Rivers of knowledge

9th Specials, Health and Law Libraries Conference

Legal research skills education based on the principles of information literacy: a re-evaluation for the 21st Century

G Boelens
Phillips Fox Lawyers, Melbourne, Victoria

Over the years the role of the librarian in a special library has changed greatly. The skills required to be a librarian and the work done by librarians, like so many other careers has undergone an evolution caused by a variety of factors. This is especially so since the rise of the personal computer.

Librarians have always been organisers and disseminators of information. Whatever their role, be it in technical services, reference or management, their raison d'etre has always been the organisation and dissemination of data and information to their clients. Librarians have traditionally acted as gatekeepers, often using esoteric tools and systems to access information that our clients did not have the skill or desire to use. Our clients did not see this lack of skill as a problem as they had no desire to learn the complex physical systems or the command languages of the early online systems. Most of our clients could use a card catalogue and a book index but saw the searching of complex systems as the role of the library staff.

However, over the last ten to twenty years a major revolution has taken place. The introduction of the personal computer, the release of Windows, the use of LANs and most recently the widespread accessibility of the World Wide Web has altered our role as gatekeepers forever. It is now possible for our clients to access information from their desktops using their personal computers without asking a librarian to find it for them. With most computer databases, and most especially with the Internet, a person can put in a few search terms and get some sort of result. It is arguable what the quality of this result may be - but a result is usually obtained. We, as librarians, have lost control over how our clients access the information they use. We are now trying to direct our users to better quality sources of information through corporate intranets, portals and extranets. This will give direction to our users but does not usually stop them from using poor quality sources and it does not give our users the skills needed to search the databases and sources that they have access to.

So, what sort of role does this give to librarians in these early days of the Twenty-First century? We should see ourselves as guides and teachers rather than as gatekeepers. I see this as the important role for librarians, for now at least.

If our users are being given access to vast reservoirs of information we should be giving them the skills to access this information efficiently and effectively. Giving our users these skills is not going to do us out of a job as teaching is an ongoing process and it is vital that we take on this task if we are to stay relevant to the users of the library service.

Training offered by libraries in the past has often focussed on how to use the tools that are needed to locate information. Library skills training often concentrated on how to use the catalogue and, perhaps, how to use indexes, abstracts and particular reference tools. In a private law firm library training has typically been offered to new graduates. This covered how to use the catalogue and a 'refresher' on how to locate cases and how to locate and update legislation. These sessions were often conducted in the first week or two that a firm employs a graduate. Training for more senior lawyers, partners and other staff has often been conducted less frequently, if at all. Some informal learning went on but it was usually the case that the lawyers were happy to delegate research to an articled clerk or the library staff. The scope of research done was also relatively narrow. If there was research to be done that was outside the scope of the library holdings then it was expected that the library staff would do the work.

Now the number of tools and sources of information available to lawyers is vast. Not only must they master many of the skills that they used in years past, they must be able to use a variety of databases, many of which use different software, or confusingly, different versions of the same software. As well, they must be able to master the different ways of accessing the information hidden on the World Wide Web. All these skills must be built on to a mastery of the ways to navigate around their PC (or MAC) desktop.

Into all this confusion the librarian as teacher and guide must step boldly.

Note that the word used here is teacher and not trainer. To train is defined by the Macquarie dictionary as 'to make proficient by instruction and practice, as in some area, profession or work'[1]. To teach is defined as 'to impart knowledge of or skill in'[2]. To teach seems to imply so much more that to train. To train is to simply make proficient where to teach imparts knowledge which implies that those taught not only know how to do a skill but also have a knowledge about how that skill fits into the bigger picture and why the skill is important. Training in libraries can be seen as simply training users how to use a product. On the other hand, teaching would be to teach users when to use a product and then how to get the result to a given query out of a product and perhaps showing how to get the answer to the query from some alternative sources.

The concept of information literacy is starting to get coverage in legal library literature. The initial impetus for this came from the academic and educational library world but is now being talked about by the wider profession. The concept is a valuable one in that it gives a new framework or mindset for teaching legal research skills by making librarians look at the big issues raised by the way we teach these skills to our clients. It should make us focus on teaching legal research as a whole process and move away from training lawyers in how to use yet another new piece of software or database.

Information literacy has been defined in a wide variety of ways but I will limit myself to a few of the key descriptions of this concept. Information literacy was described by the American Library Association Presidential Committee on Information Literacy as being able to recognise when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate and use effectively the needed information[3]. Prior to this Eisenberg and Berkowitz came up with a system known as the Big6[TM] which looked at teaching research skills to students and defined six major skills that are involved in taking an information literate approach to research. The steps they identified were task definition (defining the problem and identifying the information needed), information seeking strategies (determining all possible sources and then selecting the best sources), location and access (locating the sources and then finding the information within the sources), use of information (reading the information and extracting the relevant information), synthesis (organising the information from multiple sources and then presenting the information) and evaluation (judging the product and the process)[4]. Both these descriptions of the concept of information literacy make it clear that teaching research should encompass so very much more than just training users how to use a particular tool or product. Traditional library training starts midway through the research process and ignores the earlier steps. Furthermore, Shapiro and Hughes[5] further analysed and expanded on the concept of information literacy and came up with further literacy requirement for being a good researcher. They talk about, amongst other things, tool literacy (the ability to understand and use all aspects of IT such as software, hardware, networks etc) publishing literacy (understanding the publishing process that most information goes through) and emerging technology literacy (being able to adapt to new technologies so as not to be trapped by old tools). It can therefore be seen that learning to do research is actually quite a complex process.

In all these discussions of information literacy and related skills it is apparent that a common thread is teaching users to think about the task at hand and to evaluate as they go along. It is also apparent that a product-focused approach is very limiting. One of the aims of making our clients more information literate is to ensure that when they are confronted with a new research situation they can approach it in a considered way. Done properly it should ensure that we do not have to devote hours to training everyone (or nearly everyone) in our organisations every time a piece of software changes. Information literate library users know how to formulate a search strategy based on the problem they have to solve, can choose the appropriate resources to search, can translate their strategy into the proper search syntax and evaluate whether or not the information retrieved answers their questions. If they are having difficulty they should also know the appropriate source for help.

So how can library teaching programmes operate to achieve a greater level of information literacy amongst the user population? I would like to now discuss the approach that we have taken at the Melbourne Office of Phillips Fox.

Phillips Fox in Melbourne is a medium to large sized law firm that employs about 160 legal staff and a total staff of 317. The library employs 2.9 librarians and a total staff of 4.9. Phillips Fox also has offices in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Wellington and Auckland. In our situation our user population is relatively small and all are reasonably well known to the library staff. This makes the task of teaching the user population somewhat easier than in libraries who have a much larger and relatively anonymous user base.

All staff commencing at Phillips Fox are expected to attend an induction session in their first week or so at Phillips Fox. The library is given some time at these sessions but we simply use this as an opportunity to 'meet and greet' new staff members. We do not do any training or teaching at this session as it is felt that the new staff members are already being overwhelmed by a lot of information from a variety of departments (for example accounts, marketing, human resources etc) and any information given is lost in the resulting flood. Also, the new staff attending induction can be a mixture of partners, law clerks, secretaries, accounts clerks and so forth making the planning of a meaningful training session almost impossible.

The induction programme for the articled clerks (new law graduates) is different to that of other staff. The new graduates mostly come in as a single intake in March. Phillips Fox usually takes in about fourteen articled clerks. In the past a series of intensive training sessions have been conducted during the first week which they were expected to attend. Some library training was done during this week. Now the articled clerks are given a tour of the library during their first week and introduced to the library staff. They are also taken to the Supreme Court Library, as they often need to do research there. They are then expected to attend a series of sessions run by the library about three weeks after having started working in their teams. This gives the articled clerks time to discover where their research skills are lacking. Fresh into the job they usually have an inflated assessment of their skill level and also they quickly find out that the skills required to do research in the 'real world' of a law firm are often quite different to those required at law school.

We have found from past experience that one of the hardest things for articled clerks to learn when doing research is to know what questions to ask and where to start their research. To address these problems that the articled clerks experience when 'getting started' on a piece of research we have changed our approach over previous years. From this year the first session has taken the form of a group discussion session where the articled clerks discuss what it takes to do good quality research. The library staff guide the discussion but active participation is sought from all in attendance. Rather than telling the articled clerks what they need to do before they launch into research - they come up with the ideas and are more receptive to what is being suggested. Many of the articled clerks come to Phillips Fox with previous work experience, either as summer clerks or having previously worked in law or other fields and share their frustration and successes and use them to illustrate alternatives and better ways of approaching research.

This approach was highly successful. This was followed by two more traditional sessions on locating and updating legislation and cases. During these session the emphasis was on locating materials electronically as we recognise that this is the way that they are most commonly going to try to locate the material. Detailed instruction in how to do research using hardcopy resources is left until the knowledge is required. An example of this would be when an articled clerk is asked to locate what a piece of legislation said fifteen years ago.

No sessions are held for the articled clerks as a group which focus on a particular tool or piece of software. This is left until later when they can request a 'one-on-one' session or participate in a group continuing legal education (CLE) session.

Most teaching of research skills for other staff is done on a 'one-on-one' or 'just-in-time' basis. The reasons for this are myriad but the original decision to tackle most instruction this way was prompted by a prosaic cause - the difficulty involved in booking the computer training room. Like many other places the training room is shared by IT, the accounts department, general firm induction and finally the library. With all these calls on the training room booking sessions at suitable times can be very difficult. We also found that sessions organised for groups tended to be poorly attended. The sessions would book out and even overbook but then four out of eight would not turn up as they had more pressing engagements. Some participants would arrive late, some would leave early and the skill levels of the participants would vary greatly. The sessions never seemed to be very successful at improving the research skills of the lawyers despite being well planned.

Anyone who wishes to learn more about research or how to use a product is asked to make a time with one of the library staff. They can then come to the library or we will go to their office and spend time with them teaching them what they need to know. This allows us to pitch the training at their level of skill and teach them exactly what they want to know. They do not have to waste time by either being too far advanced for a group class or lost because the class is moving too fast.

The 'just-in-time' training is done by using all research as a possible teachable moment. If a lawyer (or other staff member) asks for help we always try to include some level of instruction in the interaction. This may be how to use a particular tool or how to select an appropriate tool for the task at hand. The other way in which we conduct just-in-time training is by using a piece of software called Proxy[6], which allows us to act as an electronic help desk. Our clients ring us when they are having a problem using a database or the internet and we can log into their computer from our desks and see exactly how they are trying to access the information they are after and then to guide them to a more appropriate way of searching. We can see exactly what is on their screen and control their PC from our own. (Access to this sort of software involves a fair bit of trust as we can look at any PC that is logged on to the Phillips Fox Melbourne network. We are very lucky at Phillips Fox Melbourne in that we have a very good working relationship with our IT department and they trust us to use the technology appropriately.) One of the points that we emphasize to all staff is that we have this ability to 'drive' their PCs and actively encourage them to ring us whenever they have difficulty using any of their library-related applications. This library 'help desk' has proven to be very popular with our users. It has also given us an excellent insight into how the library databases are being used in 'real life'. It gives us a good indication of why our user's research techniques are failing. This can then be addressed in any 'help' documentation prepared by the library and in any formal training sessions.

The other principle teaching aid is accessible, simple 'help' type information. The Melbourne office of Phillips Fox has been developing a series of simple 'how to use' guides to all the major databases offered by the library. These guides cover how to open or where to find the database, how to do basic searching including any basic commands, how to print from the database and how to close the database down. These guides are all in a uniform format and are strictly limited to two sides of a single A4 page. Copies of these are made up on coloured card stock and selected cards are given to staff in a folder during the induction session. Copies are also loaded on the firm intranet on the same page that the database is accessed from. Copies of the cards are also distributed on request and at formal group training sessions.

Other written help material is also available. One is a checklist of the major databases available that also includes brief notes on the strengths and weaknesses of each database and possible alternative sources of the same or similar information. Other publications are more detailed guides to the more complex databases and pathfinder type guides to finding a particular type of information such us how to locate and update legislation. These publications are included in the folder given out at induction, loaded on the intranet and also handed out on request. (It is interesting to note here that one of the most popular handouts that the library produces is one that explains the basic Boolean operators.)

We have not totally given away formal group training. Some formal group training is still done. This is usually done at the request of a department to form part of their CLE program. Group sessions are also conducted if a new product is purchased. The aim of these sessions is to make the lawyers aware of the major features of the product and its potential use. The emphasis is on when to use the product and broadly what it is capable of and that more detailed help is available when they are using the product by calling the library 'help desk'.

We do not pretend to have all the answers. The program at Phillips Fox is not perfect. There are people who slip through the net. Whilst all new staff are meant to attend induction, the reality is that some do manage to be excused. These are usually fairly senior staff. We do try to catch up with these people when we become aware that they have started. Another group who tend to slip through the net are the Partners. For a variety of reasons they do not tend to request help in using databases or attend formal training sessions. I suspect this is due to a large number of factors including a lack of time, fear of displaying ignorance in front of more junior staff, ignorance of their lack of skill or knowledge[7] and their ability to delegate the task that requires these skills to more junior staff or the library. This means that the main beneficiaries of the library's teaching efforts are junior lawyers. This is not seen as a totally negative outcome as the junior lawyers do much of the detailed research work. Also, the junior lawyers very quickly become more senior and hopefully have better research skills.

A bigger problem for us is caused to some extent by the corporate structure. Phillips Fox is now a fully integrated trans-national firm with a single partnership (with the exception of the Perth office). At this stage each centre does its own library training and user education. The ultimate aim is to rationalise the effort involved and for the centres to co-operate in the production of training programs and 'help' material but at this stage there are big hurdles to overcome. One of the biggest is the different resources held by the different centres and the fact that whilst Melbourne uses PCs the other offices are mostly using MACs so material appropriate to one office is difficult to translate to the other offices. Add to this the difference in resources used due to jurisdictional differences in the law and the whole thing can be quite messy. Finally the staffing levels in each office are very different. One office may be able to roll out and implement quite a detailed and time consuming program which the other offices do not have the staff to emulate.

At present another gaping hole in the teaching of research skills to staff is the secretarial support staff. Not all secretaries (or the people they work with for that matter) want to learn research skills. For those that do however, a more planned approach to teaching needs to be taken. A plan for a program to be offered to support staff is currently being drawn up and a pilot group is currently undergoing a series of three library research skills training sessions.

The final hurdles in the approach taken at Phillips Fox are still being faced. These are the need for training and education to be given some priority and the need for measurable outcomes.

In this day and age management like to see measurable results. At this stage the measurement of outcomes of library skills training is mostly by informal observation of behaviour. We can do this when we use the Proxy software to assist people. We also get an opportunity to observe when staff come to the library for help. There is still some work to be done in this area.

A bigger hurdle is to fight for time and priority to be given to training. Most management at least pay lip service to training, life long learning or continuous education. The reality in a law firm is that the pressure of the 'billable hour' gets in the way. If the pressure is on to bill more time then the other tasks to be done, including professional development get pushed down the list of priorities. Some possible ways of raising research skills training on the list of priorities is to raise the spectre of risk. Research skills training can be sold as a risk management technique. Currently, there is a duty for a lawyer to be competent but little in the way of definition of what is competent.[8] At the very least a law firm of any standing should be embarrassed if the research efforts of its lawyers lead to wrong advice being given because a lawyer failed to find that a case had been overruled or a piece of legislation was out of date. Management should be able to understand that this situation is avoidable and that skill development is a way of avoiding this type of risk.

Another way of selling the importance of library research skills is to get management to understand that some of the skills, especially if these are acquired as part of an information literacy programme, are generic and can be carried across to using other databases such as those created for knowledge management, precedents and CRM (Client Relationship Management). An information literate lawyer should have the skills to manipulate a database, no matter which department is responsible for placing the data in it.

It was also felt that the aim of the program was not to make every lawyer an expert at every possible database that they may ever want to access. It recognises that there are some lawyers who do not need to know how to work all the nuts and bolts of a database and that for them, simple recognition that there are systems available and that help is at hand is sufficient. We hope that it recognises that lawyers are highly intelligent individuals who are expert in their chosen field. They are extremely uncomfortable if they have to display ignorance and people who are uncomfortable are not going to be in the frame of mind required for learning.

In conclusion, it would appear that the research skill teaching program at Phillips Fox in Melbourne is bearing fruit. As a general rule, the lawyers are retaining more of the skills taught than they did in the past. They appear to be giving more thought to their research before they launch into searching. The approach to training is decidedly humanist in that it is predicated on the assumption that all lawyers are individuals with individual needs, learning styles and skill levels. Whilst it may appear the one-on-one training is more time consuming than training groups, we have found that for a little extra effort we are getting far better results. We have not found the answer to the problems of teaching legal research skills. We have found a way that gets better results in our situation. We hope that we have given the lawyers a real choice - the skill to do research for themselves or to delegate the research if they so choose. We are only just beginning to move to a more 'wholistic' approach to legal research skills training where the other elements of legal research besides 'location of material' get just as much emphasis but we do commend taking a broader approach to all of you.

Footnotes

[1] The Macquarie dictionary, 3rd ed, Macquarie Library, Macquarie University, 1997. p2243

[2] The Macquarie dictionary, 3rd ed, Macquarie Library, Macquarie University, 1997. p2172

[3] American Library Association Presidential Committee on Information Literacy. Report, released 10 January 1989. http://www.ala.org/acrl/nili/ilitlst.html

[4] Eisenberg, Michael B and Berkoqitz, Robert E 'The Big6 skills information problem-solving approach' Home page http://222.big6.com

[5] Shapiro, Jeremy J and Hughes, Shelley K 'Information literacy as a liberal art: enlightenment proposals for a new curriculum' Educom Review Vol 31 No 2, 1996 http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/review/reviewarticles/31231.htm

[6] Proxy. Version 2.01, Funk Software Inc

[7] For an interesting study on people's lack of insight into their level of skill see: Kruger, Justin and Dunning, David 'Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self assessments' Journal of personality and social psychology vol 77, no 6, 1999, pp1121-1134

[8] Dal Pont, G E 1996 Lawyers' professional responsibility in Australia and New Zealand, LBC, Sydney, p 68