THere's an idea - charge the students for online research (because of course
the vendors want them to have it free) and put the money toward augmenting
the print collection!
Chris Graesser
Brown Rudnick
Hartford, CT
cgraesser@brfg.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Huttner [mailto:rshutt@netspace.net.au]
Sent: Thursday, June 17, 1999 11:37 AM
To: law-lib@ucdavis.edu
Subject: A Summer Associate Story
Genie Tyburski's story reminds me of the question I used to put to the
students in my computer-assisted legal research course, at the beginning of
the very first lecture:-
"What is the first thing you should always do before you switch on your
computer to do any legal research ?"
I used to get some amusing answers - eg "Make sure it's plugged in" etc -
but
virtually never got what I considered to be the correct answer, viz:-
"Ask yourself whether you should be switching it on at all".
It's truly extraordinary the number of students that try to do *all* their
research on a computer - even when it takes them 4 times as long as it
would if they consulted an appropriate book.
There seems to be an attitude of "have computer, will use", rather than
"have computer, will use when appropriate and more efficient". As I see it,
this problem is virtually impossible to eliminate in an academic
environment where students have unlimited free access to computers. Maybe
if they had to pay even a nominal fee per online hour, they would very
quickly become more aware of that other very useful research tool - the
book !
Ronald S Huttner LL.B.(Hons)
Barrister And Solicitor
Consultant And Trainer In Computer-Assisted Legal Research
Lecturer In Computerised Legal Research (02.10.95 to 02.10.98)
Internet Sites For Lawyers - http://www.viclf.asn.au/research.html
Personal Home Page - http://www.viclf.asn.au/pers1.html
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