Legal Research

Living library idea as a knowledge managment tool

By Shaunna Mireau

A recent article in Library Journal caught my eye: ?Living Library? Debuts in Santa Monica¹ As the article explains the living library movement invites library users to ‘book’ meetings with individuals with special interests, beliefs or experiences.

Though I can’t find proof of this in her written work, Connie Crosby once said that she pays attention to trends in public libraries that could apply to law library services. This memory glimer (hopefully I am attributing the credit correctly) says to me: how would the construct of a living library help my firm? What would that look like?

My instinct is that the living library model isn’t much different than having in firm continuing education sessions where a more senior practitioner shares knowledge with juniors or individuals outside of their traditional practice group. Since this model exists and works as a knowledge transfer device, how can that process be facilitated as a service that is available on demand?

Wouldn’t it be interesting to add information to the library catalog with the following model:

Title: Vicarious liability
Author: Partner X
Physical Description: 6′1″, folio [individual will come to your office or lunch for a discussion of the title topic]

Seriously though, there are many ways to formalize tacit knowledge transfer that already happens in informal ways. It is neat that this kind of tacit transfer is being encouraged by public libraries. If a public library can work with this model, our expertise filled organizations can too.

1. Library Journal, 10/20/2008

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on October 30, 2008 (boomark / email).