I prefer to leave law-lib unrestricted.
1. Open mindedness: I subscribed to law-lib to learn as much about
librarianship as possible. Just seeing the problems, solutions, and, yes,
the whims of an international network broadens my perspective.
2. Irrelevancy: 95% of the messages broadcast on law-lib are not
revelant to my daily practice anyway. Why worry about restricting it to
94%? It's just as easy to delete a message about the "Yale Song" from a
librarian as it is to delete one about the value of a car from a nonlibrarian.
From one I learn some interesting regional trivia. From the other I learn
that the Kelly Blue book is on-line.
3. Public Service: Even as a librarian for a private law firm I think it is
appropriate to show a willingness to freely serve the general public.
After all, our highest duty is to serve the "rule of law," not merely
zealously defend our own private interests. What if a suffering
non-subscriber pops a life-or-death question about where to find a legal
resource? And we stand as his/her "Gateway" to the "Rule of Law?"
If there is to be any barrier to the freedom to ask a question, let it be a
"Gateless Barrier."
Bob Hughes, Law Librarian
Spokane WA
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2007 - 20:49:43 PST