LawLibTech

Milles asserts that librarians are holding on to print resources, convinced that they offer a benefit to researchers, while younger users are drawn to the online resources like bees to honey. (That's my choice of words, not his.) I'm not so sure.

Are librarians trying to hold onto the past? Perhaps. Let me give you an example. I've heard many librarians say over and over again that online resources are not always the best place to start a research project and that print treatises and other secondary materials such as ALR are usually a better starting point because they allow the researcher develop a familiarity with the subject matter and a context for the problem being researched.

But wait a minute, aren't many treatises and ALRs available electronically? Do they really mean to suggest that a hard copy treatise is a better starting point than an electronic version of the treatise? I don't think so. I suspect what most librarians mean to suggest is that secondary sources such as treatises should often be the line of first defense rather than starting by researching case law online. (If I'm wrong about that, please feel free to write and tell me so!) Considering the wide variety of research material now available electronically, we need to stop looking at this as a hard copy versus digital issue, and start considering it a case law versus secondary source issue.

Milles makes some excellent points about what he believes are erroneous assumptions that he says librarians are perpetuating, for example, that understanding print sources is essential to understanding electronic ones, and the often stated principle that that students should be taught print sources first, moving on to electronic later. I think students need to understand the difference between cases, laws, regulations, law journals articles, etc. Whether they're using them online or electronic isn't the real issue. So starting by teaching students online sources, as Milles suggest, sounds like a fine idea to me!

But I disagree with Milles about one thing. I'm absolutely NOT finding that the younger attorneys want to use treatises online. I cajole, and sometimes whine at patrons, "But we have that online, can I show you how it works?" But inevitably my hopes are dashed when they insist they want to see the books. This is true of both the older attorneys, and the younger ones.

To be fair, I am often frustrated when I try to use treatises online as well, so I feel their pain. That gets me back to my original point. If the younger attorneys, who grew up with the Internet, don't want to use treatises online, perhaps there really is a good reason. Even though the vendors have greatly improved online statutes and treatises, there's still something missing.....and I assert that the difficulty is context, and our inability to see all that much text on one relatively small computer screen.

Considering that librarians have been quick to embrace such things as using reporters exclusively online, and as Milles mentions, Shepardizing electronically, I think there's more going on here than meets the eye. I don't think librarians are intrinsically anti-digital. After all, on p. 5 of the AALL Spectrum CRIV Sheet is a suggestion to "make a lamp out of those clean hardbound used books....we especially liked the ones at www.diynet.com." That doesn't sound like someone who's trying to hold on to books at all costs!

But I hope I'm wrong and Milles is right. Most firms spend quite a bit of money on electronic resources, and often they languish, if not unused, at least under- used. Librarians are pulled in two directions when trying to cancel hard copy materials that they have available online. The administrators typically love the idea, but the attorneys often balk. This has put librarians in the very difficult position of having to decide whether to keep the attorneys or management happy, a definite no-win situation. If that's about to change, so much the better.

In the meantime, I have some phone calls to make. Let's hope that I can get myself un-entered in the upcoming dog show. I guess I should have just done the simple thing and filled out a piece of paper and dropped it in the mail. Perhaps not everything is better on the web.