Everybody:
I've been following the discussion about looseleafs with some
interest, and thought I'd offer these observations:
1. We do not catalog as such, so the subject of how to treat the
non-supplemented looseleafs has never arisen. However, we do try to
sticker all our material that we have not purchased supplements for,
whether serial or monograph, since that acts as a reminder to people
to update the information they find by Shepardizing, periodical
articles, etc.
2. Although, as Richard Leiter writes, we do have a responsibility to
offer our patrons the most up-to-date information possible, we also
have a responsibility to spend within our budgets. And for many of us
the decision not to update has come about after we have purchased the
item. Such a decision may be made due to a budget cut or due to
expensive, excessive supplementation being issued by the publisher. It
comes down to a question of where best to spend the money to benefit
the library and its users.
3. Every looseleaf service has a lag time; nothing that isn't online
is truly up-to-date (and even Westlaw has a 48-hour lag time between
rendition of an opinion and its appearance there). The point here is
of course that all treatises must be updated by the user in some
fashion, even ones that are being kept up. An unsupplemented treatise
can, as someone else on the list noted, be used as asnapshot or
starting point to research provided that one doesn't forget this.
I seem to have gone on at great length over a small point, but we have
been debating this back and forth in our library for some time now. We
have a small collection spread between three branch libraries and our
budget has forced several unwelcome cuts.
Debra Mack
Brevard County Law Library
Titusville, FL
mackd@freenet.scri.fsu.edu
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