LawLibTech

For example, have I waived an argument or am I estopped from pleading it? An editor or subject expert may categorize cases using different terminology next to each other and this may aid a novice researcher in finding like cases. If I knew that sexual harassment and sexual abuse were interchangeable I could use Boolean logic to search for both. I don't think I trust Google yet to search for both where I asked only for one or the other.

The point that strikes me is that I think the transition from print to electronic has created a gulf in the way we're teaching. We used to teach print products as part of a larger research system (West System or Lawyer Coop's Total Client Services Library). One learned not only what the individual titles were, but how they fit into the larger self-contained system. These systems no longer exist in print as a practical matter. Teaching the individual products in print serves very little purpose, in my opinion because a) the odds of students using these products again is minimal and b) we're missing the part about teaching a "system". The systems now, to me, are Search Advisor and KeySearch, not West or TCSL.

Part of the underlying point of my first Navigating the Law article is that forcing students to spend a semester or longer using print products is a grand waste of time because they've come from computers and as soon as they get they're Lexis and Westlaw IDs, bonus points, free trips, t-shirts, mugs, candy etc., they're going back to computers. I think we'd be better off spending our time teaching library science skills like source selection, taxonomies, search strategies and those sorts of things. One reason for that is I don't see where they are getting them elsewhere in their education and, in a complicated field like law, they are absolutely essential. Do children still learn about basic research concepts like the Dewey decimal system or a card catalog as an organizational tool? When and how do college students use encyclopedias? I can't prove this yet but I surmise that our incoming attorneys no longer have a foundation in the science or research that we presuppose in teaching them to use traditional tools specific to law. In other words, start with the premise that attorneys will use computers to do research and begin by showing them how to be better database searchers. Once we have their trust, we can augment their education with the other items and at the end or as part of an advanced class, teach the print systems.

Just an opinion.