How Can Law Librarians Most Effectively Provide Legal Research Training?

Abstract

AbstractThe proliferation of digital legal resources over recent years has profoundly changed the way in which lawyers carry out legal research. Law librarians have had to adapt rapidly to these new ‘disruptive technologies’ and have had to develop new ways to train their users in how to carry out the most effective legal search. As a consequence, training has become an increasingly important role of a law librarian. The literature shows that these issues have been much discussed, but often confined to either the academic sector, or to the role of the law librarian in a law firm. Over the past few years, the concept of information literacy has increasingly been seen as a way of developing more effective legal research training programmes. This study, conducted by Steve Mishkin*, examines the views of law librarians working in both the academic and non-academic sectors, regarding how to deliver legal research training most effectively. The study concludes by recommending greater cooperation between academic and non-academic law librarians and suggests that both need to make the case for the benefits of legal research training, in order to win support from their management for better resourced programmes. It also suggests that the quality of legal research training will be improved if law librarians themselves are provided with training, on how to deliver it most effectively.