Best Practices to Demonstrate the Value of Your Law Library

Deborah Copeman from the library of the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society and I have put together a document on best practices to demonstrate the value of the law library.

It is based on contributions from members of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) who responded to a survey we sent out earlier this year:

"Several months ago, we invited CALL members to share their best practices for demonstrating the value of their library collection and services to their stakeholders for compilation into a report to share with the membership."

"Due to the current financial and fiscal climate, it is more important than ever before for law libraries of all types to be able to demonstrate how truly valuable they are to users, stakeholders and parent organizations (...)"

"Yet despite the best efforts of librarians, there continue to be stories about cutbacks and questions about the contributions of law libraries."

"Which begs the question: are we measuring the right things, in the right way, according to the right definition of 'value'? (...)"

"We hope that the examples provided by CALL members and the accompanying bibliography help you develop your own methods for proving your value to your users, funders, partners and stakeholders"

Deborah and I co-chair CALL's Courthouse and Law Society Libraries Special Interest Group.