It was certainly shocking for all of us in the law library community to
hear of B&M's decision to terminate their Chicago office library staff,
along with other support personnel. That kind of news can rock an entire
industry. But, it's also distressing to see the discussion of their
actions turn into a wholesale condemnation of contract services for law
libraries.
Since other messages I've read so far have not stated this, I'm going to
for the sake of perspective: nobody putting forth an opinion on B&M's
actions was part of the terminated staff. That is to say, nobody except
the people who worked there know what politics may have led up to this
decision. B&M has not announced the closing of its Chicago office library,
just the retooling of it. It is possible that outside contractors and
consultants may be responsible for re-staffing the library with people who
are better able to accomplish the firm's "global showcase" objectives as
stated in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin article. If that's the case, no
jobs will be lost. Perhaps additional ones will be created.
On April 3rd, Michael Saint-Onge wrote, "I'd like to think that we could
count on our colleagues boycotting this library and the job that will be
offered by the contractor, but someone will inevitably take this job. This
individual (or probably these individuals) fail to see that by taking these
jobs they put us all at risk. We need a union!" Kay Collins wrote, "I
can't believe that it is cheaper to contract out library operations --
although I can believe that consultants suggest creative statistics to
buttress such a claim."
To some measure, these two comments can be answered as one. There are
library operations, such as cataloging, that can be handled more cost-
effectively on a contract basis (statistics available to interested
readers). This does not necessarily mean that cataloging jobs will be
phased out. They will simply migrate to contract cataloging agencies. In
the law field, this trend will probably create *additional* jobs since, in
the past, so many small to mid-sized libraries did without full or standard
cataloging because they couldn't allocate funds for a trained cataloger and
there weren't enough law catalogers to go around. Now those same firms are
able to obtain professional services on an as-needed basis. Contract
library services of any kind could be viewed as a possibly positive
alternative in the employment market, not as a threat to the industry.
Many government agency libraries are staffed by people employed by
contractors who have won government contracts. The positions were not
lost, just shifted to private employers.
People who contract out their services, or work for a contractor or
consultant, are not the enemy. They can provide a firm with expertise in a
particular area, provide technical knowledge not available within the firm,
clean up backlogs, keep current work up-to-date while a position is being
filled, and staff labor-intensive projects such as barcoding, library
moves, etc. Librarians wworking on a contract basis can bring the same
enthusiasm and respect for confidentiality to the position as a member of
the in-house staff. Morals don't change with one's employer.
As a workflow solution, outsourcing isn't the enemy either. If you use the
internet to help answer reference questions, you are outsourcing. If you
use OCLC or RLIN, you are outsourcing. If you use CIP at all, you are
using cooperative services. If small law firms hire a contractor to
provide a librarian's services on demand, isn't that better than having no
librarian's services (read jobs) at all? Vendors of library services can
provide degreed professionals to firms that need them. Some vendors can
provide these services less expensively than the firm could with a full
time employee. Either way, librarians are doing the work.
We should not rush to judge a situation which we know little about.
Librarians, of all people, have an obligation to seek out the facts before
passing sentence upon those who believe they are acting in their firm's
best interest.
****************************************************************
Joni L. Cassidy 201-481-0900 mcassidy@netcom.com
Cassidy Cataloguing mcassidy@well.sf.ca.us
****************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 03/09/00 PST