The Distractions of Technology

Since the moment I became a librarian, I have had a problem with technology. It’s not that I can’t keep up with the developments or that I can’t figure out ways to incorporate technology into my work. My problem is much simpler in a way—I find technology too distracting. With my desktop, my phone, and my iPad sitting in my office, how could I not be drawn to the glowing screens and the limitless websites before me? The Internet is never-ending, and so too, it seems, is my ability to be distracted by it. With a little dedication, however, I have managed to find some online technology tools that help me to be less distracted and more productive during my working hours. It’s ironic, but maybe unsurprising, that the Internet has been both the cause of and the cure to my technology woes

Creative Assessment: Connecting Legal Research Training and Instruction to Results (Review of AALL Program)

As academic law librarians, we should all be concerned with identifying whether our students are meeting AALL’s Principles and Standards for Legal Research Competency. I was excited to attend this session on Creative Assessment so that I could learn new ways in which librarians can evaluate their students to see if they are adequately trained in these core competencies. The panelists were Pamela Rogers Melton, Associate Director for Administration at the University of South Carolina, Gail Partin, Interim Director at the Dickinson School of Law Library, and Barbara Gabor, Senior Research and Reference Specialist at WilmerHale

Touring the Lilly Library

When I began my job in January 2015, I was the first person to be officially designated as the Student Services Librarian at Indiana University Maurer School of Law’s Jerome Hall Law Library. One could argue that almost all the functions of a librarian at an academic law library are indeed “student services,” but I was given the exciting, and at times overwhelming, task of making the students happy on a full-time basis. What makes students happy? Does anything (short of free food) make law students excited about the law library? I took it as a personal challenge to find out. Using existing programs, new ideas from my colleagues, and new ideas of my own, I set out to make the law library a welcoming and comfortable place for our students

Access to Print, Access to Justice

This article examines the relationship between self-represented litigants and digital literacy and how this particularly vulnerable patron group stands to be harmed by the elimination of print materials from public law libraries. An examination of the literature and a survey help to shed light on this growing problem

Student Services Town Hall: Inspiration from a Distance

Drawing on inspiration and the creativity of others has long been a hallmark of the Student Services Librarian. Never before, however, have we needed each other quite as much as we have during this wild ride of an academic year. Motivated both by a desire to bring us all together and out of our own need to find inspiration, the three of us hatched a plan to host a Student Services Town Hall. We purposely scheduled the event far enough into the semester that some of us could report on successful (and not-so-successful) attempts to continue Student Services work during socially distanced in-person, hybrid, or completely remote fall semesters

Reaching and Teaching Millennials: Designing the Future of Student Services

Today\u27s students have come to expect library services that are quite different from their predecessors and law librarians must evolve to meet their needs. As law libraries in the United States face the realities of declining enrolment and decreasing budgets, it is imperative that we find new and creative ways to build positive relationships with our students while also preparing them for the realities of practicing law in an environment driven by rapid technological change. Three law librarians from the United States, Brian Detweiler, Kimberly Mattioli, and Mike Martinez, Jr., discuss their successes and failures in reaching out to their student populations, creating and evaluating various student-centred instructional programmes, and in establishing a strategic plan to meet the needs of millennial law students

Degradation of high affinity HuD targets releases Kv1.1 mRNA from miR-129 repression by mTORC1

Little is known about how a neuron undergoes site-specific changes in intrinsic excitability during neuronal activity. We provide evidence for a novel mechanism for mTORC1 kinase–dependent translational regulation of the voltage-gated potassium channel Kv1.1 messenger RNA (mRNA). We identified a microRNA, miR-129, that repressed Kv1.1 mRNA translation when mTORC1 was active. When mTORC1 was inactive, we found that the RNA-binding protein, HuD, bound to Kv1.1 mRNA and promoted its translation. Unexpectedly, inhibition of mTORC1 activity did not alter levels of miR-129 and HuD to favor binding to Kv1.1 mRNA. However, reduced mTORC1 signaling caused the degradation of high affinity HuD target mRNAs, freeing HuD to bind Kv1.1 mRNA. Hence, mTORC1 activity regulation of mRNA stability and high affinity HuD-target mRNA degradation mediates the bidirectional expression of dendritic Kv1.1 ion channels

Access to Print, Access to Justice

This article examines the relationship between self-represented litigants and digital literacy and how this particularly vulnerable patron group stands to be harmed by the elimination of print materials from public law libraries. An examination of the literature and a survey help to shed light on this growing problem