Friday, September 09, 2011

Intro to the Law Library: September 9th Part 3

Today is September 9th and time definitely flies because it's been 3 years since my departure from Baker & McKenzie. Now I am not one of those people who use blogs and social networking as a place to slander former employers or express grievances. This is not one of those entries, but I want to share my experience at that firm because with every situation, there were good and bad times.

In 2007 I completed a year of my part-time graduate work at the UNT library science program. While working at Thompson & Knight, I saw the advertisement of Baker & McKenzie needing a Library Specialist in their Dallas Office. I thought it would be a great opportunity to work in my field of study while attending library school. I emailed an attachment of my resume to HR personnel expressing my interest in the opening. About a week later I had an interview at the firm and was hired. I started my new position that summer and it was eye opening. Not only was I the Library Specialist, but was the Librarian.

I had the opportunity to handle a great deal of responsibility and it was the best of both worlds: technical and ready reference/research. From a technical librarian perspective, I handled the distribution of desk books and routing materials to the practice groups. I communicated with our designated account executive of legal publishing companies. In regards to ready reference, I had accounts to access legal databases to pull cases and business information for the attorneys and staff. I was involved in new hire orientations introducing new employees to the print and electronic resources, along with adding them on listservs related to their practice groups. Also, I coordinated training sessions with our solutions specialists for the firm. I learned how to use Excel with handling the library budget and monthly billing. I used Access to add materials in the system without the use of an established routing system. In addition, I was able to use Power Point to add hyperlinks and print screens during new hire orientations.

Overall, it was definitely a learning experience I will never forget. Even though the firm have a notorious reputation because of past mistakes, I gained a lot of new skills.

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