Hello fellow librarians,
This message is an attempt to gather information about how other states
and libraries handle the problem of the small or solo practitioner who needs
library materials. Our situation is this: we provide ILL services to all our
students and faculty at the law school (the main campus library does the same
for other members of the university community), we also have a document
delivery service for those people who can supply a citation to some title we
hold and are willing to pay the fee (they need not be cardholders).
Of course there are other libraries and firms who have librarians, who
see to the borrowing needs of their patrons. The people I'm concerned about are
the lawyers who work for firms (or are solo practitioners) which do not have a
librarian, and those people who practice in smaller communities far from the
larger law libraries. The issue before us is who provides them with materials
when they need an interlibrary loan or document delivery of an item not held
by the large libraries in their state which offer their services to public
patrons?
For example, a solo practioner calls from Racine and asks if we hold
a particular title. We don't, so we can't send it to her. Although I can search
our catalog and WISCAT (a union catalog of Wisconsin libraries), if it's not
there, too bad. It may in fact be in the library of a large Milwaukee firm, but
there is no mechanism for connecting the lawyer and the material. How do other
state law library communities handle these type of requests? Does the borrower
go to the state library and use their ILL services, do you refer them to a
large firm, or suggest they just "call some big firms"? Does anyone care? Does
any state law library or library organization have some program worked out to
keep these people from falling through the cracks?
I would appreciate any thoughts or comments on this dilemma. You can
reach me at the address below, thank you for your time,
Ellen Platt
Marquette University Law Library
1103 W. Wisconsin Ave.
Milwaukee, WI 53233
platte@vms.csd.mu.edu (internet)
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