Sunday, February 14, 2010
Post for February 9, 2010
With most legal resources being digitized and the legal profession’s increasing dependency on electronic research, it is no wonder many libraries have started disposing of their physical copies in order to save space. As discussed in class this poses a few problems, namely the disappearance of previous versions of items and not having the original resource to cite in court. The disappearance of the previous versions of resources is a serious problem that needs to be addressed quickly, because the more we wait the more that will have lost. In regards to the citing from an original source, most courts accept unofficial copies and the remaining courts will inevitably have to accept them also. There is no denying that in doing so we need to put an unbelievable amount of trust in Westlaw, Lexus, Fastcase and the other services. However, with print versions being increasingly difficult to find, it would be unreasonable for courts to do otherwise.
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I agree. Furthermore, it seems prudent for institutions, particularly law libraries and law schools, to coordinate their efforts to ensure complete, authentic collections remain intact somewhere. You're point is also well-taken regarding entrusting this kind of responsibility to corporate entities, which are bound only by their fiduciary duty to their shareholders. For legal materials in particular, which truly deserve to remain in the public sphere, I do not believe I can muster sufficient faith in for-profit entities to assume the role of keeper (and gatekeeper) of the law.
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