Reading Time: 6 minutes
Librarians are knowledge workers. We work on things that require attention to detail and investigation, whether we’re cataloging books or answering obscure reference questions. I am always interested in new research on interruptions and thinking around how to improve the work environment so that librarians can be as effective as possible.…

Reading Time: 6 minutes
My recent travel to Canada couldn’t have been more normal. I drove up to the Ambassador Bridge border control with very few other cars from Canada. The person in front of me was in hijab and showed an ID as they entered the gate. They were waved through quickly and I…

Reading Time: 6 minutes
My website has been on a North American host for the past half dozen years. It has been fine but the cost has been inching up and I’ve had some support issues. I have a budget in mind for this blog and it was starting to exceed the costs I…

Reading Time: 5 minutes
A colleague was in town and attending ABA Techshow so I swung by McCormick Place to see them. It’s been awhile and the Expo pass is free (something I will keep in mind next year). I walked over to the Metra and hopped on the train to the conference site. As…

Reading Time: 5 minutes
I crossed the border into the U.S. from Canada with my American wife in mid March. It seemed pretty normal, even given the extra paperwork we were doing: car import, dog import. I’m a green card holder and have gotten comfortable with the ease with which I’ve been able to cross…

Reading Time: 6 minutes
I’ve signed a contract to write a book. I’m excited but also a bit daunted. It will be my third book and it is one I have wanted to write for most of my career. As I wrote recently, I started working in law firms when I was 15 and was…

Reading Time: 6 minutes
About 6 years ago, I interviewed for a job in the U.S. I had come to the conclusion that, as our kids were aging out of the house, it was time for us to start planning our return to the States ourselves. The interview went okay—I was a finalist but not…

Reading Time: 6 minutes
Is working with lawyers more likely than other fields to result with colleagues being impacted by scandals? I wouldn’t have thought so but now I’m not sure. The CEO of a former workplace—who hired me to go to Canada and who I had huge respect for—has just been let go (“is…

Reading Time: 7 minutes
One long-term challenge for law library decision-makers is the position legal publishers take on their pricing. They incorporate confidentiality clauses in their contracts to prohibit sharing of pricing information. So, when I wrote about my decision about cancelling Bloomberg Law, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when their representative…

Reading Time: 5 minutes
I was delighted to see the ABA Journal name Joan Howarth and Deborah Jones Merritt two of their 2025 Legal Rebels. I’ve already mentioned Prof. Howarth’s book—Shaping the Bar—and will recommend that you read it if you haven’t already. The bar exam, and the obstacle it creates while…

Reading Time: 7 minutes
My first discussion about equitable access at my current role happened during my interview. I was talking with some students, one of whom had hustled for the interview from work and frequently used the law library after their full-time job. Evenings are a time at which the law library is lightly…

Reading Time: 4 minutes
I was downloading a government form the other day and it told me that I would need the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Umm, I don’t think so. Adobe is a corporation whose tools I avoid like the plague. Also, a PDF should not need a proprietary reader in order to be accessed.…

Reading Time: 4 minutes
One of the interesting things about my current role is that it is two part-time roles. When I was hired, the role required a library director 49% of the time and a faculty member for the remaining 51%. It has resulted in a lot of unusual outcomes. For example, when I…