This inquiry is for Academic Law Librarians that are subscribers to CALI.
My question is whether CALI is heavily used at your institution, and if so,
how you promote the product and get your students to use it.
We were CALI subscribers for several years, but use was very low.
We tried everything we could think of to get professors to endorse it
through their classes but were unsuccessful. We even loaded some of
the programs on a terminal close to the Reference Desk where we could
promote it, but with the exception of the Professional Responsibility
program (which was used mainly the week before the MPRE) use was
very low. A couple of years ago we canceled because we didn't feel
the cost was justified based on the low use. Recently our Dean was
informed that 160 law schools are subscribers of CALI. He wanted to
know why we didn't have a subscription. Now we are considering
subscribing again, but are giving it some hard thought based on our past
experience of nonuse.
Please don't get me wrong -- there are many excellent programs
available through CALI that have the potential of benefiting law students,
but with today's budget constraints it doesn't make sense to us to pay
for a product that will get very little use. Any advice on how to promote
this product and whether we should resubscribe will be most
appreciated.
Also, are any of you using the Harvard Interactive Video Discs? If so, do
you like them? Are they being used? Do you feel the cost justifies the
use?
Kory D. Staheli
Head of Reference Services and
Director of First Year Legal Research
Howard W. Hunter Law Library
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801) 378-6657
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