A quien se considera Pymes

My third research question—what are the similarities and differences between the legal issues represented in actual lawsuits and those represented in the LIS curricula—is helpful for practitioners in how they address legal liability risks. The most common legal actions that I found in federal and state courts involving collecting institutions are legal issues that do not appear as often in the graduate LIS classroom,68 _{and when they do, these issues are not}

emphasized. Represented in Table 9, federal docket results show that ALA-accredited LIS graduate courses address law and legal issues, but dissimilar from the legal issues that appear in the most common, relevant dockets. Similar in contrast, Table 10 shows state docket results aside LIS graduate courses involving legal issues. These comparisons are addressed below.

Table 9: Federal Docket Categories Compared with LIS Courses and Corresponding Percentages

Docket Categories LIS Courses

Civil Rights 70.80% 25.53% Law or Legal Issues

Other Statutes 10.40% 20.74% Intellectual Property & Copyright

Contract 6.50% _15.96% Privacy

Torts 4.90% 13.30% Legal Information & Legal Research Property Rights 3.10% 12.77% Intellectual Freedom & Censorship

Labor 2.10% 9.04% Information Policy

Personal Property 1.20% 2.66% Legal Evidence

Real Property 0.60%

Bankruptcy 0.30% Social Security 0.10% Forfeiture/Penalty 0.09%

Table 10: State Docket Categories Compared with LIS Courses and Corresponding Percentages

Docket Categories LIS Courses

Civil 32.24% 25.53% Law or Legal Issues

Torts/Negligence 17.23% 20.74% Intellectual Property & Copyright

Small Claims 13.11% 15.96% Privacy

Contracts 6.21% 13.30% Legal Information & Legal

Research

Probate, Trusts, & Estates 5.28% 12.77% Intellectual Freedom & Censorship

Writs 4.59% 9.04% Information Policy

Labor & Employment 3.34% 2.66% Legal Evidence

Remedies 3.01% Tax 2.47% Civil Procedure 2.11% Real Property 2.00% Liens 1.78% Banking/Finance 1.14% Business Organizations 1.00% Foreclosure 0.78% Administrative 0.71% Civil Rights 0.67% Landlord/Tenant 0.62% Criminal 0.33% Harassment 0.33%

Family & Domestic Relations 0.27%

Construction 0.15%

Fraud & Misrepresentation 0.15%

Arbitration 0.11%

Protective/Restraining Order 0.09% Conservatorship & Guardianship 0.07% Government/Public Records 0.05%

Unfair Competition & Business

Practices, Business Tort 0.05%

Bonds 0.04%

Local/Municipal Ordinance 0.02%

Class Action 0.02%

Forfeiture/Penalty 0.02%

Certiorari 0.02%

Graduate school is a valuable opportunity to learn about and appreciate the theoretical underpinnings of the LIS field and also get a sense of practical issues. The LIS field is generally regarded as a professional field; formal training is more intertwined with practice than it is purely academic. Professional schools promote internships and other job pursuits during students’ educational study so that students can apply what they learn in the classroom. Professional LIS programs also value students’ job placement upon graduation. LIS schools work to prepare students with a foundation of LIS theory and practice-based savviness so that students enter work environments with adept skills and judgment. Graduate programs should look to empirical evidence of legal claims and work to include these issues in the classroom in such a way to educate upcoming LIS professionals. This will help prepare students for their post- graduation endeavors.

Copyright law frequently appears in LIS graduate curricula, but infrequently in docket results. Viewable in Table 9 above, nearly 21% of law-related LIS courses focus on or include copyright law. Also, many courses that I coded as “law and legal issues courses” emphasize copyright and intellectual property. However, dockets involving collecting institutions do not show copyright claims as common actions. Although students can benefit from learning about copyright law, they should also learn about issues that more frequently arise in the, arguably, day-to-day activities of collecting institutions.

An issue that appears frequently in the docket results is disputes with public patrons in libraries open to all. Relevant disputes do not fall into any systematic category; claimants file these disputes under various categories. This topic is important to include because graduate LIS classes concerning reference, management, policy, and collection development include

discussions about public patrons and some of the common issues related to working in open places. Examples of problematic situations in collecting institutions could be used as case studies to help future information professionals brainstorm best practices for addressing unruly patrons, security situations, and misuse of library resources.

In my curricula research, I found only one explicit course addressing public patrons’ inappropriate behavior. The graduate program at the Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) lists a course titled Public Library Services. The course description states topics including policy, contracts, intellectual freedom, and homelessness and trauma. This seems an appropriate course to discuss since public libraries sometimes face problems as a result of being open to anyone in the community. Though a sensitive issue, discussing difficult realities can best serve these organizations and the professionals who are slated to be future managers.

I found one reference to “library law” in a public libraries course description.69 _This

mirrors much of the literature about collecting institutions and legal issues—i.e. that there are legal issues specific to libraries and archives. The course description highlights intellectual freedom issues. As explained above, scholarly and professional literature also implies a certain range of relevant legal issues for information professionals. This reinforces a misleading notion. My docket analysis shows that collecting institutions like libraries, archives, and historical societies do not primarily face legal issues of a nature that are particular to their activities—in

fact, quite the opposite. Collecting institutions face legal claims similar to other organizations with a wide range of missions (public as well as private).

As seen in Table 10, of the legal issues addressed in LIS curricula, programs cover intellectual property and copyright approximately 21% of the time. Yet, state court claims involving collecting institutions involve torts/negligence, small claims, and contracts lawsuits approximately 37% of the time. This difference is noteworthy because of the implied importance of certain legal issues. The way in which LIS instructors address legal issues with future

information professionals affects how these individuals will perceive and manage legal liability risks.