Does It Pay To Hire a Law Firm Librarian?

The BIALL Blog (British and Irish Association of Law Libraries) links to a number of recent blog comments that discuss the article Does It Pay to Hire a Law Firm Librarian? published last week in the US publication ABA Journal.

Earlier Library Boy posts on the same topic include:

• Law Library Branding and Recruitment (February 15, 2006): "Why should libraries care about brands? Because whether it has been given careful thought or not, every institution has a brand. Whether the brand is strong enough to be favorably remembered by clients is another matter. This article will give you the tools to identify your brand and to understand how useful it can be in your marketing efforts."
• New Articles on Marketing and Impact of Law Libraries (November 13, 2007): "The November 2007 issue of AALL Spectrum, a publication of the American Association of Law Libraries, contains 2 articles that are related to marketing: 'Public Relations: Selling Law Librarianship' ... 'Perspective: What is Your Impact on Society' (...)"
• Blog Series on How to Increase Your Value in Your Workplace (March 4, 2010): "The SLA Blog has started a series called 'Alignment Steps' that contains advice on how librarians and information professionals can prove and increase their value in their workplace."
• Law Librarians Can Prove Their Value Through Training (March 10, 2010): "(...) the January/February 2010 Law Librarians newsletter put out by legal publisher Westlaw has published an article entitled 'Law Firm Economics and the Librarian—Bring Value Through Training'. The lessons can apply beyond the context of private law firm libraries (...)"
• Proving the Value of the Special Library (April 8, 2010): "On his Stephen's Lighthouse blog, Stephen Abram has written a post about the 'Value of Special Libraries' (...) The post describes various studies that demonstrate the impact of information specialists and special libraries that include entities such as government, courthouse, law firm, medical, scientific libraries."
• Best Practices to Demonstrate the Value of Your Law Library (April 10, 2010): "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 ( ...)"
• Resources to Prove the Value of Your Library Services (October 14, 2010): "The UK organization Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) has put together resources that demonstrate the value and impact of special library and information services such as law, health and government libraries. The resources include: surveys, reports and case studies; advocacy resources; material on return on investment; specific material on libraries in specific sectors such as government, health or law; the SLA Alignment Project: the Special Libraries Association embarked on a major project in 2009 to refine their positioning in the marketplace and provide a framework for discussing the inherent value in the profession and the Association ..."