Full-Time Law Librarian, Northeastern Law School Library, Boston, MA

Posted October 12, 2021

Description:

About Northeastern:

Founded in 1898, Northeastern is a global research university and the recognized leader in experience-driven lifelong learning. Our world-renowned experiential approach empowers our students, faculty, alumni, and partners to create impact far beyond the confines of discipline, degree, and campus.

Our locations—in Boston; Charlotte, North Carolina; London; Portland, Maine; San Francisco; Seattle; Silicon Valley; Toronto; Vancouver; and the Massachusetts communities of Burlington and Nahant—are nodes in our growing global university system. Through this network, we expand opportunities for flexible, student-centered learning and collaborative, solutions-focused research.

Northeastern’s comprehensive array of undergraduate and graduate programs— in a variety of on-campus and online formats—lead to degrees through the doctorate in nine colleges and schools. Among these, we offer more than 195 multi-discipline majors and degrees designed to prepare students for purposeful lives and careers.

About the Opportunity:

The Law Library is a collaborative space for research, study and community. It provides virtual and on site resources and training to faculty, staff and students. The three Senior Law Librarians are critical to the strategic planning, development and implementation of the Law School’s educational mission. Each Senior Law Librarian’s major areas of responsibility are 1) faculty research support; 2) project management; 3) teaching and legal research instruction; 4) team management; and 5) management and operations. Each Senior Law Librarian shares the first four duties and spends thirty percent of their time on the fifth area: management and operations of a specialty. The three specialties are Collection Development, Scholarship & Publishing Services, and Law Practice. This opening is for the Scholarship & Publishing specialty.

Under the faculty research support responsibility, these librarians work with faculty and administrators to support and promote faculty teaching, scholarship, and publication, including providing research assistance and training RAs and TAs. Under the teaching and legal research instruction responsibility, each librarian teaches upper level research courses; provides coaching and training at the InfoDesk for drop in and email research assistance Monday-Friday 8:30-5:00 p.m.; and provides custom research support to students in the first year Legal Skills in Social Context program that serves clients in an innovative law office structure. The team also works closely with faculty, law school departments, clinics, institutes and centers to support community members in research, digital, and information literacy. The librarians work with the Assistant Dean for the Center for Co-op and Career Development, the Director of the Academic Success Program, the Assistant Dean and Director of Bar Admission Programs, and the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs in planning and supporting student research, digital, and information literacy and to produce graduates who are reflective and well-prepared to embark upon a career of life-long learning. The Law Library provides a wide range of professional development services to assist students and recent graduates in their efforts to master experiential research skills including staffing the Library’s for-credit course offerings and other teaching and instruction; presenting informational programs and workshops; developing and offering research information online; fielding research questions and training during co-op placements; prepare for co-op appointments; and providing research assistance, coaching, and tutoring to students.

Each Senior Law Librarian manages several department-head level functions in their specialty. The Law Library has a team management structure, where the dedicated team of attorney librarians and professional staff is charged with sharing strategic legal research, digital, and information literacy skills with faculty, staff, administrators and students. In the area of management and operations for Scholarship and Publishing Services, this Senior Law Librarian will manage NUSL accounts with publication submission platforms, assist authors in completing submissions to journals; advise authors on journal reputation and placements; disseminate faculty scholarship through managing SSRN eJournal by soliciting articles, liaise with SSRN staff, and produce draft versions for editor review; preserve faculty scholarship through maintaining a database of NUSL scholarship; and place scholarship in appropriate repositories (e.g. SSRN, DRS); and, finally, keep up to date on copyright issues and publishing contracts and advise faculty on best practices.

Responsibilities:

Project Management

•Plan and complete projects that are delegated from your manager, assigned by the team management structure, or self-generated, using project management skills: define the scope, determine available resources, check the timeline, assemble your project team, list the big steps, list the smaller steps, develop a preliminary plan, create your baseline plan, request project adjustments, work your plan, monitor your team’s progress, document everything, and keep everyone informed

Faculty Research Support

•Serve as a faculty research liaison; research complex faculty projects; design and conduct research and webcourse training sessions for faculty and their research assistants; page requested materials

•Develop several subject specializations and keep up to date in these areas

•Update faculty support manuals, publications binders and webpages

•Attend faculty research colloquia, lectures and presentations

Teaching and Legal Research Instruction

•Provide reference and research assistance to all library users one-on-one or in small groups through walk-in mentoring and appointments

•Keep up to date on the latest legal information trends, websites, electronic and other resources through research and attending trainings and conferences

•Design and conduct bespoke legal research instruction sessions for first year students, upper-level students and law review members

•Support research instruction in the first year legal research and writing program and social justice research projects

•Teach three credits a year, including one two credit upper level research class and a one credit Legal Research Workshop, including syllabus development; creating research exercises; developing and delivering lectures, demonstrations and presentations on legal research and strategy; creating and/or commenting on student exercises; and mentoring students on legal research exercises and pathfinders

•Create and update bibliographies, hand-outs, and exercises

Management & Operations: Scholarship & Publishing Services

•Leadership: develop and demonstrate leadership: developing people (self & others), managing resources effectively, leading innovation & change, university-wide perspective

•Publish faculty scholarship through managing NUSL accounts with publication submission platforms (Scholastica); assist authors in completing submissions to journals; advise authors on journal reputation and placements; and support finding funding for research opportunities

•Disseminate faculty scholarship through managing SSRN eJournal by soliciting articles, liaise with SSRN staff, and producing draft versions for editor review; work with faculty and Communications Department to promote faculty work through social media; coordinate a series of author talks to highlight NUSL scholarship in the Northeastern community

•Preserve faculty scholarship through maintaining a database of NUSL scholarship and placing scholarship in appropriate repositories (e.g. SSRN, DRS)

•Promote and create scholarship opportunities

•Keep up to date on copyright issues and publishing contracts and advise faculty on best practices

Team Management and Collaboration

•Develop and demonstrate team management skills including knowledge of the discipline of team management; mutual trust; sense of relationship; open and direct conflict; information-sharing; high level question-asking and listening, toleration of errors; flexibility and responsiveness; periodic attention to group maintenance; recognition and mitigation of outside forces

•Participate in cross-training and mentoring within and across functions; share ideas, feedback and suggestions for improving existing systems and creating opportunities for staff development; identify ways to improve work processes and procedures; make suggestions and, where appropriate, take action to make the changes happen

Qualifications:

•Candidates must have completed a J.D. degree from an accredited law school.

•The candidate must enjoy interacting with students, faculty and staff and possess excellent public services skills.

•Excellent research, reference, writing, and bibliographic skills

•Word-processing, e-mail, basic web publishing, and basic Excel skills

•We need a responsible, motivated, creative team player who is also able to work independently. You must enjoy completing a variety of tasks. We need a creator, not just a maintainer.

•Some evening and weekend hours are required.

Preferred Qualifications:

•Master of Library or Information Science degree or substantial progress toward this degree is preferred, but we will train the right candidate.

•Three to five years of professional law library experience is particularly desirable, although we will train the right candidate.

•Teaching experience

•Scholarship and publishing experience

How to apply:

For more information and application instructions please go to the following link: https://careers.hrm.northeastern.edu/en-us/job/507535/senior-law-librarian