Law Library Newsletter
Document Type
Newsletter
Publication Date
7-2009
Abstract
This second issue of Law Library News highlights the dynamic nature of life and work in the Kresge Law Library. Amongst the many pictures of the construction phases of Eck Hall, you will find helpful material gleaned from professional conferences and staff experiences with the continuing evolution of electronic access to information. To me, though, the focus this summer continues to be on our continual quest to provide excellent service to all of our patrons in our transitional environment. That transitional environment includes the impact of our construction project and the changing nature of information delivery. On the construction side, we completed our first semester without many of the print publications that the staff, both now and in the past, labored for many years to acquire, catalog, and shelve as the foundation to our efforts to teach students how to find and use information effectively. Students found study space in Eck Hall or elsewhere when January completely changed everyone’s surroundings. We wait in anticipation of the completion of Biolchini Hall, and we are planning the stack arrangements this summer.
On the changing nature of information delivery, I offer one small glimpse into one of the many research activities we are supporting this summer. I am spending time with news-based sources from 1968 through today. This involves “oldfashioned” microfilm (and I thank the research assistants who are doing this), electronic access through ProQuest Historical Newspapers, Westlaw and LexisNexis sources, and the newspaper archives on Google News. I felt I was well informed about the Google Books project, but I knew much less about Google News. I encourage you to take a look at this resource if you are hunting for news accounts that predate the electronic sources on Westlaw and LexisNexis. Many times the daily newspapers in smaller cities provided greater coverage of an event than what you would find in the major markets. To be thorough, however, I need access to all of this information. So, as always, the challenge is to balance old methods with new ones.
Recommended Citation
Kresge Law Library, "Law Library Newsletter, Volume 1, Issue 2 - July/August 2009" (2009). Law Library Newsletter. 3.
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_lib_news/3