The Ginger (Law) Librarian

According to Dictionary.com, Palimpsest is defined as: noun 1. a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text In the case of most law libraries, the "other text" is now electronic. As late as 2015, I was still in denial about the transition . Many of my blog posts have centered around the benefits of print ( here , here , here , here ). I still love print, and I still believe that there is a beauty in the serendipity of exploring the stacks. But even physically exploring the stacks is less relevant today. For example, our catalog now shows a preview of the books on the shelf near a book that we are interested in. When performing a search for Divergent Paths by Richard Posner, the following virtual browse display shows the books nearby: Budget constraints coupled with patron preference for electronic access means that our print collections are dwindling. There's no use romanticizing print while...

As law school budgets continue to shrink, it's not unreasonable to presume that many law libraries are coming under increased scrutiny. Law school administrators cannot touch faculty salaries or law student financial aid. When a dean looks at a law school budget , the biggest expenditure after faculty salaries is the library, and many must now wonder "what are all those people doing with all that money?" Accordingly, one of the budget-cutting measures may be to consider  combining the law library with the university library . Historically, as the heart of the law school, law school libraries have functioned apart from the greater university library community. In a 1957 study, forty of the forty-one responding law libraries did not want to be considered part of the university library system or be a part of its administrative structure, even if they currently were. This position was codified through section 602(a) of the ABA standards, which requires law schools to “hav...