Accepting applications for the Wright Fellowship for promising new academic law librarians
The D’Angelo Law Library at the University of Chicago is accepting applications through March 29 for the 2021 Judith M. Wright Fellowship. Established on the occasion of Ms. Wright’s retirement as the director of the D’Angelo Law Library in 2013, the Fellowship recognizes her 40 years of service to the University of Chicago Law School and her legacy as a mentor to generations of law librarians.
The Wright Fellowship will develop promising new professionals in academic law librarianship by supporting a career training program at the D’Angelo Law Library. It provides $4,000 to a law school or library science student or recent graduate for a minimum of six consecutive weeks of temporary, full-time work to occur between June 14 and September 3, 2021. The 2021 Fellowship will be conducted online and remotely.
The Fellowship is intended to give candidates interested in law librarianship as a career an opportunity to apply their skills and knowledge in an academic law library setting. Fellows will work in the D’Angelo Law Library under the guidance and supervision of the Law Library Director and other librarians and will learn about the overall functions, policies, and practices of the D’Angelo Law Library in both collection services and user services departments.
The primary focus of the Fellow’s work will be determined by the interests and prior experience of the Fellow and the needs of the D’Angelo Law Library. In addition to participating in the daily work of a premier academic law library, Fellows will undertake and complete a project based on the needs and capabilities of the D’Angelo Law Library.
The project for Summer 2021 will be one of the following:
1) The D'Angelo Law Library engages in a range of approaches and tools to gather input from its community, in particular from students and faculty, on the use of services and resources. The 2021 Wright Fellow will develop a coordinated assessment plan to evaluate the success of D’Angelo’s services for faculty and students, including marketing and outreach of those services. In developing the plan, the Fellow also will review the current assessment tools and approaches including data collection, regular surveys, meetings with student groups, and faculty interviews. The Fellow also will consider how best to gather input through future assessments on unmet faculty and student needs for D’Angelo services and resources.
2) The D'Angelo Law Library has an extensive orientation and training program for University of Chicago Law School students that includes various general learning sessions, research guides, and customized training and research support for courses and programs. The D'Angelo librarians also maintain a resource guide to the many digital tutorials created and maintained by law database vendors, including Westlaw, Lexis, Bloomberg Law, and HeinOnline. The 2021 Wright Fellow will expand the learning opportunities available to UChicago law students by creating digital tutorials specific to D'Angelo services and collections.
3) The D’Angelo Law Library has maintained dual-operations in 2020 and 2021 with staff members working remotely and on staggered schedules onsite in the library building. As D’Angelo supervisors proceed to hire new full-time and part-time employees in the future, the Library will adopt an approach to onboarding that enables aspects of orientation and training to be delivered online and asynchronously. The 2021 Wright Fellow will work with D’Angelo supervisors to design and create an online orientation program for new staff members including videos, tutorials, and documentation with both visual and textual content.
For detailed information on eligibility, requirements, and how to apply, visit the Library website.
