I have also been creating a lot of new training material and creating and updating research guides to go along with the training material. In addition, this semester I am teaching a section of Advanced Legal Research for the second time. There is so much to do that I have found that I need to compromise somewhere.

Although I know that PowerPoints are a distraction from the person speaking and that we should have only a few slides in each presentation, I have found that in practice, our PowerPoint presentations often become default research guides for the students. This is in part because we mostly only get one shot in front of the class, and the students cannot really absorb all of the information we give them in one session. We provide them with the slides so that they can review what we taught them. This means that the slides have to be detailed enough that students can understand them and get value out of them after the in-class presentation.

In an ideal world, we would have a slick presentation with just a few slides and then a Research Guide Handout. But in practice, there are several reasons why we instead end up with over a hundred slides for a one-hour presentation. First, with such a small staff, we really only have time to prepare one document. Second, we do not have much time to rehearse, so we need the one document to remind the presenter of the topic to be covered. Third, there are several different librarians, and we are trying to provide the same or similar experience to different groups of students; so we need a standard presentation that can be shared and used by us all.

So for the time being, complex, lengthy slide presentations are at the heart of our legal research training offerings. For my own ALR class though, I am moving away from PowerPoint slides. With only eight students in my class, it is easy for me to keep track of what they are and are not learning based on their Computer Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) lesson scores and on the weekly questions on the readings. So I have begun to use fewer PowerPoint slides for my ALR class.

The PowerPoints emphasize the things that I know they have not learned from the readings, because I can see it in their homework. The PowerPoints also outline the flow of the class. Most of the remaining classes, however, are going to be largely a matter of walking the students through research questions, so the PowerPoint presentations get shorter and shorter the more familiar I am with what I want to cover.

Last semester, the students each wrote a reflective essay based on one week of readings. This semester, we are trying something new. The students are coming up with research checklists for using different types of legal information sources. So far, students, in groups of 2-3, have come up with research checklists for using practice guides and legal encyclopedias both in print and online. Then they did a group presentation to show the class how to answer three questions using print books and using Lexis and Westlaw.

What I have noticed is that it is much easier to demonstrate live than to demonstrate using screen shots. Although screen shots are useful for situations where a live demonstration is not possible, live demonstrations are much easier to follow.

This is a useful piece of information, and it has led me to change my strategy with regard to creating presentations for other legal research training. A recent presentation I created to help students avoid plagiarism is an example of my compromise between live training and PowerPoint slides. Instead of scripting the whole presentation on the slides, I provided a few illustrative slides and the presentation contains hidden slides that allow the presenter to know when to stop the presentation and do a demonstration.

At the request of the Interim Director, I have also added in the plagiarism hypotheticals to the slides, so the students can view the source document and the sample student work side by side. The students will use these hypotheticals to practice identifying incorrect paraphrasing and other problematic writing behaviors. I provided links in the presentation to the documents I drew on for the hypotheticals. I also provided the students with hardcopies of the two full documents with plagiarism hypotheticals.

Each librarian uses this same presentation, but the presentation is not 100 slides long, and the links to the handouts are on the presentation. When it’s time to demo the use of the online plagiarism checker, we stop the presentation and do a live demonstration. If there are any problems with internet connectivity, at least the students have the link on the slide so they can find the appropriate plagiarism checker and the sign up process is intuitive enough that even without the demonstration, they still should be able to use it, once they are alerted to its existence and value.

How do you manage time at work? Where do you cut corners to give yourself more time for something else? Do you have any presentation tips?

Lately, there has been a trend towards law libraries acting as facilitators of stress relief for students by providing therapy dogs students can “check out” for half-hour therapy sessions. We’ve all probably heard by now of Monty, the super stress relieving dog at Yale. The University of San Francisco Dorraine Zief Law Library recently began a similiar program by using five trained canines on loan from the San Francisco SPCA. At LSU last fall, we partnered with the Baton Rouge Capital Area Animal Welfare Society to bring therapy dogs to the library during our “Dog Days of Finals” program.

"Please, tell me more about your Civ Pro outline."

This trend poses an important question- Do we, as law libraries, want to be in the business of stress relief? I say why not? It can be just like any other service we provide like checking out laptops or study rooms. The idea may not even be a new one if the well worn chess sets I found tucked away in a forgotten cabinet in our library is any indication. This avenue of service has the potential to make our jobs a lot more fun and can only serve to increase staff morale if we participate along with the students. I noticed some of our librarians “testing out” the dogs before our Dog Days campaign started, and they seemed to be in a cheerful mood for the rest of the day. What other ideas besides canine therapy would make for good stress relief and nice diversions from the grind of school?

My personal favorite idea right now is to convert a newly emptied office on the fourth floor of our building into an English gentlemen’s library of sorts, furnished with a faux mahogany electric fireplace, solid oak bookshelves, nice hardbound sets of classic literature, and Italian leather chairs. Students could check this relaxation room out in the same way they do a study room. All that would be missing is a glass of brandy, a lit cigar, and the afternoon paper.

Diogenes club anyone?

A couple of other ideas that have been floated around along this same vein are:

• A yoga room
• A zen garden area with a running waterfall
• A nap room with comfortable couches and/or hammocks
• An outside basketball court

The possibilites for creativity are limitless. What are some of the ways your library has helped to destress students or staff?

photos courtesy of www.freestockimages.net/

What is Xtranormal? Xtranormal is a web site that allows you to create cartoon movies and publish them on the web. Their movies have been used as Geico commercials, and even have their own YouTube channel.

I used to LOVE Xtranormal, but now that it is charging to make movies I’m not nearly as smitten with it. Signing up for Xtranormal is free, and they even give you 300 points to start with. After those 300 points are spent you will have to pay for more. The points can be purchased in bundles such as 1200 points for $10.00, 5000 points for $25.00, and 15000 points for $50.00. I was able to make my most recent movie for less than 200 points.

There are lots of decisions to be made about each movie you make. Xtranormal lets you play around with lots of characters, movie angles, gestures and even background noises. They have holiday themed characters, like people in Santa suits or sporting shamrock shirts that might add some festive flair to your movie. You simply have to type what you want them to say in the characters’ dialogue boxes. You can rely on the auto camera to provide the shots you want, but I usually edit those and pick my own camera angles. There are also many gestures that you can have the characters make. These are a little unreliable because even if you get a gesture that makes sense, the timing can be almost impossible to execute exactly as you want it. The backgrounds range from a plain white screen to a news anchor’s desk. I have not played with the background noises, but I’m sure some of them could add quite a lot to the movie.

There are a variety of useful ways Xtranormal movies can be used in libraries. I have used my movies to explain a concept that I wanted to reinforce, like field searching. I’ve even seen these movies used as a way to give students an assignment as though it were coming from a partner at a law firm. It’s a good way to evaluate their skills at figuring out how to start and identify the issues of a particular problem. Most students aren’t going to expect their librarian to make movies (or have a sense of humor), so it may make them pay attention a little more closely.

I also find making movies to be a great way to express some of the things you just aren’t allowed to say to people in a more direct way. Back in 2009, West released an advertisement that seemed, to many, to indicate that knowing the name of a librarian was a bad thing. Understandably, many people were offended by the advertisement, and some people expressed their displeasure by writing strongly worded emails. I decided that I would try a different approach and express my feelings about how stupid that advertisement was by creating the Anonymous Librarian. Another example of this is the most recent episode of Anonymous Librarian. I remember entire dreams better than some students remember something I say to them 15 times in the space of an hour. I think this video expressed how I feel without any real people actually being harmed. Xtranormal allows me to express my frustration and make some of my coworkers laugh since they are experiencing the same type of student issues.

I encourage you to try Xtranormal. It’s an easy way to add some spice to a class, LibGuide, or just a fun way to relieve stress and share with those who suffer as you do. Who knows? Maybe, you will discover a hidden talent and become the next Martin Scorsese.

Here are some similar websites that might be worth a look.
http://goanimate.com/
http://www.digitalfilms.com/
http://www.masher.com/index.jsp

Last June, it was my very first smart phone, my Motorola Atrix (Android OS). I justified my phone by saying that I needed it to keep up with the Advanced Legal Research class that I was teaching online. My students emailed me at all hours and on all days, and I felt guilty not responding quickly to their issues (that’s a whole other issue). It did not take long before my Atrix became like a child to me; I even panicked and felt lost the few times that I accidentally left it at home or misplaced it.

Photo Curtesy of Reuben Yau

My cell phone is used for work about 75% of the time, and not in the way one would presume. I hardly ever talk on it, but I do text and email from my phone. I have found some other uses for it, too, which I did not expect before the initial purchase:

Camera Craziness

I have had a camera in my cell phone for quite a while, but it was always a hassle to use and was of low quality, so I often forgot about it. My Atrix, however, cured me of that, and so my photographic skills have expanded. Now photos from my phone are taken:

• For use in video tutorials.
• To remind me which books are in our stacks (forget carrying pesky pen and paper) while preparing for classes. Works great at Barnes & Noble, too!
• To scan QR codes (hooked to the video tutorials mentioned earlier) with apps such as Red Laser.
• To scan documents into PDF format with apps such as CamScanner.
• To take pictures of coworkers while at conferences for later blackmail reminiscing.
• To remind me of a wide variety of things that I will often forget (see picture below).

Advice Appropriately Given to Me By a Student

You can even set your cell phone up to upload all of these fantastic pictures to the internet for easy use on your computer or iPad. I occasionally manually upload them to Dropbox, but also have Google+ set up to automatically upload pictures to a private folder when connected to Wi-Fi.

Clutter Killer

To put it kindly, I am a clutter bug. I never expected my phone to keep me organized, but it somehow does. Tasks that my phone unexpectedly does include:

• Keep all of my calendars in one place (Not even my Outlook is set up to do that!).
• Keep my To Do list up to date (harder than it sounds).
• Help me remember what I have in the pantry and what I need to pick up next time I visit the grocery store thanks to the Out of Milk app. (I have also often contemplated using the Pantry List feature to keep track of what books I have checked out from the library – both law and public)
• Keep all of my contacts in one place and up to date. Note: This can backfire on you if you have your phone list linked to social media sites and someone suddenly decides that they do not want their phone number listed on their profile anymore.
• Keep track of travel paperwork with my favorite travel app, Tripit. (This app is the only reason that I did not panic when I accidentally left my entire stack of itineraries, confirmations, etc. on the dining room table on my last trip to Chicago.)
• Keep me from losing my airplane tickets for those airlines that now issue e-tickets.

Fun, Fun, Fun (til her Daddy takes the T-bird away)

Yes, my phone will let me listen to the Beach Boys and any other music that I get the inkling for, thanks to Pandora. We all know that you can read books, check out restaurants, locate movie times, etc., with a smart phone, but I was happily surprised to find out that it also lets me:

• Get rid of all of those pesky store cards junking up my wallet and key ring with Cardstar.
• See what’s on TV with TV Listings.
• Figure out gauge and yarn substitutions for knitting and crocheting patterns with KnittingCalc.
• Stay alive and healthy by turning itself into a weather radio with Simple Weather Alerts.

In sum, if I get run over by a bus tomorrow, you are going to find my iPad in one hand and my Android in the other. The only thing that would make my Android better would be an app to turn it into a remote control for my iPad!

Do you use your cell phone in ways that you never imagined when you first purchased it? If so, please share!

Image courtesy seanbjack, some rights reserved <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/deed.en>

My smile is my most often used tool for encouraging students to approach me and professors to want to work with me. I am beginning to realize that I cannot hide in my office and send emails and expect students to flock to the library for tours, mini-classes and research help. To reach the students, word of mouth and a reputation for being friendly and helpful are invaluable. I watch my friend, the Director of News & Media Relations, in the elevator. Relaxed and happy, he engages with the students by telling them an unexpectedly silly joke. He emboldens me to do the same sometimes.

One of the haphazardly applied tactics that I have for reaching more students is to reach out to the moot court teams. If I were to do it in an organized manner, I would create a schedule for all the moot court competitions that our students regularly enter. I would ask the helpful staff in the Academics department to let me know who is the faculty adviser to these moot court teams. Then I would contact these advisers and offer to provide the moot court team with research training before they get the moot court competition materials.

What I actually ended up doing took two generations of Jessup teams to come to fruition. In Spring 2011, we moved from the old school buildings in Old Town to the brand new school building in downtown, San Diego. I was invited by the Jessup Team to participate in their practice session, held in the brand new moot court room on the 2nd floor. I was thrilled. Even though it wasn’t technically a legal research training opportunity, my enthusiastic participation as a judge during their practice session led to my explaining to them that they could have come to me much sooner, and I would have given them some research training to make their research process faster and easier.

One of the team members also happened to be a part-time student worker in the library. His prior experience and familiarity with me also contributed to the positive experience that I had interacting with the moot court team. When the next group was ready to begin researching for their Jessup competition the following Fall, they had already heard of me from the prior team and had been told to contact me.

In Fall 2011, the faculty adviser for the moot court team invited me to give them two hours of legal research training over the course of two class periods. I created a research guide for them with an emphasis on researching the particular type of International law subtopics that they were focusing on. I asked each team member what they were responsible for and where they were in their research, and I offered my insight where possible to make their research process more efficient. I also pointed them to library resources on International law, oral advocacy and appellate advocacy. When their formal training was over, I made myself available to them by email, and in person whenever they needed research advice.

Word of mouth from the first Jessup Team was enough to get other moot court team members into my office. They have been contacting me, telling me they heard that I was able to help the Jessup team and wondering if I have time to create a research guide for them or to give them some research advice. Some team members still turn down my offers of legal research training because they are “too busy” writing memos and meeting deadlines. I try to help those who come to me and hope that those who do get help find their training useful. I try to keep smiling, and keep offering help and keep being appreciative of the students who do come to get help.

• What do you do to keep track of when student groups might be in need of your help?
• How does your library reach out to student groups?
• How do you convince busy patrons (new associates, etc.) that a little legal research training now can save so much time and money later?

The fall of 2010 was the first semester I taught legal research, which also coincided with the first semester librarians were given the opportunity to teach the legal research portion of the 1L Legal Research and Writing course. We knew the program would experience growing pains and that would be reflected in the course evaluations. The primary complaints about that first year included things which I had little control over- namely that the class met at 3pm on Mondays and featured a class of 60 taken from 3 different sections of the 1L class. The complaints about my teaching style, while hurtful initially, were something that I could try to fix in between academic years.

That first year, students said that I relied too heavily on Powerpoint slides. I had too many slides and not enough live searching of databases. Check. This past year I limited my presentations to 10 slides and did LOTS of live searching in class. Students said in that first year I didn’t engage them enough in the classroom. Noted. So this past year I implemented group presentations of which I posted about here and took routine improv style hypotheticals from the class during the live search demonstrations. Students said after that first year that I talked too fast in class. Okay. So this year I slowed my tempo down a bit.

The results? This past semester’s evals claimed I still read from the PowerPoint too much (really?), the live searches were over their heads, I spoke too slowly, and they didn’t care for the group presentations.

The lesson? You can’t please all of the law students all of the time. You’ll be lucky if you can please 10-15 of them, which I managed to do if I am to believe the positive comments section. While course evaluations can guide you on how to approach teaching, it cannot be the driving force behind your course design.

For the most part, I received positive reviews from my students. The good slightly outweighed the bad and that was good enough for me. Let’s be honest, law librarians aren’t going to be afforded the same amount of respect in a classroom as a law professor. Anything short of a Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society type performance is going to draw some detractors with our 1L audience.

So, perhaps stay tuned for next fall when I jump on top of a desk, whistle the 1812 Overture, and yell at my 1L’s to carpe diem. Hey, I’m a sucker for positive reviews.

For Christmas, I bought my father a Roku 2.  While the main purpose was to allow him to experiment with online streaming media, some part of me wanted to buy the device just to see how it worked. This may explain why I have a Blu-Ray player, Wii, iPod Touch, Kindle, Android phone, and an iPad 2 (the latter courtesy of my employer), too.

Much as I love my technological toys…errrm… tools, I always fear that I am missing something.  As such, I am constantly reading blogs and websites looking for the newest technology with which to play.

Today, for instance, I signed up for a free MeetingBurner account, which provides access to free webmeeting software with recording abilities for up to 50 people.  I have not had a lot of time to experiment with it yet, but it intrigued me.  And yet, before I completely learn about MeetingBurner, I know that I will be reading the blogs and websites to see what new tool crops up next.

This does not really seem to be much of a problem in general, but my technoholic tendencies can actually lead to some real world problems.  For instance, I was looking over the ABA Techshow program and drooling over some of the programs (Yes, I really do want to attend sessions such as “Awesome Android Apps for Attorneys” – darn it, I have become one with my iPad and now want to do the same with my Android! Not to mention, I get the occasional question about them…darn reference librarian tendencies of needing to locate information for patrons), when I experienced a brief anxiety spasm because there were so many things that I felt like I was missing.

For once, I understand many people’s claims that they are in information overload.  I am quite capable of getting my mind to sort, categorize, and organize massive amounts of information (thank you UWM SOIS program!), but I am starting to go into technology overload.

So, what do I do?  The sane among you are probably calmly writing me an email telling me that I am not alone, and I can get help for this problem.  Others of you are probably yelling at your computer screens for me to step away from the light and return to the real world.  And I am sure that there are at least one or two of you scoffing at the idea of technology overload and plunging ahead in your own quests to learn about and understand all of the newest technologies.

After thinking about it for a few hours and playing a game of “see who gets to occupy the couch” with my two cats (they won), I have decided to continue my research into new technologies, but also to repeat the following to myself every day until I believe it:

It is OK to not experiment with every new technology.
You are just one person.
You will learn what you need to know.
You cannot spend all of your time looking into new technologies.
Classes need to be taught, reference questions need to be answered, and the cats will bite you if you do not take the time to feed and play with them.

Has anyone else experienced similar problems? Any other  suggestions for dealing with technology overload?

Here’s a short recap (with bias) in case you already forgot or didn’t feel like reading his post:

• What’s the main intent of SOPA? To stop the facilitation of copyright infringement online. The bill’s sponsors say it’s to primarily block foreign file sharing sites like Pirate Bay, which explains why my undergraduate workers are so vehemently opposed to it. Just spend the one dollar for that Ke$ha song on iTunes guys, it’s worth not getting a virus on your laptop.
• Who’s for it? The guys who ruined my college years by killing Napster- the Recording Industry of America, the Motion Picture Industry of America, and lots of lobbyists officials in our federal government.
• Who’s against it? Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Twitter, Youtube, Ebay….you know, the first through eighth (not including Amazon) most popular websites in the United States according to Alexa.com.
• What could it do? Law professors, our primarily clientele, believe it could infringe on free speech. Tech experts think it could cripple the Internet by giving the Justice Department power to shut down a site before it has a chance to defend itself of a copyright infringement claim. It would make an Internet start-up think twice about well, starting up. Both of those consequences are essentially un-American. The Justice Department part is particularly terrifying in a Winston Smith sitting in his cubicle trying not to have bad thoughts sort of way.
• How is it going to play out? We don’t know. SOPA seems to have a lot of support in the House right now and the debate will continue in the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday after hitting a minor delay Friday in the form of a verbal/Twitter slap fight between Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee (D-TX) and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa)

I for one, find it hard to believe that any bill with such opposition from the likes of Google and Facebook would have much traction in our Age of Technopoly. Sure, the RIAA took down Napster a decade ago, but Napster was a Rebel Alliance X-wing fighter compared to the Google Death Star. If Google gets tired of our government’s restrictive Internet policies, I envision Sergey Brin and Larry Page throwing a dart at a world map playing the game, “Which Country Wants a New Sponsor?” and moving all of its operations to wherever the dart lands.

What everyone, except for Pirate Bay enthusiasts, can agree on is that copyright infringement and online piracy is bad, and something must be done about it. Apparently it’s gotten quite out of hand and expensive if you listen to the proponents of the bill. The biggest problem I see with SOPA is its possible unintended consequences. The language of the bill is vague enough to give the Justice Department Thor’s Hammer to combat online piracy, when a surgical tool targeting the wrongdoers would suffice.

That surgical tool was introduced last week in the House in the form of the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade bill (whose acronym is inexplicably “OPEN”). What OPEN would do is put intellectual property disputes between U.S. companies and foreign parties in the hands of the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). This only makes sense because one of ITC’s primary functions is to investigate intellectual property disputes in regards to imports. OPEN has the backing of our Internet overlords Google, Facebook, AOL…. (AOL?) because it would target the offenders instead of shutting down the interlocutors like search engines and social media sites. OPEN would soften SOPA by making it so the ITC would investigate piracy claims instead of just allowing the Justice Department to use an Internet “off switch”. The ITC could then make a cease-and-desist order and only then bring in Big Brother the Department of Justice for an injunction.

What are your thoughts on SOPA? On OPEN? On the overabundance of acronyms in this debate?

Photo courtesy photon_de

What shall we call it?

I noticed in the comments of the blog on law student legal research competency standards, that people were discussing the possibility of calling the standards legal information literacy standards. I am not sure where this conversation went after this, but I was wondering if it might not be a good idea to use both terms instead of choosing one. In fact, I propose one more phrase, law student research skills standards.

Legal Information Literacy

As a law librarian, I feel a strong camaraderie with other law librarians. Law librarians talk about legal information literacy standards. When we want to talk to each other, this is a useful term to use because it is the language that we use to describe a comprehensive understanding of the lay of the land. However, this may not be the best term to use to sell this concept to our patron base. Consider this blog post by Wayne Bivens-Tatum, an academic librarian at Princeton University, on the concept of information literacy. Bivens-Tatum argues that information literacy is a goal that only reference librarians have any hope of ever achieving, and that students do not need to be information literate.  Although I do not agree that information literacy  goes beyond the skills needed by law students,* I do believe that information literacy is the language of librarians.

Law Student Research Competency Standards

By contrast, professors understand the language of competency. This is the language of professional responsibility for lawyers. Law professors know that lawyers must be competent, so it is reasonable to use this language when speaking to them. When serving our patrons, we want to use the language of the patrons, we don’t expect them to necessarily know what an ILL is, but we let them know that we can order a book for them from another institution. In the same way, maybe we should talk to them about information literacy using language that is meaningful to them.

Law Student Research Skills Standards

Recently, the buzz word in law schools has been skills. Law students are starting to realize that the most important thing to their future employers will be their legal skills. Might using the term “legal skills” and providing students with opportunities to demonstrably achieve those skills with a certificate program, motivate students to take seriously the study of legal research? I would like to try it and find out.

What can we do with it?

Learning Objectives

I can imagine us converting the information literacy standards into a set of learning objectives. Then we can create tests to evaluate student mastery of particular learning objectives. If we all do it together and share our results, we can get it done fairly quickly and we can all have a handy diagnostic tool. We would also have a blueprint for creating and evaluating legal research certificate programs.

Adult Learning Methods

We can create lessons to teach our students very specific and clearly delineated skills. We can talk to them about what they are learning so that they can see the big picture and so that we are partners in their education. We can develop relationships with them by teaching them consistently over the course of their education. We can invite them with common sense appeals to their intelligence. We can entice them with prizes to be won. We can do whatever it takes to help them achieve their goals.

On Gimmicks and Prizes

Law students are stressed out. They have so many chores and if a prize will make it easier for them to stay on the path, then I am for it. I used to believe that prizes were juvenile and insulting. Now I can see that giving a prize, especially a good one, is a way to be kind to your students. The kindness is not that you are giving one student a thing. It is that you are giving all the students the gift of positive motivation to learn something. If it makes it easier for them to learn, I am for it. I kind of wish I had access to free tickets to concerts or something valuable so that I could give my students prizes every week.

The Role of CALI

I envision research being taught in small groups in sessions of 20-30 minutes, with relevant CALI lessons being used. We could tailor the CALI lessons to teach the specific learning objectives, and we could have a diagnostic test at the beginning of the lesson and another at the end to see if the lesson worked as a teaching tool. If it doesn’t work, we can improve it. More than one of us can try teaching the same learning objectives, and we can see which strategies worked better than others.

Conclusion

I think it is good to have almost interchangeable terms to use that different stakeholders can understand and relate to as being important. Legal Information Literacy, Law Student Research Competency Standards, or Law Student Research Skills Standards, are all descriptive terms that can be used in the Google search box to find the same or overlapping sets of documents.

• What would you want to do to participate in creating a standardized educational program for our law students and new associates?
• How would you present it to your patron base?
• How would you motivate your students to learn?

* Unlike academic scholars who learn about substantive topics, with an existence separate from the literature on the topic, law students need to learn how to find and use the most up to date information to craft a strong argument. Although I do not think they need to worry about finding or missing the exact perfect case, I do believe that there is merit to law students acquiring the kind of deeper understanding of the big picture that information literacy provides, over knowledge of how to manipulate databases.