Hi Joan & all,
this is very thought-provoking. Let's "collectively conspire" to ignore
attempts to re-incite that old Westlaw-bashing flamewar.
I run into the very same problem with other areas of specialised research.
The issue at the heart of all this is that the information is most valuable
if it is timely, coherent, reliable (in accessibility & accuracy of content).
Otherwise it is really just useless. Also, f o r g e t finding real
scientific info that has any intellectual value on some randomly available
pretty site launched into cyberspace -- as an example from areas other than
law. What's for free on the web or a gopher can be here today, gone
tomorrow, under contruction somerwhere another day. Can anyone whose work
is time-sensitive and d e p e n d e n t on quality & intellectual
soundness afford to take such chances?
"Access denied" / "connection refused" for free is becoming an answer on
once-upon-a-time free sites increasingly once the information providers
realise that demand for timely information abounds.
So, the answer to the question of whether "traditional vendors" have
reason to "fear" the internet is two-fold:
[a] yes, on the short term. Everyone is so infatuated with the glitz
of the net and the dizzying array of random info & "stuff" available
at a mouseclick's instant. College administrators (and attorneys in
your case) equate the ready availability of huge amounts of info on
the net as a quasi green light to just get of the paid services.
[b] no, in the long view. Over time, many researchers will come to
understand the immense frustration of randomly digging through
cyberspace in search of something specific. The value of timeliness
("despite" for-pay access) will come to them eventually when they
cannot find anything tangible in the random method.
The question is also to what extent people are really fooled into thinking
that currently free (and somewhat random in consistency levels) sites can
really replace the services that were developped & made valuable through
systematic, rigorous research, proofing, cross-referencing, linking, smart,
user-friendly search engines, etc. Sounds almost as though we're back
to square one in the quest for value-addedness... I do think that the
extent to which people really a r e fooled varies greatly.
This problem is n o t unique to law research but abounds in every area
of research in which access to cutting-edge reseach in specialised knowledge
realms is crucial. Scientific info is pretty analagous to law in this regard.
Ciao,
Antje
Head, Collection Management, Daniel Library, The Citadel
(for those of y'all calling for posters' identities...)
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