Technology

New Report Underscores The Evolving Role Of Law Librarians

These days, law librarians are often considered their organizations’ technology gatekeepers.

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A deadline had me thinking a lot lately about the evolving role of law librarians. I had agreed to write a chapter for a forthcoming book on law librarianship in the age of artificial intelligence. Writing my chapter, on the future of AI in law libraries, gave me the opportunity to ponder the state of information science as it now stands in law and as it is likely to be in years to come.

It is something I have considered several times over the years. Back in 2014, I wrote about the challenges faced by law libraries and the opportunities they presented for librarians to redefine their roles and their value propositions. “There has never been a more exciting or important time to be a legal information professional,” I wrote, explaining:

Going forward, what you as information professionals need to do is to consider how you might adapt to this changing environment and how you might help your firm or institution adapt. You need to look more strategically at the skills you possess and how you can deploy those skills to maximum effect to help your firm or institution thrive.

Three years later, after returning from the annual conference of the American Association of Law Libraries, I wrote again about the evolving role of law librarians. Over the years, I noted, the nature and focus of that conference had evolved to where it is now one of the leading conferences on legal technology.

The reason for that is that law librarians have increasingly taken on the role of legal technologist. Within their firms and organizations, law librarians evaluate technology products, implement technology products, train others on technology products, and use technology and data in their day-to-day work. The AALL conference is full of technology programs and technology vendors because law librarians are often their organizations’ technology gatekeepers.

In a column last year, again after attending AALL, I returned to this theme of librarian as technologist, writing:

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These days, it seems that every new product is baiting its hook with claims of being innovative and practice-changing. Law firms, pressured to adopt new technologies, are quick to bite. Someone needs to serve as the gatekeeper. Someone needs to keep companies honest. Increasingly, that someone is a law librarian.

So as my book deadline had me ruminating on all this, it so happened that AALL last week released its inaugural AALL State of the Profession report, an in-depth look at what information professionals do and how they do it.

The full report costs $299 ($199 for AALL members). As of this writing, I had not seen the complete report, although AALL has agreed to provide it to me. However, I was provided with a “snapshot” that offers a brief view into the report’s findings on law librarians’ role in technology management. The snapshot underscores what I’ve observed about the changing role of law librarians:

AALL members are technology experts, and take the lead with the purchase, implementation, operation, and overall management of research databases in their organizations. Their expertise extends to overseeing knowledge management systems, websites, intranet, and other digital services.

The survey on which the report is based polled librarians who work in each of three main library types — academic, government, and firm/corporate. Not surprisingly, in all three types of libraries, librarians’ most common technology role is overseeing research platforms. But they also have responsibility for knowledge management systems, intranets, websites, and blogging platforms.

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Indicative of the changing role of law librarians is the report’s findings about the skills now required of librarians in law firms and legal departments. Top skills for which librarians rated themselves as “experts” were:

  • Customer/client services, 70.5 percent.
  • Resource evaluation, 67.3 percent.
  • Communication/presentation skills, 64.1 percent.
  • Competitive intelligence, 55 percent.
  • Vendor management, 54.2 percent.
  • Leadership, 52.3 percent.

In a press release announcing the report, AALL President Femi Cadmus said the report “captures the ways in which law librarians use their adaptability, ingenuity, and dedication to make their organizations smarter.”

In that book chapter I just squeezed in ahead of deadline, I wrote something similar:

As the pace of technology development and adoption accelerates in the legal profession, the multifaceted role of the law librarian will only accelerate along with it. With greater use of AI and other technologies by legal professionals, the work that law librarians do and the value they provide will become even more important.

In that chapter, I also quoted futurist William Gibson, who said, “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.” Even as technology is causing the role of law librarians to evolve, we can already see its future shape in the work law librarians do today. This new report from AALL is further evidence of that.

Robert Ambrogi Bob AmbrogiRobert Ambrogi is a Massachusetts lawyer and journalist who has been covering legal technology and the web for more than 20 years, primarily through his blog LawSites.com. Former editor-in-chief of several legal newspapers, he is a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and an inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree. He can be reached by email at [email protected], and you can follow him on Twitter (@BobAmbrogi).

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