The Technology Springboard: How Law Librarians Can Bootstrap Their Future

VALL 2013

The Technology Springboard: How Law Librarians Can Bootstrap Their Future

Steve Matthews

Stem Legal

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Back in time!?!

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The finest IT ever built!

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Really? Are we still fighting this?

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Help! We’ve been typecast!!

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The most valued employees are multi-skilled, and deliver valued functions within their business or organization.

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1. Develop a unique skill that no one else in your firm has.

2. As a non-billable employee, you need to align with the projects valued most by your lawyers.

3. Build a portfolio. But don’t lose sight (or control) of the research function.

What’s your next move?

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Part II:

Technologies that MIGHT possibly become important to law firms in the near future.

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• Massive Open Online Courses• Goes live in first half of 2014•Joint venture – EdX & Google• Preceded by early Canadian online courseware – remember Moodle?

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•“Objective-C is the iOS standard”• iOS Apps already power information products. Web => App?• Are you ready to be a coder?

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GitHub members (including Librarians) sharing project codeExample above from Elmer Masters – Center for Computerized Legal Instruction (CALI): Web book editor. Forked from another code set, re-worked for CALI contracts.

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WordPress powers 22% of all new websites created. 60+ million installs.Could you act as the webmaster for a WP website? If you can’t, go start a free Wordpress.com account & learn how.

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Web development skills are incredibly valuable. No matter what type of information career direction you choose.

Check out: http://w3schools.com/

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Kindle Direct Publishing Program makes law firms into publishers.• Firms keep 70% of publishing revenue• Who will manage your firm’s program?

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Thank-you!

Steve [email protected]

@stevematthews