Interesting piece in Linex that came through today……
Earlier this month we were lucky enough to attend the first BIALL (British & Irish Association of Law Librarians) Knowledge Management Group Event kindly hosted by Shearman & Sterling at their London offices. The key speaker for the lunchtime discussion was Jane Bradbury, currently Slaughter & May’s Head of Knowledge and Information, who gave an inspirational and engaging lecture exploring “An Evolving Landscape: From Information Gatekeeper to Knowledge Professional”.
The Importance of Knowledge & Legal Information
Jane started by running through the importance of knowledge and information in the legal industry. Whilst this may seem to be a given to many of you, the ability to explain this importance to others is an integral skill. Information professionals are increasingly required to make a case for their department’s success in a time where budgets are progressively tight. The Greater Philadelphia Law Library Association is even running a training event on this very topic this summer. Thus, this point is worth reiterating. Law firms are knowledge businesses, when a client hires a lawyer from a large firm they are not just hiring the knowledge of that one individual but the collective knowledge of the firm as a whole. As such, the ability of that firm to share its knowledge internally, as well as generate new knowledge from well managed incoming information, is key and this is becoming recognised more and more.
Key Characteristics of an Information Professional
Continuing in this regard, Jane went on to explore the key characteristics of an Information Professional required to make their work a success. These included listening, understanding, questioning and enquiring, whilst remaining focused on the customer and their experience. She emphasised that each practice area is different and has its own priorities, consequently such skills are integral in avoiding a ‘one size fits all’ approach.
As the importance of managed legal information has grown we have seen the field’s roles develop and evolve too. From the traditional (to some) Librarian to the Information Professional, where we find ourselves now, and eventually moving towards the more blended role of the Knowledge and Information Professional in the future. It must be noted, however, that this was a sticky point of discussion following the lecture, with some positing that the title of Librarian is “making a comeback” due to the respect associated with it.
‘Knowledge Hot Topics’
It is somewhat intuitive that as we see legal information titles evolving the focus of these roles will evolve too. Prominent throughout the ‘knowledge hot topics’ discussed by Jane was the presence of technology and the support role it is increasingly playing for Information Professionals. First up on the discussion list was the subject of modes of delivery of current awareness. These cover the use of content automation platforms which save content curators vast amounts of time whilst also improving the quality of information sourced, by scraping websites, aggregating sources and so forth. Another exciting hot topic was the increasing development of practice efficiency projects which include a growing use of AI (artificial intelligence), natural language processing tools and a general evolvement in how humans are interacting with computers.
