A rose looks beautiful as a bud or in full bloom. In the same way, our profession of technical services law librarians looked beautiful twenty-five years ago at its infancy, and looks wonderful today at its full flowering. Why do I know what we do is now blooming? Because our work has evolved to the point where we can talk about the history of professional development within technical services law librarianship. We are at the stage of our profession’s growth where we are talking not only about researching and writing about our profession, but also talking about the history of talking about researching and writing about our profession. Such a stage is one sign that our flower—our profession of technical services law librarianship—is mature, growing and very beautiful.

I realized our day-to-day work had evolved when I began to ponder the history of the Technical Services Law Librarian (TSLL) (and its predecessor The Law Cataloger 1975-79), and particularly the history of research and publications in TSLL during the past twenty-five years. The old newsletters show that we progressed in the 1970s past the first stage of just being glad we can communicate with others who do our same work. Our profession also passed the next stage of beginning to communicate about our work in a more analytical, theoretical and research-based way.

During the late 1980s, we began the third stage where discussion began about how we communicate with each other (which we normally call discussing our professional development).¹ We started evolving through that stage when this Research & Publications column began in TSLL in 1992. And now, we’re on to our profession’s fourth stage, as it seems very natural to talk in the year 2000 about the history of professional development within the technical services law librarian profession.

Professional development (p.d.) is a barometer of our profession’s growth. The following cursory look back at law library technical services professional development shows our profession’s own development during the past twenty-five years.² This is more than a retrospective look back due to TSLL’s twenty-fifth anniversary, and more than a thank you to Ellen McGrath as she departs this column to be OBS-SIS Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect. I want you to celebrate with me how technical services law librarianship reached its current stage of growth, a celebration possible as we jointly take a trip in history and smell some roses along the way.

P.d. was not a concern twenty-five years ago during the first stage of technical services law librarianship. The emphasis was on communication among fellow librarians via the technical services newsletter or via the annual conference programs. The newsletter was primarily viewed as a “clearinghouse” on the “practical aspects of our profession,”³ not a place for “substantive articles.”⁴

The second stage of our profession’s growth, that of researching and writing about technical services law librarianship, started shakily. In fact, The Law Cataloger in 1976 included one librarian’s assertion that writing about “personal research projects is pure fantasy, especially at a time when every processing department in the country has backlogs.”⁵ Such a view did not last long, as “the need for more cataloging and classification publications” grew,⁶ a concern that would later turn into a “crucial need” as we’re “dancing as fast as [we] can ... in the fast lane of technical services.”⁷ The editor of Law Library Journal begged for technical services articles in AALL’s flagship journal in 1983,⁸ Cataloging Legal Literature was published in 1984,⁹ and Cataloging Rules for the Description of Looseleaf Publications followed in 1986.¹⁰ Research and publishing did not become the dominant focus of our profession, but such activity did increase in relative importance.

Stage three began in 1988 when technical services law librarians began to write and talk about professional development.¹¹ That year, TS-SIS Chair Renee Chapman appointed the Ad Hoc Committee to Investigate Publishing Opportunities for Technical Services Law Librarians.¹² The chair of that committee, Brian Striman, started the OBS-SIS and TS-SIS Research Roundtable at the 1992 annual conference (later joined by Ellen McGrath),¹³ and—the part of this history you’ve been waiting for—founded TSLL’s Research & Publications column in September 1992. From the start, Brian saw the column as a “research ‘ideas pool’” on technical services professional development issues,¹⁴ and served as its catalyst and editor/co-editor for six years from 1992 to 1998.

Another way to illustrate the third stage of our profession’s growth is to look at the work of Ellen McGrath with TSLL’s Research & Publications column during the past seven years. Ellen emphasized the practical nature of the column as a constant source of p.d. information for technical services law librarians. Her first column in 1993 included the poetic line, “If you have ever wanted to do research, but could not figure out what topic to pursue, the sources cited in this column should provide some help for you.”¹⁵ Ellen stayed true to her slogan, and filled her next sixteen columns with 45 research and publishing ideas, 45 kudos to TS-SIS and OBS-SIS authors on their publications and presentations, and an incredible 135 opportunities for publishing technical services related articles. (Note: these statistics are in addition to Brian Striman’s contributions that I highlighted a year ago.)¹⁶ Ellen (and Brian) constantly fed the growing p.d. movement within technical services law librarianship, making certain you had a Research & Publications column in every issue of TSLL during her tenure from 1993 to 1999 (and an OBS-SIS and TS-SIS Research Roundtable at every AALL conference during the same time period).

And now, Ellen is hoping to assist with our profession’s growth to its next stage, which is looking at the recent history of research and publishing in technical services law librarianship. She’s been interested in the topic for some time, and is currently working on a submission for Law Library Journal. I think she will agree that the three prior stages of our profession continue to this day—communicating with each other, researching as part of such communication, and talking about such research (or in other words, professional development). TSLL continues, substantive scholarship is being carried out regarding technical services law librarianship, and we’re still discussing p.d. I look forward to her LLJ contribution, knowing it will plant the seeds leading to the next stages of our profession’s development. I also look forward to the continued contributions by other OBS-SIS and TS-SIS authors interested in communicating, researching and writing about our profession. There’s room for many flowers, no matter what stage of growth they are in.

Library History Research Opportunities

The literature devoted to historical analysis of libraries, printing and books is increasing in the United States and elsewhere. There are many calls for papers, conferences, newsletters, journals and organizations devoted to various aspects of book history. Highlighted here are two organizations and two journals concerned with the general history of libraries and publishing.

American Library Association, Library History Round Table (LHRT) {http://www.spertus.edu/library-history}. Your library history research is incomplete if you ignore this Web site. In addition to calls for papers, newsletter issues, awards, guides to local library research, and links to related Web resources and discussion lists, LHRT’s Web page includes an extensive “Bibliography of Writings on the History of Libraries, Librarianship, and Book Culture” compiled by Ed Goedeken, Iowa State University, {edgoed@iastate.edu}. This must-see bibliography has thousands of citations to U.S. and international library-related history books and articles.

The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing (SHARP) {http://www.indiana.edu/~sharp}. SHARP’s Web site features links to many calls for papers; publisher, researcher and exhibitor’s Web pages; and teaching resources. In addition, SHARP publishes Book History {http://www.indiana.edu/~sharp/bookhist.html}. This newer journal has an annual submission deadline of August 1. The Web page includes guidelines for submission.

Libraries & Culture {http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/journals/jlc.html}. Consider publishing your library-related historical article(s) in this inter-disciplinary quarterly journal, especially if you are relating a topic such as professional development within technical services law librarianship to broader societal issues.

Footnotes:

¹ I use the term “professional development” here to mean “research and publications” as I do not want to constantly repeat the phrase “research and publications” while talking in this column about the stages of our profession’s growth. I recognize professional development typically includes more than research and publishing, and that library association membership, committee work, and office holding contribute to all of our professional development.

² Some sources I find useful for analyzing the history of technical services law librarianship include the following: Christine A. Brock, “Law Libraries and Librarians: A Revisionist History”, 67 Law Library Journal [hereinafter LLJ] (1974): 325; Elizabeth Anne Carlson, “Bibliography on Cataloging and Classification of Legal Materials”, 61 LLJ (1968): 259; Nancy E. Miller & Marie Whited, “Bibliography on Cataloging and Classification of Legal Materials—A Supplement, 1968-74”, 68 LLJ (1975): 307; Alva T. Stone & Jessie Tam, “Cataloging and Classification of Law Materials: A Survey of Recent Literature”, 83 LLJ (1991): 721; Helen W. Tuttle, “From Cutter to Computer: Technical Services in Academic and Research Libraries, 1876-1976”, 37 College & Research Libraries (1976): 421; John Fiske, “A Librarian’s Work”, 38 Atlantic Monthly (1876): 480 (describes Harvard University Library technical processing); Technical Services Special Interest Section History (last modified Aug. 16, 1999) {http://www.aallnet.org/sis/tssis/sishist.htm}. For general U.S. law library history sources, see my Feb. 3, 1999 post to Law-Lib “Re: Law Library History (15 sources)”, archived at: {http://lawlibrary.ucdavis.edu/LAWLIB/Feb99/0123.html} (last modified Mar. 1, 1999).

³ Phyllis Marion, “What It’s All About”, Law Cataloger (Aug. 1975): 1 (editor’s remarks in vol. 1, no. 1).

⁴ “Editorial Policy”, Technical Services Law Librarian [hereinafter TSLL] (Sept. 1980): 2.

⁵ Paul Glavin, “Book Review”, Law Cataloger (May 1976): 5 (reviewing Donald LeRoy Foster, Managing the Catalog Department).

⁶ Diane Hillmann & Gayle Edelman, “Continuing Education for Law Catalogers”, TSLL (Aug. 1985): 13.

⁷ Margaret Maes Axtmann, “I’m Dancing As Fast As I Can: Life in the Fast Lane of Technical Services”, in Towards a Renaissance in Law Librarianship 117, 119, ed. Richard A. Danner (1997).

⁸ “As editor of the Law Library Journal, I would like to make a special request to readers of the Technical Services Law Librarian that they consider authorship in LLJ. Good articles on technical processes are hard to get because technical services librarians are always so busy—either reading to keep up with the latest developments or implementing them.” Charles R. Dyer, “[LLJ Article Solicitation]”, TSLL (Aug. 1983): 20. Other Law Library Journal editors made similar requests. “Dick Danner (Duke), editor of the Law Library Journal, wanted the members to be reminded that LLJ needs material for publication.” Pat Callahan, “On-Line Bibliographic Services SIS Business Meeting”, TSLL (Aug. 1984): 11; “Frank Houdek, editor of Law Library Journal, attended the meeting as a guest speaker and … [said] he would like to see the number of technical services articles increase.” Rebecca Lutkenhaus, “OBS-SIS & TS-SIS Research Roundtable”, TSLL 24 no.1 (Sept. 1999): 18.

⁹ Peter Enyingi et al., Cataloging Legal Literature (1984).

¹⁰ Adele Hallam, Cataloging Rules for the Description of Looseleaf Publications: With Special Emphasis on Legal Materials (1986).

¹¹ Many association-wide initiatives relating to research and publications coincided with the technical services law librarians’ emphasis on professional development. See, e.g., Dennis C. Benamati & Evelina E. Lemelin, Publication Opportunities for Law Librarians (1996); Richard A. Danner, “From the Editor: Supporting Professional Research”, 83 LLJ (1991): 615; “The Strategic Plan 1990-94 of the American Association of Law Libraries”, 22 AALL Newsletter (1990): 201, 209 (association objective: “support research in law librarianship”).

¹² Renee D. Chapman, “Technical Services SIS Message From the Chair”, TSLL (Aug. 1988): 16. See also Brian Striman, Publishing Opportunities for Technical Services Law Librarians: A Report of the Technical Services Special Interest Section Ad Hoc Committee to Investigate Publishing Opportunities for Technical Services Law Librarians (1991).

¹³ Brian Striman, “TS and OBS Research Roundtable”, TSLL (Sept. 1992): 16. Alva Stone helped start the idea of a joint OBS-SIS and TS-SIS Research Roundtable. See Alva T. Stone, “Online Bibliographic Services SIS Message From the Chair”, TSLL (Nov. 1991): 5.

¹⁴ Brian Striman, “Research and Publications”, TSLL (Sept. 1992): 8. Brian also saw the column as a forum for “nagging angels in your subconscious.” Brian Striman, “Research and Publications”, TSLL (June 1998): 7.

¹⁵ Ellen McGrath, “Research and Publications”, TSLL (Sept. 1993): 13.

¹⁶ G. LeGrande Fletcher, “Research & Publications”, TSLL (Sept. 1998): 6.