I have just received Albert Brecht's report of results of a survey of USC law
students regarding their clerking experiences (Thanks AL!). The responses
bear out what we have also concluded here in the Utah area, which is that
legal employers continue to emphasize book research and to require that
various research tasks be performed without resort to L&W. Our experience
here is that most of our graduates are expected to do book research, and for
this reason we have continued to devote the first semester of 1L research
training to books (with appropriate references to the role of L&W where
pertinent). We also alternate between which system goes first when we do
second semester training. The students are encouraged to use the systems,
along with books, for their spring semester research and writing project.
On another L&W front, did everyone experience a dramatic rise in use of the
systems last year? Our use more than doubled over 89/90 -- with all the
individual IDs and home access it's not surprising.
And finally, I'm working with other campus representatives on a campus
contract for Lexis/Nexis. Everyone is excited, including the law library
which will no longer have to deal with restricting access to poli sci and
others. A couple of questions for those of you who hae already done this on
your campuses:
-- what has been the law library's role? We will be doing a demo and
responding to questions about the database, training methods, etc. But we
wnat to make sure that expertise and training responsibility is developed at
the main library and elsewhere.
-- how many IDs would be appropriate for a campus of about 25,000?
-- how have you structured access on your campus?
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