Thinking About Courthouse Libraries as a Service
Sarah Sutherland who has worked as a consultant for LiRN on a couple of recent projects including Key Network Consultations and our new 5 Year Strategic Plan. She presented our keynote topic at Learn with LiRN 2025, building upon her in-depth knowledge of LiRN’s network and her vast experience with legal technology, CanLII and legal data strategies.
As legal information ecosystems continue to become more complex and distributed, courthouse libraries are uniquely positioned to create value for the legal community through a “library as a service” model. This session will explore how moving from a static, place-based conception of the library to a dynamic, service-oriented perspective can better meet the needs of legal researchers. In this session we will explore strategies for thinking about the traditional work done in libraries in light of ensuring that the necessary functions are carried out to so that researchers have what they need when and where they need it. Participants will be invited to reflect on how libraries can continue to evolve beyond physical collections and spaces to become embedded, responsive services that support the justice system in more agile and sustainable ways.
Sarah A. Sutherland is a writer, speaker, and executive in legal technology, information, and publishing. She is principal consultant at Parallax Information Consulting where she focuses on legal data strategy. Her book “Legal Data and Information in Practice: How Data and the Law Interact” was published by Routledge in 2022. Sarah was named one of the Fastcase 50 in 2022 and received the Dennis Marshal Award for Excellence in Law Librarianship from the Canadian Association of Law Libraries in 2023. She is working on her PhD at the University of Edinburgh with an anticipated completion date of 2027.
Presentation: Thinking about Courthouse Libraries as Service
- Creating value through the “library as service” model
- Discussion about the complex and evolving ecosystem that is a Courthouse Library
Recording Link: Thinking about Courthouse Libraries as Service