Director's Corner: Spring 2025

This article is from the spring 2025 issue of Hearsay, the semi-annual newsletter of the Wheat Law Library.

Hello from the Wheat Law Library — and Happy Spring!

The days are getting longer, the flowers are starting to bloom and the Law Library is buzzing with fresh energy. In this spring edition of our newsletter, we’ve got updates, tips and a few surprises to help you finish the semester strong. Whether you’re gearing up for finals, polishing off a paper or just looking for a sunny spot to study, we’re here for you.

A Year of Change

This past year has seen many changes. In May of 2024, we began the process of revising our collection with the goal of moving the School of Social Welfare to the third floor. This was a summer-long process that began with identifying books that could be removed from our collection. To help us identify those items in our collection we could part with, an outside consultant, University of Florida Levin College of Law’s Jane O’Connell, Associate Dean for Legal Information and Technology, was hired. With access to our catalog, she was able to identify items that we could eliminate while still maintaining our collection’s core value of supporting the University of Kansas School of Law’s research needs.

With Prof. O’Connell’s final report, we were able to go through our entire collection, marking items for deselection. This took the efforts of not only the Wheat Law Librarians, Melissa and Didem, but also the librarians from across KU’s campus: Kent Miller and Jeromy Horkman who helped us line up the talent, Miloche Kottman who helped us with the cataloging and numerous student workers who spent hours combing through our collection.

Once the collection was labeled, our new collection was loaded onto portable shelves and stored in the first-floor commons until their new homes were assembled on the first and fifth floors. During this time, we got to know quite well Annie Handshy, the Project Managing Architect, who guided our every move. Paul and Brandon Wilson from Total Transition Management handled the physical part of our move, including loading books onto carts at the beginning of the summer and reshelving our collection a mere 24 hours before our students’ return.

Settled into a newish space, we began looking for two new librarians to join our ranks. In August of 2024, Trenton Keim became our Circulation & Collections Manager and on April 14, Neal Axton joined us as our new Research & Reference Librarian. Please join us in helping both feel welcome.

In some sad news, Chris Steadham has moved on to other opportunities. Chris Steadham graduated from KU Law in 2004 and Emporia State University School of Library & Information Management in 2007. He started with the Wheat Law Library in 2004 as a Research & Reference Services Attorney, moved up through the ranks and was made Director of the Wheat Law Library in 2016. During his tenure he taught the Kansas Supreme Court Research Practicum, Advanced Legal Research and Topics in Advanced Legal Research. We wish him well in his future endeavors!

As the school year winds to a close, please do not hesitate to reach out — your librarians are just a question away.

Here’s to a bright and productive spring! 

Blake Wilson
Wheat Law Library Interim Director