Decreases in enrollments naturally mean decreases inrevenues. The question is how will law schools adjust their budgets to dealwith the loss of income? One strategy that some law schools are using is to layoff faculty and staff. http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/jp/amid-sharp-enrollment-declines-law-schools-shed-faculty

While personnel costs account for approximately 66-75% ofmost law school budgets, cutting personnel might not be the best approach tothe problem of declining revenues. Educating students, and helping them secureemployment have to be our first priorities. Any decisions we make must supportthose priorities. Firing faculty or administrative personnel will cut expenses,but I think the detriment to our students might outweigh the savings from thosecuts.

If we don’t layoff faculty or staff, how can we reduceour budgets? The answer could be different for each law school, but everyexpense must be scrutinized. We have to ask how each expense supports theeducational mission of the law school. From time to time I will post mythoughts on the various law school expenses, and ask how those expenses supportthe educational mission. In that regard, my first post on the subject examinesthe role of the law library in legal education.

Library budgets represent a large portion of overall lawschool expenses, and libraries require a substantial amount of the law school’susable space. That is not surprising, considering that the ABA Standards forApproval of Law Schools require that libraries have adequate space andresources.

Additionally, Standard 606 states:

 (a) The law library shall provide a corecollection of essential materials accessible in the law library.

(b) In additionto the core collection of essential materials, a law library shall also providea collection that, through ownership or reliable access,

        (1) meets the research needs of thelaw school’s students, satisfies the  demandsof the law school curriculum, and facilitates the education of its  students;

        (2) supports the teaching,scholarship, research, and service interests of the  faculty; and

        (3) serves the law school’s specialteaching, scholarship, research, and service objectives.

(c)A law library shall formulate and periodically update a written plan fordevelopment of the collection.

Because the standard does not specifically enumerate whatschools should collect (I am definitely not advocating for such specificrequirements), schools typically err on the side of maintaining very largecollections. This collection plan has added greatly to the annual expenses ofmany law school budgets, without truly enhancing the education of the students,or the scholarly productivity of the faculty. In plain terms, we buy orsubscribe to a whole bunch of stuff that we will never use. I want to make surethat the students and faculty have the materials they need, when they needthem, but I am concerned about purchasing materials to have, just in casesomeone might need them, but probably won’t.

Our collection plans remind me of the common law Rule Against Perpetuities. The plan seems to be based upon the question: "what if the fertileoctogenarian comes into the law library wishing to do research on an obscure area of the law?" We have been purchasing resources, in case that happens.

Furthermore, when we purchase print materials, we have tofind a place to shelve those materials. The result is that we have establishedbeautiful book museums, when our students and faculty rarely use thosematerials, and the legal profession moved away from print a decade ago. It is quaintthat Standard 606 requires the core collection to be accessible in the libraryitself, and that we still have to report the amount of linear shelving space usedby our libraries in our annual ABA questionnaires. Is that really still arelevant measure of a library collection in a non-linear, digital age?

Of course, our students, faculty, and other constituentsneed quiet, as well as collaborative study space, and the library serves thatneed well. I would argue that the square footage used to house books could berepurposed to expand greatly the space available for quiet and collaborative work.

In my opinion, it is definitely time to reevaluate therole of the law library in legal education.