I left the survey results open a little bit longer since results were still coming in yesterday. However, as a result, there were 182 total responses!
Most respondents (70.9% or 129 people) had not been laid off from any organization related to the law librarian field. However, this did leave 53 people (or 29.1%) that had been.
Of those that had not been laid off, around half (60 or 49.8%) were worried about being laid off in the future. Of those responses, most (25.6% or 31 people) were not sure when the lay off would happen. Other respondents had more of an idea. Two respondents expected the laid off to be within the next month, while some saw it happening anywhere from the next three months (5 respondents) to the next six months (8 respondents) to the next year (14 respondents). Comments to this question were perhaps the most telling. The general sense was that lay offs were a possibility, especially if the economy continued to get worse. One respondent wrote that “our chief judge just called us on the carpet, calling us unused, irrelevant and ‘fat in the budget’ that needs to be cut. We have to cut 60% of our total acquisitions budget next year. Cutting staff is the next logical step.” Another respondent wrote that they were “worried that our field is being viewed as obsolete.” Respondents hailed from most every state and there were even two from Canada.
Of the respondents that had been laid off, it is not surprising that most (40 or 78.4%) had been working in a private law firm library since the news coming out of the economic crises was that firms had been the hardest hit. However, there were 6 respondents (or 11.8%) laid off from academic law school libraries, 2 respondents (or 3.9%) laid off from vendors, 1 respondent (or 2.0%) laid off from court librarians and none from government libraries. The highest number of lay offs occurred in New York (8), followed closely by California (6) and D.C. (6). However, a total of 20 states were represented.
Although lay offs appear to have affected law librarians no matter how long they have been in the field, law librarians who had been in the field 21-25 years were slightly more affected (11 respondents or 23.4%). The next highest group hit were those in the field 0-5 years (9 respondents or 19.1%). Coming in after that: 7 respondents (14.9%) had been in the field 6-10 years, tied at 6 respondents (12.8%) were those in the field 16-20 years and those in the field 30 or more years, 5 respondents (10.6%) had been in the field 26-30 years, and 3 (6.4%) respondents had been in the field 11-15 years.
There were some telling responses provided in the comment question at the end of the survey. One of the more touching responses was a respondent who wrote, “I have been searching for a new position, nationally, for 7 months. I’ve come in second a number of times, so I’ve been told. It’s hard out there, and very scary. I will probably have to leave law librarianship, at least temporarily, in order to survive and feed my family.” One respondent had been laid off twice: “one in California, once in Georgia.” Other responses reiterated the uncertainty in the field as a result of the economy. As one person said: “Economy not improving. The firm continues to reduce hours or lay-off staff. I am still employed FT but there is great uncertainty as to what may happen tomorrow.” And another respondent summed up the situation as “I’m not less worried about being laid off as our entire department being eliminated. Much of our research is being rerouted to associates, outsourced filers could handle the book updating, administrators the invoicing, and the client development and marketing work we do isn’t obviously ours alone – we split the credit. I’m concerned that the firm will decide they can do without us.”
I would like to send a big thank you to everyone who participated in the survey. If you have anything to add, please feel free to leave a comment.
Filed under: Survey
Christine,
Great report! Thanks for your work on the survey. Interesting and sad results.
Margaret
Thank you for starting this blog/list and for your survey. I lost my job when my firm folded last October. Our library team was really clicking, was really a functional family. One of the hardest things about the demise of our law firm was that the corporate knowledge and know-how we had worked so hard to create was all lost in a matter of weeks.
What is most worrisome seven months out is that there are still librarians who have not found permanent jobs.
I think the situation is scary indeed and the more firms and other places go for the library to cut, the harder it makes for us to justify our existence. I feel in my own firm where I was just laid off that our department head just went along with upper management and said “sure, let’s cut 40% of our library staff because that seems to the trend.” He should have been our champion to the powers that be and articulated our value more strongly and clearly. I think the firm could have trimmed fat in other places if it came down to it before having to slice us right out of the picture.
@Brenna – I’m sorry to hear about your job loss, but I sympathize. I was also part of a team that was working well together and it really is sad to lose that.
@Tracie – I’m sorry to hear about your job loss also and about your experience with your department head. I was really lucky in that regard, though I think sometimes that in some firms trying to save library expenses in this economy can be a losing battle.
Thanks for the results, Christine. Did you by any chance happen to survey how many respondents had both JD and MLS degrees, as opposed to those with MLS degrees only?
I find this whole thing quite strange in some respects. When I was in law school, my librarians there were constantly urging me to go to library school, saying there’s a shortage of law librarians and agreeing to do everything in their power to help me go (some of them wrote my recommendations). And yet, I’m having trouble finding a job because I have a JD and legal research research and writing experience but no MLS yet. But I see so many postings requiring the same degrees and even when there are no takers, they still refuse to give someone a chance to work and get on the job experience and earn their degree eventually. It’s very unfair and frustrating.
Btw, is there any chance a forum is going to be added to this site? That would be a great way to discuss, commune, and network for the people here and for those who don’t Twitter.
Shelly,
I did not ask the degree question because I was trying to get more of a general sense of the state of the profession. I’m sorry your experience has been so frustrating. I’ve found that it really depends on the school. I’ve hard stories of people earning their MLIS while on the job, but that was not my experience. I also think academic law schools are going to be more particular about it than firms.
As for a forum, I was hoping the comment section in the blog itself would serve as that resource since that is the nature of how blogs operate. I would like to see more people posting so there is more of a discussion, but I’ve only had a little success in making that happen. Are there topics I could write about that you would like to discuss? I will research adding a forum in the meantime. C
Christine,
And I think you would encourage more discussion if there were a place meant *just* for discussion, instead of a post where people may or may not comment.
I guess I find forums more convenient for lengthy and ongoing discussions because it’s easier and more practical to keep track of certain discussions if they’re all in one place instead of spread out over blog entries. Like say, for example, if layoff concerns were a forum topic – it would be easier and more accessible to talk about it if it’s in a forum in one place where people visit regularly to share thoughts (as opposed to discussing it in the comments, which gets harder as more blog posts are added because eventually the topic will drop off the main page and people will have to look for it to keep the discussion going, or the discussion lapses because it’s out of sight out of mind…hope that made sense).
It is of course your site and your decision, it was a casual question. Btw, if you ever do decide to add one and need moderators or people to help run it, I’d be happy to volunteer.
I completely understand that! And actually, I think I might do a post just asking readers what they want. I’ll also include a poll to see if a forum is wanted and would be used. I’ll let you know what happens!
Awesome. Thanks!
Dear Christine,
Thanks for your remarks.
As I scour the web and network for new job opportunities, I am continually struck about the amount of technology required for jobs in the non-library world. While I have solid computer, communications and management experience and expertise, it is difficult to suddenly develop skills as an information architect, Sharepoint expert, Web usability analyst, or SPSS. These are skills I contemplate as I look for ways to transfer my skills to other job arenas. I would like to hear from other librarians who are thinking about transferrability (?) of skills. Thank you.
I heard one of the partners at the firm refer to the library as “deadwood” before they started our layoffs. This after years of work building up and organizing the print and electronic collections. To add to the fun, when I spoke with the state’s career centers for the unemployed, they strongly suggested that I change careers and find a profession which wasn’t so outdated…
Ugh.