Article Abstract #4

Kunsch, Kelly. The Way We Were and What We “B”. 21(1) Legal Reference Services Quarterly 97 (2002)

Kunsch has worked as an academic law reference librarian for twenty years. Her goal in this article is to compare the changes in the profession in this time. To do this, she offers some common questions asked at an academic legal reference desk. She provides the way the question would have been answered twenty years ago using quotes from prominent legal research texts. She then discusses the options for answering the question today.

The common thread of Kunsch’s examples is the great increase in electronic technology. For instance, one example question Kunsch provides is how to get at patron the text of a U.S. Supreme Court decision decided that day. Twenty years ago, the quickest way a patron could get the decision would be through LEXIS or WESTLAW. These database services could get the case in about 72 hours. If the library didn’t have a subscription to these services, the text of the case could also be obtained in U.S. Law Week. This looseleaf service would have the text of the case in a few days. In the present day, however, the patron could obtain the text of the case almost immediately via the World Wide Web and in all likelyhood wouldn’t even require the assistance of the reference librarian.