Look, ma, no books! - Opening digital legal research resources to students and the public

From the 2005 CALI Conference for Law School Computing

Audience: All
Technical Level: Low

Law libraries (and libraries in general) are traditionally thought of as open resources. Patrons visit law libraries in person and make use of the materials, copying what's needed. Law students have historically learned to use print materials in a (necessarily) hands-on way -- the organization of print materials within a law library -- even their appearance -- reinforces the differences among resources. The visual clues inherent in the print environment assist users in learning both how legal information is organized and disseminated and how particular resources might be used.

With the advent of digital legal information resources, some of the openness of law libraries has disappeared. Although there are any number of free digital sources of primary authority, there is little context in which individual resources can be seen as part of a larger whole. Secondary sources are much less available free of charge. Resources that do combine primary and secondary authority and that comprehensively provide legal research resources are commercial, and not available to the public. But even for students, these comprehensive legal research databases often lack the visual hints and finding tools that traditional print materials have incorporated.

The session will discuss ways that libraries can use lessons from the print environment to open their collections -- both digital and print -- to students and the public alike. Digital tools can relate print and electronic resources to inform legal information users and open the digital library. Vehicles such as virtual tours of the library, interactive building maps, even color-coded online catalogs can all work to instruct students and the public alike in identifying, understanding, and using legal research resources.

The session will also discuss the open access movement in the publication of scholarly law-related literature, and the implications that the lack of open access may have on the communication of scholarly law literature.

Jeanne Frazier Price
Law Library Director
University of Nevada William S. Boyd School of Law

Roy M. Mersky
Harry M. Reasoner Regents Chair in Law; Dir. Res.
University of Texas School of Law

Category:

Education

Tags:

• CALI conference 2005
• legal education
• law school computing