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13 Legal Reference Services Q. 1 (1993-1994)

handle is hein.journals/lgrefsq13 and id is 1 raw text is: EDITORIAL For some time now people have been speaking about the virtual li- brary and when the term was mentioned in a recent Time magazine cover story, it became part of the everyday vocabulary of folks who like to keep up with trendy concepts. My Uncle Virgil always used to say that nothing really existed until either Time or Newsweek wrote about it so I suppose the virtual library really exists now. Having been embroiled in a few discussions of this topic on electronic bulletin boards, I wanted to use the form of the editorial page to lay out what I think is important, and real, about the virtual library for law librarians. When I speak of the virtual library I mean the library of information available to anyone with a modem and a computer. It is a library without walls, that may be the inside of the Lexis or Westlaw system, or maybe the magic of InterNet and the various files and sources available there. The point is that the library is no longer a warehouse of information sitting on shelves, the library is now out there shimmering in some William Gibson Esque void. This all sounds like so much techno-babble, but in fact it is the reality for some researchers today. I view people doing research as a vast herd, and the outriders at the front of the herd are well into the virtual library. The law student who turns on her Westlaw or Lexis subscription number is in the equivalent of the Harvard Law Library in 1950. Primary sources, secondary sources and gateways to factual information are all there. Yes, they may be difficult to use, but so was the Harvard Law Library in 1950. For those who understand the protocols and can navigate the systems, there are vast resources available. Legal Reference Services Quarterly, Vol. 13(1) 1993 @ 1993 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. I

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