Law Librarians of Leisure

One of the strong points about Librarians is that we are so able to adapt…we retool, we reengineer, we well…we are. And so?

I started to write this post about how we inter departmentalize, as that makes us so much more part of the organic law firm…the revenue flow. Have I said revenue enough? But then I thought, this is a known. We have been part of IT, KM, Marketing and CI for years now. So where is out next frontier?

From the monastic times of the Dark Ages, when Abbeys protected Greek and Roman texts from being burned, to the Renaissance, when rich nobles purchased those same texts establishing personal libraries of scholarship, we have guarded, hoarded and kept alive the knowledge of the written word. This is our being, our profession, and are we still not the ultimate protectors? In recent years we have adapted ourselves to the colossal changes brought on by the Information Age.

I believe that we are a part of a long line of scholars. Socrates, who taught Plato, Plato who taught Aristotle, Aristotle who taught Alexander the Great of Macedon. At that time, Alexander’s library rivaled even that of Ptolemy the II’s library in Egypt. When Aristotle moved to Egypt to be Alexander’s tutor, the libraries were combined and became probably the first great research library! Unfortunately the library was reportedly burned by Julius Cesar’s troops (thinking it a grain warehouse…so much for early library architecture) when he sacked Cairo.

We are keepers of the flame. So we fan that fire of knowledge. What use to be recorded on stone and then papyrus, rice paper, whatever, is now kept online…in air so to speak.  But does that make us any less important as the guardians? So we are no longer monks in a monastery, illuminating manuscripts, yet we are still the procurers and users of information.

This has always been an industry of providers and consumers. We have a voice.

A native Texan, Linda Will received both her B.A. and MLS from the University of Texas at Austin. A Law Librarian for over 25 years, Linda has worked at Vinson & Elkins (Houston), Holland and Knight (Tampa), Greenberg & Traurig (Miami), Dorsey &Whitney (Minneapolis), and since 2008 has run WILL RESOURCES, a Law Firm and Legal Resources consulting company.

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