...An LLB poll conducted in September of last year found that the vast majority of law librarians neither use nor provide training in the use of some free services, namely PreCYdent, PLoL and/or AltLaw. The results, of course, may have more to say about the perceived quality of these services and the low-cost plans offered by LexisNexis and Westlaw to law schools. But the ABA Journal's summary of the 2008 Legal Technology Survey Report did report that the number of lawyers performing free online legal research has overtaken the number using fee-based services for the first time. (89% used free online legal research while 87% used fee-based research services) and that trend may increase because of the economics on online legal research.
LLB's recent informal poll on the financial situation law libraries are finding themselves in because of the dismal state of the US economy found that the brunt of budget cuts will be library collections. 82% of the respondents who are facing or expecting to face budget reductions reported that library collections will be "hardest hit" area of library operations. One assumes, rightly I believe, that print materials are more likely to face the axe than online resources but certainly in some libraries expensive online resources will not be exempt from cancellations, cutbacks in negotiated plans, or shifts to low cost or free online legal services as a matter of institutional research policy. See, e.g., Large Law Firm Sets New Online Research Policy: Use Loislaw First.
Faced with substantial budget cuts to library collections and legal research policy changes, we think it timely to ask if law librarians are seeing a shift to free and low cost legal research services at the expense of Lexis and Westlaw use. So will the current economic situation be "good" for free and low cost online legal research services -- do you see or expect to see patrons use them more frequently than in the past? And if so, will it be temporary or permanent once the economy improves -- should LexisNexis and Westlaw be worried? ...
Thanks in advance for taking a moment to participate in our poll....
PS: Also see our post on Hodnicki's September 2008 poll. Visit his new post to take his new poll on free and low cost online legal research services.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/14/2009 02:57:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
