Toward A Renaissance In Law Librarianship

This revised edition of Legal Research and Law Library Management retains the best elements of the previous edition while covering the latest in law library management.

Although universal on-line access to legal information has vastly expanded the lawyer's practical resources, it does not come with a clear and reliable methodology. A fundamental shift in approach is necessary to understand its enormous transformation of the legal research process; using it requires a new set of procedures amounting to the assimilation of a new legal culture. Now for the first time this new 'cyberlegal' culture is fully set forth in a way that makes its great benefits available to all legal practitioners and law librarians. This volume provides an in-depth analysis of the new legal infrastructure inherent in the internationalisation of legal research via the internet. It presents dependable strategies for navigating efficiently in the virtual reality environment, with special attention to the librarian's role in shaping legal database interfaces. It thoroughly explains how the law library's mission is restructured, adding a teaching dimension to its traditional role as a reference service.The author describes the skills and managerial decisions that characterise the cyberlegal culture, showing the reader exactly how the cyberlegal information specialist conducts substantive legal research. She spells out the guiding principles on evaluating databases, other online legal research tools, and the 'linked thinking' capabilities of the internet.

Around the world, legal information managers, law librarians and other legal information specialists work in many settings: law schools, private law firms, courts, government, and public law libraries of various types. They are characterized by their expertise in working with legal information in its many forms, and by their work supporting legal professionals, scholars, or students training to become lawyers. In an ever-shrinking world and a time of unprecedented technological change, the work of legal information managers is challenging and exciting, calling on specialized knowledge and skills, regardless of where in the world they practice their profession. Their role within legal systems contributes substantially to the administration of justice and the rule of law. This International Handbook addresses the policy and strategic issues with which legal information managers and law librarians need to engage in the context of the diverse legal environments in which they work. It provides resources, analysis, and considered studies on an international basis for seasoned professionals, those about to enter the field, and anyone interested in the evolution of legal information in the twenty-first century.

A revitalized version of the popular classic, the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, Second Edition targets new and dynamic movements in the distribution, acquisition, and development of print and online media-compiling articles from more than 450 information specialists on topics including program planning in the digital era, recruitment, information management, advances in digital technology and encoding, intellectual property, and hardware, software, database selection and design, competitive intelligence, electronic records preservation, decision support systems, ethical issues in information, online library instruction, telecommuting, and digital library projects.