Group items tagged

Last year just 7 percent of librarians mostly or totally disagreed with recent decisions made regarding the library. This year the figure was 16 percent. Similarly, in 2008, a mere 3 percent were dissatisfied with their job. In 2009, 8 percent were unhappy.

One might think that the library's continued work in assisting marketing efforts -- 62 percent of respondents said the library is their firm's main source for marketing research -- might upset librarians trained to research statutes and legal issues. But the problem isn't the work, say several library chiefs; it's the recognition that comes with it. Or more often, doesn't come.

Still, librarians have become tougher, more successful negotiators when it comes to renewing contracts with publishers -- thanks in no small part to the metrics they get from new tracking software.

now there's commercially available tracking software -- like Onelog, from the U.K.-based company Info Technology Supply Ltd., and Advanced Productivity Software LookUp Precision.

A third package mentioned by some library chiefs was Research Monitor from Priory Solutions.

costs for electronic re­sources other than LexisNexis and Westlaw rose in 2008, with the average firm spending just over $1 million, compared to some $929,000 in 2007. (Lexis and Westlaw spending decreased slightly.)

it's no shock that more firms are starting to ask a question that, up until now, seemed almost blasphemous: Lexis or Westlaw? Last year just 12 percent of firms said they intended to move to a single-vendor strategy. This year, 31 percent did.

Multimillion-dollar knowledge management systems were something that more than a few firms invested in. Newer platforms, such as Microsoft SharePoint -- which five library chiefs praised as a tool that made their work easier and three more planned to launch in 2010 -- just do it better. "SharePoint lets us splice and dice pieces of information, creating all these little repositories without going through IT or ten years of programming," says one library head. "You want to create a database full of Madoff stuff? There, it's done. And anyone can access it through a Web browser."

Five other firms gave a shout-out to Ozmosys' eponymous service, which helps them provide personalized news delivery to users.

Debevoise started using Ozmosys last September. Since then, some 500 of the firm's 750 attorneys have signed up for the service.

The Full Survey: The Librarian's Expanding Role Electronic Resources Staffing Finances

Alerts are another tool in your content control arsenal. Any wiki user may request an alert at the wiki or page level.

One aspect of SharePoint wikis that is not readily apparent is that each wiki page is a specially formatted Web-part page. As such, given the appropriate permissions, you can add your own Web parts to create a hybrid wiki page. At my firm we've used this trick, in conjunction with a custom workflow, to automatically add Web parts to each new wiki page as it is created

The adoption and use of wikis within law firms follows an evolutionary path from indifference to skepticism, to partial, then full adoption. The rate at which a firm moves along this adoption curve will depend both on how quickly legal professionals embrace the belief that collaborative authorship can efficiently produce high-quality reference materials, as well as how effectively technical professionals implement the tools for control and organization of the authorship process that lawyers demand.