Making the case to introduce law students to EDS : Proof beyond reasonable doubt?

1. Making the case to introduce law students to EDS: Proof beyond reasonable doubt? Lisa Hawksworth Faculty Librarian, Humanities & Social Sciences July 2014

2. Context Spezi, V., Creaser, C., O’Brien, A., Conyers, A. (2013) Impact of library discovery technologies: A report for UKSG [Online] Available at http://www.uksg.org/sites/uksg.org/files/UKSG_final_report_16_12_13_by_LISU.pdf(Accessed 16th July 2014) 77% of the 62 survey respondents had implemented an RDS, 11% were in the process of doing so Three main products EBSCO EDS, Ex Libris Primo and Serial Solutions Summon (76% of products in use in the research) The primary objective of the research was to evaluate the impact of library discovery technologies on the usage of academic content

3. Motives for implementing an RDS • Single-search user experience (p31) • Improve visibility of collections (p32) • Link to the full-text (p32) • Meet student expectations (p32)

4. Where is the evidence? Of the 32 respondents who identified gaps in the content offered, 18 mentioned law. By far the most common subject mentioned (p40) For the law discipline, the indexing of the two main databases, Lexis Nexis and Westlaw, appeared quite poor and generally geared towards US content rather than UK content (p41) Currency of content is an issue; reports of delays of a ‘significant number of months’ before material appeared on the RDS central index (p41)

5. What are the material facts? • HeinOnline, Index to Legal Periodicals & Books, JSTOR, Oxford Scholarship Online, Public Information Online… • Issue relates specifically to Lexis Library and Westlaw • Difference between US and UK situation • Complex data formats • Suggested that academic market is small for these providers and so they haven’t engaged with RDS (p41) • Potential for dilution of the brand • Some have their own services for commercial firms • Sweet & Maxwell Solcara Legal Search provides a federated search solution for legal sources and internal know-how

6. Advocate? Acknowledge? Avoid? • No promotion of the RDS to law students • Primary sources that students need are not available • Law journals coverage is patchy • Can’t undertake the sophisticated searching necessary for legal study • Employability: law graduates won’t have access to an RDS in law firms/chambers, but they will have Lexis Library/Westlaw and so need to know how to use the native interface

7. Advocate? Acknowledge? Avoid? • Some promotion of the RDS to law students • Use RDS in 2nd and 3rd year when skills more developed • Teach RDS to dissertation students in 3rd year • Use Westlaw/Lexis for cases/legislation and RDS for journal articles • Use RDS for journals and books and use LibGuides to access Westlaw/Lexis and other legal sources • Use RDS for a known article, for articles on a topic use RDS plus Lexis and Westlaw • Teach RDS in specific modules which benefit from non-legal sources, such as Family Law or EU Law

8. The Liverpool approach • English Legal System and Legal Skills module • Westlaw/Lexis Library for cases/legislation • Week 9 – Legal Writing • Task: find two journal articles relevant to their draft essay • Demonstrate finding journals on Lexis/Westlaw/EDS • Encourage students to use more than one source • Emphasise the importance of evaluating sources • Library ‘surgeries’ • 2nd year Asylum Practice module • 3rd year dissertation students • LLM students

9. Closing arguments • Holistic view of skills development • Not just about finding information, but about teaching good information literacy skills for lifelong learning • Employability: students must be confident in their search skills whichever tool they use • No source is a complete one-stop-shop • Students may take modules in other disciplines • Combined/Joint degrees • Honours Select • Higher level inter-disciplinary research

10. Cross-examination?