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Hello, my name is Larry Seymour, and I'm here today, February 8, 2001, as part of a team conducting a group interview of Professor Elizabeth Sloser Kelly. The interview is taking place at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in Philadelphia as part of the oral Legal History

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Project. The team of interviewers consists of Katherine Worthman, Roseanne Perreta, Elizabeth Carrott, Deborah Weispin, and myself. I'd like to begin with a couple questions about your youth, if we could. When and where were you raised or born, pardon me. I was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, you

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know the song. I've got a gal in Kalamazoo. Anyhow, that's where I started out. And, uh, I'm pretty much a Midwesterner until I moved to Philadelphia in 1984. So you were raised as well in Michigan? Most, most of the Michigan and Minnesota. How would you describe

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the neighborhood in a socioeconomic class in which you were in a sense in which you were raised? Uh, my dad was a college professor, um. So I guess it was a sort of poor but genteel I guess that's the right way of describing it. Um, I,

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uh, went to a private girls school because uh that was run by an order of nuns who were cloistered. They didn't ever leave their premises because my dad went in and gave free classes to the to the nuns since they couldn't go out. So, um, I

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had the benefits of a private school education. Uh, without the income level, I guess you'd say. What did your father teach? English? English, and what was your mother's occupation? Um, she really didn't work outside the home, but she, uh, she was a poet. Among other things

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Where were your parents born? My mom was born in upstate New York and my dad outside of Chicago, um, my dad's father was a judge in Chicago. And he and all of his brothers went to the University of Michigan. My mom was an only child and

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um. Born into a family where the where the father um worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad. And she won a New York State Regent scholarship to University of Michigan, and that's where they met so. Did either of your parents have ties to law or library science? Uh,

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well, in the sense that my dad's dad was a judge and a couple of his brothers were lawyers. But um. Otherwise, no. Did you have any brothers or sisters? Yes, I'm one of 5. I have a sister and I. Have 2 living brothers and one who

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has died. Were you close with your siblings as a child? Actually, there was quite an age difference. I was close to my younger brother, but uh there was about. 12 to 14 years between me and the older children, so sort of like having two families, I

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think. Are you still close with your younger brother now? Reasonably so, I guess, uh. He, he, he's a, uh, Catholic theologian and he's a priest and I don't see a lot of him, so I mean. And he's gone down quite a different path than I have,

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so, but yeah, I would say we're close. Did you have any experience uh at the library that stands out as one of your favorite childhood memories? Actually, I worked in the library, that was my first job. Uh, When I was uh probably 13, I got a

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job as a page in the public library and I don't know, you probably know that what pages do is they re-shelve the books that come back in. And make sure that things are in order. So that's what I did. I thought it was pretty neat, but

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uh. I don't think I'd like it now as a job. Do you think that early exposure to the library kind of influenced your decision later to go into library sciences? Yeah, I think so. Probably so. And I also, you know, I read an incredible amount as

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a kid and so I was always going to the library. And when I was a senior in college, I won the college's senior class essay contest. And it it was a monetary prize. It was like a couple $100. And I owed it all in library fines.

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Do you remember what you wrote for that paper? No, I'm afraid that's. Where did you attend high school? At, uh, the visitation convent school in, um, uh, Saint Paul, Minnesota. And what activities interested you as a high school student? It's hard to say, um. Writing for

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the literary magazine, I guess, uh. Do you remember having a favorite class or teacher? No, I had kind of an odd high school, um, experience because I was much younger than my classmates. I had skipped 8th grade and I, I was a young 8th grader and

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then I had skipped 8th grade because I was a behavior problem. The nuns thought. She just doesn't have enough to do so they uh they just called me down to the principal's office one day and said, here are your new books and uh we're taking you

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up to the 9th grade class. And uh my parents didn't know about it until I got home that day. So I, I sort of was always uh a watcher of what was going on and never really part of the. Operative clicks in there. In what sense

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were you a troublemaker? Oh, I don't know. I, I think I was probably a smart ass could say that. OK. Did you imagine, uh, did, I'm sorry, did you entertain the idea of attending law school when you were a high school student? No, no, I didn't,

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I didn't get to think about law school until after I was married actually. So did you imagine you would go to college as a young high school student? Absolutely. What kind of social obstacles did you envision? Would would stand in your way at that time. Uh,

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social obstacles in what sense? Well, did you imagine that there were any, any, so being a woman in that period of time, you know, going to college straight from high school? I actually went to an all girls high school and an all girls college, which meant

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that I was always in a competitive environment where I didn't feel any constraints. And I actually tried to convince my girls to go to all all girls colleges, but I was not successful because I really do think it was very good for me. I never ever

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um. Failed to feel like I. Would want to compete fully in the classroom situation. OK. You attended the College of Saint Catherine in Saint Paul, Minnesota. What influenced your decision to attend that college? Oh goodness, um. I almost came here to the east coast. Because when

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I was 16 I had a Ford Foundation scholarship to um go to the college of my choice and they were they were trying an experiment seeing how 16 year olds did in college so they. Um, they gave a certain number of those awards. Unfortunately it was

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the same year that my dad had a sabbatical to England, so I pretty much had to choose between and I chose to go to England with them. And I think they didn't like the idea of me going off to the East Coast at 16, so they

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have influenced me during the course of the year. I think that was pretty clear, and I succumbed to their influence. And how did you come to study history and library science? Well, history was kind of a natural for me. I, I. I still read history by

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choice, um, library science, uh, I, I elected probably a couple of years into college. About the time that I decided I wanted to marry the guy I ended up marrying and um. I, he wanted to get a PhD and I figured I was gonna have to

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work while he got his PhD, so, uh, I thought library science would be the ticket and it would be something I'd probably like doing. So that's how that came about. So you would say it was your love of history that brought you to the library then

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as opposed to vice versa. Um, It's probably my love of Matt Kelly that brought me to the library rather than history. OK, which year of college would you say stands out as your favorite? Oh Probably the first because I had lots of enthusiasm, you know, how

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it is. Do you have a great memory? Do you remember being a one hour, right. Do you, do you have a great memory from that year? Anything that stands out? No, I don't think I do. No. Did you enjoy living in Minnesota? Yeah, I was a

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pretty hardy Minnesotan loved the countryside and um loved the the winter. I've now become totally soft. I don't think I could go back to living in that environment again. But at the time, I really liked it. Was it different from your experience growing up in Michigan?

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Yeah, Michigan, Southern Michigan is a lot more overcast and uh so you get gray kind of raw days a lot. uh, Minnesota was, was sunnier and brighter. At what point did you decide that you would apply to law school? Well, uh, I was married and I

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had 4 children and, uh, we were living in Southern Illinois where my husband was a philosophy professor. And um. I realized I I, my mother had been right when she said I would regret not going on to school. So, um. One day my husband came home

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from work and said. I think I've been rather insensitive. I don't think I have paid attention to the fact that you might want to go to school. How would you like to go to school? I said great. Um, And uh There was no law school in

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southern Illinois at the time. As I say, I had 4 children, so, um, there was really not much chance of my going elsewhere, but a law school came to Southern Illinois in 1973. It was one of a group of law schools that began right at that

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time. Yeah, and one of the better ones. So I applied, uh, took the test. Was accepted and uh the rest is history. Do you remember taking the, I assume it was the LSAT then. OK, well, I would, I was going to ask what factors led to

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your decision for the University of Southern Illinois, uh, but I think you've pretty well covered that. So I'm gonna pass you along to Deb Weis by now who's going to continue with some more questions. Um, you said that you received your BA in library science, and

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then you worked for several years in various libraries before you attended law school. So can I assume then that you knew upon entering law school that you wanted to be a law librarian? No, I didn't. I actually thought I might practice law, yeah, particularly international law.

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Um, But the realities of life have a way of kind of constraining your choices and more or less about the time I was finishing law school some of my kids were getting ready to go to college and it didn't seem like a good time to start

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over at the bottom so to speak, as I might have to practicing law. So, uh, since I was in demand as a law librarian happily I. I stayed with that course. And did you, uh, hold jobs during your summers between your 1st and 2nd, and then

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2nd and 3rd year of law school? Uh, no. I didn't. And when you attended law school, you were married you said you had, let me say I was working full time, so I have a year-round job and you were working at the law library that's right

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at the University of Southern Illinois, yes, Southern Illinois University, Southern. And when you were in law school, you were already married, you had 4 children. Do you think that that made your experience at law school different from that of your classmates? Absolutely. Study groups were something

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I could never work out in my schedule. So I'm sure they would have benefited me tremendously. But that's one thing I never tried, and I also ended up being. On fairly close terms with members of 2 or 3 classes because even though I I went through,

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it took me five years, but I graduated with the class of '78, not the class of 75, where my first group of uh classmates graduated. Um, or I guess it would be a class of '76 would have been the first year. So I was 2 years

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behind them. Uh, but I, I was, uh, a law review editor and I did, uh, uh, a lot of the other things that one does in law school. And did you meet other people in your class or in other classes who also were married and had

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children? Yes, I think because Southern Illinois hadn't had a law school that there were a number of people, male and female, who because of the circumstances of their lives had just not been able to go to law school and so there were there was really quite

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a group of older law students. How many people were in your law class, do you remember? It was a small class, probably around 100. Do you know how many of them are women? Back in those days, I think it was moving up towards 40%, but it

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wasn't as many women as there are now. Do you ever regret not using your law degree to practice law? Sometimes I do, yes. And had you ever thought about after your children graduated college going back and practicing law? I still haven't entirely foreclosed that option. Um,

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because I'm gonna retire and uh. It's one of the things I think about. And while working at Southern Illinois University's law library, um, you had experience in other libraries before then. What did you think of the law library? Well, it was a brand new law library,

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so it was kind of an interesting experience because we built it from scratch, absolutely nothing, and, uh, and we not only built the collection but we built the building and so that experience of building the building stood me in good stead when we got here. When

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I got here, uh, to Penn. While at the library, you developed, um, a model reader services program. Well, you've done your research. Can you explain what that is? Um, well, it occurred to me that probably, uh, other people had thought about how to run, uh. A

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maximally service oriented operation. And so I did what research I could on it. One of the most interesting things I remember to this day about that research was um. Ran across a writer who said. When you run a service operation. You better remember that people generalize

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from one or two bad experiences. So even if you run an operation that is pretty service oriented, uh, if you have a couple people who have a bad experience with it, they tend to go away and, and they generalize if you think about it, you do

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the same. I do the same, you say, they never have what I want or they're always so rude. I mean it might be one person who was rude to you, but um. So I guess what I've tried to do is to try to get the librarians

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who worked for me to remember. The fragility of reputation that any kind of service operation has and how you can be guilty of. Sending one person away without. They're finding what they want and have it really snowball, so. I think that just being conscious of that

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has been good for me and I hope good for the library operations. So it was kind of almost like a customer service, yeah, I mean, I think you just don't realize that doesn't, it's not enough to be 98%. On target with your answers and your help

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if you've got 2% of the people walking around. Saying how unhelpful the library is because it just kind of spreads. And then how did your employment progress at the law school's library while you were in the process of getting your JD? Well, after a couple of

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years, I, I had a great deal with a, with a great boss, a great law librarian. Um, Roger Jacobs and my deal was, uh, I could take classes during the day. Uh, if, as long as I kept my department running well. Uh, I didn't have to

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make up the time, but if I had trouble with making the department run well, I had to put in whatever time it took. Seemed like a reasonable deal to me and uh. After I'd been a couple of years in technical services organizing the collection that was

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going on the shelf. Um, and knew a little bit about law and the literature of law. I got the opportunity to run the public services operation there. And then eventually when he left um to take a better job I applied for his job, went through that

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process and eventually uh held that job for a few years. Before I came here. Did you become the law library director while you were actually attending law school at that time? No, no, I graduated in '78 and that's the year I was appointed. Law library director.

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And at that time, you also began teaching legal writing classes? And legal research classes did you envision teaching as part of your career ever? I did. And I, and I, well I haven't taught in recent years here, the 1st 8 to 10 years I was here,

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I did. And did you enjoy that experience? Yes, yeah, definitely. So what led you to come to the University of Pennsylvania? Well, um. One thing I always wanted to do was to run a great law library. And Southern Illinois University Library, even though it was a

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good library and it was a reasonable. School among the crop that were, were new in the 70s. Did not have the horizon to be a great law library. It just was not something that was in the cards. Um, So I figured that out and so I

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made myself a list of. The great libraries that had fallen on hard times that it might be fun to rescue. And Penn was on that list. How did it rank in your list? Well, there were about 10 libraries on the list that I knew they'd run

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into funding problems. They'd run into reputation problems. They'd had, um, staffing problems, um. So I just knew that it had once been one of the great law libraries, and I thought it could be again and that the school might reasonably expect it could be. So that's

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the kind of place I wanted to work and when that job came open I asked someone to nominate me. And, uh, happily I ended up here. Who nominated you? I don't even remember. But I, I know that was the process you had to do that. And

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so did your family move out here? No, no, my kids were grown. My husband was still teaching at Southern Illinois and that was the point, um in the middle 80s when humanities jobs just kind of shut down that there was a big contraction in the university

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market for philosophy teachers and other humanities teachers, so it looked like it was gonna be really difficult for him to move. We didn't anticipate that. Because I think I had figured out there were 70 schools within commuting distance of Penn. And so I actually thought it

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might work out differently that he would actually find a job. But I didn't anticipate the national. Um, movement. Uh, not higher and, uh, reduce the size of philosophy departments and humanity departments. So he commuted for 9 years. And it was, it was harder on him than

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it was on me, I'm sure. It's not a big fan of airplane travel, but. But it really, uh, it did work out well and since he's older than I am, he did retire at some point and now he lives with me again so so he moved

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here after he retired. And when you arrived at Penn, how did you find the law library? What major changes did you want to make when you first came? Well, it's pretty amazing place, um. Of course it was over in what is now Silberman Hall. And it

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was very small, um. You entered it at the top of the grand staircase where there's now a corridor between uh. The classrooms, uh, 240A and 240B on one end and the Levy conference center on the other end. And that corridor was the main area for circulation

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and reference and the reserve room. Um, It was a library that had such a bad reputation with the law students that. There were sit-ins at the Dean's office like every couple of weeks, the spring before I came. Um, people who were just totally dismayed. It was

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understaffed and it was underfunded and there were in excess of 700 keys to the premises out so that basically anybody who wanted to walk in and help themselves. Um, they could stay late at night, uh, after the library was closed, they could be there, um. Our

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collections turned out to be minus many key volumes and people thought we should know where they were um, it was just it was just a situation that needed improvement in almost any way that you could think of. Um Which made my job pretty easy because. Any

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small improvement you made was rewarded by uh good feeling and. Yeah, kind of helped you make the next step. What's one change that you made that you think you're the most proud of? Uh, adding a lot of reference librarians right off the bat. We needed to

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make the faculty and students um unaware of how. Poor the collection was I mean it really was um had a lot of holes in it and there were a lot of things the school had decided it couldn't afford that we should have had. And the only

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way we could make that a non event for the students and faculty is to have law librarians who could broker in the information that people needed help people get it quickly so they didn't realize that they were in a bad way by the library not having

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it. So I think that was the probably the most important thing. We did. OK, thank you so much. I'm gonna turn you over now to Elizabeth Carrot. Thanks. During your tenure as director of the Bidde Law Library, you oversaw the planning and construction of the new

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library. What was your vision for this new library? Well, actually, It was a wonderful process um. That I learned a lot in, um, the first. I, I think the the key to it all was this group of architects that we worked with because they asked us,

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uh, asked me in particular what I wanted as a result. I can still remember Lou Davis, who was the, the partner on the project, said, give me two words that describe what you'd like to see as the end result. How, what do you want this library

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to be? And I said. Serene and luminous and I really think they did a terrific job of putting flesh and bone on those two, so to speak, putting bricks and mortar on those two words got it, got the result I wanted. What kind of challenges did

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you encounter in the construction? Oh, there were lots um. First of all, staying within budget, which we did, we, we managed to bring the project in under budget. Uh, secondly, um. I learned that architects don't necessarily listen to you, uh. The uh overall strategy of this

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architectural firm was to try to put less money into things that don't show like um heating and air conditioning, um. You may even have noticed that now um. We on the other hand, um. We're trying to urge them to put in the Cadillac of heating and

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air conditioning systems because we knew we would be living in the building and everyone else would be. Um, we certainly upped the ante in terms of their investment and what we'll call the building infrastructure, but. It was at the cost of several fights over um whether

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this amenity feature that they wanted was worth more than a comfort or uh ease of maintenance feature that we wanted uh so it was kind of a tug of war for for quite a while. Uh, but In the end, uh, it has been a, a pretty

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good building to live in for the last 8 years, so. The libraries at Harvard and Yale were recently renovated. Why did Penn choose to build a new library rather than work within it within its existing structure? That's a good question um. When we began, of course

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the faculty are on the ground floor of uh what is now Silverman. Uh, there was insufficient wiring, insufficient space, uh, lots of asbestos, uh, any problem that you wanna think of probably characterized that old building. It contains about 100,000 gross square feet, and we would have

00:29:16.989 - 00:29:35.030

needed the entire building. Uh, if we try to rework it as library space, if we're gonna have any room for growth. The faculty pretty much told us that as long as they didn't have to move out of their offices, they didn't care what we did. So

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we essentially said all right we'll build a new building and those are the plans we subsequently brought to the faculty. Since they didn't have to move out of their offices worked. Over your 17 years here, the collection has been greatly expanded as well as reorganized under

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the Library of Congress system. How would you compare the collection that Penn Law Library has today to that you found in 1984? This is a good research collection. Like many collections, it's still and we can identify where it needs improvement. And there are a few problems

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that it has that money wouldn't cure, but. It is markedly better. We've worked for the last 1517 years filling in the holes where books had been stolen, um. We have, uh, greatly increased our buying so that we are now right up there near the top in

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terms of the number of uh volumes and titles that we add every year. Um, we have a, a good foreign and and international law budget. Uh, certainly compared to where we were. Um, And it's pretty easy to find things in this building, uh, the one thing

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that I remember about the old building when we came there. Was um It used about 6 different classification systems. So that uh you might be looking for a book and it would have the call number KB. Or you might be looking for a book and it

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would have the call number that began INT for international. Now how INT related to KB was anybody's guess, you know, so you really, I think it's best summed up by one of my reference librarians, in fact, Ron Day, who's head of reference here, he said, uh.

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The way Biddle was when you came, we had raised the. Direction that we had raised the directional question to a metaphysical level and it was sort of like you had to have a librarian to take you by the hand and help you find something. So our

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goal was really to try to make a library in which somebody could independently find what they were looking for if they knew the call number. How would you compare your library with that of other top law schools? Do that, you know, that's kind of hard for

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me to answer because I've not been. A user of other law school libraries, um. Some of my librarians who've been recruited by other libraries and decided to stay here. Uh, tell me that we are more service oriented. Um, I've heard that by faculty who have come

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here from top schools that we are more service oriented that it's just not even comparable with some of the schools that come from. That's always nice to hear, but objectively whether we have as good a collection, we don't have the budget that some of the really

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big schools do, and it's probably because we don't have, uh, 1500 tuitions every. Uh, every year to, uh, allocate. A portion of towards book buying. But I think it's been a pretty rational process and it's definitely a a quality research library now. As director of the

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library, you're also a tenured law professor. How do you feel that being a full member of the faculty has affected your ability to direct the library? See there are lots of ways that it has um. One way is I control a big chunk of the law

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school budget. And I think um. In order to make sure that the priorities of the library. Um, can be met. It's helpful not to have, not to be an employee of the law school in the same sense. That, um, say the registrar is because there's there

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are, there are faculty pressures from time to time, um, who think money should be spent elsewhere who think, um. That what you're buying is not what should be bought, um. And there are also been times few uh granted the kind of faculty we have but there

00:34:18.800 - 00:34:45.938

have been times when. It's been helpful to be a faculty member when. My um staff has been subject to verbal abuse or. Uh, whatever, but basically it's helped me to be an institution builder, uh, had given me some leeway and freedom to do that. Um, I

00:34:46.039 - 00:35:05.560

I can't imagine doing it another way. Biddle library is the only library at Penn that operates independently from the univers university's larger library system. How has this autonomy affected your ability to direct the library? Well, I think it's basically been positive. It doesn't prevent us from

00:35:05.560 - 00:35:27.379

having a relation of comity or cooperation with the main library and this split occurred. 12 or 13 years before I came, um, at that point, Penn itself was, um. Kind of impoverished in terms of resources that it was able to allocate to libraries in general. And

00:35:27.379 - 00:35:41.969

at that point, now 25, 26 years ago, the law school simply said. If we want to be a top law school, we have to have a library that meets our faculty's needs, and we can't have ask our faculty to wait in line behind the faculty and

00:35:41.969 - 00:36:02.739

students from other units and we're willing to pay the bill if we get that result so that was how the split occurred, um. In in large part, it's been, it's been quite positive uh because. The staff at the university libraries and my library staff do work

00:36:02.739 - 00:36:23.419

well together and we've been mutually assistive. So I I think it's kind of the best of both worlds. Over your years here, what type of fundraising, um, such as grants and alumni donations have you pursued? Well, uh, the first dean I worked for um. Was a

00:36:23.419 - 00:36:43.070

genius with money, but he didn't particularly like fundraising and he um. Gave me quite a bit of an opportunity to go out and speak to alumni groups of course that was uh uh calculated because at that point we were trying to create the image of the

00:36:43.070 - 00:37:03.409

library as a second place at Penn that alumni might care to support not just the law school but also its library. And now even today we have a study Friends of Biddle uh. Solicitation effort which attempts to raise money for the library. And it brings us

00:37:03.409 - 00:37:22.000

in about $100,000 a year. Because we figured out that there is a group of people who will give to the library because they care about it. Even after they've given to the law school or if they choose not to give to the law school may still

00:37:22.000 - 00:37:42.439

give to the library they kind of have separate identities in the minds of our alumni. So we have pursued that effort vigorously and um I owe a lot to Sylvan Cohen who is an alum who uh has chaired that effort, the Friends of Biddle ever since

00:37:42.439 - 00:38:00.439

I've been here. Um, had been very successful at it, but I did a fair amount of speaking at bar association meetings and, um, alumni gatherings during the 1st 5 to 10 years. Then when we got a new dean in who really needed to establish his own

00:38:01.050 - 00:38:19.729

persona, uh, and the library was sort of well on the road to recovery that slacked off and since that time. Uh, my efforts have mainly been in terms of looking for grants whether within the university or, uh, outside, and we've been recently successful in getting some

00:38:19.729 - 00:38:40.469

of those grants. Thank you very much. I'm gonna turn you over to Katie Worthman for some further questions. Thanks. Right, I Now, when you constructed the building, what, uh, did you have a specific, did you want multifunctional PCs so that people could do research? Why was

00:38:40.469 - 00:38:59.260

that a priority for you? Well, of course it was pretty wireless days so we wanted a very wired um. Establishment we really wanted uh we we foresaw the day that people would be carrying around laptops we may have thought it was going to come a little

00:38:59.260 - 00:39:16.790

bit faster than it actually did come. Um, but we wanted to give people the opportunity to sit down with a laptop and work any place in the library. And we hoped that they would not only be working and writing papers, but they would also choose to

00:39:16.790 - 00:39:35.649

hook up to the legal databases and uh do research. Why did you think it was important to have the ability to write papers and do legal research at the same time? Oh, I guess I think Americans want to do everything they can do. I mean, if

00:39:35.649 - 00:39:54.120

they can do it, they wanna do it, um, and it seemed to me that a library in a law school setting is not only um. A place where you. Research using the resources that are there but it's also a place where a lot of people choose

00:39:54.120 - 00:40:12.989

to do their own private study or they're outlining or whatever so it seemed to me that whatever we provided in electronics should further those same two ends things that we knew went on already in the. Library, the old library, shall we say. How has legal research

00:40:12.989 - 00:40:40.239

evolved over the years? Well, And some, some things are so much easier than they used to be, um. But I guess I I still think um that a complicated question is complicated to research even in the computer era, especially if it's a question that involves statutes,

00:40:40.280 - 00:41:00.530

statutory language, regulatory language. Not so easy uh to make sure you've got the right answer. Uh, you usually have to. Consult In addition to computers to consult the books. And I think people are really impatient with that nowadays, I don't think they really want to think

00:41:00.530 - 00:41:24.560

they have to do that. So, um, I think that's one of the challenges of anybody teaching legal research and writing. Is to effectively make the case to bright students that um. Not everything can be done with the computer. Um, I have a feeling that. Lots of

00:41:24.560 - 00:41:42.820

students. Are not convinced by that argument. And I think it's kind of sad because I really do think that um. They can make the same kind of mistake that uh David Boys made. In arguing before the Florida Supreme Court where he cited an Illinois case that

00:41:42.820 - 00:42:02.169

didn't stand for what he said it stood for. Uh, and was called on it by the Chief Justice. Um, I mean that's obviously there's a prophylactic part of legal research that's to prevent you from having egg on your face and not having found the authority that's

00:42:02.169 - 00:42:23.129

out there and I, I, I. No question that 90% of the research I do is by computer, but I hope I know when also to supplement it. But the books, so I think it has evolved from the days when you had to. Every question you researched,

00:42:23.209 - 00:42:38.419

you had to spread 10 or 11 books around you and go from one to the other. Uh, there are a lot of questions where you don't have to do that nowadays and a lot of questions that you couldn't answer no matter what. Uh, from the books.

00:42:40.469 - 00:42:59.350

Do you think that the introduction of Westlaw and the Internet has made other people so impatient that. It perpetuates people are making more mistakes than they used to. I don't have any empirical evidence on that, but I wonder that myself. Do you think that this is

00:42:59.350 - 00:43:24.510

harmed legal research, that the innovations such as Westlaw and the internet have actually hurt legal research in general? Um, Well, I'm not sure that's what's hurt like research. I had a conference here, um. 5 years ago, maybe. Uh, in conjunction with the computer science department, we

00:43:24.510 - 00:43:50.939

put on a conference, invited a lot of leading law librarians and a lot of computer scientists, information retrieval specialists, and Lexus and Westlaw and some of the other vendors. And the issue, the um. Computer scientists wanted to ask was, you know, why aren't you? Improving your

00:43:50.939 - 00:44:12.129

retrieval systems by some of the innovations that we've come up with that. Maybe in the last 2 or 3 years still you are doing things the way you did 4 or 5 years earlier. Why aren't you, um, taking advantage of those innovations? Why should we keep

00:44:12.129 - 00:44:33.840

working on these issues and somebody in an unguarded moment from. Westlaw, I think said um. Well, actually we've discovered that we get more bang for our buck and we spend our money on marketing. And um, you know, this is not surprising. So I, I, I kind

00:44:33.840 - 00:44:53.250

of think it's not necessarily the innovations that have come, but the marketing that has, uh, done the damage. Do you think that the profit-driven industry of legal research is. Has uh affected it then adversely. Well, let me just say I think that some of the healthiest

00:44:53.250 - 00:45:11.379

developments have been, uh, until they were bought this last week or so fine law quick law, uh, some of those lowest law that were essentially free and that were competitive with Lexus and Westlaw because I think they did put pressure on them. Uh, to, uh, they,

00:45:11.500 - 00:45:31.139

they took away the profit incentive. You could, you could spend a lot of time doing your computerized research in those systems, uh, without running up the, uh, transactional bill. Even though a lot of the firms have flat rates these days, the big firms. Now for uh

00:45:31.139 - 00:45:47.419

a few years ago you supervised, uh, the legal writing instructors as they taught, uh, the first year students legal writing and legal research. What do you think is the most important thing to teach the first year students when they're just beginning to learn legal writing and

00:45:47.419 - 00:46:14.370

research? It's an interesting question. I guess. I think it's probably that there's more than one way to do almost anything you have to do in legal research. So that if you find you're in a place where you can't, the resources aren't there to answer a question

00:46:14.370 - 00:46:30.969

one way, there's almost always another way to answer the question. Um, That's one of the things that struck me when I learned legal research is that gee, there were maybe 6 different ways you could find any given piece of information depending on what you started out

00:46:30.969 - 00:46:57.659

with. Do you think that legal research should be a separate and distinct required course for the Penn law community? I do, uh, even though the students at Penn are very bright, um. I have a bias that says um. Librarians are probably better at teaching it than

00:46:58.830 - 00:47:21.129

than 3rd year students. Um, and I say that. With some Diffidence because I've really not had the opportunity to sit in and listen to a lot of 3rd year students teaching legal research, but I've heard their own expressions of hesitance about it. About being the teacher

00:47:21.129 - 00:47:40.250

and and trying to do a good job on this, and I know that um. Teaching and comparing research in the books and on computer is something that's a bit of a challenge to 3rd year students to handle. So for those reasons I do, uh, when I

00:47:40.250 - 00:48:02.570

came here, Penn had a an abominable legal research course just absolutely abominable. And I I remember the faculty was kind of horrified when I reported. That um one of the quotes that a Harvard Law librarian had heard from a firm. Was a for hiring manager saying.

00:48:03.989 - 00:48:22.100

Uh, gee, the Harvard Law graduates are almost as poorly prepared in legal research as those from Penn. And I thought, gee, we have to fix that. So I set about to try to fix it and I'm sure it's a much, much better program now. Does that

00:48:22.100 - 00:48:37.580

mean, I think Anne Kringle, who runs the program, thinks that it could, there are parts of it that could benefit from being done by the librarians and. Uh, it's just a matter of resources, you know, whether there are enough librarians to go around to do the

00:48:37.580 - 00:48:56.250

job. Do you think that there are other ways to somehow incorporate teaching legal research in the substantive law classes? I think so. I think that can be done fairly successfully. Uh, it's a lot of work and it's hard to tailor, um, individual sections so that, uh,

00:48:56.260 - 00:49:16.739

they don't all seek to use the same books. When you're trying to integrate it into real problems, but I have done that and it's worked pretty well. I thought I think I think there is. I think it's an unquestioned truth that um. You are more likely

00:49:16.739 - 00:49:37.949

to remember how to do something if you learn it when you need to know it rather than. In the abstract beforehand. Uh, my, my model would be to have kind of on demand. Uh, web uh web modules that students who. Have a need to learn how

00:49:37.949 - 00:49:54.879

to do something could call upon, I think they. Would find that that instruction stuck with them. But it has to be something that's available 24 hours a day and that's kind of a pre-prepared module. I think we're coming towards that. What do you think are the

00:49:54.879 - 00:50:31.510

most important skills to make somebody a good legal researcher? Well, I think you have to be able to put yourself in. The position of the person reading your memorandum and asking questions about it and ask yourself those same questions. Uh, and then not be satisfied

00:50:31.510 - 00:50:47.959

until you can answer them. You know, I think if you don't try to question your results, you can be satisfied with something that turns out to be a half-baked job. But if you subject your work product to the same kind of questioning, you would if someone

00:50:47.959 - 00:51:20.330

had done it for you. Then you're more likely to go back and and fix some of the problems that you. May have left it. residing in your result. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Yes sir. What are the most significant archived collections that we have here

00:51:20.330 - 00:51:41.719

at the Bitter Law Library? Ah, you've touched a subject close to my heart. Um, we have of course the American Law Institute archives which are. Which actually draw quite a lot of research questions and actually draw researchers here. This last 3 weeks we had a researcher

00:51:41.719 - 00:52:06.070

from Japan who was here uh using the archives um we have the archives of the National Conference of Commissioners on uniform state laws. I think today they. Maybe prefer to refer to themselves as the uniform law commissioners that group is um. Um, commissioners who are appointed

00:52:06.070 - 00:52:31.229

by each state of the union and their purpose is to try to draft model legislation that um will help uh move us towards uniform law across the 50 states. So that's a very significant collection. We have the papers of Judge Bazelon. Um, Judge Bazilon. Uh was

00:52:31.229 - 00:52:50.649

a well known jurist during the time I went to law school, which was in the 70s, uh. I think Every week I must have had to read 2 or 3 opinions by Judge Bazelon, so I really knew the name and uh discovered that his son is

00:52:50.649 - 00:53:12.189

an alumna of of Penn Law. And uh when uh his dad became incapacitated, they were looking for. Uh, a good home for his papers because. Because he kind of was one of the first judges to work on the insanity defense and also he was very interested

00:53:12.189 - 00:53:36.010

in kind of the intersection of of law and science. So we have his papers and uh we have um. Uh, Bernie Siegel's papers, uh, Bernard Siegel. Who, who died uh was a friend of the law school, um. Died uh within the last few years, had a

00:53:36.010 - 00:53:57.919

very long and distinguished career, so we have his papers as well and we have just concluded an agreement with the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges to. Uh, build, um, an NBA here, a National Bankruptcy archives, um. So we're pretty excited about that. How are the ALI

00:53:57.919 - 00:54:27.260

and Kuzal collections acquired? Um, I guess the basic Thing I should tell you is that with the coming of electronic access to text, which we saw in Lexus and Westlaw beginning in the early 70s. It Became clear to me that um. The advantages in terms of

00:54:27.260 - 00:54:49.219

reputation and research value that some of the big old famous law libraries had had and had kind of conferred on the schools they were attached to. Uh, was going away. It was great equalizer. The, the law students at, uh, Southern Illinois University, uh, could, uh, have

00:54:49.219 - 00:55:15.679

as much access to as much material as a law student, um, at Columbia. So I thought about that problem for a while and decided that the one way around it. Was to acquire for a big old famous law library unique collections that. Were resource research rich,

00:55:15.760 - 00:55:41.719

I guess. Um, And then Digitize portions of those collections and organize them, index them and put the index on the web. It seemed to me that would preserve kind of the ability of a library to be a reputational asset, a research asset. So, um. With ALI

00:55:41.719 - 00:56:07.040

I actually had published a collection of the drafts of the uniform commercial Code. That I had found um by going around to different libraries. Uh, when the American Law Institute, being a private organization, does its drafting, um. It has limited circulation, limited publication of the various

00:56:07.040 - 00:56:30.570

drafts. They're circulated to members and uh over the years. Uh, that the UCC was in the process for a very long time. Um, Not a lot of libraries kept all the drafts, so if you wanted to essentially do a legislative history of the UCC, the documents

00:56:30.570 - 00:56:47.830

weren't there. So as a librarian I thought that was an interesting project, and I, I did go around to a lot of different law libraries looking for drafts and then I went to the ALI and they said. Gee, you should really work in our archives. And

00:56:47.830 - 00:57:05.169

I said, well, where are they? And they said, well, they're down the street. Uh, if you wear warm clothes and are willing to let us lock you in for the day, um, we'll take you down there. It was a really bad neighborhood and, uh, like the

00:57:05.169 - 00:57:31.719

street was littered with crack. Containers and um the warehouse itself was unheated and it had uh no bathroom facilities, a light in the middle of the ceiling, and 50 years worth of filing cabinets in no particular order so. I spent many days going through those filing

00:57:31.719 - 00:57:51.659

cabinets and I realized that the paper was pretty fragile and those things were just not gonna be around. So when I came here and took this job, uh. I um Wondered out loud to them whether or not we could find a solution jointly and they were

00:57:51.659 - 00:58:09.060

willing to have us take the archives and put them in order and it seemed like the law school thought it was a good idea too so that's how it happened. Do these organizations provide funding for the processing and upkeep of these of these archives? Uh, they

00:58:09.060 - 00:58:31.580

don't really, they haven't, uh, on a continuing basis there was some one shot funding efforts. um, the, um, American Law Institute Foundation gave us a chunk of money that helped us hire, uh, an archivist who was skilled in in organizing the materials. And uh the uniform

00:58:31.580 - 00:58:54.260

law commissioners also gave us a small amount of money and we got some grant money. Um, The bankruptcy area seems to be. Like they have got more money and that they are likely to um. Send more of it our way, but uh. Um, I think. The

00:58:54.260 - 00:59:13.010

best of all possible worlds certainly is to get an endowment for the archives. We were under less pressure to do that. With uh ALI and uh the uniform law commissioners because one of our alums Ed Cutler um. Who has also been the subject of a legal

00:59:13.010 - 00:59:34.850

oral history interview did um endow our archival project so that at some point in the future when neither he nor her his wife are alive anymore there will be some steady steady stream of income coming to the archives. Does Penlaw actually own these archives, or are

00:59:34.850 - 00:59:55.820

we merely the custodians of the materials? We're the custodians of the ALI and the uniform law commissioners. Uh, we have what's called permanent custody, and the document is the contractual agreement is written in such a way that um the breach would have to be pretty grievous

00:59:55.820 - 01:00:23.530

and protracted for us to lose them. Um, Then the archives that are from individuals we own. The National Bankruptcy archives are likely to be a mixed bunch or the organizational records are likely to come to us. Uh, under one of these permanent custody arrangements, some of

01:00:23.530 - 01:00:47.449

the individual contributions will end up owning. A significant portion of Bitter Law Library's collections have to do with law reform and codification. Was this purposeful? I think so, you know, historically this school had a um very close relationship with the American Law Institute. William Draper Lewis,

01:00:47.659 - 01:01:12.100

uh, was both dean of the law school and director of the, uh, ALI, and our faculty have always played a, uh, an influential role. Uh, in ALI's activities, so I think um. That kind of Is evidence of a early and continuing evidence in the uh interest

01:01:12.100 - 01:01:36.899

in the law reform business. Uh, Professor Honnold, who's emeritus was a consultant for the New York State Law Revision Commission. He was a drafter, um, the principal drafter of the. International Convention on the sale of goods, all of these things have to do with um. Uh,

01:01:36.909 - 01:01:59.520

law reform and codification of law, simplification of law, so I think it is definitely an institutional interest that we've been able to capitalize on. How often are new materials added to the archives? It depends, um, ALI sends us a supplement. About every 10 years or whenever

01:01:59.520 - 01:02:26.830

they run out of space. Um, The national conference. Um, never had any central office with archives in it. That uh they were able to transfer to us. So what we've acquired there are the papers of individuals and uh the individuals. Um, I guess it's kind of

01:02:27.979 - 01:02:45.489

Hit or miss when they decide they're ready to get rid of their papers. So some things arrive on schedule and some don't, I guess that's what I'm trying to say. And finally, after your retirement, what are your plans? Oh. Well I have with my family a

01:02:45.489 - 01:03:03.120

house on an island in northern Lake Huron. Just kind of a bit on the northern frontier. It's not uh. Um, it's a little rugged up there, but. Uh, it's a wonderful old house that we've made quite comfortable and it's on the water and my grandchildren love

01:03:03.120 - 01:03:19.729

to come up there, so I expect that we'll spend our summers and falls there and uh do some traveling in the winters and springs. Thank you very much Professor Kelly for speaking to us this afternoon. Thank you. OK, great.