Cross-posted to LAW-LIB and PRIVATELAWLIB-L. Please excuse any duplication.
I am writing back to both lists today to thank everyone for their quick
support in sending me their ratios. We needed your numbers for an important
meeting that happened yesterday and now I can say that thanks to the help of
all of you, we were given approval to add two additional MLS librarians to
our staff.
What I have learned from this posting is that ratios can't really say it all
without extreme detail of positions. We were stunned at the number people
who responded with worse ratios then ours. Ratios really can't show from
one firm to another which library has an in-house MIS person and which ones
depend on MIS for all tech support. They don't show the practice areas each
firm has which can determine to a great extent the kind of reference load
for the library. Value added services that many of our libraries choose to
or choose not to provide are also not represented by these kind of ratios.
Such value added services missing can include as I quote from an email by
Elsbeth Moller of Cravath, Swain & Moore, "looseleaf filing, SEC documents
produced in-house, routing, firmwide purchasing of subscriptions and books,
cataloging in-house, Records, news watch services, number of branches,
etc., and hours of operation."
Sadly those who ultimately decide on staff needs in our firm and many other
firms I'm sure prefer to decide based on basic ratios alone compared with
all other firm staff departments. Details are not probably wanted because
most likely those making these decisions really don't understand what we do
and why we do it and don't have time to figure it all out. The main detail
that we have fortunately or unfortunately have in our case over other staff
departments thatis respected and examined is library billable hours.
Many people I must share here reminded me about the AALL Salary Survey as a
great place to get my ratios and how this could be a big help for my
project. I don't know why all 5 of our AALL members here didn't think of
this. We have ordered it, but unfortunately the 1999 issue doesn't come out
until October.
Several of you had requested that I share my ratio findings with the list.
Well I received up-to-date 52 responses and so I think it would be more
appropriate to send these responses out to those you would like to see them
rather then to the whole list. For those interested you may reply to this
email and I will paste together my responses in one email to send back to
you unless someone has a better suggestion for me as to how to share.
Thank you all again for your great help!!!!!!
Sincerely,
Julie Bozzell
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Julie Bozzell
> Electronic Information Specialist
> Greenberg Traurig
> Miami, FL
> (305) 579-0835
> bozzellj@gtlaw.com
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
-----Original Message-----
From: Bozzell, Julie [mailto:Bozzellj@gtlaw.com]
Sent: Friday, August 20, 1999 3:49 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Ratio of library staff to attorneys
Cross-posted to LAW-LIB and PRIVATELAWLIB-L. Please excuse any duplication.
I am writing today to request that any of you who have the time please email
to me your firm's ratios of library staff to attorneys. If would also be
helpful if you could break it down by professional and paraprofessional
staff. We are trying to develop some proof in our firm that we are in
desperate need of staff and we are now depending on all your help as fellow
law firm librarians to give us all of your ratios.
If you are curious about our ratios
5 MLS librarians
5 paraprofessional staff
1 temp to help with cataloging
Several filing services to handle various offices
This is all to support 500 attorneys in 16 locations
Thank You
Sincerely,
Julie Bozzell
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Julie Bozzell
Electronic Information Specialist
Greenberg Traurig
Miami, FL
(305) 579-0835
bozzellj@gtlaw.com
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2007 - 20:50:10 PST