James et. al.,
I have LexisNexis Academic right now. But that's because I'm a former
(recovering!) law librarian in a non-legal library. Your analysis of
Academic is pretty well on target. It is not a bad product and works
fine for a non-legal library, but isn't enough for a law library
setting. We supplement the Academic product with LexisNexis
Congressional and Shepards Online.
A few comparisons between the Academic product and the full Lexis
package that law schools have might be useful. Academic does only have
Shepards for the Supreme Court. Also, none of the cases or opinions are
hyperlinked, so you are missing that opportunity to click a link for a
cited case or article.
Another criticism I have of Academic is that you have a lot less control
over the courts as you search. I need to select what level court I'm
searching (District, Courts of Appeals, Supreme, etc.), and can't
combine them. Also, I can't limit to just one circuit; I have to search
*all* the Courts of Appeals.
The state case law search does allow searching all courts in the state,
as well as specific courts. However, there is no way to combine the states.
Another difficulty with the interface involves the date limitation. It
defaults to {Current 6 Months} on *every* search, including if you do a
new search. You have to remember to change this every time.
Some of the Congressional searches on the regular Lexis are not
available on Academic. For example, there is no way to browse. However,
we subscribe seperately to LexisNexis Congressional, and that interface
is much better for USCA, Fed Reg & CFR, legislative history, etc.
Incidently, the Shepards Online product *does* have the hyperlinks in
the cases. You can pull up cases, statutes, law review articles, etc.
(Lexsee and Lexstat) in Shepards Online. In fact, Shepards Online is
pulling from the *full* Lexis database, so there are some things
available there (if you have the citation) that are not in Academic.
The upshot of all this is that the Academic product is decent, but not
quite adequate. However, when supplemented with LexisNexis Congressional
and Shepards Online, it does work out pretty well for academic libraries.
--Bryan M. Carson
-- Bryan M. Carson, J.D., M.I.L.S. Associate Professor Coordinator of Reference & Instructional Services Associated Faculty--Library Media Education Program Western Kentucky University Libraries 1906 College Heights Blvd. #11067 Bowling Green, Kentucky 42101-1067 Phone: 270-745-5007 Fax: 270-745-2275 bryan.carson@wku.eduAll original content copyright 2006 Bryan M. Carson
On Fri, 7 Apr 2006 10:08:26 -0700 "James Sherman" <jsherman@nu.edu> wrote: > Hello, and Happy Friday, My Fellow Law-Libbers!! Question-do any of you > in academic law libraries subscribe to "LexisNexis Academic"? The > library I work with has it. From what I can see, it provides access to > all state and federal codes and case law, but it only provides > Shepardizing for US Supreme Court cases-nothing else. It doesn't seem > logical to me that it wouldn't provide a way to Shepardize all of the > material that it provides. Am I missing something? Is there a way to > Shepardize that I don't know about? Please fill me in. And perhaps, if > anybody from Lexis is listening in, maybe you can provide me an answer. > Thanks, everybody, and have a great weekend. Jim Sherman, MSLS, JD, > Librarian, National University, Fresno Campus >
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