Selecting and Acquiring Legal Resources

• Author: Ted Tjaden
• Pages: 333-347

333

CHA PTER 9

SELECTING AND

ACQUIRING LEGAL

RESOURCES

A. INTRODUC TION

This book has focused on how to use legal resources. For some legal

researchers, this will suff‌ice since the focus of their work is hands-on

legal research. Other lawyers or legal researchers, however, will need

to choose or recommend for acquisition particular legal resources for

a law library, be it as part of a small law f‌irm or personal collection

or as part of a larger organization. Very little has been written in the

literature on how to acquire legal resources.1 Although it helps to have

a good working knowledge of legal resources when deciding what to

select or acquire, there are certain things that many lawyers or legal

researchers may not be aware of on this topic, matters that often fall

within the ex pertise of a law librarian. Therefore, this chapter is aimed

at lawyers, librarians, or other legal researchers who need to make de-

cisions about selecting and acquiring legal resources. Information is

provided on the follow ing topics:

• deciding between print and electronic resources

• determining criteria for selecting material for a law library

• managing a small law f‌ir m law library

• negotiating licences for electronic resources

1 See, for example, Dougl ass MacEllven et al, “Law Fir m Libraries” in Legal R e-

search Handbook, 6th ed (Mark ham, ON: LexisNexis Butte rworths, 2013) ch 19,

and the resourc es listed at the end of this c hapter.