ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 684 / C& RL News Legal resources in an academic business library By T ja ld a N. B elastock Associate Library Director /Inform ation Services Bentley College O nline databases v. the paper chase. B u s in e s s libraries agree th a t a large set of tradi­ tional sources of information are needed to meet the needs of business research. Traditionally these needs have been met more or less successfully by publications issued on a regular basis by many spe­ cialty publishers such as Moody’s, D un and Brad- street, and Standard and Poor, w ith financial in­ form ation on companies and industries to keep investors inform ed. Also, w ell-know n journals such as Fortune, California Management Review, Journal o f Marketing Research, along w ith trade journals having titles such as Advertising Age, Playthings, Savings Institutions, and Footwear News serve to keep students of business abreast of events and trends in the business world. Less agreement exists, however, on the amount of law materials required for business research. Most business schools subscribe to the philosophy that “w ith a maturing U.S. economy and an in­ creasingly litigious society, business students must understand the workings of the legal mind and be in command of basic legal principles as they apply to business.” 1 Many articles have been w ritten on the need for legal education, but many disagree as to im plementation of courses and teaching metho­ dologies to meet this need.2 There are numerous 1Henry B. Reiling, et al. Business Law: Text and Cases (Boston: Kent Publishing Co., 1981), 8. 2A selected list of journal articles is given at the end of this article. schools offering a business program at either the undergraduate or graduate levels which have a law school attached to their parent university, and one would expect these schools to be in the fortunate position of being able to offer their business stu­ dents all the legal courses and resources available to the law students of their institution. In fact, how­ ever, this is often not the case. Competition for scarce resources among the various schools w ithin a university often leads to the hard decision that stu­ dents in one program may not use the resources spe­ cifically allocated for another program . The result is th a t business law students in these schools are just as hard-pressed to find all the legal resources they need to perform adequate research as their coun­ terparts in schools w ithout a law school. Most libraries serving a business program p u r­ chase such standard legal titles as the American Law Reports, Supreme Court Reports, Northeast­ ern Reporter for case law; American Jurisprudence 2nd, the U.S. and the local state Code sets; and the Code o f Federal Regulations for adm inistrative law. In the case of Bentley College, a free-standing business school w ith both undergraduate and mas­ ter’s programs, pressure was being exerted by the faculty for more current sources of legal informa­ tion than are usually available in traditional busi­ ness school libraries; sources such as advance sheets for the various court systems, and update services to the Code o f Federal Regulations, as well as a broader selection of legal periodicals. In addition, D ecem ber 1987 / 685 the absence in the collection of the Federal Supple­ m en t series, an enorm ous set for w hich m any li­ braries do not have sufficient shelf space, w as often pointed o ut as a serious deficiency in the library’s legal resources. O ne option th a t business schools m ight consider in urb an areas such as Boston, w ith m any academ ic institutions in the area, is to draw on the resources of other educational institutions in th e area; how ever, libraries are understandably re­ lu c tan t to share th e ir ow n scarce resouces w ith o th ­ ers n o t enrolled in their institutions. A nother op­ tion to consider is to install an electronic online legal database, such as W estlaw or Lexis. This w as th e route Bentley College decided to pursue, the results of which are discussed below. A library considering introducing such an elec­ tronic legal database w ill realize early on th a t the typical pay –as-you-use fee structure w ould quickly devour the w hole m aterials budget. Costing back such a service to the users w ould defeat th e purpose of introducing th e service, w hich is to find an alter­ native to buying p ap e r sources, the use of w hich w ould naturally have been free to all. F ortunately w e discovered th a t M ead D a ta C en tral, p a re n t com pany of Lexis, h ad recently begun a pilot proj­ ect to introduce their electronic database into the non-law school m arket. A crucial p a r t of this proj­ ect is the fixed-fee structure, w hich allows aca­ dem ic institutions to purchase Lexis w ithout hav­ ing to adopt a chargeback system. T he arrange­ m ent is norm ally th a t a library receives one UBIQ term inal w ith prin ter, four passwords, an d unlim ­ ited search tim e except d u rin g 2:30-5:00 p .m . weekdays, w hich is traditionally the tim e of heavi­ est use by the law firm subscribers. In exchange for this educational flat rate, th e school m ust agree to m ake Lexis available only to th e ir cu rren t students, faculty and staff. Costs and justifications Business schools w ill undoubtedly w an t to do an analysis of the costs of th e introduction of an elec­ tronic legal database an d to m easure these against th e benefits. T h e direct costs, w hich include the su b sc rip tio n , th e passw ords, th e te rm in a l an d prin ter rentals, and the initial training, are all costs negotiable w ith M ead. In th e case of Bentley Col­ lege, these cam e to approxim ately $13,000 for one year. Business schools considering a service such as Lexis will also need to take into account telephone charges, for w hich M ead charges a flat rate of $50 per m onth per term inal. A nother cost w hich m ust also be considered is th a t of th e additional staff th a t w e discovered w e needed to h ire to assist us w ith all th e Lexis training an d ro u tin e p a tro n assistance. In o u r case, w e found w e had to increase th e reference staff by 24 hours a week of additional p art-tim e professional help to handle th e large num ber o f Lexis tutorials th a t are requested daily. Using an electronic legal database requires some training, otherw ise th e p a ­ trons become frustrated and often leave the library w ithout th e inform ation they w ere seeking. W e discovered th a t a tu to rial of 20 minutes usually teaches users enough to enable them to find w hat they need. H ow ever, since each such tutorial re­ quires 20 minutes of th e reference lib rarian’s tim e, having th e reference desk unattended th a t long is an unacceptable level of reference service. Adding m ore staff at key busy times solved th a t problem , b u t natu rally th e cost is high, adding an average of $240 per week to th e library’s payroll. To com plete an analysis of the costs of introduc­ ing an electronic legal database, a library must com pare w h at m aterials a re already being received against w h at it will be receiving on the legal d a ta ­ base. As an example of such an analysis, w e list be­ low th e titles w hich our library w as receiving at the tim e Lexis was installed for w hich th e re w as a com ­ p arable title or service on Lexis: L aw titles Code o f Federal Regulations Federal Register U.S. Reports Federal Reserve Bulletin D epartm ent o f State Bulletin U.S. Code U.S. Code A nnotated A m erican L a w Reports— 2 n d , 3 rd , 4 th , an d L a ter Cases BN A U.S. L a w W eek Northeastern Reporter Massachusetts Decisions Suprem e Court Reports H arvard L a w Review Yale L a w Review A ccounting and taxation titles AICPA publications FASB publications Tax L aw yer C C H U.S. Tax Cases C um ulative Bulletins o f the I.R .S . IRS publications U.S. Tax Court Reports Tax C ourt M em orandum Decisions P rentice-H all Private L etter Rulings Prentice-H all A m erican Federal Tax Reports Prentice-H all Tax Court Reported Decisions Prentice-H all Tax Court M em orandum Deci­ sions Prentice-H all Federal Tax Service C C H Standard Federal Tax Reporter (2 sets) Prentice-H all Divorce Taxation P rentice-H all Federal Tax G uide C C H Federal Tax Guide C C H Internal Revenue M anual Rabkin & Johnson Federal Incom e G ift & Estate Taxation RIA Federal Tax Coordinator M erte n ’s L a w o f Federal Incom e Taxation 686 / C&R L News I t is apparent looking at this list that the library receives many services in the taxation field, and th a t there is much duplication, or near-duplication of services, as befits a school which teaches ac­ countancy at the graduate level. The question all libraries need to answer is how much of their dupli­ cation is tru e duplication w ith the services avail­ able on the electronic database. Theoretically these duplicate services could then be dropped from the library’s subscription list, saving money th a t adds to the justification for the electronic service. We found, however, th a t there were only a few paper services that could be considered candidates for dropping: CCH Standard Federal Tax Reporter (the 2nd set only), Prentice-Hall Divorce Taxation, Prentice-Hall Federal Tax Guide, CCH Federal Tax Guide. Similarly, in the law area the Law Fac­ ulty were willing to give up the paper editions of American Law Reports, and BNA US Law Week. The reasons for not discontinuing most of the paper services th a t are apparent duplications of the elec­ tronic service were several. First is the traffic fac­ tor. If usage of a certain paper service is heavy, then it becomes difficult to force all that traffic onto the Lexis term inal, which w ith its 300-baud printing rate is slow for printing out cases. In our library we found that most of the tax services and the federal law case reporter services fell into the “heavy use” category and were therefore necessary to keep in paper format. A second factor was Town and Gown relations. Since some of the use of our materials comes from outside the Bentley commu­ nity, mainly alumni and local townspeople who would be ineligible for access to Lexis, it was de­ cided th a t we had an obligation in the interest of goodwill to m aintain at least a few services that might otherwise be dropped. The Prentice-Hall Private L etter Rulings was a good example of this point. A nother factor is the F aculty Factor. At Bentley, w e of course consulted w ith the faculty on the issue of discontinuing services in the taxation and law areas, and discovered that our taxation faculty felt strongly that it is im portant to keep the BIA, the Rabkin & Johnson, the Prentice–Hall, the M ertens an d the C C H federal tax reporters as teaching tools to educate their students about the uniqueness of each service. In addition, the Law faculty felt th a t the problem of pagination on Lexis—that is, th a t the page references on Lexis are different from the official page references due to the smaller pagination on the Lexis screen—was an additional reason why many of the paper services needed to be retained. This is a problem especially for faculty research and publications, for which of­ ficial page references are required, a problem that producers and vendors of electronic legal services would do well to consider. In all, then, the direct savings w e were able to accum ulate through this analysis w ere modest. The process, however, is a very useful one for any business school library, and we felt we had gained much through the process. A business school library should also consider the indirect savings from the installation of an elec­ tronic legal research service. A list should be com­ piled of all the services and periodicals available on the service th a t are not currently being received in paper format. At Bentley, w e made such a list and selected those titles which w e knew would be used by our faculty and students: BNA Chemical Regulation Reporter BNA Pension Reporter BNA Government Employee Relations Report BNA Occupational Safety & Health Reporter BNA Product Safety & Liability Reporter BNA Securities Regulation & Law Report BNA Environment Reporter BNA Antitrust & Trade Regulation Report 35 law journals Federal Supplement series (current and retro­ spective) Federal Reporter series (current and retrospec­ tive) Regional Reporter series (current and retrospec­ tive) State cases from all 50 states State tax cases from all 50 states The cost of all the titles listed above would have far exceeded our annual fee for Lexis, and while we had not had subscriptions to them and therefore could not consider them real savings, we did view them as value-added. This was im portant to our collection development program , w here the pres­ sure to enhance the law and taxation areas of the collection has now become almost non-existent due to the introduction of these added services on Lexis. Summary To sum up then, the staff, faculty and students consider the introduction of Lexis to have been an enormous success. It has cost us, and continues to cost us, a considerable chunk of th e m aterials budget. However, the benefits to the college have been many. First, there has been an enormous in­ crease in the law collection at really minimal cost. Staff tim e in ordering, processing, handling, filing, shelving all these additional materials in print for­ m at would have been beyond reason. In addition, the library now has materials for which little need had been perceived but which now receive regular use. The library feels that any complaints in the fu­ ture about the size of our law collection will be con­ sidered unjustified, freeing us up to concentrate on collection development in other equally im portant and dem anding areas of the collection. Also, w ith the trends towards electronic information of all so rts, on C D -R O M , re m o te d a ta b a s e s , or microcomputer-based systems, it is im portant that business schools offer their students the best and the most current technology available, since these stu­ dents will later need access to the best and latest in­ formation to compete in the w orld business and po­ litical markets. December 1987 / 687 Selected references Childers, Bruce K ., “Introductory Law Courses in a College of Business: A Change of Em phasis,” American Business L aw Journal 15 (1977):82-87. Collins, John W ., “Law in a Business Curricu­ lu m ,” A m e r ic a n Business L a w J o u rn a l 15 (1977):46-52. Donnell, John D ., “Business Law Textbooks: A Retrospective E xploration,” A m erican Business L aw Journal 22 (1984): 265-82. Donohue, James L ., “The Case for Teaching Business L aw to U n d erg rad u ate Business S tu­ d e n t s ,” A m e r ic a n B usiness L a w J o u r n a l 4 (1966): 162-66. D unfee, Thomas, “The Business Law C urricu­ lum: Recent Changes and Current Status,” A m eri­ can Business L aw Journal 18 (1980):59-76. Elliott, William G ., “T he Need for Legal E du­ cation by Persons in Business,” American Business L aw Journal 19 (1981): 153-75. McGuire, Charles R., “Logic and the C urricu­ lum: A Proposed Conceptual Fram ew ork for the Legal Environm ent of Business,” Am erican Busi­ ness Law Journal 23 (1986):479-507. Moore, G ary, “M anagerial Competence in Law an d th e Business C u rric u lu m : T he C o rp o rate Counsel P erspective,” A m erican Business L a w Journal 23 (1985):351-89. Reitzel, David, “Direct Use of Legal Research in Business L aw In s tru c tio n ,” A m erican Business L aw Journal 15 (1977): 123-31. Schlesinger, Mark, “Does Legal Education For Managers Teach Them to Think?” American Busi­ ness Law Journal 20 (1982):409-19. ■ ■ INNOVATIONS Introducing junior staff to the administrative process By M argaret E. G allow ay Interim Director o f Libraries North Texas State University T h e A dm inistrative Council and staff of th e N orth Texas S tate University Libraries p artici­ pated in tw o planning retreats in the early summer of 1983 and 1985. These retreats served to enhance the library’s com m itm ent to an intensive goal and objective planning program based on input from all levels of staff. A recurring finding from the two retreats indicated th a t junior staff members felt alienated from the decision-making process. Staff members new to the library and junior staff w ith­ out adm inistrative exposure felt th a t senior adm in­ istrative staff w ere privileged to more inside infor­ m ation, m ade decisions not based on staff input, tended to be reactive to problems instead of proac­ tive, and did not relay inform ation to fellow staff in an efficient m anner. W hile these tend to be fairly common com plaints to be directed tow ard m an­ agement, the library adm inistration decided to see if there might be some w ay to reduce or defuse the basis for such criticism. T he associate director suggested a project in w hich junior staff members, librarians and clerical staff, w ould participate in small study/task groups w hich w ould review and make recommendations about m atters and issues usually reviewed only at the Administrative Council level. The make-up of the group w ould vary depending upon the topic to be reviewed, and the associate director would serve as the chairperson for each group. The intent was to have one such group active for a period of time during each academic year. The group was to serve tw o purposes: to inform staff members about m at­ ters th a t w ere not p a rt of their regular job inform a­ tion, and to have the staff members make recom­ m e n d a tio n s w ith in th e co n te x t of th is new inform ation. Side benefits would be to help staff u n d e rs ta n d th e com plexity of a d m in is tra tiv e decision-making w hen confronted w ith many op­