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Are Law Libraries Becoming Obsolete?
Are law firm libraries going the way of the dinosaur (or the typewriter)? Perhaps not just yet. As the Birmingham Business Journal describes, with the proliferation of electronic research, law firms are downsizing their libraries -- but they're not eliminating them entirely.
According to the article, law libraries will always serve a purpose. As attorney Mark Ayers explains, many times books are more efficient for legal research than a computer. Moreover, not every legal document is available online, so libraries may have access to documents that can't be found on the computer.
But the library also serves other non-research related purposes. Another lawyer quoted in the article, John Bolus says:
[t]echnology makes research more convenient, but it also takes attorneys out of a library atmosphere where they can focus solely on reading case law, rather than at a desk where they may have other distractions, such as a telephone or e-mail.
And believe it or not, some potential hires and clients are still impressed by the presence of a handsome, well-stocked law library.
Is your firm's library becoming an endangered species?
Posted by Carolyn Elefant on March 7, 2008 at 01:28 PM | Permalink
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