Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
While the digital revolution has touched every aspect of law librarianship, perhaps nowhere has the effect been more profound than in the area of collection development. Many of the materials law libraries traditionally collected in print form are now available in electronic format.Digital technology has affected the way we select, order, and process legal materials. The World Wide Web has created an explosion of both commercial and private online publishing. The cost of electronic publishing has caused many traditional law book publishers to sell their companies rather than invest in the needed technologies to compete in the 21st century. Small publishers and book jobbers have been forced to reinvent themselves. The amount of legal information available and its costs continue to soar. Law Library Collection Development in the Digital Age deals with these and other issues related to law library collection development. Chapters range from the theoretical to the practical.
Inspired by Penny Hazleton’s seminal paper “How Much of Your Print Collection is Really on Lexis or Westlaw?” the editors and chapter authors of Law Library Collection Development in the Digital Age endeavor to expand on professor Hazleton’s work, with examinations of:
- the role of law libraries in strategic planning for distance learning
- Web mirror sites
- trust vs. antitrust issues
- access vs. ownership issues
- how law libraries deal with electronic court records, dockets, and filings
- the growth of e-journals as they relate to legal publishing
- how the Hein Greenslips and Blackwell North America’s Bookservice cover legal materials
- past, present, and future roles of specialized book jobbers
- and more!
Synopsis
Chiorazzi and Russell (the directors of the law libraries at U. of Arizona and St. Thomas U., respectively) present 13 papers exploring the impact of digital publishing and other information technologies on law library collection management. Among the topics discussed are intellectual property, access to public legal records, consolidation in the legal publishing industry, and availability of legal texts on the Internet and databases. Also published as Legal Reference Services Quarterly, vol. 21, nos. 2/3 and 4. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Library Journal
Tapping the expertise of some of the best minds in law librarianship, editors Chiorazzi and Russell, both law library directors and professors of law, have assembled an impressive compilation of essays on the impact of digital publishing on law libraries and their collection development practices. Margaret Maes Axtmann and Edmund Edmonds contribute a chapter on their planning process for the creation of a new law library at St. Thomas School of Law. Claire Germain explores the role of web mirror sites in the dissemination of legal information and discusses recent efforts at Cornell Law Library to make such sites available to researchers for free. Richard Danner, dean and professor of law at Duke University, discusses the growth of distance learning in law schools and its implications for academic law libraries. Other chapters cover access to electronic court records, the role of book jobbers in the future, the use of electronic law journals, copyright, and antitrust issues. This book is essential reading for law librarians, their supervisors, and anyone interested in legal publishing and access to legal information.-Joan Pedzich, Harris Beach LLP, Rochester, NY Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.