Big firm Library Director, Jean O’Grady, launched her new blog “Dewey B Strategic” yesterday, and immediately went after the inefficient processes of legal publishing vendors and says that it is time to shift those costs back to the publishers. Anyone that has ever talked with O’Grady knows that she’s not afraid to step up and point out when something doesn’t smell right. This time around she’s set her sights on some of the basic problems that law firm librarians have dealt with for years, and says that it is time to start billing these time and money wasting processes back to those vendors.
Here’s a list of a few items that O’Grady thinks need to be cleaned-up, modernized, or eliminated:
- Loose-leaf filing
- Billing and shipping errors
- Bill process and coding
- Forced bundling of print and digital content
Publishers verbally profess their support for the value of law librarians while simultaneously enmeshing our organizations in a host of unsustainable business methods. I find special irony in noting that one major publisher has acquired an LPO business and is selling process improvement to lawyers while its print publishing operation is guilty generating some of the back office inefficiencies afflicting law firm libraries.
I think I heard a chorus of “Amens” from the law librarian pews.
I look forward to seeing more good stuff from Jean and the Dewey B Strategic blog.