LAWSOC: Learning Resources Change Proposal

LAWSOC Submission on Learning Resources Change Proposal

Executive summary

LAWSOC is concerned about the effect of the proposed changes to the library, in particular with the dissolution of our law library manager with no adequate replacement. The gist of our submission is that we want Margaret (more specifically her position as Law Library Manager) to stay. The reasons can be summarised under these heads (supported below):
(1) Legal research skills training is organised by the library manager;
These are very well attended, the student being keen to get these things on their CV. The Branch Manager is instrumental to the implementation of these. Her close integration with the Faculty (and the courses offered) enable her to proactively offer appropriate skills courses. She has her eyes and ears on the courses and the skills required for those.
(2) Information librarian support may be reduced
Front line people on the desk, although very knowledgeable, would not have the fall-back support of the Branch Manager and their time may well be taken up elsewhere--with post-graduate students and academic staff.
(3) Online resources
The law library manager is responsible for the overall management of the law portal (law subject guide). So while we may have much better IT services, which are needed, there will not be the same quality material to access. Further, her effective management of what resources we do need, and equally importantly, what we don’t need, can only lead to savings of money (and also space in the case of monologues).
(4) Increased skills based courses
These are coming in next year for first years and honours students (LAWS 110 and 410), and connection between the library and Faculty is vital to implement and maintain these courses. Without a Law Library Manager it is hard to see how these will best be implemented.
(5) Academic output
Research and publications by the staff relies heavily on the amazing quality of our library. While increased focus of the information librarians for this purpose, we wonder whether their depth of knowledge will be sufficient to adequately support our already world class reputation.
(6) Reduced value of degree
Our law degree says we can find the law; not that we know the law. These legal research skills are what a law degree is about, and the library is key in providing those skills.

All up, we believe that all these risks are just too great. We support the change as a whole, we just don’t want the integrity and already world class reputation of our law library put at undue risk.

Submission

The University of Canterbury Law Students’ Society (LAWSOC) is an organisation that is constitutionally required to represent the interests of law students. We have a mandate from our members (over 800, the vast majority of which are law students) to advocate their interests on all levels. This submission has involved significant discussion with the Law Faculty and the UCSA; but most importantly with law students. Prior to this submission being released LAWSOC organised a forum for law students to gauge their concerns. Moreover, a draft submission was sent to all law students inviting their input. We hope that our unique position, coupled with the effort we have made to engage law students on the specific concerns they have in a constructive manner, will see this submission given the appropriate consideration that it deserves.

LAWSOC, on behalf of law students, has serious concerns about the Learning Resources Change Proposal. The overarching purpose of the STAR Project is commendable, and has LAWSOC’s support. We think the aims of supporting teaching and learning to providing “world class learning” is a proper aim of a University. We also believe that the compartmentalisation that is currently present throughout the University structure (the knowledge / service silos), needs reform.

What we do have grave concerns about is the lack of attention that seems to have been paid to law students’ exceptional use of their library. As you yourself would be well aware our library is our laboratory. Our idea of the library and the services it provides is not limited to the physical confines of the second and third levels of the Law School, nor is confined to the books therein. Our idea of the library encompasses the physical library, the books, journals and cases, the wealth of online services, expertise and experience of the law librarians, and Legal Research Skills Training courses.

We, as students, have been given ample information on the details of the changes, the justifications behind them, and the processes by which the decision were reached. LAWSOC is not casting aspersions about the process. What is of concern to many students is the lack of information on the effect of these changes. As a student body we feel we are here not just to speak for our students, but to inform them and act for them. Thus, our submissions focus not on the process or the rationale underlying the process, but the effects, be they perceived or real, of the proposal on law students.

Our concerns can broadly be categorised into the following five concerns:
1. Legal Research Skills Training;
2. Information librarian support;
3. Online resources;
4. Increased focus on skills based courses;
5. Affects on academic staff and research output; and
6. Reduced value of Canterbury’s LLB overall.
We believe owing to law students’ and academic staffs’ extraordinary use and reliance on the law library, the position of Branch Manager should be retained.

Point 1. Legal Research Skills Training
Currently the library, at the instance of our Branch Manager, holds the following legal research skills training courses. (1) Eight legal research skills courses (workshops) focusing on paper and online research at the start of the year. This is incredibly well received by law students. Many see this as a very valuable thing to put on the CV. They regard it so because they properly recognise that their LLB says something about their research skills. (2) Course specific research courses (workshops), in which students learn how to navigate all legal resources to build sources for course essays. There is interest, owing to the success of these, to embed these into the curriculum.

The Branch Manager is instrumental in the implementation of these. Not only owing to their deep knowledge of libraries and the law, but also to their integration with the Faculty of Law: our Branch Manager has her eyes and ears on the courses offered and the skills required for the successful completion thereof. This allows her to proactively implement these workshops to supplement the course content itself, and gives the student a complete skill set. Under the new structure it is hard to see where the combination of law and library experience and integration with the Faculty would come together as it does with the Branch Manager to ensure such complete teaching. At the very least the ‘proactivity’ in the implementation of supplementary content that we currently see may well be lost.

We accept that “information literacy” skills will be provided by an Academic Liaison Manager, but question whether that will be a sufficient replacement for the skills courses currently offered. We fear we could be taught the basic ‘book hunting’ skills when we need to learn how to work the complex rabbit-warren of LexisNexis.

We see ourselves as unique in the context of other library users in that we are not there to find a book or information per se; we are there to gain those skills required to get that information. While any librarian may be able to help us find a book, it takes something more to teach us those skills — it takes a real overall insight into the position of the library in the context of the law degree, and an insight into the purpose of an LLB and what an LLB says about the conferee. Our information librarians currently can tell us how to find a statute, case or article on LexisNexis. Our Branch Manager is constantly proactively thinking of ways to teach us to find it ourselves. This key distinction seems to be being lost when the proposal talks of retaining information librarians who have deep knowledge about their subject.

It seems that in the interest of increased integration between the library, ICT and facilities, a much more important integration is being destroyed: the integration between the library and Faculty.

Point 2. Information Librarian Support
As already said in Point 1, our information librarians do have a deep knowledge of their subject. Our concern however is that in the law library they are not the deepest well of knowledge, nor are they the most dynamic. Currently when their pool of knowledge proves too shallow they draw from the Branch Manager’s.

We ask what will happen when that well-spring of knowledge is gone and the information librarians fall short. If this well-spring is lost, and information librarians have no guidance or higher experience from which to draw, the real and present danger is that students and academics alike may suffer due to a lack of higher insight and understanding.

Further, library assistants, while qualified professionals, are not specifically trained to deal with legal research. We notice this during after-hours and on the weekends when information librarians are not rostered on. In response to specific legal questions we are generally told to come back and ask within proper hours. A key concern is that the changes may effect the information quality that students receive during ‘normal’ hours, that help not being available, either because the information librarians are otherwise engaged with higher purposes, or, of more concern, because they simply can’t answer.

Just as the librarians manage resources, they too are a resource. That is true across the University libraries, but nowhere is it more true than in the law library. The uniform changes that are being made to all library structures simply aren’t viable in the law library. By way of analogy, this seems comparable to a review being done of all the printers in the University which includes the School of Fine Art’s specialist photography printers. The proposal seems to lose sight of this reality by sweeping the law library and the law librarians under the rubric of general library reform.

Point 3. Online resources
You recognise that the proposal is partly recognition of the change to online learning and research. This trend is undoubtedly true and the proposal, by seeking to integrate the libraries, ICT and FM, is a necessary step to ensure we keep up with, and keep on top of, this trend. We emphasise again that we are not critical of the STAR Project and these objectives. We are concerned about the vacuum of knowledge, skills and connections that will be left after the removal of the Branch Manager which we, as students, faculty, academic staff and library staff can’t see being adequately filled by a generic library manager of law.

We are concerned about the possibility of our much used and highly regarded law subject guide being compromised by the removal of the Branch Manager, who is absolutely essential to the running of that guide. The law subject guide has had 65,000 hits in the 12 weeks we have had at University this year. That accounts for half the hits out of the total 64 subject guides (six times more than the second most visited). As far as hits on subject guides go that’s in the top 25 in the world. Management of those resources is a highly skilled area requiring extensive law and library knowledge and experience. It involves close collaboration with Faculty and Law Students. We rely very heavily on this resource and are very concerned about any possible threat to its integrity.

Further, effective management of these online resources results in considerable savings in buying, shelving (etc) paper copies. Indeed, effective management of all our resources, online and paper, can surely only save money for the University. The Branch Manager is in a unique position to know exactly what we need and, equally importantly, what we don’t need. This sort of deeply informed discretion surely can’t come from a general library manager, with only library experience (at most). It is also difficult to see how information librarians can inform this either.

Point 4. Increased focus on skills based courses
Following the curriculum review and common course sizes change, the School of Law is now offering LAWS 110 and LAWS 410 next year. Both are skills and research based courses. Both are highly desirable for our law degree. Both are also highly dependent on the ability of the library to provide those skills. With the dissolution of the Branch Manager position in October the effective implementation of these could be in doubt.

This seems tantamount to requiring more skills based courses from engineering and at the same time downgrading their laboratory facilities. The concern seems clear with laboratories and specialist photography / arts printers, however not so with the law library: the law students’ laboratory. We question why this is so? Of course a broad-brush review of all laboratories isn't likely to happen. What if there were a broad-brush review of computer facilities: would computing students expect a reduction in their facilities?

This all goes to illustrate why we urge STAR to consider the special position of the law library within our degree, and not to group it with libraries generally, at least insofar as the staff restructuring is concerned.

If we do indeed have as our aim the provision of a “world class learning environment” surely we should look to world leaders. Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge and Sydney all have Branch Managers, as does Auckland. Our Branch Manager is in contact with, at least, the Auckland Branch Manager (recognised as the leading law library), which ensures the library not only has its eyes and ears on the curriculum (through the Faculty) but its eyes and ears on national trends, initiatives (etc). This ensures we don’t get left behind, and instead move when leading law schools internationally move forward. This connection may be compromised by the proposed changes.

Point 5. Affects on academic staff and research output
We understand that there has been increased pressure on Academic Staff to increase their research output. The increased focus of information librarians meets this end. However while they are devoting their attention to that front, what happens to the law students? Assistant librarians may very well not be able to properly answer our law specific questions. Further, as discussed above, the depth of knowledge and library expertise offered by the information librarians, while still of a very high quality, is still not of the world class quality and depth of our Branch Manager. This is not just specific to our current Branch Manager, Margarett Greville, it is specific to the skills and connections that Branch Manager possesses.

Our Law Library already has a world class reputation. Even if it is not the library itself with that reputation then the academics it supports are world class. Canterbury Law Students take pride in the fact that most of the textbooks on the subject matter lectured have been written by their lecturers. Some of the following publications are used by other Universities around the country, used religiously by firms, and cited from our Court of Appeal and Supreme Court to the Law Lords (in Stephen Todd’s case). Take for instance:

Professor Todd’s leading texts, Law of Torts in New Zealand, Law of Contract in New Zealand (with Burrows and Finn, also Canterbury and ex-Canterbury staff), Commercial Law (with Cynthia Hawes, also Canterbury staff);
Professor Joseph’s leading text, Constitutional and Administrative Law in New Zealand;
Associate Professor Toomey’s expertise in New Zealand Land Law, and extensive publications in this area;
Associate Professor Scragg’s Principles of Legal Method in New Zealand;
Dr Gallavin’s new Evidence textbook;
Associate Professor Caldwell and Dr Richardson’s contributions to Family Law and Equity textbooks; and
Also worth note is Professor Finn outstanding research contributions; Associate Professor Hawes’ extensive publications
Ursula Cheer (Media / Defamation Law)
The fact that this reputation would be put on the line so readily and lightly, at least without very careful consideration, is very alarming. The removal of our Branch Manager would undoubtedly impact the wealth of knowledge and skill upon which these leaders in their fields draw.

Point 6. Reduced value of Canterbury’s LLB overall
Finally, we have to stand back and think about the purpose of a law degree and what a law degree says about its holder. A law degree is a clear indication that you have outstanding research skills: it says you can find the law, not necessarily that you know the law. That is true whether you apply for a legal job, government job, or any other job. If an employer sees LLB on the CV they can assume certain things about the person.

We are concerned about the possible diminution in value on Canterbury’s LLB as a whole, owing to any one or combination of the following:
Actual reduction in skills taught at University;
Reduced performance of students owing to inadequate support;
Perceived reduction in value by firms (and possibly other employers) because of the reduced skills focus / capabilities of Canterbury’s Law School;
Perceived reduction in reputation of the Law School owing to decreased support for academic staff, who are currently leaders in their fields, resulting in less or poorer quality output;
Law students, although they may not know it all the time, are here to learn how to learn the law; the overarching purpose is not to teach us the law per se. By taking away a key person in proactively and harmoniously implementing skills courses, and maintaining online and paper resources we severely jeopardise the value of our degree, our graduates, and our staff. It is noted by leading legal employers that they are not so much interested in the content of the degree, but the skills that graduates possess. Most important amongst those skills is research.

For these reasons we urge reconsideration of the dissolution of the Branch Manager role. This is completely at odds with a “world class [law] learning environment”. Retention of the role is also consistent with all proposed aims of the Proposal.

We also suggest that the information librarians and librarian assistants remain in their positions they are. There are no doubt areas in which the Law Faculty could improve, but we respectfully suggest that at least in respect of its library operation, it provides an example for other departments and libraries to follow. This is evidenced by the voluminous output, its academics, and its world class reputation.

Finally, lowering the qualifications required of library staff overall, and cutting our key resource will save little but cost the Faculty dearly through loss of experience, and a reduction in the quality of applicants.

LAWSOC Canterbury 2010.

ENDS

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