W-4: The Academic Law Library of 2015: Predicting the Future and Making It Happen

Workshop participants collectively will work with facilitators to develop scenarios for the academic law library of 2015 in the context of the changing academic legal environment: increasing competition among law schools, changing faculty demographics, millennial students, increase in multidisciplinary legal scholarship, reallocation of library space, and the retirement of many current library directors. What are the new opportunities for libraries to establish their value to the law school? What are the options for developing nontraditional print and electronic collections for true shared collection development? What are the necessary staff skills? How can staff be reallocated to meet new needs? Working with facilitators, participants will contribute their individual and institutional perspectives and explore possible scenarios collectively in highly interactive breakout sessions. The participants will “think outside the box” to identify possible futures, as well as the action steps to achieve them.