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Studying Academic Lawyers' Information-Seeking to Inform the Design of Digital Law Libraries

Makri, S. (2007). Studying Academic Lawyers' Information-Seeking to Inform the Design of Digital Law Libraries. IEEE Computer Society Bulletin of the Technical Committee on Digital Libraries, 3(3),

Abstract

We report findings from the initial phase of our study on legal information seeking, which comprised a series of semi-structured interviews and naturalistic observations of academic law students and staff looking for electronic legal information. This study has the long-term aim of informing the design of digital law libraries. Participants found it difficult to use digital law libraries, arising from poor knowledge of the digital library system rather than from poor general electronic research skills. Hazy and faulty system-related knowledge were rife, suggesting the need for academic lawyers to understand more about the digital library systems that they use (within-systems knowledge). These lawyers chose to rely primarily on one major digital law library for legal information seeking. Their preference was often based upon vague or flawed rationale and suggests the need for academic lawyers to appreciate the situations in which different electronic resources might be useful (between-systems knowledge).

Publication Type: Article
Additional Information: © 2006 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.
Subjects: K Law > K Law (General)
Z Bibliography. Library Science. Information Resources > Z665 Library Science. Information Science
Z Bibliography. Library Science. Information Resources > ZA Information resources > ZA4050 Electronic information resources
Departments: School of Science & Technology > Computer Science > Human Computer Interaction Design
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