No one right answer ...

No one right answer ... Hill, Gary L; Sears, Dennis S; and Lyman, Lovisa, eds Teachinglegal research and providing access to electronic resources. Binghamton,NY: Haworth Press, 2001. 224p price not reported soft ISBN ISBNabbr.International Standard Book NumberISBNInternational Standard Book NumberISBNn abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m0789013703(also published as Legal reference services quarterly 19, 3/4) LAW LIBRARY SHELVES USUALLY HAVE EXAMPLES OF LEGAL RESEARCH TEXTS.In Australia there are at least six or more locally produced legalresearch texts. In the United States United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. the number would be greater, somein their eighth edition or more. However, there are few texts dealingwith teaching legal research. As legal research is a compulsory subjectfor law students in many Australian universities this book provides awelcome relief from the many texts on how to do it. As indicated by thetitle, the other half of the book deals with providing access toelectronic resources. Readers are reminded: 'However, early in the teaching of legalresearch, the focus should be on the acquisition and development ofbasic research skills, not on the fact that most legal problems do nothave a single right answer.' Having taught legal research for anumber of years, I can testify that this is an important reminder to allteachers of legal research. As one who has also marked legal researchassignments and examinations, I have been pleasantly surprised by thediversity of answers which also satisfy the questions. This book has been written by numerous law librarians fromdifferent fields, ranging from academic to government to law firms This list of the world's largest law firms by revenue is taken from The Lawyer and The American Lawyer and is ordered by 2006 revenue:[1] Clifford Chance, ��1,030.2m – International law firm (headquartered in the UK); Linklaters, ��935. . AmyEaton suggests that teaching legal research in a law firm library isanalogous to herding cats. Herbert Cihak emphasises the need for lawlibrarians to teach legal research. In Australia, I suspect the majorityof formal legal research classes in law schools are not taught by lawlibrarians, but in some cases by academics, some of them newlygraduated, or by postgraduate students needing some pocket money. Thenumber of Australian academics who have taught legal researchcontinuously for a number of years would be a handful. Unfortunately,teaching legal research, like the way it is treated in some law firms,is often delegated to the most junior person in the firm. This is apity, as poor legal research skills can often result in out-of-dateinformation. Apart from the structured training programs on legalresearch, law librarians often teach legal research as they answerreference questions. This has been called the 'teachablemoment'--learning about resources at their point of need. Legal research takes on many facets, as there are numerous topicsand environments in law. Chapters cover teaching legal research inacademic, government and law firm environments. Another chapter coversteaching foreign and international legal research. Other areas couldhave been covered such as criminology criminology,the study of crime, society's response to it, and its prevention, including examination of the environmental, hereditary, or psychological causes of crime, modes of criminal investigation and conviction, and the efficacy of punishment or correction (see , family law, competition law, etc.The chapters on providing access to electronic resources show numerousexamples of where the electronic medium has led to dynamic developmentsin legal research such as 'Developing an electronic collection: TheUniversity of Minnesota (body, education) University of Minnesota - The home of Gopher.http://umn.edu/.Address: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Human Rights Library'. This collection of essays, is a useful work for teachers of legalresearch, and I for one, wish that more Australian law librarians wouldget involved in teaching legal research in a formal academicenvironment. Although American in origin, there are many ideas whichcould be adapted Down Under. Colin Fong, University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales, also known as UNSW or colloquially as New South, is a university situated in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.