[Libs-Or] Two superb blog posts by Oregon Law Librarians about what they do each day

[Hope Leman]

Hi, everyone. I just want to draw your collective attention to two outstanding blog posts by law librarians here in Oregon that have been posted recently on the blog of the Oregon chapter of the Special Libraries Association.

Not only are both posts beautifully, engagingly written they offer valuable glimpses into what law librarians in different settings (the first a county law library, the second a major law firm in Portland) do on a typical day. I urge everyone to tweet them using hashtags like #libraries and #librarian so that library school students will learn about the existence of the posts and ponder them as they determine what kind of librarianship they want to specialize in. I am not a law librarian myself so learned a lot and as an average citizen learned a great deal and was impressed by the range of services offered by the Clackamas County Law Library to those with legal troubles but few resources. Jennifer Dalglish's post is really quite moving in illustrating what a vital service county law libraries provide and how they further justice for all.

Her post, "A Week’s Worth of Oregon County Law Library Legal Reference Assistance" is here http://oregon.sla.org/?p=1022

Sue Mecklem, M.L.S., Davis Wright Tremaine, provides us with a fascinating and and engaging look into, "A Week in the Life of a Law Firm Librarian." Sue writes delightfully and her post makes clear that law librarians in large firms have a wide range of duties and must think on their feet and handle everything from the most abstruse matters of legal scholarship to Web site troubleshooting. Her essay is here http://oregon.sla.org/?p=1047

These essays are worthy of inclusion in introduction to library science texts and I wish I had read them when I was in library school and hope that many other kinds of librarians will consider writing comparable essays on their own fields. The general public often doesn't realize what a range of fields librarianship encompasses and Sue and Jennifer have helped enlightened it.

Hope Leman, MLIS
Research Information Technologist
Center for Health Research and Quality
Samaritan Health Services
815 NW 9th Street
Corvallis, OR 97330
(541) 768-5712

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