number come through and last year’s total circulation transactions again our live chat option on the web. Over 90% of these crossed the 100,000 mark. Thus, use of both digital design questions were from the members of the Yale Law and print formats is high, and the proper balance Yale Printing and Publishing Services School community. requires continued monitoring and adjustments photography Femi Cadmus, Shana Jackson, Teresa along with special attention to the most open access Faculty support, too, was bolstered over the year Miguel, Harold Shapiro, Tyson Streeter, possible with our licensing agreements. to help meet an increase in demand and expand Mike Widener services to a more broadly defined group of faculty. One of our challenges has been to make information Notable developments in this area include online front cover in all formats readily discoverable by users and tracking of faculty requests using the same software Law Library Reading Room to remove obstacles to access. The former is done some law firms have adopted for project tracking. invisibly by our remarkable technical services This enables librarians to improve coordination librarians who as a group work closely as a and support for the faculty projects on which they developmental partner with our library systems may be working. Another notable innovation is the creation of databases to support faculty book law materials). Also, a series of exhibits celebrating In short, this annual report covers a period of projects including digitized images of material the Civil Rights Act appeared in our main reading innovation and expansion of the library’s collections discovered and used in research. Some of these room exhibit case and included supplementary and services. By drawing on our existing strengths, databases are made accessible to all library users materials accessible by smart phone QR code harnessing the power of technology, and partnering when added to our Documents Collection Center on readers. Our library’s new website will enable us to with our natural allies, we expect to keep moving the library’s website. make these exhibits more clearly accessible on the towards our vision of being the best academic law web, in addition to the blogs we’ve used to post library in the world. The Documents Collection Center is just one of the about them. library’s digital publication collections we began S. Blair Kauffman � listing under the new eYLS tab on the library’s This past year also was marked by some sadness Law Librarian and Professor of Law � website. Other digital publications added under this with the loss of our former colleague, Morris Cohen, tab include our popular collection of historical legal who passed away late in 2010. While Morris retired documents known as the Avalon Project, and our as the Yale Law Librarian in 1991, he remained an Judicial Nominations database. Also, our open access actively engaged member of the Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository appears under this tab. community until the end. He was a dear friend to We added approximately 3,000 Yale Law School many of us and took an interest in nearly every faculty authored articles to this repository last year member of the library’s staff. We marked his passing so that it includes most of the scholarly articles with a fittingly lovely memorial service on May 1, published by our faculty. Users across the globe now where family, friends, colleagues and students from have free and open access to this significant body of across the country came together at Yale and fondly work, greatly expanding the reach and influence of remembered his remarkable scholarly contributions, our faculty scholarship. kind and gentle spirit and puckish sense of humor. The unique Juvenile Jurisprudence collection Morris Many of our library’s programs were developed and donated to our library, and our online catalog, made stronger by partnerships with our users. For named MORRIS, serve as enduring reminders of example, one of last year’s rare book exhibits was Morris’ shaping of this great institution. conceived and developed by a recent Yale Law School graduate in partnership with our rare book librarian We lost other long-time colleagues through well- and a campus literary club, featuring another Yale earned retirements, including Martha Clark, Jo-Anne Law School graduate as a speaker. Our book talk Giammattei and Michelle Sullivan, who collectively series spotlighted books authored by ten different contributed some 100 years of service to the library. Yale Law School faculty members, and five others Also, our delightful Femi Cadmus announced her who are directly related to library or law school departure at the end of the year in order to accept programs. Many talks were co-sponsored by student the directorship at Cornell’s law library. Fortunately, groups, and each was videotaped and added as a our energetic Teresa Miguel agreed to succeed Femi, link to the library’s online catalog. Additionally, our easing the transition process. New librarians who film series continued its success in featuring a dozen joined us include Julian Aiken (access services), films each chosen by a Yale Law School graduate Michael VanderHeijden (faculty services) and Cate student who also led a post-screening discussion of Kellett (cataloging). They enrich our pool of talent the film. and ideas by drawing on their experiences working (respectively) in public and law firm libraries and The library’s exhibit space expanded over the year, teaching in academic institutions. Finally, at the end with the addition of a third exhibit area on the L1 of the year, Scott Matheson accepted an offer to join level, intended to feature materials from our foreign us in the new position of Digital Resources Manager, and international law collection. The inaugural after serving several years as web manager for the exhibit in this area appeared in the Spring, with the Yale University Libraries. catchy title, “K is for Kafka” (K is the call number for 2 | 3 administration: envisioning “the best” Holding true to our vision,“to be the best academic law library in the The library’s Book Talk Series has become a popular forum for law school faculty and world,” the library each year presents a plethora of programming relevant students to engage in critical discussion to the interests of our students, faculty, colleagues, and the wider outside the classroom.