Librarians have not vanished in large law departments

I have had the impression that law department libraries, and the professionals who maintain them, have been vanishing into the online world, bowing to the availability of information about anything on the Web (See my posts of Jan. 10, 2006 about lawyers online and Oct. 31, 2005 about online legal resources.), or have been line item strikeouts during budget cuts.

To the contrary, according to data from the 2005 Hildebrandt International Law Department Survey. Of 130 law departments that reported position information, 26 of them had a “Librarian,” and 12 of them had “Information Center/Library Staff.” The total library positions compared to the total lawyer positions means a ratio of one librarian for every 123 lawyers.