Spotlight on Law Librarians: Dennis Kim-Prieto

Dennis Kim-Prieto
Reference Librarian
Rutgers Law Library

I've worked as a teacher, a waiter, a copywriter, and a personal concierge, among other jobs, but I've found my position as Reference Librarian at the Law Library in the Rutgers Center for Law and Justice to be one of the most fulfilling positions I've ever held. Not only do I get to work with some of the best law librarians in the state of New Jersey, I also get paid to do research that I find fascinating: exploring and evaluating reference sources for Latin American jurisdictions.

Although I started out in graduate school composing poetry, and took my Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, it was my first year in law school that piqued my interest in research. In fact, research was about the only part of my 1L experience that I truly enjoyed, and so, once my wife moved to the University of Illinois to pursue her Ph.D. in Social Psychology, I followed along, cured of any desire to ever practice law. After some coursework as a visiting student at the Illinois College of Law, I earned my J.D. from the University of Iowa and entered the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at UIUC.

Out of all of the graduate and professional education I've endured, I felt that GSLIS was the most welcoming and the most nourishing in terms of intellect and spirit. Faculty members were always approachable, and always interested in the ideas and responses of their students. And the students were highly engaged with information, data, and libraries, in a wide variety of witty and fascinating ways. We got to hear 'war stories' about working with S.R. Ranganathan, we were challenged to try and catalog antelopes, and (best of all for me, since I've been a big fan of NCAA basketball since my undergraduate days at the University of Arizona) we got to watch one of the great college basketball teams take Illinois all the way to the Final Four in 2005.

Now that I'm at Rutgers, I'm not only able to devote time and energy into my research, but I also engage with a very broad base of patrons. I'm rather gregarious by nature, so I really enjoy the reference transactions that allow me to help patrons find what they need. I also get to offer instruction from time to time, which gets me in front of a classroom without having to grade twenty-five papers as well.

I'm also active in AALL and in our newly formed Latino Caucus. It's a great way to meet other new law librarians from a wide variety of backgrounds, and with a wide variety of interests. We're looking forward to growing our caucus and meeting new folks at the annual meeting this year in St. Louis.

All in all, I'm incredibly happy here in my new job, and I'm working in a fantastic library. I'm eager to meet the challenges and opportunities that await me as a new law librarian at the Rutgers Center for Law

Editor's Note: The Spotlight on Law Librarians feature is edited by Lee Peoples, Law Librarian Blog Contributing Editor and Associate Director for Faculty, Research and Instructional Services, Oklahoma City University Law Library. Please feel free to recommend a colleague for this feature to Lee at lpeoples@okcu.edu