ALLUNY – Association of Law Libraries of Upstate New York

by Amanda Steinbacher, Reference Librarian, Phillips Lytle LLP

In December, AALL announced that a new platform, AALL eLearning platform, was debuting.  Thanks to an ALLUNY sponsored grant, I was able to attend the first self-paced course, Introduction to Law Library Budgets.  Its learning objectives are: identify and manage competing priorities, estimate spending and revenue, advocate for your budget, and connect financial resources to achieve goals.  I would like to share my personal experience of taking the course with you. 

Having set aside an afternoon, I ventured into the eLearning platform at https://elearning.aallnet.org/where I logged in with my AALLNET credentials.  I clicked on the featured course to download the participant guide and the case study.  When I engaged in the course component, I noted the artificially intelligent voice, and observed the dynamic images and graphics, with interactive links to other websites for further exploration.  The menu displayed four areas of the course: Course Introduction, Introduction to Budgets, Introduction to Funds, and Working with Budgets.  A transcript was accessible at all times.  A glossary was provided with short definitions of terms that appeared in bold. 

The course catalog description was a “60 minute” introductory course.  In fact, I spent a few hours with the course component, taking my time to understand any unfamiliar terminology.  Besides taking a law library administration class to earn my Master’s Degree, I haven’t had much exposure to budgets in my career yet. I work in a private law firm library, so I concentrated on what this course presented related to law firms, although learning about other types of libraries’ budget concerns was thought-provoking.  Corporate, private or firm, government and academic libraries were compared.  Budget structures were explained with pros and cons.  The case study spreadsheet contained a sample budget for an academic law library setting.  There were knowledge checks (similar to a quiz) in the following styles: true or false, multiple choice and drag and drop.

According to the course, managing budgets involves both art with judgment and science with analysis.  The library must balance the needs of the community or institution with existing resources.  A budget is created with all possible information, while cautiously acknowledging unforeseen expenses or cuts.  A best practice tool should be your Integrated Library System (ILS) so that you can create reports and evaluate them for consistency with financial data compiled by the accounting department at your institution.

Law firm libraries’ budgets can assist with the forecast of revenue trends, in addition to tracking spending of the offices and/or practice areas for information resources and staff.  Law firm libraries effectively support the departments that are essential in generating revenue for the firm.  Firms must carefully consider cost recovery methods or the lack thereof.  The firm library’s budget could influence the firm’s strategic decisions.  Law library personnel who have taken this course will be better prepared to assist their firm or institution with goals of reducing costs, negotiating with vendors, and looking out for new and improved products that economically provide legal information.

Upon completion of the course, you are asked to fill out a survey and download your certificate.  I appreciated that the course was self-paced.  It provided concrete examples and realistic scenarios with practical advice.  There were useful questions to determine one’s level of discretion and authority.  The materials supplied informed questions that I plan on asking in my own firm environment.  The best advice the course provided was this: “Be patient with yourself; with knowledge and experience you will get better at it!”  This course suited me and would benefit intermediate learners as well.