Leary, M A --- "Library Support for Faculty Research" [2004] LegEdDig 10; (2004) 12(3) Legal Education Digest 14

Library Support for Faculty Research

M A Leary

[2004] LegEdDig 10; (2004) 12(3) Legal Education Digest 14

53 J Legal Educ 2, 2003, pp 192–198

This article, aimed at faculty rather than librarians, explains the genesis, purpose, and present methods by which the University of Michigan Law Library provides research service and document delivery to the law school faculty, and describes the benefits to the entire law school community. The hope is to inspire other law schools to develop similar programs.

The library already had a great and comprehensive collection, a budget to support continuing acquisition at the same high level, a document-delivery system for faculty, a separate faculty library, and what appeared to be a sufficient staff of specialised reference librarians, cataloguers and other professionals.

However, although the acknowledged great strengths were the collection and a team of top-notch librarians, including several reference librarians who had law as well as library/information degrees, faculty never talked about their research assistants. It was not apparent that faculty used research assistants extensively.

A program designed to provide support for faculty research has many potential benefits. It can: (1) increase faculty productivity by finding and delivering research material; (2) remove frustrations that encourage faculty to procrastinate; (3) enable faculty to focus on analysis and writing, by providing basic research on specific projects; (4) maximise the return on the law school’s investment in the collection; (5) maximise the return on investment in librarians, faculty, and student workers; (6) train students systematically in legal research methods; (7) provide student workers with knowledge of the research, as well as the teaching, in which faculty engage; (8) relieve faculty of the time-consuming tasks of hiring, training, and supervising research assistants; (9) help to train those research assistants that faculty do hire; (10) enhance faculty support for the library, reflected in financial support and understanding of the library’s operation; (11) increase librarian-faculty interaction on a substantive and intellectual level; (12) increase visibility of librarians and respect for their knowledge and skills; (13) enhance the responsibility of librarians and give them more intellectually challenging work; (14) increase librarians’ knowledge of faculty research, which helps them make better judgments about building the collection, which, in turn, enhance librarians’ ability to research; (15) create over time a core of alumni with special ties to the library; and (16) occasionally, turn a prospective lawyer into a prospective law librarian.

The following ten steps to establish a faculty research support service are suggested: (1) define the mission of the library to include, as a primary purpose, support of faculty research and teaching; (2) interview faculty to find out whether and how they use research assistants, what research help they need but cannot get, what topics they are currently working on and what they see as possible future topics for their teaching and research; (3) examine library operations to identify ways to shift resources away from secondary purposes to the primary purpose; (4) eliminate activities that do not support any of the elements of the library’s mission; (5) define the services you want to provide for faculty; (6) write job descriptions for full-time and student staff; (7) be sure each person understands the changes, the reasons for the changes, and how the changes will affect daily work; (8) develop processes for handling requests; (9) inform faculty of services; and (10) polish the service, and be sure that faculty see it shine.

The library’s program is a joint effort of the reference and circulation departments. Michigan’s reference librarians have two fundamental jobs: collection development, and helping people identify and use legal research material. One librarian is the faculty research librarian, who hires, trains and supervises the students who do the document retrieval and delivery and help with the research. When the faculty research librarian is overwhelmed, of course the other librarians help out. Research that requires special language skills or subject specialisation can also be directed to just the right librarian. Centralising the research service and the document-retrieval and delivery service also enables the librarian to use students efficiently. The faculty research support program has made it easier for faculty to teach and do research and to take advantage of Michigan’s comprehensive collection.