ALLUNY – Association of Law Libraries of Upstate New York

In November 2022, our team at Practising Law Institute (PLI) was asked to design a podcast for law librarians, who are among our most important customers.  Thinking about the number of experienced, accomplished librarians who weathered the pandemic but may retire during the next 6-10 years, we decided to interview a diverse group of law librarian professionals from an array of backgrounds and organizations.

Naturally, this group of top law librarians includes ALLUNY members like Elaine Knecht.  Our interviews were designed as a series of in-depth, one-on-one conversations with librarians from our community. In each conversation, we asked about how they came to be a law librarian, what key learnings they would share with someone starting out, what key practices they relied on, and what every law librarian should know. 

I was both shocked and charmed to learn that every guest walked a distinct and unusual path to become a law librarian.  The gentleman from DC is the only person who went straight through college, library school, and into a law firm.  Everyone else took a fascinating, circuitous path to where they are today.  I loved our discussions and treasure each one of our guests.  Hope you will join us for The Practising Law Librarian, part of PLI’s Ever Current podcast, bringing you conversations with — and for — the law librarian community.

Karen Oesterle