The proverb, “Man plans, God laughs” is a fitting mantra for 2020. Law schools have made one adjustment after another in order to balance the health and safety of faculty and students during this global pandemic. Many schools started the semester offering hybrid classes but migrated to online classes when COVID-19 rates in their community surged. Students who planned to live in once place opted to relocate to support family or reduce costs.  The law library was also significantly impacted. How could they provide and measure value to students who were remote? How could they continue to offer critical content with reduced budgets?  How could they protect their employees working in public places?  In order to continue to provide critical services to students and support the greater community, law libraries stepped up in many creative ways.

First, law schools looked to their law library faculty to help curate content to use in new online courses.  Law librarians are experts at legal research and used this skill to source engaging materials appropriate and permissible for use in the classroom. They worked collaboratively with academic success faculty, doctrinal faculty, administrators, publishers, and on-campus technology resources to identify and embed these materials into the school’s learning management system. This included content such as text, video, audio, and formative assessments benefitting students and faculty, but also expanding the skillset and relevance for law library staff.

Next, online study aid subscriptions have proven vital to students, offering access to support materials no matter where students are located. Professors can assign and use content in class without worry that copies have been destroyed or stolen. The same option is not yet widely available for course reserves (the books, articles, videos, and other materials that faculty members require for students’ course work). They have traditionally been in print, designed for a student to check out for a few hours. Even if students were on campus, COVID-19 has made this option difficult.  At Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law, they just started lending again due to the constraints around handling materials to mitigate virus exposure to staff and visitors.  Using research conducted by REALM (reopening Archives, Libraries, and Museums), they established that each book, after being checked out for a few hours must be quarantined for 6 days before it can be lent out again.  Another option was to purchase book ovens for $5-6K each to literally cook the books and remove the risk of virus residue. A more attractive option is to purchase digital reserves from vendors such as EBSCO Information Services who partner with top content providers to offer academic eBooks to libraries. Wolters Kluwer Legal Education recently partnered with EBSCO to deliver digital course reserves to Law Libraries around the country. With many courses expected to be online for the spring semester, digital reserves will enable students to check out the content for a few hours, no matter where they are physically and, after the checkout period, that title will go right back into circulation without need for quarantine.

With fewer students visiting the library in person, law library staff had to devise ways to bring the library to their patrons. This meant creating and curating online book displays on interesting and timely topics.  Instead of walking into the library and seeing a display of books on a table by the entrance, libraries put these on their library’s home page.  Some popular topics this semester have been Black Lives Matter, the election, online teaching. and Halloween. Rebecca Rich, the Director of the Legal Research Center at Drexel, told me that her team has been creating a weekly newsletter emailed to all students to help keep them engaged and make sure they are getting everything they can out of their library. In addition to having tips and tricks on using the library’s database, it also has fun quizzes, trivia, and interesting articles submitted by faculty.

For those visiting the library in person, it remains a quiet place to study with good internet access and device charging stations.  The main differences now are the advanced cleaning protocols and masks being required for all patrons and staff.  It used to be that law library staff could walk around every hour and count heads in order to monitor usage.  But, since in-person usage is way down, libraries are monitoring online access to determine overall usage. As Rebecca Rich told me, day-to-day life is scarier for everyone and since her library staff must be in person, compassion and kindness are top of mind.  She sees the law library as the heart of the law school and is using this moment, no matter how uncertain, to ensure students and faculty get the resources they need to succeed. “That’s why we exist!”