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Hi, good afternoon, everybody. I see um our participants are, are coming in right now, so I'm just gonna give it a few moments while I watch the attendee numbers tick up. Um, but thank you all for joining us. Comes in, it comes in in fits

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and starts, so I, I, I don't want to launch uh before we have let folks in the door. OK, wonderful. So, um. Uh, in our final moments as, uh, folks are coming in, I just wanna say, uh, good afternoon, um, if you're, if you're on the

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East Coast like me, and welcome to, uh, the latest event in our Biddle speaker series. Uh, my name is Genevieve Tong. I'm gonna be your host, uh, today, uh, for the session. For those who haven't joined us before, the speaker series exists to showcase emerging and

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important scholarship on all aspects of law librarianship and legal information. And it is my pleasure to introduce our speaker this afternoon, Christina Alian, who will speak about her new paper, Evolution and the Specialist Dilemma, Legal Information and the Increasing Demand for Foreign Comparative and International Law

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Research Skills. Christina is associate Dean for Library and Technology and associate Law School professor at the University of Maryland, which is of course the other Carey Law School, where she oversees all aspects of library and technology, uh, operations and services. She is dedicated to ensuring that

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the library is an active, thriving center for learning and innovation within the law school community. And before joining the law faculty in 2021, she was the law library director and assistant professor of law at the Vernon E. Jordan. Junior Law Library at Howard University School of

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Law. And of course, Christina has served in lots of other leadership positions at the national, regional, local level. Uh, and in particular, I just want to flag that during her time at Howard, Cristina was one of the leaders of the Law Librarian Society of Washington DC.

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Uh, which co-created the award-winning programming series Project 2020 from Transition to Transformation. And because that happened during that first year of COVID, all of that programming was available to us across the country on, on Zoom. And, uh, Christina led a number of interviews of, uh, fantastic

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speakers. Uh, I think the Capstone interview with Ashley Ford, the author, was a, a big one for me. A big inspiration for the kinds of programming that I was excited to see happen um within our profession. So that's a personal note. Uh, and of course during

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her tenure as president, she also established the LLSDC Blueprint which served to operationalize uh the organization's commitment to diversity and racial justice. So throughout today's talk, uh, please feel free to add questions into the Q&A. I'm gonna be monitoring all of those online channels, uh, for

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Christina, and then at the end, uh, we will save some time for her to answer your questions. Um, that way she can focus on her remarks. Uh, if you have technical issues, please just flag them, and I will do my best to address them. Um. At,

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at that moment. Um, so, without further ado, thank you all so much for joining us, um, and I'm going to hand it over to Christina. Thank you so much, Genevieve. Um, before I get started, I just wanted to thank, of course, Genevieve, who's been doing all

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the cat herding behind the scenes, um, Amanda Runyon, who, of course, kicked this amazing series off, um, at the Biddle Law Library. I'm grateful to all of you. Um, and I also wanted to thank my team at the Thurgood Marshall Library at the University of Maryland,

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Baltimore. They are incredible, and many of them had hands in this paper as it has evolved, um, over time. So I'm deeply grateful, um, to all of you. Um, and the amazing, I'm like looking at the attendees list and I'm like, I see so many familiar

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names. I'm so grateful to all of you also for showing up, um, and look forward to your questions and conversation. Um, at the end of my remarks. Um, this for some of you, and I, I, there's the list is too long, so I can't, um, see

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all of you who are here, but some of you know I've been kicking this paper around for a long time. I won't even share how long. Um, so it's amazing for me to be able to have it in a place where I can share it with

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all of you. Um, let me advance these slides, if I can. No. There we go. Um, so I think, as you all saw, um, in the sort of, uh, advertising promotional materials, um, for this paper, um, it's really focusing on exploring some of the challenges that

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law libraries are facing and hiring librarians with these specialized Skill sets and foreign comparative international law or legal research, depending on how you want to characterize the L, um, to meet emerging areas of demand and ideally offering some potential solutions for all of us to consider

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to help us better recruit. Uh, retain and in particular, I would say mentor librarians to help fill these roles. Um, so a little bit about me and the context or lens through which I'm approaching this topic. Um, I've been working in libraries for over 20 years.

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That includes as a student worker, so it hasn't been professional the entire time, um, but I've been in libraries for a long, long time, um. My 1st 5 years as a professional law librarian were in fact as what I'll call a formal, a foreign comparative international

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law librarian, so somebody who had a sale on the title, um, and I had very sort of specific duties tied to that title ranging from collection development, um, to instruction to supporting faculty who specialized in that area. Um, I did that with zero training in that

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area, which is very, very common and something I'll be touching on. Um, as we go through, um, this paper together, uh, this is probably the reason why I was selected, I would think, for the position as I happen to have, um, two things which I think

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were incredibly valuable, and I think remained valuable for those of us, um, thinking about these issues. Um, I had some language skills, which is great, but I think more importantly, I had the interest to learn, um, and I wasn't afraid to take on a position that

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was literally sort of chart uncharted territory, both for me and to some degree, um, the institution because I started long after my predecessor left. So really we were all sort of embarking on this journey, um, together. Since that time, um, I've spent what I would call,

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um, the remaining part of my career, which of course is still ongoing, um, as a de facto FCL librarian. So that's someone who does not have FCL responsibilities formally in their title, um, or in any of their sort of position descriptions, and yet they are still

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doing in part, um, or in some cases many, if not all of these responsibilities that I mentioned earlier, which typically again include, um, instruction. Collection development, um, and or supporting, um, faculty, and I guess I should also add, um, supporting students, so if they're doing papers,

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um, journal work, that sort of thing. Um, for those of you who want to learn more about my background, and you can find a very lovely, um, informal sort of bio from the FCL SAS. I was the member of the Month for November 2024, and then

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there's a more formal, um, bio that you can find on, um, the faculty website, uh, for the University of Maryland. Um, so the next thing I want to sort of shift gears a little bit and talk about what, um, I mean by this sort of, uh,

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specialist dilemma, and, and thinking of this in the context of what's often um considered Darwin and survival of the fittest. Technically Darwin didn't come up with this term, that's something I learned along the way, but the, the concept remains. Um, and I wanted to do one

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thing which I think matters a lot, particularly within the context of this paper, which is There's oftentimes a misconception, um, that survival of the fittest denotes strength, size, um, or stamina, or some combination of those qualities. That is in fact not the case. Um, it's specifically

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meant to capture, um, organisms, and of course this is In the context of Darwin's framework, um, organisms who pass on genetic material through advantageous accidents, um, and those accidents show up typically in two ways, or one of two ways or both. Um, one is a mutation,

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so a bird. Finches in particular in Galapagos, um, might develop a specific kind of beak that then lends itself really well to certain kinds of berries or certain kinds of worms, um, and then they are able to proliferate more easily as a result of that mutation.

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Um, the other way in which these things can happen is the environment. So either you have a situation where a happy accident of a mutation leads to, um, increased adaptability in a particular environment, or the environment shifts such that that mutation becomes incredibly valuable again, um,

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leading to proliferation, or in some cases, of course, you know, the Um, the downfall of the species depending on the circumstances. Um, so we'll see how, and you'll see if I convince you, that I've made, um, an argument this similar sort of analogy can be made,

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um, of, uh, FCL specialist, um, librarians. Above all, the ability, um, to adapt is critical. Um, and of course, you know, those of you who Aren't FCL librarians, um, know that this is true of librarians more generally. Um, the argument I would make though is it

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is of particular importance, um, for our FCL specialists because of the sort of unique pressures, um, that that group, um, is facing. So then I have. A handy slide about the finches. I'll actually like move on quickly, but I think it's actually helpful to understand um

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the concept more for those who aren't familiar with it. Um, so one of the things that I did in my research, um, I actually came across, I was not the first law librarian to think of, um, our work within the context of Darwin and survival of

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the fittest. So actually the first instance that I could find of this connection. was actually from a University of Miami law library director, who, and this is a quote from him, um, that no one law library, no matter how big or wealthy, can ever reach a

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level of total sufficiency and complete independence. Darwin's principle of survival of the fittest may be operative if present circumstances continue to prevail, but even this will not produce the best law library with a completely complete collection. Um, and I think for many of us this makes

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sense. It's a little bit of a, a no duh, but I think back then, um, this wasn't necessarily understood because you had these, you know, libraries who literally were burning money, multiple, I mean they had so much money, they're buying multiple copies of the same titles,

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um, 5, 10 times over because that was the volume of Um, resources at their disposal. Things are very different now, and so thinking of the limits within which we are all operating from, again, the most resourced to the least, we're all sort of having to make

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difficult decisions, and those pressures can show up in unexpected places. So who cares about all of this? I would argue all these groups care, maybe even more. Um, so law library directors, of course, care, uh, within the context of how can we support our communities, our

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faculty, our students, and our librarians, right? We're thinking about how if I'm hiring someone to do some of this work, how am I supporting them? Um, of course, as librarians have this front of mind every day. Um, but I would also say beyond that group, I

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would say aspirational FA librarians, will they get the support they need? Is there room for this type of work for them within a particular library? Um, the de facto FA librarians who are doing that work, whether they signed up for it or not, um, are students

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who are entering an increasingly globalized landscape when it comes to the legal profession. The attorneys who are already there doing that work, um, our law faculty, of course, and the law firms, government, so the legal sector in general is really thinking about these things in ways

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that have only increased over time. So, the new normal, so to speak, um, law libraries have changed, newsflash, um, and these are some that I wanted to highlight. There are many, many more ways than this, but I wanted to highlight some of the ways in which

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law libraries have changed that might relate to this more specifically. So, there's been a shift from, and I mentioned this a little bit earlier, um, what some people have called competitive to collaborative acquisitions, and by competitive, um, what that really means is, and, and again, those

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of you, um, Who are here are familiar with this, where libraries were like, who has the, you know, the greatest book volume, title count, square footage, it was all very sort of numbers heavy. Um, but not as much outcome rich. Um, I think we've shifted away

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from that for the better. Um, we've seen some more collaborative approaches where libraries are working more collaboratively with collaboratively with one another, um, to reach similar or even better outcomes as a result of working together. We've seen a lot of that at the consortial level, I

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would say in particular, um, but they're even informal groups, so, At the University of Maryland, for example, I'm a member of the Big 10 group, um, and so we come together and think through problems, um, a variety of, uh, of issues, not just, you know, uh,

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collection development. Um, there are of course increased demands and constraints, so the perennial issue of or pressure to do more with less, um. The erosion of content ownership as publishers have, of course, expanded their licensing models, um, a shift, uh, for many libraries from just in

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case to just in time, so purchasing, uh, in anticipation of a potential need versus purchasing because a specific item has been requested, um, and then of course the cost to secure the required, oftentimes required. Um, graduate level credentials. So whether it's just, and I'm like this

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is heavy quotations, just the JD, just the MLIS, or of course the dual degree, and oftentimes it is the dual degree, um, are extraordinarily expensive, um, oftentimes six figures, so, People are being expected to bring in these credentials, um, if their FCL librarians provide even additional

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sort of support in addition to sort of the standard, um, responsibilities, and there isn't often the salary or professional development support to go along with that. Um, other things have changed, not just libraries. Um, so law school enrollment, uh, the enrollment cliff, I think many of

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us, um, are hearing and thinking about that, and what that might mean not only for, um, Uh, those of us working in academia, but of course also those, um, concerned about the legal profession more generally, um, demand for more practice oriented training, which I think is

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a wonderful thing, particularly, you know, for those of us who are teaching legal research, we're seeing that demand now reflected in things like the Nextgen bar. Um, the unpredictable landscape for graduating law students, uh, attorneys, I think it's not limited to attorneys, um, struggling and or

00:16:03.929 - 00:16:23.909

leaving the profession, um, this can be for a myriad of reasons ranging from mental health challenges, lack of support, um, Quality of life, any of these things, um, are reasons why we're seeing people leave uh the legal profession more generally. And then of course technology, there's

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this little thing, maybe AI, I don't know, you may have heard of things, so there's stuff is happening, um. So that's sort of the environment in which we find ourselves, but I want to take us back a little bit in time, um, and this may sound

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familiar to some of you, um, it might also be unfamiliar, but, um, libraries, and particularly maybe the legal profession has not always been at the forefront of innovation and progress. I think we're doing better now. Um, but Lala Brainship, I think, took the lead in a

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way from the legal profession. This is reflected in some of the literature, um, that this risk averse and sort of unyielding approach kind of seeped into law librarianship in such a way that Back in the day, um, our non-law library colleagues were actually doing more and

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willing to innovate in ways, um, that we weren't comfortable with at the time. So things like adopting catalogs, classification systems, and technologies more quickly, and I'm thinking, you know, technologies were at large, so microfiche, microfilm, I know, roll your eyes, but still, um, these were new

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technologies that uh we were really slow to even consider at the outset. Um, this inflexibility, and I want to give some Credit, uh, if you will. Inflexibility isn't always bad. Inflexibility, um, in the best of circumstances can lead to better outcomes. Um, it can also lead

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to more stability. We just need to be really intentional and make sure we're doing it for the right reasons, and that, I would argue has not always been the case. Um, what started to happen, um, around World War Two is, of course, um, There was this

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increasing demand domestically, um, for foreign law materials, um, which oftentimes in many cases actually did inspire some libraries to start working on classification systems, but this was largely, um, not necessarily exclusively, but largely uh reactive. So with this sort of increased demand that really started picking

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up around World War II, there were a couple of things that started shifting. Um, one, of course, is the evolution of legal practice. Um, so historically, domestically was sort of the, the area that was considered more robust, um, greater sort of cachet, um, and now the

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foreign international sphere became more compelling. Um, it was increasingly recognized as a dynamic and even thriving area of practice. Um, the integration of this global perspective, not surprisingly, showed up in law schools. Um, curriculum started shifting, scholars, um, and their work also started shifting, and we

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started to see not only This type of work showing up in specialized, so, you know, Journal of International Law plus law school, but also the flagship journals were also starting to integrate more um of this type of work. So in the interim, or while this is

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all happening, um, you have the librarians who are attempting to support all of this development, um, without necessarily a robust or consistent framework that they could rely upon, um, whether it was supporting faculty scholarship through research and collection development or teaching, um, FL research to a

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law students. So, some of you may be familiar, um, this is fast forward, uh, to 2013, when the American Association of Law Libraries, um, a group, I believe it was a special, maybe presidential, um, group came together to work on the principles and standards for legal

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research competency, and I find this fascinating. So this started in 2013, there was a revision in 2020, but what's fascinating to me is there's literally a principle that includes competencies that are specific to foreign and international legal research, which are captured um or summarized here on

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the screen for you. And what I find so interesting about this is At the national level, there are so many institutions and law schools, and this might change with the next gen bar, but there's so many that don't even require legal research, period. It's just not

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required for students, and yet, um, and in those instances, librarians are often fighting to just be able to expose students consistently, um, to domestic legal research, to say nothing of, um, the benefits of being exposed to foreign international legal research. Um, so what we find is

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much more common. Is the students who are exposed to these, um, areas of legal research, it's oftentimes, if at all, as an elective, and usually those electives, it's advanced legal research, it's maybe a credit, maybe more, um, if the students are lucky. Um, and so just

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the tiniest minority of students are consistently even getting this, and yet our, you know, the largest law library association in the world is saying this is a critical foundational thing. Um, for our students to have before they graduate, and yet we know for a fact, um,

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many aren't hearing about it at all. Um, so this lack of standardized training, it's not just an issue for our law students, it's an issue for a foreign comparative international, um, legal research specialists, our librarians. So if our students aren't getting this training, our librarians aren't

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getting this training consistently either. Um, This is a big problem, and we've seen different sorts of, um, and I'm deeply grateful for these groups, um, both the AA, you know, DoubleL Association, American Association of Law Libraries, and IIL, the International Association of Libraries have made efforts,

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um, in these areas. Um, IL recently revised, um, their guidelines for teaching public international legal research. So it's sort of a narrower lens. Um, the intended audience is for librarians who are teaching just public international legal research, um, and it's meant to sort of help them.

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Identify areas that they need to cover um for their students, and It can serve a dual purpose. So similarly, um, the AAAL guidelines can be used by librarians to help educate themselves. They can identify their own gaps, um, and if they're particularly self-directed, can identify individuals

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or content or materials to help fill those gaps. Um, but that's a deeply, um, Challenging endeavor when, and I feel like I'm preaching to the choir here, we all, I think, have 2 to 3 full-time jobs just with the responsibilities we have, um, as it is.

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So to find the time to teach yourself these things, um, is incredibly difficult, um, and we, we just don't have a good system in place, um, to do that work. So all that to say, um, we have this increasing demand for librarians with foreign international legal

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research skills, as we should, based on what's happening in the world, um, but the resources required in the legal profession, um, but the resources required to support this work and the people engaging, um, in that effort doesn't really meaningfully exist. Um. So we have clearly a

00:23:44.790 - 00:24:01.219

challenge, but perhaps also uh an opportunity. Um, so a couple of other notes I wanted to make context-wise as we think about this, not only from sort of the evolution, um, perspective, but it's also, um, and some of you again, you know, know a little bit

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of this history already. Um, but during that sort of World War II era where we had, um, sort of this increased, um, interest and demand for materials and expertise, a lot of the librarians were providing this, um, were foreign born or foreign trained attorneys. Some of

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them didn't even have um the library science degree, uh, and this led to a couple of interesting developments. So on the one hand, you had these people with oftentimes incredibly rich multilingual, um, backgrounds, and they weren't necessarily building collections, the way we think about building collections

00:24:37.969 - 00:24:52.430

because they weren't necessarily trained as librarians in many instances, they were building things based on what they knew, which languages they could speak, They were comfortable with. And so you have, on the one hand, um, in many instances, is really rich, deep, interesting collections, but they

00:24:52.430 - 00:25:07.630

aren't sort of built out with the same intentionality that I would argue shows up sort of in the generation after that, who are thinking sort of a little bit more broadly, um, through the lens of like a collection development policy, if you will. Um, so what

00:25:07.630 - 00:25:25.079

does this mean for us? How do we sort of have this history, this sort of interesting foundation, this increased demand. Um, so one of the things through, you know, sort of thinking about how to adapt, um, is the importance of networking with our colleagues abroad, um,

00:25:25.290 - 00:25:45.189

learning new languages, uh, and mentoring and training our new talent. Um, these things take time, they also take, in many cases, money, um, which I think, uh, for many of us is something that we're Does not grow on trees, if you will. So, um, resources, time,

00:25:45.349 - 00:25:59.930

money, um, but that doesn't mean we can't get creative. Um, now what we're seeing in some cases, and I'll talk a little bit more about this and even show some examples, I'm like keeping an eye on the clock, um, is, uh, the proliferation of this really

00:25:59.930 - 00:26:21.469

interesting development where, um, non-FIL positions, um, started having preferred Um, FCL skills. So you might have somebody who is just an instructional librarian, or, and I don't say just in that sense, but, you know, they're instructional librarian reference, research, whatever, and then there's a preferred skill

00:26:21.849 - 00:26:40.439

just sort of casually embedded at the end, um, where they're asking for, you know, foreign language skills, sometimes they're very specific about the region they're interested in. Some will even include, you know, foreign legal training preferred. Um, really fascinating sort of creative efforts, um, to capture

00:26:40.439 - 00:26:59.560

some of that talent and skill set to help address typically, um, a known demand within, um, that specific institution. Um, the problem with that, I think you can imagine, or maybe some of you have even seen this, um, is the preferred sort of embedded. Um, skill

00:26:59.560 - 00:27:17.180

set is then maybe not coupled with the support that might be required, um, to maintain or even build and expand, um, on those skills. So that creativity um leads to a couple of good things, I would argue, but also some challenges. So, the good is that

00:27:17.180 - 00:27:32.949

we're being creative, particularly, you know, typically this this is the directors who are coming up with these um solutions. Uh, on the one hand, you could get amazing people who are really interested in a particular area, and they don't need a lot of support, um. Jumping

00:27:32.949 - 00:27:49.920

right into it either because um they bring a a foreign language skill background, um, or they're willing to identify opportunities for training, um, and those sorts of things. On the other side, you might have people who are looking at these position descriptions and are just saying

00:27:49.920 - 00:28:06.239

this is completely unreasonable. Um, you're asking me to do things that are, um, far more than one librarian could reasonably do, and I'm concerned that I'm not going to get the support that I need, because it's not embedded in the title. It's not showing up in

00:28:06.239 - 00:28:24.300

the required section, um, and I'll be expected to do things that I could not reasonably. Um, provide at the level that might be expected. Um, we also see, you know, where compensation again doesn't necessarily align with the skills and duties, um, that are being asked for.

00:28:24.459 - 00:28:39.939

So what we're seeing in many instances, and I, I would say I'm one of those people who've done this, is oftentimes we'll hire candidates who have the aptitude, so I'm hiring to see if someone, um, has the ability to sort of, and maybe even confidence to

00:28:39.939 - 00:28:57.599

tackle, um, Circumstances that might be new to them are willing to ask for help, um, and are open to the different trainings and opportunities that I'm happy to provide, um, but not everyone is necessarily going, um, to get that support. And then the other piece that

00:28:57.599 - 00:29:13.160

we need to sort of continually be thinking about within the the context of our profession more generally is recruitment and retention, not just within the context of sort of our individual institutions and positions and turnover and concerns about that, but I would say the profession more

00:29:13.160 - 00:29:30.900

generally. Um, if we keep bringing in amazing people with amazing aptitude, interests, so on and so forth, even if, um, we're offering them trainings, whether it's taking foreign language classes on site, or sending them to conferences, um, or if we can't send them to conferences, being

00:29:30.900 - 00:29:48.660

willing to aggressively support them with, um, letters of reference, um, helping go over their applications with them, cause there's a lot of different ways we can provide support, um. There still needs to be a culture in which people feel valued, seen, work-life balance, all of those

00:29:48.660 - 00:30:03.969

things. So it's, it's more than just, um, the sort of FCL lens through which, of course, um, this work is, is happening. Um, so we have the need, of course, for more formal training, um, but one of the other things, and I touched on this a

00:30:03.969 - 00:30:18.489

little bit with my first position, is I was expected to do, I had, it just, it blows my mind now. I had no background whatsoever, and I was doing collection development, I was doing teaching, I was supporting faculty, um, scholarship. Now, I had the loveliest group

00:30:18.489 - 00:30:33.180

of people who cared about me and were, you know, asking how they could support me. Um, but I didn't necessarily know how I needed to be supported, and so I think that's, you know, one of the challenges, um, is thinking proactively from the context of the

00:30:33.180 - 00:30:52.650

one doing the hiring, how you can support, um, your librarians. And then we've heard this concept all the time, um, but the importance of succession planning, I think, um, the importance is only, um, Increased exponentially when you're talking about um sort of one individual or one

00:30:52.650 - 00:31:09.569

position that has either these responsibilities in whole or in part. Um, what do we need to do to make sure that the institution doesn't suffer, um, from a sort of single point of failure problem, because when that person leaves, who is going to be able to

00:31:09.569 - 00:31:22.530

provide that support in their absence, and how is that new hire going to be set up for success? Um, I have heard of instances which I, I was so jealous cause I didn't have this opportunity. Um, I know of instances where people were able to actually

00:31:22.530 - 00:31:41.650

overlap with the outgoing or retiring individual, which is such a wonderful sort of luxurious um opportunity, so that's definitely something to consider if that's an option. Um, and then of course, no matter what, I'm developing opportunities to learn from other librarians, um, at other institutions, I

00:31:41.650 - 00:31:58.170

think, you know, one of the benefits, um, and this may go without saying, we are literally in a sort of remote video conferencing environment. Um, is this allows for a much greater, um, ability to transfer knowledge and information than we've ever had in the past. So

00:31:58.170 - 00:32:12.319

I think, you know, historically, of course, and I wouldn't even say historically, I think, um, knowledge transfer in person is always the ideal, um, whether it's at a conference or a program, you know, meeting people in that way, you really just can't replace that. Um, but

00:32:12.319 - 00:32:33.489

the fact that video conferencing exists does offer something in the middle, um, if the, the conferencing opportunity isn't available or isn't consistently, um, available. So I wanted to touch a little bit on specifically the challenges for um our foreign comparative international law librarians in particular. So

00:32:33.489 - 00:32:53.020

these are the folks who have it in their title. Um, so these people Um, not surprisingly, um, the diversity of their backgrounds and expertise mirrors, um, the diversity of sort of the this area of law. So there is absolutely no consistency whatsoever, um, across this group

00:32:53.020 - 00:33:07.270

of people. Um, I would argue that we're better. for it. I think collectively that makes us much stronger, um, and more dynamic, but it does present challenges, particularly, you know, at the institutional level when you're trying to support, um, your community, you don't necessarily have at

00:33:07.270 - 00:33:24.709

your fingertips, um, everything that you might need, um, to support your faculty, your staff, or again, of course, um, working government or firms, same thing, you might not have at your fingertips everything that you need. Um, Even, and I know they still exist, libraries with consistent

00:33:24.709 - 00:33:43.469

budget increases may not be able to keep up with licensing and publishing cost increases. There may also be increased scrutiny in terms of the professional development, um, opportunities that have been historically provided, um. And space constraints, right? You can actually lose a lot of great content

00:33:43.790 - 00:34:03.010

simply because the footprint of the library, um, has been decreased, and so those are huge challenges that can disproportionately impact, um, foreign compared to international law librarians because the nature of the materials are not nearly as ubiquitous as some of the, the domestic ones. And then

00:34:03.010 - 00:34:17.850

even if um you have the budget, even if you have the people, there can still be distribution challenges, challenges identifying a reliable publisher, challenges paying them. We have literally in our library, and I know I'm not alone, we literally want to give them the money, and

00:34:17.850 - 00:34:35.158

there's no reliable way for us to actually engage in that transaction. And so all of those things can complicate um the ways in which FCL librarians provide, you know, the services um that they do. Um, and yeah, like I said earlier, the, the support can vary

00:34:35.158 - 00:34:50.198

dramatically, but I would say not just between libraries, but even within the same library, um, a library's budget can change really dramatically, or there can be a new challenge that presents itself, um, that can get in the way of the support, um, that ideally should be

00:34:50.198 - 00:35:10.800

in place. So then what does this mean for our, our amazing, amazing, um, de facto FCLL librarians? They have all those problems, and then some additional challenges. Um, so they often, not necessarily, I mean I know some, some folks, um, in institutions who technically, um, they

00:35:10.800 - 00:35:28.870

don't have it in their title, but they do receive institutional support, they're sent to conferences, those sorts of things, um, but it's obviously harder, it's less likely that they'll get that kind of meaningful support, um. Whether it's professional development, whether it's pay, um, or title. They're

00:35:28.870 - 00:35:47.969

often or may be expected to handle these types of questions and develop collections without against sort of the analogous support that somebody who has it formally in place could potentially um expect more uh consistently. Um, they're in those institutions. And I will say this, I mean,

00:35:48.790 - 00:36:06.979

documentation is not, I think our strength in libraries, which of course is perhaps a little bit ironic, but um, forget documentation in these sorts of instances. So de facto FCL librarians will not be able to um rely on any sort of meaningful institutional framework or documentation

00:36:06.979 - 00:36:22.620

that can help guide them. They might have something, maybe it's someone's old emails at best, or some like weird printouts, um, but that's if they're lucky. Um, and then there's often no training. Um, now, if you're in, you know, an incredibly sort of, um, What am

00:36:22.620 - 00:36:37.810

I trying to say, a, a really urban area, something of New York or I'm thinking of DC, you may not need to go far to be able to find people, um, that you can meet with, collaborate with, network with, um, but that's not the case for

00:36:37.810 - 00:36:53.310

everyone, and, um, and not having a particularly again for a de facto, um, SCL librarians, not having that sort of infrastructure in place can be a real source of, um, frustration and even, you know, isolation. Um, so what are some of the things that we can

00:36:53.310 - 00:37:10.120

do, um, for our wonderful colleagues, and again, I count myself as one of them these days. Um, some of this, particularly from a collection development perspective, can be mitigated by interlibrary loan, electronic subscriptions, things like that. Um, one of my favorite things about, I mean, there's

00:37:10.120 - 00:37:21.479

a lot to hate about electronic subscriptions, but one of my favorite things is you can turn them on and off. I have an immediate need for a particular professor for a very specific project. I'll turn it on as soon as they're done, I turn it off,

00:37:21.560 - 00:37:38.060

and that's actually one really great use, um, for things like subscriptions, and there's all the others. Um. Cultivating a network of FCLA colleagues domestically, of course, um, the first place I think of, um, of course, will always be the American Association of Law Libraries with their

00:37:38.060 - 00:37:54.969

FCLSAS, um, group, which is phenomenal, but again, there's a paywall, so, you know, do you work for an institution that can Afford to sign you up for all of the different SASs, and if FAL isn't in your title, they might not be willing um to fork

00:37:54.969 - 00:38:09.449

over the, the extra funds to, to support and activate sort of your access to a lot of that content. Um, of course, leveraging other domestic opportunities for growth, I mentioned, you know, if you're lucky enough to be in an urban area, um, but there's also a

00:38:09.449 - 00:38:27.090

lot of freely available distribution lists at the domestic and international levels that can be incredibly Um, rich And then there's scholarships, grants, things of that nature, but it takes a lot of work to find them, to get them. They oftentimes won't cover the entire cost, or

00:38:27.090 - 00:38:43.409

they'll be weird, you know, limitations like they'll cover registration, but not lodging, or, you know, something like that. Um, but I will say in my experience, Oftentimes if I'm able to secure even partial funding, it's been easier for me to get my institution to cover the

00:38:43.409 - 00:39:00.840

balance. So that's definitely um something people, I think have successfully explored, um, and then negotiating, I mean, this is true, of course, as a general matter, but one of the things I've made a point of doing. When I shifted from formal FCL to de facto, um,

00:39:00.929 - 00:39:14.010

is I negotiate it. So at the point of hire, I'm ensuring like, hey, this is an important part of my work, an important part of my expertise, and that for me includes attending these conferences, and I want to make sure that I'll continue to receive that

00:39:14.010 - 00:39:33.929

type of support if I start working here. Um, so that's something that people can try and do as well. Um, so other solutions, um, I'm OK with time. Um, other solutions for us, um, to consider integrating, um, is long-term succession planning. I talked a little bit

00:39:33.929 - 00:39:54.610

about Um, work at the association and institutional levels. Um, I do worry about the paywall. I think I mentioned that a few times, um, establishing models for consistent training and filling for FCL positions, so that's the formal ones, um, and developing streamlined processes to support those

00:39:54.610 - 00:40:10.639

incoming specialists, um. This feels a little bit like a pipe dream because I feel like we actually struggle with onboarding as a general matter in our profession, um, and I think it just presents an even greater challenge for our FCL colleagues, um, and so that's just

00:40:10.639 - 00:40:28.340

something I think we need to be incredibly intentional about. Um, one of the things I will say, um, as a shout out to my original institution is they did connect me with and gave me great opportunities to shadow. Um, well established experts, um, at other institutions

00:40:28.340 - 00:40:43.340

who had wonderful collections and wonderful expertise, and so those 1 to 1, um, connections were on the one hand great from sort of a boots on the ground training perspective, but I would actually argue, um, it was the fact that it made those individuals approachable. So

00:40:43.340 - 00:40:56.659

I felt like I could ask them a question, or if I, I wasn't sure whether a question should go to the distribution list when I look like an idiot, um, I could go to these people. Offline and find out um if I'd missed something really obvious,

00:40:56.739 - 00:41:15.570

um, and I was deeply, deeply grateful, um, for, for their support. Um, and then I need, we need a centralized resource for people who are doing this work, FCL, but especially our de facto FCL colleagues, um, they don't have access to the same materials that, um,

00:41:15.580 - 00:41:34.939

many FCL librarians do, the same collections. Um, and so we need to think about a way, a place, I think aisle in a way has, um, charted some really interesting and compelling territory, creating sort of a freely available resource and guide. There is no paywall, um,

00:41:35.439 - 00:41:50.219

and so I think that's something to consider expanding on, um, if at all possible. Um, but I think as you all know, with what time, with what resources, who's gonna do all this work, um, and even if we build this amazing sort of compelling resource that's

00:41:50.219 - 00:42:05.270

freely available, how are we gonna maintain it? Um, someone needs to actually keep their hands on it and, and continue to do that work. Um, I think we've seen models of this, it's just often behind a paywall. So thinking about how we can do this, um,

00:42:05.429 - 00:42:22.280

in a way that not only benefits folks who don't have access to these resources and materials, um, but in a way that necessarily elevates the profession, because if everyone has access to this content, um, we will all necessarily, uh, be better for it. Um, and then

00:42:22.280 - 00:42:43.360

I would say, you know, this is again something that would apply, um, outside of this conversation, but advocacy, I think we need to do a better job as a profession, training each other and giving each other the tools to um navigate potentially political conversations, convincing leaders

00:42:43.360 - 00:43:00.580

at our institutions why these things are important, um, Whether it's thinking about it through, you know, a, a communication strategy perspective, um, negotiation perspective, however you want to think about it, um, I think we need to do a better job engaging in those potentially, you know,

00:43:00.820 - 00:43:15.639

depending on sort of your perspective or the culture or institution, it can be a difficult conversation, um, but it's one that we need to be having with our institutions as they're thinking about, um, there are various competing priorities, right? And I think Particularly those of us,

00:43:15.719 - 00:43:29.919

you know, who report to the dean of a law school, we know the library can be an afterthought, um, but that doesn't mean to say they aren't deeply invested in the work that's happening here and don't appreciate, um, the ways in which we're supporting all kinds

00:43:29.919 - 00:43:47.850

of work. Um, but for an international, you know, legal research support demands and requires a certain, um, amount of access and support that I think, um, can be taken for granted. Particularly, I would say, Um, when librarians are so good at doing things behind the scenes

00:43:47.850 - 00:44:03.489

and not sharing the difficulty, it took them, um, to get to a particular positive outcome. And then this is just, I'm highlighting a few of these positions that I was talking about. So a lot of this paper, I ended up literally collecting, you know, every time

00:44:03.489 - 00:44:15.370

there was a posting, I would be searching the posting to see if there was foreign or international preferred or or required. Of course, you know, in the FCL positions, um, where I expected to see it, it was showing up, but here are some of the others.

00:44:15.449 - 00:44:30.580

So these are sort of general research and reference positions, and what I was expecting to see. Um, is that you would only see this showing up at a Yale, at a Columbia T14 institutions, but as you can tell from this list, it's absolutely not limited to

00:44:30.580 - 00:44:51.219

our T14 colleagues. Um, content management, here's another one, and then other public service, um, positions. Uh, it's, it's just fascinating, um, where these skills are showing up. Um, so I will close by just saying, I won't read this whole quote, um, but Darwin and his finches,

00:44:51.270 - 00:45:10.250

uh, we just want to, to the extent possible, think about how like Darwin's finches, um, we can successfully adapt to an inherently dynamic environment. I personally, and I skew Pollyanna, but I personally am convinced that as long as we're working together and engaging in these conversations

00:45:10.250 - 00:45:31.540

meaningfully, we will necessarily elevate each other, not only at the institutional level, but the profession more generally. So thank you very much and I'm very excited um for any questions you may have. And I'm gonna stop sharing. Uh, uh, I'll just say yes, please put your

00:45:31.540 - 00:45:45.899

questions in the Q&A now, um, and while we're waiting for those, one, thank you to Christina, um, and I have, I have kind of, I have a, a swirl of notes here that I'll try to condense into a question while we're, while we're waiting for others

00:45:45.899 - 00:46:01.889

in the audience. Um, actually, I will just say just as a, a thing that came to mind. Especially when you're speaking about language skills and the request for language skills in postings is, I can imagine as a pipeline issue. The idea that even a person with

00:46:01.889 - 00:46:19.010

great enthusiasm and interest and and willingness to learn at the ground level, um, taking on a second language in adulthood is, is, is feels really daunting. Perhaps I, I, this might be just me, more daunting than learning other aspects of librarianship. So I'm wondering if you

00:46:19.010 - 00:46:41.399

have thoughts about. Adaptation are the is, is it reasonable to think about adaptations for libraries, um, uh, have you seen examples of, of libraries that support that kind of acquisition of skill, um, for, for people who come in as de facto FCIL folks, um, and, and.

00:46:43.219 - 00:46:57.389

I is that, are there other elements of this that we could evolve on the requirements and to evolve past requirements that we've used in the past to build a more robust kind of a pool of people to support? So what I would say, at least what

00:46:57.389 - 00:47:12.419

I've observed anecdotally, um, and this is, you know, largely talking to other folks, cause there aren't a ton of the, you know, positions, um, being posted every year that have these types of, of requirements, but, um, the volume is definitely such that, you know, I was

00:47:12.419 - 00:47:30.610

taking note at least. Um, and I think there are two things that occur to me from a sort of, um, Uh, support perspective. I think one is it's much easier for institutions, um, who have an undergraduate institution attached to them. So, uh, and not all do.

00:47:30.689 - 00:47:46.820

We have, of course, our standalone law schools, um, and even my law school, we're technically an island in Baltimore, and the undergrad institution where a lot of the language learning is happening is in College Park. It's not, it's not convenient, um. So there may be opportunities

00:47:46.820 - 00:47:59.159

um that are worth exploring that are online, you know, if, if you find yourself in that situation, um, I do think, um, for a lot of our, our law school colleagues, I, and I don't know the numbers, but I do think it's more often than not

00:47:59.159 - 00:48:15.399

that there is an undergraduate, you know, affiliation that is more convenient, um, and at that point, you know, what I would urge Candidates, you know, to advocate for whether they find themselves in the FCL or de facto category is ask, uh, you know, ask, will you

00:48:15.399 - 00:48:28.030

give me time to do this? And in really an important part, it shouldn't be in addition to your 40 hour work week, right? So if you have 40 hours, and a lot of these language classes are very frequent, they're oftentimes, you know, Monday through Thursday for

00:48:28.030 - 00:48:45.580

at least, you know, 1.5, 2 hours, um, is to negotiate that that's part of you building, um, Expertise in that area. Um, oftentimes also there's summer condensed classes that might even be a better fit because it's just, uh, oftentimes for, um, academic folks, a quieter time

00:48:45.580 - 00:49:01.250

of year. Now this doesn't help though our law firm or, um, government colleagues, you know, so law firms You know, we sort of take for granted, well, they have their deep pockets, but you still have to convince them to pay for things, you know, and so

00:49:01.250 - 00:49:15.209

I think, um, that can definitely be a challenge, you know, and, and for our government colleagues as well, making sure that that support exists if in fact there is demand, you know, to provide that type of support. Um, and there was another thing I was gonna

00:49:15.209 - 00:49:29.439

add to that, um, but it's escaping me. Maybe it was just to say, and I, I may have said this already, but in case I didn't, um, just that everyone I know who has negotiated for that type of support was able to get it because the,

00:49:29.500 - 00:49:45.169

the institution was like, of course we want you to, to do that. Oh, this is what it was, um, is to remember that these language classes are, are typically conversational, and the work that we're engaging in as FCL or de facto FL librarians, um, is not

00:49:45.169 - 00:50:02.600

conversational. It's typically it's legalese, it's, you know, all of these in terms of art and other languages. And so there isn't a 1 to 1, um, so having familiarity still better than nothing, like there's no question, um, but being making sure you yourself and your institution

00:50:02.600 - 00:50:20.370

who's paying for, or at least just providing the support, understands that this doesn't mean you become immediately well versed in sort of the legal system, and, you know, the terms of art in that particular jurisdiction. Thank you. We have some questions from the audience. If you

00:50:20.370 - 00:50:34.750

are in a library that cannot support a full FCIL librarian, do you recommend having one person be a de facto FCIL librarian, or is it better to train everyone on the reference team to do some level of FCIL librarian work and Where to go to help

00:50:34.750 - 00:50:52.939

if they need more. So my, I, I literally find myself in this specific circumstance. So I Um, will not have an FCL librarian and title, um, at my institution. We can't justify it. It doesn't make sense based on both our collection, but also sort of the

00:50:52.939 - 00:51:06.189

work of, of our faculty. And yet there is still a demand for this work, just not to the same degree that you might see, let's say, at a Georgetown or a Yale. Um, and so I think, um, for me, the way I've approached it is, I

00:51:06.189 - 00:51:22.239

think it's worth having a person who is the de facto, and so they, you know, for example, support the International Journal. They might have, if you have a liaison program, they might support more of the faculty engaging in this work. But should all of the reference

00:51:22.239 - 00:51:39.429

librarians be able to handle a basic question that comes through, um, you know, particularly through the reference desk? Yes, um, and every place that I've worked, even the ones that had, um, a, a, a formal Excel librarian. This doesn't mean this is true everywhere, but, um,

00:51:39.439 - 00:51:54.719

there was a sort of basic foundational expectation that all librarians would be able to do that, but if a question exceeded sort of that basic level, um, then they would kick it up to the FCL librarian, um, if it wasn't coming to them directly already. And

00:51:54.719 - 00:52:06.159

that, that system, I think has worked really well, um, and for the research and reference folks who don't have any training or even maybe interest, which is totally fine, um, typically the FL librarian.