> OK - so this is all well and good. How does all society
> benefit? Think of how many libraries subscribe to these
> reporters around the country. Think now of the forests,
> petroleum products (glues and synthetics used in
> publishing), and other resources that are destroyed or
> over-extended on a daily basis, due to, not only the legal
> industry, but every industry has similar informational
> needs. The environmental impact - for once changing towards
> a positive shift - will be enormous.
>
The fallacy that we need both paper and electronic
versions of information is terribly misguided.
> For the proposed paperless office envisioned decades ago, I
> think that libraries, especially the legal and medical
> libraries that utilize materials that are always updated and
> propagate with the speed of hyperactive rodents, are ripe to
> direct and benefit from these changes.
>
> So.... what do YOU think?
>
I think this is one of the most refreshing messages we have had in a
long time. Librarians can act in two ways. One, as you point out,
is to advise and influence the publishing side of things. The other,
is to educate the user side. For academics, one big educational
hurdle is changing the way libraries are evaluated. At this time we
are laboring under a much greater fallacy than the one you mention.
We still believe (or so our library statistics and accreditation
visits would seem to have us believe) that we need the paper but not
the electronic versions of materials. We still count volumes on the
shelf but not volumes accessable from lexis or westlaw and from cd-
roms. We count physical cd roms but not the number of simultaneous
accesses students can have to the cd roms collected.
Our faculties need to be shown what the new technologies can do that
the books can't. And they need to be shown that they can do it
themselves and not rely on student researchers or librarians to do it
for them. In short, we all have to face forward into the 21st
century.
A tall order, but your message is a step in the right direction.
==================================================
Internet: NTRIFFIN@LAWLIB.LAW.PACE.EDU :-)
;-)
Nick Triffin Tel: (914) 422-4275 |-)
Pace Law Library Fax: (914) 422-4139 ;-)
78 North Broadway %-)
White Plains, NY 10603 ;-)
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