I believe there are now more than a dozen law libraries accessing LEXIS over
the
Internet: up from 3 or 4 this time last year. Mead Data is encouraging access
over the Internet, because it saves them telecommunications charges. Internet
access also stands to benefit law school subscribers: modems become
unnecessary,
multiple access points can be made available at minimal cost, use of LEXIS
/NEXIS from an office does not tie up a phone line, and the speed of getting
onto the system is greatly increased. The pay-off (at least until all the bugs
are gotten out, or perhaps until we move on to the NREN) is that sometimes the
system seems to hang up. I have been using LEXIS over the Internet now for
several months and personally prefer it to phone line access, but we do look
forward to further improvements.
We are also glad that West is now moving towards WESTLAW access over the
Internet. Their initial position on this was no (just last January), but they
turned around on this last Spring and are now working towards making Internet
access possible. I expect to see WESTLAW on the Internet by the end of the
academic year.
-- Blair Kauffman
University of Wisconsin
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