Reasonable minds can differ on the issue of volume counting and title
counting, but I think we are missing the point with the micro form
government document title counts. I've asked that the matter be placed on
the agenda of the AALS library section business meeting.
My reasoning: Many materials in law libraries are different and the
catalogs (card or online) have never been essential is locating much of the
legal material in law libraries. Example, we count all the volumes and
titles in the national reporter system, the state and federal codes,
periodicals, etc. yet our catalogs do not lead our users to the case they
want, the code section they want or the periodical article they want. Our
users have to use digests, code indexes, periodical indexes to actually find
the materials they want from these sources. It is the norm in law and non
law libraries to access most government documents in ways other than the
library catalog.
I think we need to focus on access. If a library has the government
documents and no adequate index then these materials are not accessible.
But every law library I know goes far beyond the government's index and
provide the CIS indexes and many provide CD ROM CIS indexes. We could put
an entry in our catalogs, if they aren't already there, for US Congressional
hearings, reports, etc and say for access see the CIS Indexes and even give
the index a call number if people think that would help.
These overall volume counts and title counts of micro form gov documents do
reflect part of the wealth of resources in our libraries. We proved good
access to them. They deserve counting too.
Albert Brecht, USC.
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