Access, Services, and Staff

Victoria Szymczak is the director of the Brooklyn Law School Library, and she teaches courses in advanced legal research and international and foreign law research. She is a member of the American Association of Law Libraries and chairs the Computing Services Special Interest Section. Her professional interests encompass the role technology plays in information literacy, library services, and legal education. She has conducted numerous lectures on these topics, including presentations for the American Association of Law Libraries, American Bar Association, and private corporations and organizations. Her publications appear in journals such as Legal Reference Services Quarterly, International Journal of Legal Information, Brooklyn Journal of International Law, and the Journal of Law and Policy.

B.A., Brooklyn College M.S.L.I.S. Pratt Institute
Ms. Campagna began her professional career at Brooklyn Law School in 1983. From 1985-87 she served as Serials/Acquisitions Coordinator in the Technical Services Department, and since 1988 she has been Government Documents Librarian. Ms. Campagna also provides general reference assistance and coordinates interlibrary loan operations. Her primary focus is providing federal government information to the BLS community and the public. In support of her main interest areas, Ms. Campagna maintains the active Government and the Law blog.

A.B., University of Michigan; M.S.I., University of Michigan, J.D., Fordham University
Ms. Darvil joined the law library staff in November 2007. In addition to serving on the reference team, she supervises the Library’s circulation operations, teaches Advanced Legal Resource courses, and serves as Library liaison to the Moot Court Honor Society. Prior to joining Brooklyn Law School, she litigated child welfare proceedings both for the Legal Aid Society and for New York City’s Administration for Children's Services.

B.A., Duke University; J.D., Boston College Law School; M.S.L.I.S., Pratt Institute
Ms. Davis has been a Reference Librarian at Brooklyn Law School since 1993. She co-teaches International and Foreign Law Research seminar and serves as the Library’s liaison to fourteen faculty members, the Brooklyn Law Journal of International Law, the Jessup moot court team, and the Vis Arbitration Moot team. View Ms. Davis's international and foreign law guides on the Library Research Guides page.

B.F.A., Kansas State University; M.F.A., Pratt Institute; M.L.I.S., Palmer School of Long Island University
Mr. Gabel joined Brooklyn Law School in July 2006. His principal areas of responsibility include contributing to the development of the school catalog and managing the Law School's e-resources. Mr. Gabel’s publications include “Grammatical Noun Cases for Non-Linguists: Bibliometrics Applied to a Subset of the Literature on Finnish Linguistics,” in Collection Management, “Improving Information Retrieval of Subjects through Citation-Analysis” in Knowledge Organization (presented at the Ninth International ISKO Conference, Vienna, July 5-7, 2006), and “Visualizing Similarity in Subject Term Co-Assignment” (presented at the 2009 Vancouver ASIS&T Annual Meeting). Prior to joining Brooklyn Law School, Mr. Gabel served as Cataloging Librarian at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus from 1999-2006 with the rank of Assistant Professor.

B.A., Howard University; M.S., Columbia University
Ms. Holmes joined Brooklyn Law School in 1981 as Head of Public Services and currently serves as the Associate Director of the Law School Library. Her areas of responsibility include managing and coordinating activities with the Library’s Technical Services Department. Ms. Holmes began her professional career as the Physics-Astronomy Librarian at Columbia University. She worked as a Reference Librarian at the Columbia University Law School Library. From 1976-1981, she was Head of Reader Services at Pace University Law School Library. Ms. Holmes is a member of the American Association of Law Libraries, the Law Library Association of Greater New York, and the International Association of Law Libraries.

B.A., St. Peter’s College; J.D. Rutgers University; M.L.S., Rutgers University
Mr. O’Grady joined Brooklyn Law School in December 2003. He works as part of the Brooklyn Law School reference team, coordinates the Library’s work-study operations, teaches Advanced Legal Research and provides general reference assistance. Mr. O'Grady is the library liaison to the Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial and Commercial Law. As part of the Library’s social networking effort, he writes the BLS Library Blog, posting current news and perspectives on matters of interest to the BLS community. He is also a contributing editor to the American Association of Law Libraries publication Sexual Orientation and the Law: A Research Bibliography Selectively Annotating Legal Literature Through 2005 published by William S. Hein & Co. (2007).

M.S., University of Wroclaw, Poland; M.L.S., Pratt Institute; M.A., New York University, History Department
Ms. Okonska joined Brooklyn Law School in 1994. She supervises the Library Cataloging Department and is actively involved in a variety of projects, including integrating the online catalog with Web 2.0 search tools. Ms. Okonska is the author of several articles in LLAGNY Law Lines, as well as three annotated bibliographies: “Passive Smoking: The Legal Aspects” (in Law Library J., 1994); “Labor Law in Poland” (in Yearbook of Polish Labor Law and Social Policy, 1994); “Labor Law and Industrial Relations in Central and Eastern Europe, 1989-1999” (in Brooklyn International J., 2001). She has also co-authored the bibliography “Getting Unstuck…Without Coming Unglued” (presented at the Workshop for Women in Legal Education, October 1999). Prior to joining Brooklyn Law School, Ms. Okonska held various positions in libraries in Poland and worked as a cataloger at the New York University Law Library from 1987-1994.

B.S., Ohio State University; J.D., University of Toledo; M.L.I.S., Kent State University
Ms. Schneiderman joined Brooklyn Law School in March 2009. Karen coordinates the Library’s Web 2.0 initiatives, teaches Advanced Legal Research, and provides general reference assistance. She is the Library’s liaison to Brooklyn Journal of Law & Policy. Ms. Schneiderman can be found on Twitter, Facebook, and at the reference desk. Prior to joining Brooklyn Law School, Ms. Schneiderman worked as a Reference Librarian at Drexel University.

B.A., D.A.V. College; M.A. (Pol. Sci.), LL.B., Diploma in Library Science, Punjab University Chandigarh, India; M.L.S., CUNY Queens College; Legal Bibliography course, St. John’s University
Mr. Singh joined Brooklyn Law School in 1989 as Head of the Acquisitions and Serials Department. He currently assists the Library Director in collection development, coordinates digital and print acquisitions with the Cataloging Department and is also responsible for the day-to-day operation of the Acquisitions and Serials Department. Prior to joining Brooklyn Law School, Mr. Singh worked as Acquisitions/Serials Librarian at the New School for Social Research and also at SUNY at Stony Brook Library as Assistant Head of Serials Department.

B.A., Shanghai Conservatory of Music; M.S., Brigham Young University
Mr. Yu is primarily responsible for the operation of the Library’s computer facilities and networks and coordinates Library access technologies with the Information Technology Department. Prior to joining Brooklyn Law School, Mr. Yu worked as a Librarian at the New York offices of Cravath, Swaine and Moore.