The 2018 Judith M. Wright Fellowship

Applications Now Open for Summer 2018

The D'Angelo Law Library at the University of Chicago is accepting applications for the 2018 Judith M. Wright Fellowship. This Fellowship develops promising new professionals in academic law librarianship by supporting a career training program at the D'Angelo Law Library. The Judith M. Wright Fellowship provides $4,000 to a law school or library science student or a recent graduate selected for training at the D'Angelo Law Library for a Fellowship as described below.

Fellowship - Summer 2018

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 working in the D'Angelo Law Library under the guidance and supervision of the Law Library Director and other librarians will learn about the overall functions, policies and practices of the D'Angelo Law Library in both the collections services and user services departments. 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 and the interests and prior experience of the Fellow. As a requirement for completing the Fellowship, the Fellow will write and submit a report summarizing and reflecting on his/her experiences working at the D'Angelo Law Library. 

The project for Summer 2018 will be one of the following:

1) Chicago Unbound, the University of Chicago Law School’s institutional repository, contains the scholarship of the Law School community, providing full-text access to decades of Chicago Law faculty scholarship and the archives of many Law School journals and publications. The 2018 Wright Fellow will help develop a new Chicago Unbound collection highlighting the scholarship and service of the Law School’s deans throughout its history. The Fellow will create a space for this historical collection in Chicago Unbound and complete materials for three to five former deans. Creating the new collection will involve reviewing and selecting materials (e.g. articles, speeches, manuscripts, photographs) as well as organizing and describing the selected materials in Chicago Unbound.

2) The D'Angelo Law Library has an extensive orientation and training program for University of Chicago Law School students that includes in-person tours and learning sessions, online 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 2018 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 librarians at the D'Angelo Law Library offer reference services to faculty, students, and other researchers through several channels, including in person or by phone at the reference desk, virtual assistance through email and chat, and research consultations by appointment. Over the past few years, D'Angelo patrons have increasingly made use of the virtual reference services. The 2018 Wright Fellow will conduct a review of reference inquiries submitted through D'Angelo's virtual channels and complete a report that summarizes and analyzes these reference transactions, including recommendations for strategies to address common questions, such as revisions to D'Angelo's online FAQ, research guides, and targeted video tutorials.

The Judith M. Wright Fellowship provides $4,000 for a minimum of six consecutive weeks of temporary, full-time work to occur between June 11 and September 14, 2018.

Eligibility and Requirements:

The Fellowship is open to recent graduates or currently enrolled students of an accredited library science or information science program, or to recent graduates or currently enrolled students in a J.D. program at an ABA-accredited law school. Applicants must demonstrate an interest in academic law librarianship through appropriate coursework or previous experience.

Applicants should submit a letter of application expressing their interest in this opportunity and their commitment to a career in academic law librarianship. In addition, applicants should submit a resumé including a description of their library or information science graduate program and/or J.D. degree program, including any coursework in law librarianship or legal information resources; the names and e-mail addresses of three professional references; and an indication of which of the proposed projects would be of interest to them. Applicants must be eligible to work in the United States. The University of Chicago is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

The deadline for applications is March 5, 2018. The successful applicant will be selected no later than April 13, 2018.

Send applications (email submission only) to:

Sheri Lewis
Director of the D'Angelo Law Library
University of Chicago
1121 E. 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
shl@uchicago.edu