>> Carlya Hayden: Hello, I'm Carla Hayden and I have the privilege of serving as the Librarian of Congress. Thank you for joining us for the Jane Sanchez Memorial Lecture on the future of law libraries and law librarianship. Jane served in several leadership capacities at the Library of Congress as the Head, Humanities and Social Sciences Division, the Law Librarian of Congress, and as the Deputy Librarian for Library Collections and Services, and in each of these roles Jane exceled because she was driven by a passion to make the library user centric, making our collections more accessible to our patrons, and by ensuring that the services of the library are driven by the needs of our patrons. Right before the pandemic, Jane worked to create the Law Library of Congress Legal Research Institute, which provides monthly webinars on U.S. as well as foreign, international, and comparative law. As a result of Jane's vision, the Law Library was actually able to reach significantly more patrons with its instructional efforts during the pandemic than it had previously with its in-person classes. Jane recognized the potential, turned the idea into reality, and her actions made an impact not only across the United States, but also across the world. Jane left an indelible mark on the library in each capacity in which she served, and I am honored to kick off this panel discussion that is comprised of leaders representing a broad spectrum of law libraries, including academic, government, and law firm libraries to discuss what Jane was so passionate about, the future of law libraries and law librarianship. Thank you all for joining us today, and at this time, it is my pleasure to introduce the moderator of today's event, Aslihan Bulut. >> Aslihan Bulut: Thank you, Dr. Hayden, and good afternoon, everyone. I am Aslihan Bulut and I have the privilege of serving as the Law Librarian of Congress. It is an honor to be with all of you today. The late Law Librarian of Congress and Deputy Librarian for Library Collections and Services, Jane Sanchez, worked hard to advance the Law Library of Congress by advocating for new initiatives. She was a visionary, who knew how to recognize an untapped potential and see ahead. Her ideas and initiatives such as the Library of Congress Legal Research Institute, helped enhance the Library of Congress's products and services, and enabled us all to serve our patrons in the U.S. and across the world. The Library of Congress and the Law Library along with the American Association of Law Libraries, which graciously agreed to co-sponsor this event with us, decided to honor Jane's legacy with this panel discussion on the future of law libraries and law librarianship. This webinar will honor Jane's legacy by examining the future of law libraries and law librarianship with a panel of experts that draw upon their years of experience as leaders in academic, government, and law firm libraries. During the last 20 minutes of this presentation, the panel will take questions from the audience, so please type your questions into the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen at any time, and at this time, I'd like to introduce our distinguished panelists. Kurt Carroll is the President of the International Association of Law Libraries, and the Chief of the Law Library of Congress Collection Services Division. Emily Florio is the Senior Research Services Manager at Hogan Lovells and immediate Past President of the American Association of Law Libraries. David Mao is the Chief Operating Officer of the Georgetown University Law Center, and the former Law Librarian of Congress, Deputy Librarian of Congress and Acting Librarian of Congress. Jennifer McMahan is the Deputy Director of the United States Department of Justice Law Library, and Kim Nayyer is the Edward Cornell Law Librarian, Associate Dean for Library Services and Professor of the Practice at Cornell Law School and Cornell University Library. She's also the President of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries. Welcome all and thank you for joining us today, and now we can start. So my first question I will direct to Emily and that is how should libraries and organizations such as AALL and IALL invest in their staff to meet the challenges of the future? Specifically, how can we improve recruitment and mentoring of new staff and the professional growth of existing staff? >> Emily Florio: Where do I begin? Thank you for the opportunity to speak with this great panel, and with this great group of people today. As a member of AALL for, I guess, 15 years and immediate past president, I'm happy to share some of the things that AALL has done in this regard, and things that I've experienced in my 15 years in a few different law firms. Though, for AALL and for all of us in law libraries, so everyone on the call today, the challenges of the future really include any number of things that seem to change and shift on a daily basis, and some days, you know, the morning and the afternoon are different. On any given day, I'm dealing with the ongoing pandemic, the unknown really surrounding what the post-pandemic world truly looks like, reliance on more artificial intelligence and machine learning, including staying on top of all the new tools that are out there, ensuring staff are trained and prepared for research and requests. You know, those are just some of the things I deal with on a regular basis. I think all of them I've dealt with today, and it's only three o'clock in the afternoon. You know, one thing that occurred to me that I try to focus on for giving the support to professional staff and how they can grow in their role whether or not they want to turn into managers or not, is giving them really the flexibility and freedom to work on projects and ideas outside of our BAU, business as usual, research work. I've been at this firm for a little over two years, and in that time, I've seen a few of my -- few members of the team really shine in these roles outside of the regular research that we get in. I've had someone who took lead on a part of a truly global project, another person be the contact for a global new internet project we were working on, and some others who have taken over new associate orientations to develop their public speaking and presentation skills, so these are all things that really help an individual, but they also support the whole team, which is, I think, a great way to sort of step away from research but still be working on something that's related to our day-to-day. We're really seeing a variety of recruiting challenges right now. I can speak on the on the law firm side, but I think it's true across other institutions as well. In some institutions, firms are having positions that are going unfilled, because they don't have the right candidates or they don't have the right candidate for the role that they're looking for, and sadly, in other cases, we have firms that have positions that are going unfilled after someone leaves their team, and I promise I won't dwell on this slightly negative piece for a moment. It's unfortunate that in 2021, we're still dealing with institutions that maybe don't understand or truly see the value that law librarians bring to the table. In many cases, law librarians, including my team, we are billers. We bring -- you know, we are a cost center. We bring money back into the firm. In addition to that, and this is certainly not a fail proof plan, having researchers who work on research-adjacent projects can also just further showcase our value whether it's an internet team or more knowledge management projects. I really think our research expertise and knowledge should stand on its own, but certainly having these additional experiences and knowledge and commitments and offerings, you know, just boosts what we can add to a firm, and it goes without saying that many of the skills I've mentioned can be picked up through the educational offerings of AALL. I have benefited from many of them, and a few years ago, we released our body of knowledge, or BOK, which outlines competencies expected from legal information professionals, so that's always something good to rely on, or refer back to you know, when you're hiring or when you're looking -- when someone is looking to move up and maybe see what other competencies they can add on to. I have plenty more to say, but I might turn it over to somebody else and see if we have a bit more time later on. >> Aslihan Bulut: Absolutely, thank you, and those are all I'm sure sentiments and challenges we can relate to. So I want to direct the same question now to Kurt from both a technical services and government librarian perspective, if he has anything to add. >> Kurt Carroll: Sure, thanks. Thanks, Aslihan. So yeah, I have certainly benefited from associations. I mean, going back to library school, I mean, kudos to I think ALA and SLA for actively courting students and having student memberships and getting them in early. The way I see this question, it's associations really do complement, I think, any organization and I really see that institutions, it's important to have staff development in their strategic plan. Certainly, with federal government agencies, we can't afford to have cutting edge technology, but we do need to have staff who have state-of-the-art skill levels, and then being aware of just emerging trends, any cutting edge practices, and investing in staff development, I think will aid in attracting and retaining some of the best and brightest staff. Certainly federal government is not necessarily the highest paid staff. Public servants can be a special breed sometimes, but including these kinds of elements in a strategic plan, and then also having a peer and a performance plan for your staff I think it needs to go hand in hand. Certainly at Library of Congress, for how many years I can remember, my performance plan has included being active in professional organizations. Contradiction, I think with the federal government is the federal government really doesn't -- can't pay for individual memberships to these associations, but, you know, I think that institutions do need to see that for as a training tool, as far as investing in conferences, webinars, you know, it really does complement what your in house training's going to do. You know, for myself, I certainly learned how to be a better manager through courses at Library of Congress and support from management. But, you know, other things I learned through professional associations were innovation and cooperation, you know, getting outside of the bubble of your institution. That's what associations will do for you, and you can't -- if everyone you speak to works in your institution, it's much harder to innovate. It's harder to problem solve, if you're all looking at the same problem, but you don't see any other solutions. You know, early on, I wasn't always a law librarian. I didn't want to be a law librarian, and when I transitioned from news librarianship, one of the first things I did when I got a law library job, it was a solo librarian position, so there was not a lot of support in the organization. I joined LLSDC, the Law Librarian Society of Washington, and they had -- they offered clinics and I went to a new law librarian clinic that they hosted at Howard University Law Library, and just from that class and from networking, and all of a sudden having a group of law librarians in Washington DC that I could network with, I could ask questions. You know, that -- those are the things my institution needed but couldn't give me, but were certainly expected for me to have kind of those skills. So it's associations not so much, I think, where they're putting their resources. I mean, that they're serving to educate but institutions recognizing that including association activities in staff training and development, I think is really key. For their recruiting and mentoring, I think that's a challenge whether it's firms, government, academics, but certainly our experience here at the Library of Congress was to really institutionalize internships, fellowships, scholars and residents. You know, there were a lot of ways to expose your institution to outside communities, but by formalizing them it better -- it helped us to better ensure that we were actively recruiting talent not just having new people come in the library, but then giving staff opportunities to serve as mentors, and you know what? Sometimes, you have to tell your -- voluntell your employees that they're going to be a mentor. You know, tech services, especially. We tend to be more introverted then reference librarians, but having opportunities to work one on one with someone. You know, I certainly know more about my job and more about this institution because I've had to teach people on the outside. I've had to interact with colleagues at other institutions. I've worked with interns and summer fellows, and I think explaining the institution and what we do, I certainly got a better handle on what our mission is, and where we might need to improve, so I think academics probably see that anyway, just by the act of teaching, but I guess I'll leave it there. That is kind of my takeaway from this question was that, for employers to see the value of associations to the development of their staff and the organization overall. >> Aslihan Bulut: Thank you, Kurt. I would love to hear David's thoughts on this having traversed the ranks of LC and now as an administrator at Georgetown. Do you feel that investing in staff and recruitment and mentoring from where you sit, what are what are some of the challenges you see? >> David Mao: Sure, thanks so much, Aslihan, and I think Emily and Kurt have covered it very well, but first of all, let me just start by saying that I think it's a privilege for me to be a part of this panel, among such distinguished law librarians, so that we can honor Jane and her legacy as a law librarian of Congress, and really, actually her legacy as a leader, both within the Library of Congress and to the profession, the greater law library profession. I know that she was a colleague and a mentor and a friend to so many people on many of the people that are watching this, this webinar, and so one thing that always struck me about Jane is that I know she was very committed to the staff and concerned about their professional growth, so I think this question really goes to the heart of, you know, who Jane was as a person and as a leader in libraries, but the key really, in my mind is precisely what Emily and Kurt had said, which is you have to invest in your people. So investing in people, to me, is the key, and so, Aslihan, you asked about my role as an administrator now in a law school. So I'll take this, or answer this question from the perspective of my current setting, which is a law school with a law library. Certainly, I know my colleague on the on the screen here, Kim, may have a slightly different take on this, perhaps because she's of a different academic institution, but I think from looking at our staff here and our librarian staff, really research instruction in terms of investing in their skills is the heart of it, right? -- because that's the main focus of academic law libraries. It's preparing students to be ready substantively for the practice of law, and so we need to invest in those skills with our staff, but the further take I would put on that is it's not just the research instruction, but it's also in legal technology. Now this is nothing new, right? I know that technology has been a focus for 10, 15, 20 years, but I think we still continue -- need to continue focusing on it. Applications proliferate. I mean, everything now is, is on our phones, right? And so the substance of the practice becomes so enmeshed with all of this technology, that we really need to focus our staff, I think, on legal technology and those skills that are associated with that, and to my mind, that really will help them in understanding not only how the technology can enhance their students' practice, but also you know, what the risks may be that are associated with any of this technology, so those are two things that I think we need to think of think about. Now stepping back from my current position in an academic institution, maybe one last point I'd like to make, so that we can get on other questions is, I think just in general, institutions, doesn't matter whether you're a court, a law firm, or an academic institution, you just need to be focusing on general skills for all of your staff to meet the unique needs of that specific institution. You know, if you're in the healthcare industry, then let's say focus on things that are related to health care or if you're in a tax industry, things like that, and all of those things put together will help with the development of the staff, and I also to quickly mention, I think both Kurt and Emily talked about the recruitment issues. I think that also will help with recruitment and retention issues as well. All right, so I've spoken a lot, so let me leave it at that and turn it back to you, Aslihan. Thanks. >> Aslihan Bulut: Thank you, everyone, so we'll move now to our second question, and I'll start this off by asking Kim, could you provide some examples of how emerging technologies such as Data Science and Artificial Intelligence have impacted the services you provide to your respective institutions? Are there any emerging technologies that you're particularly excited about? And are there any myths that you think surrounds the implementation of these technologies, in terms of their benefits? >> Kim Nayyer: Thank you, Aslihan, and I also do want to thank you for the invitation to speak here. I'm really honored to be speaking with my colleagues on this panel, and I'm also honored to be speaking at an event that is commemorating Jane Sanchez. I feel very fortunate to be here. In terms of your question, so first, I'm not sure that I'd consider Data Science and Artificial Intelligence to be emerging technologies, but I do think that, apart from whether they are emerging technologies in the world or not, I think that they are certainly emerging across all facets of law libraries, and actually quite rapidly, I see that between the two categories, they -- you see referenced everywhere, you might have seen this month's issue of AALL Spectrum, which centers on data in law libraries, and law libraries, of course, have long used various kinds of qualitative and also quantitative data to inform discrete decisions and also long term planning, but now with vast amounts of data available to us, big data, as well, we're seeing on the one hand, more and better and more creative uses of quantitative data in the way that we can employ them to assist decision making, and we're also seeing them integrated more into the kinds of tools that we use and impacts throughout the system. So that part of it, to me is more sort of intellectually interesting, but also more pressing in practice. I think, law librarianship really needs to keep pace with the integration of data throughout the legal, structural and information ecosystems, and law schools do need to do this too. I think law libraries need to address pervasive data, the kind of data that we and our patrons create every day, as well as the data that we're surrounded with, and so there are both positive and challenging and more difficult aspects to that in practice, and in fact, my library right now -- here's a little plug -- is in the midst of a search for a data specialist or a librarian or a scientist to help us ensure that we at the Law School, the Law Library, and also, you know, broadly in the profession, are ideally placed to ensure that law students, future lawyers, future librarians, and our professors, as well, are sufficiently literate with data to really understand how not only we can make use of data to support decisions and planning but also how, you know, the legal information world actively and passively uses our data and the data around us. When we're talking about artificial intelligence, I think generally speaking, most of us really think of machine learning, where the AI tool essentially learns to adapt its own algorithms from our use, or users' use of the algorithms, so that it gets better at helping us solve problems if that's what we want it to do, in both broad ways and in also very customized ways, but again, all of this is based on data that feeds these self-adaptive algorithms, so there is you know, we have large datasets and then we have recursing -- recursive learning from those datasets, so for our communities, our lawyers, our librarians, our students, and ourselves, you know, in the profession broadly to fully appreciate the benefits that we can gather from gated AI and also the problems that can arise from AI applications, we really do, I believe, need to have increased data literacy, ourselves, and we need to be able to have the ability to effect corrections in the legal structural system and in our teaching and in our students' learning, in our own practice to improve outcomes. >> Aslihan Bulut: Thank you, Kim. Emily, I'm curious to hear your perspective on this from a firm librarian, and former president of AALL, how emerging technologies and AI impacts services to your clients. >> Emily Florio: Sure, thank you. Happy to follow Kim, too. You know, law librarians are constantly innovating, and exploring how technologies including AI, machine learning, data analytics, can benefit our institutions. It's -- taking a sort of broader view, it's been especially apparent, you know, with the onset of the pandemic, when all of us went home and had suddenly had far more requests than we did before, whether it was research requests about the pandemic, or resources questions, as far as like, I can't access my login, I'm not in the office, what do I do? You know, we were the tried and true steady along throughout the pandemic. Even when our requests peaked, you know, we still went along and did the requests and made sure that our lawyers had what they needed to, sometimes I think, or I certainly experienced, that we had to do a hard pause on some of the bigger projects that we had ongoing when we had this immediate -- or a pandemic that seemed to be coming along, but then was an immediate shift to being at home, and we had to pause some of our projects. You know, we saw our research requests skyrocket. They did come back down to more normal levels, but it took a while. You know, and amidst all that, always in the background, we're reviewing other tools, we're and sometimes maybe we're not doing a trial, but we're reading up on this new offering and figuring out if it does have a place in our institutions. You know, I'm finding that it's no longer sufficient to know about the tools, or even to have them, but it's really to be competitive and offer what our lawyers need. We need to know how the tools compare to each other. We're relied upon by our lawyers and our the firm's clients, for our expertise and knowledge, even if it's to explain why we have one resource and not another, and that seems to be happening all the time. We can't possibly have everything, so it's knowing why we have one thing over another. You asked if there was something that we were particularly excited about, and I often get really giddy with a colleague of mine, when we added a new tool that was very heavy with litigation analytics. It was something that we -- no, it was during the pandemic. It was something that was paused a little bit, and then we did proceed with where we did release it to our litigation practice, and it was a really great chance to showcase both our team and knowledge and what this product can do. You know, these new offerings from all of these providers or maybe it's not as new as it used to be, but it's new to us, because we now have our hands on it, it makes data points in this vast array of data that Kim talked about, suddenly approachable and reachable, right? Yes, you could get access to the statistics you're looking for, but it would have been a lot of manual calculation, and suddenly, now you have at your fingertips some really great data that you didn't have before, and while these tools do fit a growing need that I don't think is going anywhere, law librarians and our expertise remains paramount, because we know the ins and outs of these tools. We know they can't be treated as gospel, and in many cases, they do require an additional review for accuracy, and that's one place where we shine is the ability to really dig in and find out what's true and maybe what's not quite true, and that will always be a really great opportunity for us is to stay in front of what these tools are and being able to speak to them, even if we don't have them, being able to speak to them. And Kim stole my thunder, but I was going to mention the latest issue of AALL's bi-monthly magazine, AALL Spectrum, and I can probably put it in the chat, too, which has some great examples across library types of how our various members of AALL are really using data analytics, and some of these tools in their day-to-day jobs, so I will leave that and put it in the chat, but it's definitely worth checking out. >> Aslihan Bulut: So I want to pivot to Jennifer. Now I imagine DOJ is at the helm of emerging technologies, data science, and artificial intelligence, but please do share with us your experience from DOJ perspective. >> Jennifer McMahan: Sure, and I too want to say thank you for having me here for this event to honor Jane. It's wonderful to be among these colleagues. DOJ is you know, the biggest law firm in the world, but we are also government, so I'm not sure I could say we're at the forefront of new technology, but as Emily was talking, the first thing that comes to mind for me is litigation analytics. It's very important to what we do. Everything we do is about litigation, and the promise that these tools bring is exciting. You can take something that used to be labor intensive, process of combing through thousands of documents, and instead, you can click a link and get an overview and an analysis of the data, and that gives you more time for higher level research and analysis, but from what we've seen on our staff, at least in terms of litigation, analytics on experts and attorneys, which is what we use the most, it can be a helpful starting point, but doesn't replace the need for that in-depth research even when the data providers are advertising that it can be the end all and be all. So these reports have been most helpful for us when we don't have much time, and we're looking at a prolific expert, and we need to grab that low hanging fruit to find negative treatments of the expert in court, but while we can start with one of these reports, and check it for errors and give something to the attorney quickly, we won't ever tell them that that's everything. When it comes to doing a deep dive to give the attorney a complete picture, there really isn't a substitute for our professional researchers, and I don't blame the analytics providers for that to the extent, you know, they can't overcome the limits of the data. To the extent that the data is complete, consistent and predictable, they do an excellent job, but how often is that the reality? The reality that we have with legal filings for more than 1,000 jurisdictions going back 30 or more years, they all have their own sets of rules on how to name things. For example, we get asked pretty frequently to find cases with the United States as a party, and not only can you find many different ways to represent the United States as a party in itself, they could be suing a department. They could be suing the current head of that department. They could be suing the head of that department from 10 years ago, and so there isn't a good way to do some of that without the researcher knowing how to get at it, and while a motion in limine, for example, related to an expert can be fairly predictable to identify the docket, the outcome of that motion is often not predictable, and as unpredictable as civil litigation is, criminal litigation data is even worse, and it's also hard for us because we care a lot about criminal litigation data, and we are kind of the only ones who are really invested in that it seems like. So we try to advocate as much as we can with these data providers to make them better, and I think we do a really good job of that of saying, you know, this is what we need, and at DOJ, we do have a pretty good seat at the table with them, and they do listen to us and try to take our contributions, and that's why it's, you know, it's great to have this role to be able to advocate for our users who don't necessarily have the time or the expertise or the audience to advocate for themselves and the work that they need to do. I also wanted to mention that for a topical research, for example, comparing different types of cases and loads between jurisdictions or judges, from what we've seen, even though you know, the librarians don't do that as much, the litigation analytics are quite innovative, and I think the best tools combine artificial intelligence with human review and editing and not just depending on the computer, but for comprehensive research on people, which is our specialty, I have a hard time seeing us at a point in the future where automated analysis can do as thorough a job as anyone on our staff, but that is great for job security. >> Aslihan Bulut: Well said, and we're going to stay with you, Jennifer, for this next question. So progress indeed never comes without resources. Where do you think libraries should allocate more resources to better serve the emerging needs of our patrons? And please feel free to provide any examples from your institutions. >> Jennifer McMahan: Well, I think I have to be specific in terms of my own library, because resource allocation must be driven by user needs, and that would be unique to each organization. At DOJ libraries, our most important resource is our staff. We have a staff of about 50 people right now, and I could probably put dozens more to work if we were truly able to meet the information needs of the whole department, or at least their research needs. Our reference staff is in constant demand, because over the years, we have figured out what our patrons need the most and give it to them. Even if what we provide doesn't look like traditional library services, and our most popular services didn't necessarily start with being asked for them, but by recognizing the greater need behind what we were being asked. For example, once upon a time, a couple decades ago, attorneys would ask us to find publications written by opposing counsel's experts, and we saw that as a greater need for information that they could use to impeach opposing counsel's experts, and we turned that into a vetting service way before any of the legal research vendors were advertising their expert profiles. And currently, and in the future, I see a greater need for current awareness services beyond just forwarding automated alerts, but taking those alerts from dozens of different sources and turning them into curated newsletters, news and other content providers have removed their content from the aggregators and struck out on their own, and there are independent web-based sources of unique content that are popping up every day. We use a service to help us create newsletters, and it saves us hours of time, but it is not completely automated, and I don't see that being automated completely in the future. Information professionals are uniquely qualified to find the best sources, sift through them and pull out the most important content to send their end users, so you can imagine 100 attorneys skimming lists of articles from multiple sources for those few pieces that might be important to them, or you could imagine one librarian who really knows their work, pulling them out and sending them to them, and this is another service that we've recognized and offered more and more without being asked. And in terms of deciding how to allocate resources for both people and collections, we found that having the right metrics to evaluate them is the key to making good decisions. It's time consuming to set up methods of data collection and recording data on every question we have, and tracking statistics on all of our databases is not easy to fit in with all of our other work, and it's to be honest, not very fun, but knowing how many articles were downloaded from a particular database, and how many questions we've answered on what topics and how many questions we get from one office versus another, that helps us justify our resources on a regular basis, and also prevents us from making decisions in a vacuum. Especially in the government, we could be asked at any time to answer questions about what we're spending and why, and every time we've been asked, and because we put the work in starting years ago, we're able to answer those questions, and we don't lose resources as a result, even when budgets are tight. And it's not, of course, just about knowing the numbers, but also knowing what our patrons need, and I think that comes from talking to them, attending their meetings when we can, providing training and orientations. We get so many -- so much insight into what they're doing by having them come to our trainings and asking questions, and of course, following what's happening with DOJ in the news, and that helps us to inform our decisions. You know, for example, if we have a database that might get low usage, but we know the content in there, we can't get anywhere else, and for one office, it's absolutely crucial, then we know we need to keep that, so we need to know as much as possible about our users. And lastly, I want to add that flexibility and resource allocation has been vital for us. We have a core collection that we preserve at all costs, but we leave flexibility in our budget for emerging needs. In the last two years that meant we were able to pivot towards the purchase of several e-book collections for a clientele that was not so interested in e-books before last spring. Now they're hugely popular and through the resources we've procured, we're able to provide them more often than not when we get asked for them. So max telework was a true test of how we've grown our electronic collection, and I would say other than the Solicitor General's office who always need print, we've been able to meet most user needs from home, and that will affect how we staff our physical locations in the future. >> Aslihan Bulut: Thank you. Emily, how would you say resource allocation is handled in in firm libraries? >> Emily Florio: And I'm actually going to -- I will get to that. I will get to firms, specifically. I'm actually going to lean fairly heavily on a couple of real life examples from the AALL State of the Profession report that just came out somewhat recently. I thought that might be a good way to look at some of the trends and changes that we're seeing from our members firsthand. I'll put that in the chat, too, when I'm done. Among some of the findings in the report was that, as Jennifer mentioned, many library law libraries have updated their collection development policies to really emphasize selecting electronic resources over print. I know I was certainly experiencing that before the pandemic, but I think we've seen that, you know, really pivot, and frankly, having to reallocate resources that fit this fully remote world that we were living in for a bit, and so more broadly, still a focus on digitizing collections across the board as well. I know in some public law libraries, we heard that they may be realigning resources to support partnerships with other organizations, whether it's public libraries or legal aid organizations to support access to justice. And I think across the board, we're seeing a continued focus and commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, so more and more law libraries are allocating resources to trainings or outreach whether it's on how to improve DEI or emotional intelligence, and in ways to create a more inclusive law library environment for staff and patrons. I know personally, I think, where what I've experienced the most, is being able to allocate resources to hiring the right people at the right time. I've, in the 15 or 16 years or so I've done this, I've sometimes had the liberty to wait longer for the right hire, you know, who maybe is this very seasoned professional that just slots right into the team and, you know, takes charge. In other cases, that hasn't been the -- hasn't been in the cards, and I've had to hire maybe a newbie librarian, maybe new to law librarianship completely, and I think hiring for the right -- hiring the right person is always something that I've tried to commit to, even if it means that we have to give them a little bit more training to get them to where they need to be. I feel that we are completely valuable and skilled experts at what we do. I wouldn't be doing this or here today or past president of AALL if I didn't feel strongly about this profession. You know, we're versatile. We're quick learners. We're inquisitive by nature, which makes us a really great fit for projects, resources, technologies, whatever comes our way, even if it's maybe outside of our, you know, library or research bubble. Having skilled researchers who are also exceptional presenters or trainers also benefits any institution and provides a well-rounded team member who can really tackle whatever comes your way, so I think we're, you know, the staff, you know, is really where we shine, and we are a great resource, even if we use the term resource to talk about databases and books and things, I think are our greatest resources is ourselves. >> Aslihan Bulut: That's that is indeed true. So David, how would you respond to this resource allocation question? Again, I am going to tap into your administrator and purse string holder position there. >> David Mao: Thanks. Well, a couple of just quick points. I agree with both what Jennifer and Emily have said in terms of looking at their institutions, and what stuck out to me in their answers is really in terms of serving patrons better. It's really about investing in staff, right? That came across clearly to me. I'm not sure if that's what your intent was to me, but and then the trick is, then, how do you do that, from an administrative level when you have so many competing interests? I think the point that Jennifer made in terms of using data to show whatever you need, whether it be staff or anything else is truly the key, and as administrator, that's what I would look to? What does the data show, right? If you're trying to justify a position or you're trying to justify anything, I need the hard science, if you will, behind it. And then just to drill down two more points quickly, just to drill down a little bit on your question, I would say and this is probably the theme that I've detected from all of these questions, and that that runs throughout is really investing in technology. You heard me say that my answer to the first question in the second question on data science and artificial intelligence that it was all about technology, and so I really think in terms of serving patrons, now again, I'm speaking from the perspective of working in an academic law library or working with an academic Law Library, I should say. I'm not the law librarian here. I have a terrific colleague who does a wonderful job as the law librarian here at Georgetown. But speaking from that perspective, I would say investing in technology, because it's that technology that will constantly allow not only the staff, but also the patrons to be able to do what it is that they do. You know, all of our students have computers, they have tablets, whatever, but they're going to constantly be developing and constantly need to know how to develop more in that technology, and so we as an institution have to invest in that technology to be able to keep up with that. I guess the other point I would make is that, as we've experienced, and it's been mentioned a couple of times, the last two years now. We're going on two years with this pandemic, that technology has been increasingly important, and particularly in the audio/visual context, right? Not just thinking of technology that we normally think of, but from that perspective, we probably should be thinking about it more, because, you know, quite honestly, even if the pandemic and we know, it'll go away, the mode of operation that we're in now is probably not, and it's here with us, and so we have to think about that. And finally, I guess the last point I'd make is really thinking about serving our patrons. We may need to think about investing in that access, so how do we provide our patrons access to that material? Again, through technology, right? -- but even if it's physical access, it's through some sort of technology, you know? -- if it's a self-checkout station, for example, or a book locker where you can access the information, it's technology, but more importantly, I would say virtual access. Emily mentioned the Access to Justice, things like that, you know? How do we provide that information? This is certainly something that the Library of Congress and the Library of Congress was very committed to or is very committed to, which is providing that access to that information, the legal information that the people need out there, so those are the things that I would say would need to be have some focus and some resource allocation. Thanks. >> Aslihan Bulut: Wonderful. Thank you, and we're going to continue on the emerging technology theme here, but focus now on collections, so I will start off this question with Kurt. How have emerging technologies impacted collection development at your institution? And also, do you think there's any product or service that is a lost art, something that law library patrons or staff have lost an appreciation for, as a result of our shared emphasis on the adoption of the latest technology? >> Kurt Carroll: Big Question. These are all big questions. So sort of for -- >> Aslihan Bulut: You have five minutes. >> Kurt Carroll: I have five minutes? Okay. I'll talk faster. So for Library of Congress, you know, we are a special case. We serve as the nation's custodian of legal and legislative collections from all countries and legal systems in the world. Despite technological changes, we're going to continue to acquire, preserve, present and secure, you know, all of our print and microform and digital collections. Other -- you know, as other libraries turn to technology for access to information and e-resources, it's put a greater responsibility on the Library of Congress to collect and retain material more broadly. I do get offers from academic libraries who are losing space, if I can take their collections, and we do. We do fill in gaps from academics, to ensure there is one law -- one U.S. law library, and we don't have intentions of discarding that material, so I guess an answer to this question is emerging technologies have certainly increased our workload at the Library of Congress, but I'd like to think we've become more efficient. You know, we can't just flick a switch and stop collecting print and move to electronic. Our institution in general, I think has moved -- or the law library has moved kind of slowly in transitioning to e-resources. We do -- there is a reliance in DC on our print collections. Even if attorneys and clerks outside of the library are using, you know, whether it's Bloomberg or Westlaw or LexisNexis, to find a law, they're still coming to us to see the print resources so that -- and I think that's going to continue, and we'll be here for that, so we haven't changed our commitment to print. However, we're not a museum of books, you know? We're not an archive. You know, we do have patrons. We have a reference desk, and we produce research reports. It was Jennifer had mentioned earlier, before the pandemic, there was not much interest in e-books, at least in the law library, and I think I've just in networking, I've seen that in some of the academics, but this this fiscal year, we are adding e-book approval plans for foreign jurisdictions. Some of this is from staff demand, but some of it is from our acquisition staff, our field offices. One of our field offices in Jakarta had pointed out that academic publishers and governments across Southeast Asia, they're moving away from print, so if we want to collect, preserve and have access to some of this content, we're going to have to go to e-books, and we're doing that. In South America we've started adding separate approval plans to some of our vendors just to acquire e-books, because we realized last year, we missed a lot of material, because the titles just were not being published in print, so we're -- we have, I guess, two paths for the collection, but the pandemic, the one benefit was, it did underscore that -- and this happened before, of course, in the print collection -- not all patrons can come into the reading room, you know? We knew this. The pandemic exacerbated that, but it did depend -- the pandemic did allow us to, you know, bring up this -- we had this long smoldering idea of a foreign law legal gazette guide. It existed on spreadsheets. Some of it was our paraprofessionals and techs were using it, so they could track the collection so they could find things when asked, but we were able to turn it into a database that's accessible globally to see what our holdings are, things that were just not supported in the catalog in the OPAC, and we've also accelerated the move away from microfilm to digitization for preservation. So further than that, though, LC's collections, we've always benefited from copyright deposit, and receipts from the cataloguing and publication program, but we're seeing changes in those programs, special relief agreements for copyright, and e-deposited works instead of cataloging and publication, instead of a publisher sent as a hardcopy, we're seeing e-deposit. So what's really affecting our collection, development and service, you know, is a special relief agreement may grant us access to a publisher's database in lieu of depositing the print work, but not everything that publishes are in the databases, you know? And are the recommending authors catching these gaps in the collection? And once we do notice there's a gap, is it too late? Is it too late to get the print? Is it too late for that research report we have a deadline on? You know, we're solving some problems internally. The library started a stacks -- a system called stacks which allows the library to provide access to rights-restricted digital content in the library's permanent collection, but again, we still have the challenge of getting access to these resources outside of the standard hours of a reading room. It's been a -- before I came to the library, I was a librarian in the Senate, so I was -- I used the Library of Congress as a patron, and as an as a librarian for Congress at the same time. I would like to see the expanded campus for the Library of Congress, you know, kind of like your city or county public library where you have a population base who can access e-resources that may be behind a paywall, but because you're part of the community, you can use them. You know, we have congressional staffers can borrow physical books, and there are some opportunities to borrow e-books, but it's a very curated collection, but in general, the licensed content of rights-restricted material that you would find our stack system are still restricted to users within the library's network, and that's in contrast to the, you know, open access material that is available through our electronic resources catalog, so we're making more things available. We still have challenges, still a lot of work. As far as lost art, this is a fun question. I'm glad this is on here. I think for lost art, I have the telephone for me, you know, which is funny, because I tend not to answer my phone anymore, but when I want something, you know, you could -- I've seen colleagues do it. I've seen it -- seen staffers here in my division spend, you know, half a day doing emails or can't reach anybody and, you know, or looking online for an answer, and I was like well, you know, did you just call someone over there, you know? You get a librarian on the line, they'll give you the world, so don't forget the telephone. I had bantered around this question a little bit with some colleagues, Marilyn Rice, who recently retired from Georgetown, and she liked the question too, and she actually said index cards, whether you use them for creating records, cheat sheets, or even just she said, insurance during a presentation, if your screen goes dark, you've got some notes. And Marilyn, of course, has moved on. She retired in June, and she's now a doctoral student, so good for her, and then Lucia Alanakova [phonetic] at Yale, she said pen and paper, and, you know, we had to laugh, because everyone's getting to the point, we can't even read our own handwriting anymore, so but that's -- yeah, that's my lost arts. >> Aslihan Bulut: I love that. I especially love -- we should have that as a slogan that you get a librarian on the line, they'll give you the world. That has to be printed on a button or a t-shirt. Kim, may I ask you to tackle this question as well from an academic perspective? >> Kim Nayyer: Sure, Aslihan. Thank you for this question. And, you know, my answer's probably not going to be all that different from Kurt's, and Kurt, that was really interesting. I didn't know but your e-book approval plans. That is interesting. And, you know, kind of similar to what you've said, in a roundabout way the technology that has had the greatest impact for us has really come about or increased because of the pandemic. I think, honestly, the pandemic really has had the most significant impact on collection development for us. As others have said, it did force us to adopt more electronic format material, but it also prompted reevaluation of budgets, which of course is of paramount consideration when you're looking at library collection development, and so reevaluation of budgets means in turn, that we have to reevaluate the way that we select materials and our collection priorities, including format as well as the subject-based priorities, and the pandemic also relates to technology changes in collection development, by influencing the way that we more closely evaluate data, use data for example, or price increases and trends in pricing of particular packages for example, to see how we can best spend the limited dollars that we have. And, you know, at Cornell, especially in more recent months, it's also prompting the understanding that collections can be built and curated as well as acquired, so digitization, repositories, focusing energies and priorities there. Even curation of research and resource guides is a form of collection, building a colle -- making your collections available and accessible. Service initiatives like the Legal Research Institute, that Jane Sanchez have had the foresight to develop, those kinds of things can contribute to the collections that law libraries make available. And also, all of these factors in combination, I think they've caused us in libraries generally, law libraries generally, to just really examine our strategies, our collection strategies, the ratio of the licensed versus the actually owned materials, where, you know, we're feeling that pressure as we may need to look to cancellations, and then realize that if we cancel something, we no longer have access to that anymore, so in that sense, we're in some respects, appreciating as you know, as Kurt has alluded to, as well appreciating the value of certain print holdings more as they're not going to disappear. And, you know, I'd like to think that some of this has actually maybe revived the art, not a lost art, perhaps, backseat art of selection and collection curation, creating resources for teaching and research, and working with multiple formats. And, you know, Emily alluded to DEI and others have as well, and I think this is an area where Cornell Law Library, at least, human librarians, including our most recent hire, who has an expertise in a specialty in inclusivity, have been able to help us build more inclusive, anti-racist research and teaching collections as well as we're as a library system, focusing on ensuring the accessibility for users of varying abilities of our research and teaching collections, and then we're also looking at ensuring inclusivity in points of access and catalog records for some of our collections. And if I look to the future, and where I think technology can influence collection and development more, I'm hoping for -- I'm hoping that technology, in combination with other things in the environment, will push collaborative collection development, more collaboration across institutions. Kurt mentioned digitization, rather than microforms, and I'd like to see more of that. I'd like to see technology, or perhaps more precisely, the principle of technological neutrality, encourage digitization, and even push clarity and copyright law about the scope of library lending when it comes to digitized material. So I think, you know, if we carefully plan and also carefully collaborate and carefully comply with copyright law, we can ensure that we can preserve print material, make available digital and digitized holdings, particularly with special collections and exhibits, for example, and I think we'll see those things become more common. >> Aslihan Bulut: Thank you, so this is my last question for our panelists, and I'll actually start it off with David and anyone else can jump in. What advice would you give to a library student about how to prepare for a career in law librarianship? And what advice would you give to a seasoned professional on professional development and on how to stay up to date? >> David Mao: Thanks, Aslihan and big question, so let me try to be succinct here. I will make three points. I think the first point I'd make is it really doesn't matter whether you are new or a seasoned professional is to be prepared for lifelong learning. I think that's just a given for us in this profession, and we can see that in all the changes in technology, right? -- in cataloguing, or even in the development of Westlaw and Lexis over the last however many years and probably more so in the last five years. The point is that it's constantly changing, and so in order to stay abreast and be active, you have to be ready to adapt. And, you know, as a side plug here, I would say one of the greatest ways to be able to continue that lifelong learning is through collaboration and getting to know and work with others in the profession, and here's my plug in that's to a AALL, IALL, and CALL, and certainly all the other associations that are represented here, by our viewers. Be a part of that. Join and participate, actively participate and learn that way. The second point I would make is to think expansively with respect to professional development. We talked a little bit about professional development in an earlier question, but what I would say here, and this is something that I always said, when I was at the Library of Congress working with the LDP and the CDT, you know, actively seek out experiences and training that is not directly related to what you're doing. It could be, you know, in other parts of your library, or even in the larger institution as a whole because all of that experience will help you in some way or another, so really, you have to think expansively. And then the third point I would make to all of my colleagues here is be open to unexpected opportunities, right? There's so many different jobs and different kinds of things that are available now. You know, if you wanted to, if you thought yourself to be a reference librarian, well, that might change. You might eventually want to become a cataloger, because you've now experienced cataloging in a new way that you're really into cataloging, and you can make that transition really, if you follow some of the other principles that I've mentioned in terms of being expansive. I mean, I'll just finish by saying using myself as an example, I went to library school with the goal of being an academic law librarian and, you know, 25 years later, I can tell you that that hasn't happened yet. I haven't been an academic law librarian, but I can truly say that I've had interesting, varied and, you know, pretty fantastic opportunities, and so that's what I would say, you know, be open to unexpected opportunities. Thanks. >> Aslihan Bulut: That's wonderful. Anyone else would like to chime in on this question? >> Emily Florio: I have something very briefly, I promise. I like the way this question is worded is because it it's expecting that the student knows that law librarianship is a career. I would say to someone that is a library student period, law librarianship is an option. You do not necessarily need a JD. I do not have one. As David said, please join AALL. We have a reduced rate for students. Through that membership, you get access to many new people that may not only be your peers, but your friends, lifelong friends, and potential employers, more importantly, in some cases. And we do have a wonderful mentor program. If you are someone that is new to law librarianship or new to librarianship generally, we have a really wonderful group of people, including myself, willing to be mentors to new folks that want to join our ranks. >> Aslihan Bulut: Well, there you go. No better mentor than the former president of AALL. Jennifer, I saw you had unmuted. Did you want to chime in? >> Jennifer McMahan: Yes, and David and Emily already covered some of what I was going to, which is great, but for library students, I wanted to add, in addition to the obvious legal research classes that your school offers, make sure to take a government documents class, if you have that opportunity. Even if you don't become a law librarian, that information will be useful wherever you are, and I would also say kind of reiterating what David said, to experience as many different kinds of libraries and roles within the library you can. When I was in library school, I worked in an academic library, and I did a practicum in a museum library. I did cataloging at both and I also did reference in my regular job, so through that experience and taking the federal library Institute at Catholic, I came away with a very clear goal of being a reference librarian at a government library, and unlike David, that's exactly what I did for the last couple decades. In terms of staying up to date, librarians are so fortunate to have colleagues in our field who share their knowledge freely, so I have to give a specific shout out to some resources I find really helpful. Tara Calishain's Research Buzz, Sabrina Pacifici's Be Specific, and PinHawk has a couple different newsletters for librarians and law technology that are really great, and it's not free but AALL's KnowItAALL weekday newsletter is worth the price of membership alone. I put out a newsletter for the department every Friday and professional development newsletter for our staff every month, and these are the resources that typically give me the most content for both kinds of newsletters. And lastly, I would be negligent if I didn't mention for federal librarians that make use of FedLink. It's a great resource for training and also for collaboration with colleagues and to be able to, to give back to the greater federal library community as opposed to, I guess, as we were talking about earlier, kind of just keeping it within your own staff, it really gives you a broader perspective. >> Aslihan Bulut: Thank you. Kim, did you want to -- I saw you unmuted, too. >> Kim Nayyer: Yes, sure, and others have said many of the things I was going to say, so I won't repeat those, but what I do want to say something to students. If you don't see yourself reflected or represented in the profession, don't let that stop you from joining. We want you to succeed. We want you, your ideas. And, you know, for colleagues who do recruit students, I think we can have to continually revise our thinking about who's included in the profession, and who's not, both from an equity and inclusion perspective, and also, in terms of the kind of work that's done in law libraries. I think if we're recruiting, you know, in traditional venues, like law schools and law libraries, we can also look -- or law schools, or library schools -- we can also look beyond those, and we can look at competencies rather than credentials, and, you know, commit to encouraging the professional growth of either new entrants or existing staff who want to, you know, in alignment with their priorities and their interests. And again, to colleagues, I'd say, you know, just look to others who are different from yourself. Look at others who are doing different things, and even look to other fields of work to inspire your own creativity and growth. >> Aslihan Bulut: Well, great, this concludes our conversational part of the lecture, so now we are ready for some questions from the our audience, and I know some have already arrived in our Q&A, so I'll read the question, and please feel free to unmute and respond. So the first question is the title of librarian often has the perception of someone who shelves and hands out books. How are you showing your leadership what you and your staff do that goes beyond books and Google? So who would like to take a stab at this first question? >> David Mao: Let me start then maybe if I might, since the question was addressed, how do you show leadership? And so in my current role, I do have the library as part of a larger enterprise here in terms of being responsible for it, and so I would just quickly make the point, and I said it before, what do the data show? Right? You know, if you're going to be -- I totally understand the question, right? Librarians have -- that word library is in librarians has a different connotation, perhaps, but it really comes down to what you're showing, and how you're doing it, how you're providing the service. I want to reiterate to everyone here that librarianship as a general rule, we should think of it as a service industry, and it is that service that we're providing that will show what it is that we're doing, so that's how I'd answer that. >> Aslihan Bulut: Great. Anyone else want to add to that? Okay, so next question is, can you speak to law librarians involvement in the access to justice endeavors in the future? >> Emily Florio: I will do a plug for AALL's current president Diane Rodriguez, who appointed a special committee this year that's called the advancing access to justice special committee that is -- and I'm just going to read the purpose, so apologies for looking on the other screen, which is to promote law librarians and legal information professionals and their vital role in access to justice by providing timely, authoritative legal information, resources and services. You know, this is something that I think we see in some of our library types more than others, but certainly we have all library types represented in this special committee. I think, espec -- at least within AALL in the next year and moving forward, we will see a continued role in finding other ways that we can both promote ourselves and the importance of access to justice. >> Aslihan Bulut: Fantastic, and this next question, actually, Emily, is based on something you had shared earlier. So hiring the right people at the right times sounds like a fit policy. Can you expand on that? >> Emily Florio: Sure, and this might be more of a personal preference, but in the hiring I've done in my time managing teams, I have hired both people who check all the boxes, but maybe aren't the best fit because their interests just don't align with the rest of the team, or I've hired people because of the candidates I was given, and maybe didn't necessarily -- no, that's not what I want to say -- I have made the decision to both hire someone who checks all the boxes, and at other times, maybe didn't have someone check all the boxes, you know, the credentials and the years of experience and all of that, but their personality, their interests, and their inquisitiveness made them the right hire, and so I really encourage hiring managers to think outside the box. It's not always checking the boxes. It's certainly for me, I find value in sometimes waiting extra time to hire the right candidate rather than the right now candidate. >> Aslihan Bulut: Great. Next question is any thoughts on the argument on calling ourselves Legal Information Professionals instead of law librarians? Should we strive for a combination of both? Does this debate impact how we bring on board a new set of professionals or be a vital part of current trends and conversations? I know that this was a big AALL survey, wasn't it a few years back, given it involved, I believe, changing the name of the organization? Kim, did you want to chime in? >> Kim Nayyer: Sure, I can take a try at this one, and actually, for somewhat similar reasons is as well as reasons that my institution, the Canadian Association of Law Libraries is currently in the last year has been under taking name, renaming discussions as well, and you know, it's funny because I, whereas a few years ago, I would have definitely leaned toward legal information professional or legal information specialist. I'm less wedded to any particular name now, because so much of it is really, in what we do, and the kind of data to the kind of service that we provide. My title is Edward Cornell Law Librarian, but I'm not the person anyone should come to if they want research help. They should come to one of the people who specialize in that work. I'm not the one that they should come to, if they want resources catalog. They should go to our specialists in that area. I think, you know, there is meaning in the word library, and there is meaning in the word librarian. I think we need to retain that as part of the profession. I do a lot of work with copyright, for example, and there are specific provisions in copyright legislation in the U.S. and in Canada and other countries that give powers, that give rights to libraries and not others, and so there are very good reasons for retaining some of this language in the title, but I think so much of it is really related to what we're actually doing in our forward-looking activities. For example, our current position that's posted, the title is flexible, depending on that, that successful candidate's skills. It could be a data specialist. It could be a data librarian. It could be a data scientist. So you know, I vote for flexibility in this regard. >> Aslihan Bulut: Thank you. As Kurt said, e-books are a big part of our future. What are law libraries' role in teaching digital literacy and ensuring digital access to all populations? I know, you know, expanding access is a big part of our strategic plan here at LC, and so in every initiative that we try to embark upon, we try to look at that initiative from a perspective of how can we expand access to this particular resource? You know, how can we digitize something that'll serve the most number of users? But I'd love to, you know, I'd love to turn it to our panelists to see if they have anything they can add. >> David Mao: Maybe I'll just say briefly that I think it's a role for all libraries. It doesn't really matter the type of library that you're in, whether you're a firm library, an academic library, or a court library, whatever. I think there's a way that each of those types of institution plays in providing that access in some way. >> Aslihan Bulut: Our next question is, so this has been a wonderful presentation, a breath of fresh air. Many of our organizations are currently facing numerous retirements and burnout fatigue among the staff who remain. How do you imagine this will impact our profession? And how can we use that challenge to thrive? We definitely are experiencing attrition at LC. And as I'm sure all of you can relate, recruitment takes such a long time, and onboarding takes time and losing that institutional memory for someone who's been at an institution for so long, and not being able to, you know, overlap the person who's retiring with the person who might be replacing them, is always a huge challenge, but I'd love to, again, hear what our panelists can share. >> Emily Florio: One thing that comes to mind is sort of an indirect response to the question. I think in some ways, the pandemic has been unchalle -- it has been a complete challenge for everyone. In some ways, it has allowed many of us, including me personally, to rethink how we go about whether it's our day-to-day personal lives, work lives, or even team lives. In some ways, I think it's allowed us to rethink how we work and what's important that we do and what maybe isn't as important. It's allowed us to reprioritize projects or initiatives. Going back to something that was mentioned earlier, right? -- using statistics to support why we should be doing one thing or not another, why we should be circulating one book or have a print collection or not have a print collection. I don't want to say that it will be easy for us moving forward with burnout and retirements, but I guess I challenge everyone to try and put a positive spin on it and to think, how can we make the most of this situation? You know, in some ways, I would also say that it is potentially a welcome opportunity for some newer managers or newer people to step up into roles, not just managers, but any roles, so it's sort of an -- it is an indirect answer to the question, but trying to think positively on how we can move forward and certainly lean on each other, but also just think about what we're doing and what what's showing our value in bringing value to our organizations. >> David Mao: Can I just jump in? I would add, I think that's a terrific answer, Emily, and I would add that we've seen in the news, this is not just in the library profession, it's in the world writ large, right? Every area seems to be experiencing this, and so one opportunity, I think, for libraries would perhaps be to look and see what others are doing to address this, right? Not to say that just because another industry is doing, we should follow suit, but this is also a time that we could also look outside of libraries and see how others are dealing with this challenge, and perhaps learning from those experiences as well. >> Aslihan Bulut: Thank you. Our next question is one of the best classes I had in library school was with a professor who listed job titles that are relevant to the skill sets we were developing, such as information architect, knowledge manager, data services specialist, etc. Would changing the job title help with recruitment? >> Kurt Carroll: I can probably take that. Library of Congress has more librarians than anyone else. And we have librarians who their job titles says collection specialist, or cataloger, so we do within the job announcements and in the descriptions and in directories, and in general, we do actually indicate what someone's specialty is, what area of expertise they have. So staff, at least for us do get recognized for either, you know, what they pursued education-wise, what their career path was. You know, we don't just have, you know, in, like, in my division, there are five librarians, and we're all just -- our titles, you know, Kurt Carroll, Librarian. We have collection specialist, we have catalogers, we have curators, so this issue certainly came up when I was in grad school. I've never been bothered by the term law librarian, but I do understand that, you know, there is a perception of is it just books? You know, that list of titles that you just put in the question from your, you know, professor, which of those would be most descriptive of all of us, you know? I think that's the one concern is, how do you pick what's the best description? In five years is it going to sound like we're all paralegals? You know, I do see kind of that division. You know, I have friends who are paralegals, and they provide -- they feel they're providing information, resources to the attorneys they work for, but they also know that they're not law librarians, and they do see that distinction within their firms, so I don't have an answer exactly, but I can tell you that we do indicate people's specialties here at our institution. >> Aslihan Bulut: I think we have time for maybe just one more question. And -- >> Jennifer McMahan: Can I just jump in on that -- >> Aslihan Bulut: Oh, sure. >> Jennifer McMahan: -- question? >> Aslihan Bulut: Yes, please. >> Jennifer McMahan: At the risk of sounding like get off my lawn, and being old school, but I feel like the term librarian has a trust associated with it for the people who -- the public who don't really under -- maybe don't understand what they do, but the term librarian, they trust that and I think in an age when there is maybe a lowering of trust in many professions, I think it's still meaningful, particularly for a front-facing public services person to use that term means something, and I think it's a little bit different when you take on all the other roles that librarians can take on. >> Aslihan Bulut: So I'm going to attempt maybe one minute on this last question for anyone to jump in. Can you speak to the JD requirement for working in law libraries and specialties in law librarianships that will exist in the future? >> David Mao: I'll give you a quick answer from my years of experience, I don't think it's necessary. >> Kim Nayyer: I'll give a quick answer as well. As I said before, I think really competencies can make up for a degree. The JD has value in the -- for a teaching librarian in that they -- a student will have seen that they've gone through the same course of study, but there are many ways to organize a library staff. I'm speaking now as an administrator, and I don't see that JD is essential for all the positions in in a law library. >> Aslihan Bulut: Thank you, and I'm sorry, we didn't get to all of the questions in the queue, but I'd like to thank you all so much for joining us today, and thank you to our panelists for their insightful remarks on the future of law libraries and librarianship. I'm sure Jane would have appreciated this tribute to her legacy as a leader and innovator in the profession of law librarianship. I would like to close by thanking the American Association of Law Libraries for co-sponsoring this event, and invite you to visit law.gov to register for our upcoming webinars including our celebration of Human Rights Day on December 9th, which will explore the intersection of healthcare and human rights, and to conclude today's event. I'm inviting you to stay with us a moment so we can all watch a memorial tribute video to Jane together. Thank you and have a wonderful rest of the day. >> Jane Sanchez: Not long ago, libraries were a place, a place that housed print collections and staff, and provided workspace for research. A library without books was almost unthinkable. We are undergoing the exciting development of a new and bold strategic plan. Our new plan is focused on our users, customers, patrons, creators, filmmakers, authors, copyright registrants, and anyone who can benefit from what the library has to offer. That change in focus in and of itself represents a huge shift for us. We're not looking outward, but we're considering what our users and our potential users need from us. I am excited to be part of the continuum of change in the library profession, and excited to see where it takes us together. As President John F. Kennedy once said, change is the law of life, and those who look only to the past or present, are certain to miss the future. Let's not miss the future. Thank you.