Not long ago, the law library was “a place”. It housed printed materials and staff and provided work space for research. Lawyers went there to use books and consult librarians to locate and complete assignments. Today Eleanor Windsor and Ron Friedmann report that the notion of a modern law library is very different, shaped by the skills of specialized researchers and information managers rather than by bookshelves and bound volumes.
How many times have you wondered how to do a task or work with software? You feel wonderful once you have found a colleague who could share their “know-how” about how to complete that task more efficiently or how to implement an applications that does not have a manual that makes sense to you. Lorette S.J. Weldon focuses on four factors to consider when you want to share your knowledge on your own: cost; timing; equipment and global presentation.
Lorette S.J. Weldon examines how SharePoint is used within the library to facilitate the coordination of collaboration, capturing and organizing “corporate” knowledge, and organizing digital content. She also reviews the results from her survey, “SharePoint Usage in the Library” which demonstrated how librarians could program their department’s SharePoint site without code.
Conrad J. Jacoby provides an overview of the New York LegalTech show and conference, long one of the preeminent opportunities to catch a glimpse of the future of legal technology. Conrad highlights how the conference provides a surprisingly accurate snapshot of litigation support, electronic discovery, and even the health of the legal industry as a whole.
This guide by Marcus P. Zillman showcases the latest world wide web resources for discovering new knowledge on and understanding about developments with regard to the New Economy. The rapid changes in government transparency policies have resulted in the release of large volumes of data pertinent to researchers that public, advocacy and corporate entities are publishing to the web.
This is Nicole L. Black’s primer for the legal profession on an emerging technology which is defined as a “type of computing that is comparable to grid computing, [and] relies on sharing computing resources rather than having local servers or personal devices to handle applications. The goal of cloud computing is to apply traditional supercomputing power (normally used by military and research facilities) to perform tens of trillions of computations per second.”
With the recent announcement that UK law firm Eversheds will launch its own outsourcing business, Ron Friedmann addresses the question of what exactly is law firm outsourcing, and how does it differ from where lawyers are located.
Sarah Rhodes discusses the monumental challenge of preserving our digital heritage. She argues that law libraries specifically have a critically important role to play in this undertaking as access to legal and law-related information is a core underpinning of our democratic society. Our current digital preservation strategies and systems are imperfect but tremendous strides have been made over the past decade to stave off the dreaded digital dark age, and libraries today have a number of viable tools, services, and best practices at our disposal for the preservation of digital content.
This extensive guide by search expert Marcus P. Zillman includes a wide range of sources designed to serve as a foundation for knowledge discovery specific to business intelligence resources on the Internet.
Carol A. Watson discusses how effective project management requires considerable thought and preparation before actually initiating the work of the project. Although many of us are eager to jump into the tasks related to a project, it is important to remember that careful planning will provide the groundwork for a successful project outcome. Carol reminds us, “Remember, it takes time to save time,” and she will be writing on this overall topic in forthcoming issues of LLRX.com