1。 Chatting with three first-year students during orientation this fall, I had yet another opportunity to debunk the statement that you have to have a law degree to be a law librarian. As I’ve done many times, I explained that fewer than one-third of law librarians have law degrees. [1]Even in the University of Washington’s Information School, which has a special law librarianship program for people entering with law degrees, the law librarianship classes are open to anyone, and many students without law degrees take them and go on to become law librarians.
今年秋天，我和三个一年级学生就将来定位问题聊天，尽管我还有另外的机会去拆穿这一说法，即你必须拥有一个法学学位以获得
法律图书馆员职位。正如我曾多次所说的那样，我曾说，只有不到三分之一的法律图书馆员拥有法学博士学位。[1]即使在华盛顿大学信息学院，其有一个专门为学习者提供法学学位的
法律图书馆员教育计划，法律图书馆员班对所有人开放，许多没有法学学位的学生一边参加该班的学习，一边做着法律图书馆员的工作。
2 。I like to engage in this sort of public education. I think it’s good for law students and lawyers to understand that those very smart, knowledgeable professionals who can solve their research problems do not all hold the degree that is so important to their identities. It’s amazing but true: lawyers don’t know everything, and they aren’t the only ones who know legal research. I also think it’s good for librarians and library students to know this, because it can open up great careers for them.
我喜欢参与到这种公共教育中去。我认为，它对法学学生和律师理解那些聪明、知识渊博、能解决其研究问题却没有对其身份来说很重要的学位的专业人士来说是件好事情。尽管令人惊异，但是确实如此：律师并不知道所有的东西，并非只有他们才是知道法律研究的一小撮人。我也认为，它对图书馆员和图书馆学学生了解这一状况来说也是件好事情，因为它能为他们铺开美好的职业前程。
3 。That afternoon during orientation, one of the students responded with a question that people don’t usually ask me: How does having a law degree help you as a law librarian? I said something about understanding how legal information is put together and being able to help researchers by understanding something about the subject. Our conversation moved on, but the question stayed with me.
在讨论将来定位问题的那个下午，其中一个学生提出了一个大家通常不会问及我的问题：拥有一个法学学位如何帮助您做好
法律图书馆员的工作？我说了一些如何理解法律信息加工并通过理解与该主题有关信息以便于研究者的话。我们的聊天继续进行，但是这个问题一直萦绕于我的脑际。
4。 Why isn’t the question asked more? When people talk to me about my career path, they don’t ask how the law degree helps, although they might ask how I decided not to practice law. They seem to take for granted that having a law degree is a good thing and that legal training would help in my work. Maybe there’s some cultural memory of the days when many more law librarians had law degrees than had library degrees. [2]
为什么不就这个问题多问一些？当人们谈及我的职业路径时，他们不会问法学学位是如何帮助我的，尽管他们会问我怎么决定不去执业当律师。看来，他们是想当然地认为，拥有一个法学学位是一件好事，法学训练有助于我的工作。当越来越多的
法律图书馆员拥有法学学位而不是图书馆学学位，也许有当时的文化记忆因素在内。[2]
5。 It’s shallow to say that the degree helps with the job because it helps one get a job, although that’s certainly true, since most academic law libraries require reference librarians to have J.D.s. When I was hired twenty years ago, the job ad required a J.D., although for years now our library’s ads for reference librarians have said only that a J.D. is preferred. Of course the J.D. helped me get the interview and the job, but that doesn’t really answer how it helps me in my work.
因为学位有助于找到一份工作，就说它有助于工作，是浅薄的。尽管这是事实，尤其是自从大多数法律图书馆要求参考馆员必须持有法学博士学位以后。二十年前，我找到这份工作时，该工作就要求法学博士学位，尽管现在我们图书馆招用参考馆员的广告说，持有法学博士学位优先考虑。不可否认，法学博士学位有助于面试和找工作，但是它真的不能回答如何有助于我好好工作的问题。
6。 Throughout my career in law library reference I have known people who were very good at it without the J.D. When I was a graduate student at Louisiana State University, I learned from Charlotte Melius, the head of public services (no J.D.), as well as Madeline Hebert, the reference librarian (J.D.). My supervisor in my first full-time position was Melissa Landers, who had also not gone to law school. Melissa had worked for Lexis and for a law firm, so she had developed excellent research skills. She was also a talented trainer and could come up with examples that were interesting and neatly made the point she needed to make about whatever tool she was demonstrating. [3]Now I have shared reference duties for over fifteen years with Peggy Jarrett and Cheryl Nyberg (no J.D.s), who are bright, creative researchers, familiar with the gamut of legal materials and institutions. And of course there are all the J.D.-less librarians[4] from other departments and from other law libraries whom I’ve seen in action. So it is easy for me to tell students—and anyone else—that you really don’t have to have a law degree to be a law librarian.
在我作法律图书馆参考馆员的生涯中，我已经了解到很多人没有法学博士学位但把工作做得很好。当我在路易斯安那州立大学读研究生时，我师从夏洛特·梅里乌斯（Charlotte Melius），她是公共服务系的主任，但她没有法学博士学位。梅德琳·赫伯特（Madeline Hebert）拥有法学博士，也只是一个参考馆员。我全职工作时的主管梅丽莎·兰德斯（Melissa Landers）也没有上过法学院。梅丽莎曾为Lexis公司和一家律师事务所工作，她已经获得了卓越的研究技能。她也是一个很有才能的培训师，她能举出有趣的例子，巧妙地使其与她所要展示的任何工具相结合。[3]和我一起工作的佩琪·詹瑞特（Peggy Jarrett）、谢丽尔·尼伯格（Cheryl Nyberg）已经担任参考馆员有15年头了，她们也没有法学博士学位，她们都很聪明，是很有创造力的研究者，非常熟悉所有的法律材料和制度。当然我也看到从其他系部调过来的没有接受过法学博士训练的和那些从别的法律图书馆过来的图书馆员工作得很好。因此，我能够很容易告诉学生们以及其他任何人，要成为一个
法律图书馆员，你真的不必拥有一个法学学位。
7。 That experience, of course, does not help me answer the question of how the law degree helps. Perhaps what it does is tell me that the law degree is not the only way to acquire the skills, knowledge, or whatever else it takes to do my job.
当然，经历不会帮助我回答这个问题，即法学学位是如何帮助我的。也许，它能告诉我的是法学学位不是获得技能、知识的唯一途径，或者它所拥有的别的任何技能都会胜任我的工作。
8。 It seems clear that my legal training (both in school and my few years of practice) would have some effect on my work as a law librarian. After a bit of reflection, I’ve come up with these areas where it does: knowledge of legal institutions, legal terminology, and substantive law; ability to read legal materials; knowledge of legal culture; comfort in dealing with law students, lawyers, and law professors; interest in law.
不难看出，我的法律训练（无论是在学校里获得的，还是在离校后的几年里获得的）对于我的工作，也就是做一个
法律图书馆员，有着一些影响。经过一番沉思后，我开始涉足这些领域：司法制度知识、法律术语、实体法（substantive law）、阅读法律材料的能力、法律文化知识、处理法学学生、律师、法学教授事务的能力、对法律的兴趣。
9。 First, there’s knowing some law. Clearly that has to make some difference in reference work. Our job is not to tell patrons the answer, so it’s not that we pullstatutory provisions or case holdings out of our heads for them. But it is helpful to know the difference between secured transactions and securities regulation, to know that wills and trusts are generally matters of state law, and to know that the Supreme Court can only review a state supreme court’s ruling if the state court was applying federal law. The more familiar we reference librarians are with vocabulary, subject areas, and so on, the easier it becomes to refer a patron to an appropriate source or, if we are doing the research for someone, to get there ourselves.
首先，我不知道一些法律。很明显的是，它对于参考工作有一定的影响。我们的工作不是告诉资助人以答案，因此它不是我们为他们所提供的出自我们脑子里的法律规定或案例。但是它有助于知道安全的交易与证券管理规定的差别，知道遗嘱和信托通常是各州法律问题，知道如果州法院适用联邦法律，则最高法院只能审理各州最高法院的裁决。我们参考馆员越熟悉这些词汇、主题范围等，就越容易为他们提供合适的资源进行参考。或者，要是我们在研究某课题，我们会亲自去找寻。
10。 No one knows everything. For many people, three years of law school serve only as an introduction. I took a range of classes during law school, but there were great holes in my curriculum. I never took either secured transactions or securities regulation (although I read through bar review materials on one and learned a little bit about the other in my basic corporations class). I never took bankruptcy, copyright, environmental law, health law, law and economics, patents, estate planning, or any number of core subjects—but I’ve certainly had reference questions in those areas. [5]
没有人什么东西知道。对很多人来说，三年的法学院学习只能是一个入门。在校期间，我参加了很多班的学习，但是我的课程体系仍有极大漏洞。我从不参加安全交易或证券管理规定的课程学习。（尽管我一方面阅读有关律师评论材料，另一方面在公司法基础班已经学过一点）我也从不参加破产法、版权法、环境法、健康法、法律与经济、专利法、不动产规划法或其他核心课程的学习，但是我已经确切地知道这些领域的参考问题。[5]
11。 It’s not about knowing all subjects, but about having a sense of the general way that law works. The cliché about the first year of law school is that it’s mostly about “learning to think like a lawyer.” [6]Hard as it is to pin that down, there’s something to it. People can pass bar exam questions on subjects they never took after studying a brief outline and listening to a lecture or two, not because there’s nothing to those subjects, but because they have wrestled with enough other subjects that they “get” how it works to have a list of conditions that are necessary for a cause of action or a valid instrument; they can file away new rules and apply them as needed.
不知道所有的主题，但是有一种能感觉司法运转的一般方式的能力。在法学院的第一年最重要的就是“学习像律师一样思考”。[6]尽管很难，但还是要那样子做一做。人们能通过律师考试中那些他们从未进行过提纲挈领地研究和只聆听过一两堂演讲的题目，并不是因为这些题目很容易，而是因为他们已经对别的问题做过认真的研究，这些课题的研究使得他们知道如何去找到一个条件清单，即必需的起诉原由和有效的诉讼手段。他们能提出新规则并在需要的时候加以适用。
12。 Getting a law degree is a great way to develop familiarity with legal rules, terms, and institutions, but it’s not the only way. Could you get familiar enough for law librarianship from two and a half years of law school? From two? From a class or two, some reading, and hundreds of reference questions? Sure, but I got my jump start in law school, and it does help me in my job.
获得一个法学学位是熟悉司法规则、法律术语和司法制度的一个极为重要的途径，但不是唯一的途径。你能通过两年半的法学院学习熟悉
法律图书馆员的工作吗？只学过两年？只学过一两门课程，阅读过一些材料，研究过数百的参考问题？当然，但是我在法学院起跳，它确实帮助我获得了这份工作。
13 。As a law student, I took some classes (corporations, tax, evidence, accounting for lawyers) because they were recommended for a well-rounded education, and I took others (labor law, sex discrimination, family law, constitutional law) because I was interested, and I thought I might practice in those areas. These days I may choose to pursue my own interests in law—going to lectures and reading articles or books—but regardless of my own interests I need to be able to help others research in the areas they care about. I may be unlikely to seek out a book about biotechnology patents for myself, but in a collection development meeting I need to remember the professors and students who would use it.
作为一名法学学生，我学习了一些法学课程（如公司法、税法、证据法、法务会计（accounting for lawyers）等），因为这些课程都是为了丰富多彩的教育而推荐的；我也学习了其他一些我感兴趣的课程（如劳动法、性别歧视法、家庭法、宪法等），而且我认为我可能会涉足这些领域。现在我可选择追求我自己感兴趣的法律——做一些演讲或者阅读一些资料或书籍，但是不管我自己的兴趣如何，我必须帮助他人在他们所关注领域的研究。对我自己而言，我可以不喜欢搜找一本关于生物工艺专利的书籍，但是在搜集资料扩展会议上，我必须记住将会利用该书的教授或学生。
14。 The ability to read legal materials, the second benefit in my list, goes with legal knowledge: it’s indisputably easier to get through a case or a page of a treatise if you don’t have to look up every third word and if the concepts in the text fit into what you already know. But I list reading separately because I think there’s something extra there. Once, in my first job after law school, my boss told me that I needed to skim. She didn’t have a problem with my legal analysis or legal knowledge, but she thought that the office’s production could be improved if I just got through the pile of cases I was reading for each research question more quickly. I think it’s hard for a rookie to skim and decide which cases are relevant and which can be set aside. Cases (and other legal materials) are just slow going. But in time I learned—and most people who read law long enough learn—to find the relevant passages and figure them out more and more quickly. This lawyer’s skill is very useful to me as a reference librarian. When I work on research projects for professors, I often sift through a lot to give them a collection of cases or articles that I think are relevant; it will be up to them to read the material more carefully to determine how it fits with their analysis. [7]I think some of my ability comes from those law school and lawyer years—but the skill might be more a librarian’s skill than a lawyer’s skill, since we skim and sort but don’t do the careful parsing needed for the lawyer’s or professor’s final briefs or articles.
在我的清单中，第二个益处是阅读法律资料的能力，它与法律知识相伴：毫无疑问，如果你不必三个词三个词地浏览，或者文本中的概念恰好是你所知道的，则能够很容易地理解一个案例或一页论文。但是我还是进行了各种方式的阅读，因为我认为这里面有一些非同寻常的东西。在我毕业后的第一份工作中，一次老板告诉我，你必须进行略读。她没有怀疑我的法律分析能力或者法律知识，但是她认为，如果我能快速浏览这一堆我细致研读的案例的话，则办公室的生产能力将会提高。我认为，对一个新手而言，略读并确定哪一个案例是与之相关的、哪一个案例是可以搁置不看的，是一件很难的事情。阅读案例（和其他一些法律资料）的进程总是很慢。但是我及时学习——大多数阅读法律很久的人也在学习——以找到相关的路径，并且为他们解决问题的速度越来越快。律师的技巧对我做好
法律图书馆员而言，大有助益。当我开始为一些教授的开展研究项目时，我经常是将进行了大量筛选后、我认为关联度很高的案例汇编或文章提供给他们。这样他们可以非常仔细地阅读这些资料以确定其是否符合他们的分析要求。[7]我认为，我的一些能力来自于法学院学习和律师的执业经历，但是这个技能可能是图书馆员的技能，而不是律师的技能。因为我们只是进行略读和挑选，不必为律师或教授的最终意见或论文进行仔细地分析。
15。 Next, knowledge of legal culture is helpful to a law librarian. By “legal culture” I mean more than just the formal institutions—the things that can be diagrammed in a flow chart showing jurisdiction or agency responsibilities—but also values, relationships, and personalities. Being part of it makes it a part of you: law students pick up law school culture; going to interviews and working in summer jobs, they pick up law firm culture (or the culture of the legal defender’s office), and so on. But here, again, going to law school is not the only way to gain this knowledge. Peggy Jarrett came to our library with seven years of experience in law firms, and knows a lot more about their inner workings than I picked up in my one summer associate job.
再次，法律文化知识对于
法律图书馆员来说，大有裨益。我这里所说的“法律文化”不只是局限于正式的制度——这些东西可绘制成能显示管辖权和代理责任的图表——还有价值观、人际关系和个性。在你成为其一部分时，将其变成你的一部分：法学学生在校时可获得法学院文化；面试和暑期兼职时，他们获得律师事务所文化（或者司法辩护办公室文化）等等。但是这里，我再三说法学院不是获得这种知识的唯一途径。佩琪·詹瑞特来我们图书馆工作之前，已在一家律师事务所服务了七年。对于它们的内部运转，她知道很多，比我在暑期做一份助理的工作时所了解的还要多。
16。 Legal training can also improve a librarian’s relationships with others in the institution. Working in a law school, one area of common ground when I chat with law students is law school, since I can commiserate about interview woes, moot court jitters, confusing classes, and other staples of law school life. Maybe students are a little more likely to use library services because of the rapport we’ve developed. My legal training also helps me work with faculty—because of sharedexperience and also because some of them value my credentials (law school, clerkship, etc.). And my legal training enables me to participate in the law school community by judging moot court competitions—a good way to build relationships.
法律训练也能改善一个图书馆员与机构中其他人的关系。在法学院工作，我与法学学生聊天的一个共同点就是法学院。因为我能同情面试时的悲哀、模拟法庭的神经过敏、一团糟的班级和其他主要的法学院生活。也许因为我们的和善，学生较为喜欢利用图书馆的服务。我的法律训练也有助于我和其他教员一起工作——既因为可以分享经历，也因为他们信任我（比如法学院的学习，职员的经历等）。我的法律训练使得我能通过裁判模拟法庭竞赛的方式参与法学院社团，这是一种建立人际关系的很好方式。
17。 But legal training is not a necessary condition for good relationships. I think legal training has helped me, but my librarian colleagues without law degrees also have good relationships with students and faculty. What is the foundation of their good relationships? The same as in any workplace—the trust generated by reliable, competent service and professional interactions. Friendliness, civility, and good humor go a long way. In fact, all of these things strike me as more important than the law degree; if my credentials were not accompanied by reliable, competent service, my good relationships with faculty, staff, and students would likely evaporate. [8]
但是法律训练不是良好人际关系的必要条件。我认为，法律训练曾经帮助了我，但是图书馆那些没有法学学位的同事照样也与师生打成一片。他们良好关系的基础是什么呢？无论在什么样的工作场所，可靠、优质的服务能够产生信任和专业互动。友善、礼貌、懂得幽默，大有帮助。事实上，我所说的所有这些事情都比法学学位重要得多。如果他们对我的信任不是来自于可靠、优质的服务，那么我与师生、教职员工的良好关系将会蒸发。[8]
18。 The final benefit in my list is far from trivial. It is that my legal training makes me more interested in the law, and interest is tied to job satisfaction with spillover effects on quality. It’s more fun to do research and help others do research if you care about the field (or at least some aspect of it). In turn that can make you better at it, because you are more likely to read and take other steps to learn more about it.
最后的收益是不会妄自菲薄。我的法律训练使得我对法律非常感兴趣，兴趣是与工作满意度的品质溢出效应相联系的。如果你关注这个领域（或者至少是其中的某些方面）的话，自己做一些研究工作、帮助他人做研究工作，是非常有趣的事情。轮流进行，可使你更上层楼，因为你会去阅读并采取一些方法以学习更多的东西。
19。 But librarians’ backgrounds in the law can sometimes backfire. If the librarian hated everything about law school, then watching moot court or on-campus interviewing could evoke such painful memories that job satisfaction goes down. If the librarian continues to resent having been on the “have-not” end of a two-tier system where all benefits and opportunities seemed to go to a few students in the top of the class, then she or he might not be comfortable working with law review students—even at another school that doesn’t have such a noxious hierarchy. [9]A librarian who was battered down by the law student experience might feel less confident talking to law professors than a librarian who hasn’t been to law school. A librarian who is fleeing law practice and can’t abide lawyers will likely be unhappy in a law library because, inevitably, law libraries are frequented by lawyers. All of this not only affects the librarian’s job satisfaction and mental health, but also affects job performance.
但是图书馆员的法学院背景有时也会有反作用。如果一个图书馆员痛恨法学院的每一件事情，于是观察模拟法庭和在校面试将激起痛苦的回忆，从而导致工作满意度的降低。如果一个图书馆员继续怨恨“尚未”终结的双轨制（two-tier system）——所有的利益和机会看起来只青睐班里的优等生，她（或他）可能会觉得与参与法律评论的学生一起工作十分不爽——即使在别的院系，也没有这样害人的制度体系。[9]因法学学生经历而受挫的图书馆员与那些没有法学院经历的图书馆员比起来，在向法学教授提供参考服务时可能不是很自信。一个脱离司法实践、不能容忍律师的图书馆员不会在法律图书馆愉快地工作，因为律师是法律图书馆的常客。所有这些不仅会影响图书馆员的工作满意度和心理健康，而且会影响工作绩效。
20。 It is hard to sort out exactly what in my work life is attributable to my having gone to law school. Surely law school shaped me, but I can’t rewind the clock and see what I would have been like without it. [10]Would I still be analytic? I think so—that undergraduate major in philosophy predated law school after all. Would I still have found some legal issues interesting? Sure, that’s why I chose to go to law school in the first place. Would I have been able to develop expertise in legal research? Why not—others have. Still, I think that my legal education does help me in my job as a law librarian. It gave me excellent foundation knowledge of legal institutions, legal terminology, and substantive law. It helped me develop my ability to read, analyze, and sort legal materials. It introduced me to legal culture, and has helped me form relationships with law students, lawyers, and law professors. Finally, it nourished my interest in law, which makes it more interesting to see what comes up each day in the reference office.
很难将影响我工作生活的法学院经历等因素进行排序。毋庸置疑，法学院塑就了我。但是我不能时光倒转，看一下如果我没有法学院的经历将会怎样。[10]我还会有这样的分析能力吗？我是这样想的——本科时的哲学专业毕竟比法学院的学习在先。我还能发现有趣的法律问题吗？当然，那是我为什么选择首先选择法学院的原因。我还能成为法律研究方面的专家吗？为什么不能呢？其他经历照样也可以。尽管如此，我认为，我的
法学教育有助于我做好
法律图书馆员的工作。它给了我极好的有关司法制度、法律术语、实体法等基础知识。它有助于我发展自己的阅读、分析、筛选法律资料的能力。它让我了解了法律文化，也帮助我形成了与法学师生和律师的融洽关系。最后，它滋养了我的法律兴趣，使得每一天的参考服务工作都非常的有趣。