MLIS Law student Grace Lee’s paper, “Draw Me a Picture: Instructional Visual Displays in the Academic Law Library” received the 2015 Earl C. Borgeson Research in Law Librarianship Award. Lee’s paper will be published in the journal Legal Reference Services Quarterly. The honor carries a $1,000 prize.
In her winning paper, Lee explores how law librarians can incorporate visual displays into academic law library services. Lee considers whether visual aids such as infographics could be an effective way to convey information in law libraries, and concludes that it's a potential starting point for experimentation.
Lee said the topic interested her because "big data and infographics in general have become increasingly popular, including the legal field, and provide an alternative method of imparting information traditionally conveyed through wholly text-based mediums."
The Borgeson award was established in 2000 to encourage scholarly research in the field of law librarianship. Each year students in Professor Penny Hazelton's Current Issues in Law Librarianship class each write a major paper about an important contemporary topic affecting the profession; these papers are submitted to a panel of nationally renowned law librarians who select the best piece.
The judges this year were Michael Chiorazzi, UW Law Librarianship (MLIS Law 1981), Director, Law Library and Professor of Law, University of Arizona College of Law Library; Richard Danner, Rufty Research Professor of Law and Senior Associate Dean for Information Services, Duke University's J. Michael Goodson Law Library; and Marguerite Most, UW Law Librarianship (MLIS Law 1977), Reference Librarian and Senior Lecturing Fellow, Duke University's J. Michael Goodson Law Library.
Earl Borgeson, MLIS Law '49, served as president of the American Association of Law Libraries (1968-69) and was professor of law and librarian at Harvard Law School. He died in 2010. With the help of alumni and friends of the Law Librarianship Program, the Borgeson Award has now been endowed, ensuring that it can be awarded every year in perpetuity.