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Could Law Librarianship Go the Way of Birmingham’s Thousand Trades – and What Can We Do to Preserve the Profession?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2025

Greg Bennett
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Abstract

In this article, based on his presentation at the Birmingham Conference – hence the title – Greg Bennett runs through his analysis of job adverts for librarians over the six months preceding the Conference. The purpose of this was to gauge the proportion of those adverts where the criteria involved expertise that currently only law librarians can offer. He then considers the longevity of those very criteria; that is, whether those that currently require the expert knowledge of a law librarian could be replaceable by artificial intelligence (AI), or some other process or other people. Finally, he suggests areas of strength for the future for law librarians, encouraging those involved in the legal information profession to emphasise these strengths in their roles.

Keywords

law librariansacademic law librariansinformation professionals

Information

Type
General Features
Information
Legal Information Management , Volume 25 , Issue 3-4 , September 2025 , pp. 167 - 171
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by British and Irish Association of Law Librarians

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References

Endnotes

1 Office for National Statistics, ‘Annual Population Survey - Employment by Occupation by Sex - Nomis’ <www.nomisweb.co.uk/datasets/aps218/reports/employment-by-occupation?compare=K02000001> accessed 1 August 2025.

2 Interestingly the number at the time of my talk at the BIALL conference was lower than it is at the time of writing this article. So, there has been a recent upturn in numbers of librarians. However, the general trend is seemingly downwards.

3 Paul Lynch, Pilar Tomas and Alix Hattenstone, ‘Public Libraries in “crisis” as Councils Cut Services’ (BBC News, 2 September 2024) <www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn9lexplel5o> accessed 1 August 2025.

4 Francesca Lilleystone, ‘Fight To Save Former Harold Wood Library From Developers As Community Hub Plans To Be Unveiled Tonight.’ The Havering Daily (24 June 2025) <https://thehaveringdaily.co.uk/2025/06/24/fight-to-save-former-harold-wood-library-from-developers-as-community-hub-plans-to-be-unveiled-tonight/> accessed 4 August 2025.

5 Havering London Borough, ‘Havering Library Strategy 2024 - 2029’ (May 2024) 20 <https://democracy.havering.gov.uk/documents/s77455/Appendix+A+-+Draft+Library+Strategy+2024-2029.pdf> accessed 5 August 2025.

6 My full spreadsheet is available to view here – (www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/38lmoeacoq2izgn7pvywj/Law-jobs-spreadsheet.xlsx?rlkey=zb25y96h2x0tqpxtlf42nh7jx&st=2fukiwkz&dl=0> – each job has either a number (given by the recruitment consultant) or initials (which were the initials of the name of a job advertised by someone other than a recruitment consultant). Please contact me if you would like to see the actual job adverts themselves.

7 My full spreadsheet is available here - <www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/z0lqtppfxvjahjmtvy06p/University-jobs-spreadsheet.xlsx?rlkey=kgvrau98xo7mdezud1y0mknl6&st=7kcfdmvb&dl=0> – see footnote above for more information.

8 Achala Gupta, Rachel Brooks and Jessie Abrahams, ‘Higher Education Students as Consumers: A Cross-Country Comparative Analysis of Students’ Views’ (2025) 55 Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 174, 175–176.

9 Saskia Hoving, ‘Life in the Library – Building a Career in Academic Librarianship’ (2025) <www.springernature.com/gp/librarians/the-link/research-management-blogpost/library-careers-equal-opportunities/27784642> accessed 29 August 2025.

10 My full spreadsheet is available here - <www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3emrp8rn9vgbm7s7rj4hz/Non-Law-Non-University-jobs-spreadsheet.xlsx?rlkey=4wos98sqi5x11s5hizdswqkhf&st=qmfo63ie&dl=0> – see note 6 above for more information.

11 Solicitors Regulation Authority, ‘SRA Approves First AI-Driven Law Firm’ (SRA, 6 May 2025) <www.sra.org.uk/sra/news/press/garfield-ai-authorised/> accessed 12 May 2025.

12 Scott Frey, ‘A History of the Future of Law Libraries: Lessons in Forecasting from Law Librarians’ Predictions of the Past’ (2014) 19 AALL Spectrum 9, 11.

13 Shannon Malcolm, ‘The Next Big Thing?: Google Scholar and Legal Scholarship’ <https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/law-lib_borgeson/70> accessed 27 July 2023.

14 John MacColl, ‘Google Challenges for Academic Libraries’ (Ariadne Issue 46, February 2006) <https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10023/1679/MacCollGoogleChallengesAriadne46.htm> accessed 20 July 2023.