Chasing Court History

by Gail Warren

Providing relevant, current collections and reference services for members of the judicial branch, particularly the two appellate courts in Virginia is, and will always be one of our library’s primary goals. However, staff experience and responsibilities have expanded in the last two years as we have embraced our “newer” role as the archives for the Supreme Court of Virginia. Interestingly enough, as the demands for immediate digital access to legal information increases, a parallel interest in the history of Virginia’s judicial branch, its judges and the legal community has also increased. The focus of our activities and projects are shaped, in part, by the recommendations of the Supreme Court of Virginia Historical Advisory Committee, chaired by Justice Donald W. Lemons.

Along the way, we’ve learned tidbits and fun facts about the Supreme Court of Virginia, best practices for exhibits and oral history interviews, the serendipity of locating pictures and artifacts on the Internet (including eBay!) and how to cut foam core board in a straight line. It’s been challenging and rewarding. What sort of projects have we undertaken? Here are some highlights from the past year illustrating the new projects our library has completed:

Oral History Interviews

On March 27, 2013, we were delighted to have five judges who served on the newly-established Court of Appeals of Virginia gather in Richmond to share their reflections on the unique experience of helping create a new court in Virginia in 1984. The panel discussion was recorded at WCVE Studios in Richmond. Professor Cassandra Newby-Alexander moderated the conversation among Retired Judge James W. Benton, Jr., Senior Judge Sam W. Coleman III, Senior Justice Lawrence L. Koontz, Jr., U.S. Circuit Court Judge Barbara Milano Keenan, and U.S. District Court Senior Judge Norman K. Moon. Our collection of 21 oral history interviews (and corresponding transcripts) includes interviews of retired justices, judges, court personnel and prominent civil rights attorneys.

Hon. Sam W. Coleman, III, and Hon. Barbara M.Keenan, at WCVE Studios in Richmond in March 2013.

Preservation Activities

We arranged for professional conservation of one of the oldest and most unique items in the SCV Archives, the List of Attorneys Qualifying to Practice Law in the Supreme Court of Virginia. This volume, begun in 1869, contains signatures of many individuals who were significant in the history of the Virginia State Bar, including the first African Americans and women who qualified to practice in the Supreme Court of Virginia (William C. Roane, circa 1878; and Mildred R. Callahan, in 1923—see her below signature).



We continue to acquire records of the Supreme Court of Virginia, including photographs, digital images, and ephemera from court ceremonies.  Recent acquisitions include a collection of 22 black-and-white photographs of the justices (1984-2001) and one photograph of a fox hunt, transferred in the spring from Justice Carrico’s chambers at the direction of his widow.  The Department of Judicial Information Technology transferred a laptop issued in 1985 to then Court of Appeals Judge Norman K. Moon (the first laptop issued to judges!).  The Clerk’s Office provided the archives two black-and-white photographs and a pencil drawing of the court building that burned in 1865:

A collection of audio and video and video recordings of court ceremonies, 1969-2011, was migrated from a variety of formats, including reel-to-reel tapes, audio cassette recordings, and VHS tapes, to a digital format. In the near future, we plan to add some of these digital files to our collection in the Legal Information Archive at: http://cdm16064.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/

Presentations

We presented a program at the Judicial Conference of Virginia on May 14, 2013 titled, “Completing the Historical Record: Preserving Your Judicial Papers.” Informational resources for judges considering donation of their papers to an archival repository were provided at a table in the conference exhibit area. Our program was followed by Corinna Lain, Professor of Law at the University of Richmond, who graciously mentioned how much she has depended on judge's papers in her legal history research. Building on this presentation, we have crafted a communication to send to appellate court judges and justices upon their retirement, encouraging them to consider the preservation of their chambers' papers.

Exhibits

This month we installed a new exhibit in the display cases on the third floor of the Supreme Court Building. Our exhibit commemorates the 125th Anniversary of the founding of the Virginia Bar Association and the 75th Anniversary of the organization of the Virginia State Bar. Our summer and fall semester interns from VCU’s History Department assisted with the research and preparation of caption cards for the exhibit. An “online” version of the exhibit is available at the Virginia Judiciary Web Site by clicking on The Bar at Work: http://www.courts.state.va.us/courts/scv/hc/home.html



VALL Fall Meeting at W&L Law School Library

The thirty people who met at the Washington & Lee Law School Library in Lexington on Oct. 25, 2013, for the Fall VALL meeting, got an extra treat -- cake to celebrate VALL's 30th birthday!  

Marie Antoinette would have been happy. 

  

Many thanks to the W&L Law School Library for hosting the meeting.

Attendees chatting and catching up at the VALL breakfast

This is where the day's programs were held

Eric Mill of the Sunlight Foundation talking to attendees about his organization's efforts to provide open access to government information.

Waldo Jaquith of the Miller Center, University of Virginia, talks about "The State Decoded" -- a free, open-source project that displays legal texts online.

W&L electronic services librarian, Stephanie Miller, was one of the speakers for the program -- "The Risk, the Plan, the Payoff: Implementing a Law Repository at Washington & Lee."

W&L law library staff gave VALLers tours of the law library during the lunch break.

VALLers looking at the law library's open space.

And then there was that trip down into the dungeons!

What is a scotch keg doing here? This particular one was used in the dedication of Lewis Hall.

VALL President Amy Wharton conducting the business meeting.

Many thanks to Washington & Lee Law School Library for hosting the meeting, LexisNexis and Westlaw for sponsoring the meeting, and also to Ben Almoite for the photos of the meeting.

VALL at VLA in September

submitted by Terry Long

On September 26th VALL members Leslie Ashbrook and Ben Doherty of UVA Law Library presented a program at the annual meeting of the Virginia Library Association. Their program, Legal Reference for Librarians: You’ve Got Questions; We’ve Got Answers was an interactive session in which Ben & Leslie debuted two the eleven videos they have produced on legal topics. These videos are available on YouTube and from the law library web site http://libguides.law.virginia.edu/video-instruction. 

Take a look at the videos and share this information with public librarians!

VLA always holds a gift basket raffle to raise money for its scholarship fund. Vendors, committees and library related organizations donate baskets/boxes/bags. This year VALL contributed a Virginia themed box to the cause. $6,134.00 was raised!

 

The VALL basket at the VLA scholarship raffle



Up for Adventure: Putting Your Library Skills to Work

by Jean Holcomb

Leaving the library upon retirement doesn’t necessarily mean that the skills you spent years acquiring will gather dust. Leaving the workforce might not be a permanent option for a variety of reasons: financial, social, entrepreneurial, or altruistic. Regardless of the motivations calling you to put your skills back in play in the non-profit or for-profit environment, bridges must be crossed to ensure a positive experience.

While the choice to search out opportunities may be driven by a wide range of circumstances, your approach to identifying these opportunities and addressing potential hurdles will be similar. Your search process begins with a process of self-evaluation. Understand what drives your interest in outside involvement. Identify your personal parameters before you actively examine paid work or volunteer settings. How much time do you have to give? What skills do you have to offer? What personal, physical or technical skill limitations do you have? Will transportation be a challenge? How long a commitment are you prepared to make?

Once you complete your self-evaluation, the process of identifying opportunities that match your criteria will be a familiar one. The two classic approaches you used during your library career, classifieds and contacts, remain the mainstays for position identification. Continue to read the literature in your fields of interest. Donna Bausch’s article for the April 2008 Virginia Lawyer, “Your Second Season of Service is Just Beginning,” is an example of helpful advice about finding ways to use your legal skills in retirement. Stay current with how positions become available in your areas of focus to jump start your search. Maintain personal networks centered on both social and professional interests to keep you appraised of options for involvement.

When did you last prepare a cover letter and resume? When did you last sit on the other side of the table from an employer or volunteer coordinator in an interview scenario? For many law librarians considering post-retirement work or volunteer options, the answer to those questions is probably, “not in the recent past.” If you left law librarianship after spending many years with one employer, the answer will most likely be, “not for a very long time.”

In preparing a cover letter, remember that this is your best opportunity to ensure you’ll get to the interview stage. To convince someone to talk to you in person, your cover letter must explain why you are interested and how your skills match the requirements. If I had a dime for every cover letter we received at the King County Law Library describing why the applicant wanted to live in Seattle, but omitting why they wanted to join us, I definitely could have treated our whole staff to fancy lattes even at Starbucks prices. Have a neutral “reader” review your letter to help detect typos and grammatical errors that kill employer interest. Since much of the application process now proceeds electronically, test your formatting to be sure your transmitted documents have the look you intended.

As you are leaving for retirement, take with you an updated copy of your resume. Continue to keep this document current by revising to reflect your ongoing professional and volunteer experiences. Note training and skill development acquired post retirement. Customize your resume for each opportunity you explore. Use the language of the position announcement and highlight your relevant experience to illustrate why you “fit the bill.”

If an interview will be a part of the selection process, first put yourself in the interviewer’s shoes. Be ready to address questions both directly asked and implied. While the interviewer should not ask about your health, be prepared to volunteer information about your fitness to fulfill position requirements. Also be ready to answer questions about why someone with your qualifications and experiences might be interested in this position. If your colleagues will be younger, what can you say that will defuse concerns about how you will fit in.

If the position you seek is as a volunteer, what can you do to make sure that this is a happy choice for both you and the organization? Be clear about your role. After 20 years working very closely with law library boards of trustees, I learned how important clarity about job responsibility will be to the success of the experience for both parties. Know which particular skills you possess led to your selection. Understand the time and commitment required. Be clear about whether there are hidden costs involved such as an expectation that you will make a financial contribution to the organization. Be aware of who in the organization makes final decisions and who speaks to outsiders about the entity. And the most important key for success: remember that this is not your “day job.”

If a successful placement occurs at the end of this process, enjoy the chance to be of service and to use your particular expertise. Keeping your mind and body engaged will contribute to your self-esteem and quality of life. The opportunity to continue to acquire new skills and new colleagues will made this exercise a worthwhile adventure.

VALL Grant to AALL Leadership Academy

The 2014 AALL Leadership Academy is going to be held in Oak Brook, Illinois, from April 4 - 5. See here for details: http://www.aallnet.org/main-menu/Education/leadership-academy

If any VALL member is interested, the VALL Board would like to assist any member who is accepted into the academy with a grant of $800 to help defray the costs. If more than one VALL member is accepted into the academy, the grant may be split between the applicants. Please consider applying and if you are accepted, let Joyce Manna Janto know.

In Memoriam: Beverley Butler

submitted by Frosty Owen

Beverley Butler, Hunton & Williams' firm librarian from 1958 to 1992, passed away on Tuesday, September 17, after a long illness. A memorial service for Beverley was held on Thursday, October 3, 10:00 a.m., at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Oregon Hill.

Beverley was one of a kind. Even though he retired from Hunton &Williams more than 21 years ago, people still enjoy sharing “Beverley stories.” Blessed with a great sense of humor, Beverley was known for his comical impersonations of firm partners. Thanks to his love of strong cologne, you always knew in advance that Beverley was coming. And, when you heard the exclamation, “Stop. I ain’t ready!” you knew Beverley was within earshot.

Beverley also was known for the wonderful lamps he made as a hobby. The offices and homes of many of his former co-workers are decorated with his creations … lasting memorials to a colleague whose contributions to the library and to the firm will always be remembered.



Law Librarianship in Today's Economy: the New Normal

by Michele Gernhardt, Frosty Owen & Lisa Reinhard

Anyone reading the news about law libraries today or any other day since the economic downturn in 2008 comes across the same phrases again and again. “The new normal," “doing more with less," “cost-cutting measures,” “belt-tightening,” “shrinking budgets,” “shrinking headcounts,” “shrinking footprints,” etc., are constants in the literature.

All law libraries are dealing with these problems every day, and most library staff members doubt that things will ever go back to the way they were pre-2008. It really has led to a new normal. There have been significant staff reductions. There is less money for resources. Already busy, we are forced to do more with much less time and manpower and for as little cost as possible. It has also become more important than ever to demonstrate our value in ways meaningful to firm administrators and decision-makers.

Solution 1: Improving Reference Services Through Team-Building and Coordination:

We have implemented changes here at Hunton & Williams in order to maintain the highest levels of service to our users in this new environment. Once fairly isolated and self-sufficient, our offices share human and non-human resources to a much greater degree. This has fostered communication and team building between and within offices. One of the ways this cooperation is manifested is in firm-wide reference coverage through an e-mail address which requestors use after hours. Moving across the country we are able to provide live reference coverage from 8 am-9 pm ET. The west coast handles later hours and the east coast handles early hours.

We have several offices which have no library staff. Responsibility for requests from these offices rotates through our staffed offices by the day of the week. Requestors use the same firm-wide e-mail address to submit their requests. On Monday the Richmond office handles these requests. Tuesday the McLean office is responsible. Wednesday requests are handled by Washington, D.C., etc.

This cooperative mind-set has also increased inter-dependence and support. It is not uncommon for someone to send out an SOS if they have several time-sensitive or in-depth reference projects going at once and other offices are quick to assist. Since several of our offices have only one library staff member and those with more than one often run at less than full power due to vacations or illness, this is a great anxiety reducer when projects pile up.

The Richmond office also has a brief daily staff meeting where we discuss up-coming projects, meetings, training sessions, absences, and anything else we wish to cover which has led to a feeling of closeness and team spirit that we would not have otherwise.

Solution 2: Harnessing Technology and Education to Reduce Costs While Maintaining Service and Satisfaction Levels:

We are using technology to help us to thrive in the “new normal.” We take advantage of electronic resources and seek out all possible efficiencies to provide more valuable services than ever before. We provide more training, more reference assistance through the above mentioned firm-wide handling of requests from non-staffed offices, send out library services newsletters, e-mail a daily legal headline compilation, and set up alerts to monitor dockets, legal issues, companies, and other subjects so that our patrons can be kept up-to-date on whatever they need to know.

These new cooperative efforts have been very successful in providing a high level of service to all of our offices. Attorneys and staff report that they are just as happy, if not happier, with the quality and timeliness of services they receive from the library now. In firm-wide surveys regarding administrative departments, the library has consistently been ranked number one in overall satisfaction.

A significant potential pain point for librarians and their clients is the paring down of resources. Some duplicative and/or costly resources had to be eliminated. Other subscriptions had to be reduced; firm-wide subscriptions became limited access subscriptions. This can be very frustrating for users, who can no longer access their favorite resources. Adequate communication and education often replaces frustration with acceptance. The Library Services team uses reference exchanges, newsletters, and targeted communications and training to educate users about alternative resources that will meet their information needs.

Centralizing access to more costly subscription resources to the Library Services team (and in some cases select “sophisticated users”) has resulted in cost savings and often improves efficiency and satisfaction levels. Those who actually perform the research have much more training and experience, and are therefore more likely to produce meaningful result sets in the shortest amount of time. Once firm attorneys understand that we can still get them what they want, probably faster than they could have on their own, they don’t mind sending an e-mail to the reference desk.

Demystifying Lexis and Westlaw billing so users can do research without fear is another educational tactic that we have started implementing. We have offered “what it costs” sessions and try to answer any billing questions quickly and clearly.

Solution 3: Demonstrating Value:

In this new reality it has become even more important than ever for libraries to draw attention to the significant contributions they make to the firm. Demonstrating our value is crucial to our continued existence. Keeping statistical records of what we are doing is one way we can show firm administrators how busy and needed we are. All eight staffed U.S. offices at Hunton & Williams record reference requests in a monthly log. The data is compiled into reports that illustrate firm-wide reference demand. Team-wide buy-in has been absolutely critical to the success of this project.

We also record our time daily in the firm’s time entry program. This illustrates the “day’s work” for each librarian, and allows for the firm to potentially bill clients for research performed. Reference requests, training, billing/cost recovery, material processing, library maintenance, CLE administration, cataloging, etc., all are listed in a daily report.

Flexibility and adaptability are becoming more important attributes for librarians. Taking advantage of other opportunities to focus attention on the library is good business. We offer specialized training to different teams or groups in the firm. We do research for client and practice development. We assist attorneys by finding information for their speaking opportunities and articles. Through various newsletters and alerts we can offer regular and timely information about clients, industries, technology, practice areas, deal news, and breaking or potential lawsuits. We focus attention on the library during National Library Week with events and celebrations. Through all of these activities we can let our firm know that the library and its staff add value to the bottom line.

Solution 4 : Teamwork and Time/Project Management:

We are thrilled that we have been able to maintain such a high level of internal client satisfaction despite the reduction in human and non-human resources. But now that we have about half the number of librarians providing even more services than before the economic downturn, we all understandably have much less time to devote to non-reference work. Our attorneys need very fast, thorough, and accurate responses to their requests; therefore valuable and essential functions such as collection maintenance and development, cataloging, integrated library system and web development, and other projects must take a back-seat.

A positive approach, teamwork, and innovative time, task, and project management, have allowed us to continue to successfully maintain and improve our library. To complete routine tasks or to meet looming deadlines, a little teamwork can go a long way. The occasional request for help, typically in the form of reference coverage, never goes unanswered. For larger and/or longer-term projects, breaking the project down into smaller components helps maintain momentum, measure progress, and provide a sense of accomplishment for each completed goal or project phase.

Since each firm and library is so unique, there isn’t a single path to success. We have taken many steps to adapt and thrive in the “new normal,” but we know there is ample room and opportunity to improve. That said, we hope some of the solutions we have implemented at Hunton & Williams can be applied to your library and will bring you success in the “new normal” environment.