This article originally appeared in the Massachusetts Law Review, December 1995.
Reprinted by permission from the Massachusetts Bar Institute.

The Social Law Library Is Moving
Into the 21st Century

BY JAMES A. BRINK

James A. Brink, of Hale and Dorr, was elected to the Social Law Library's Board of Trustees in 1975, serving as its President since 1984.

Introduction
The law library of the future is in blueprint form today. The Social Law Library is preparing to move, both figuratively and literally, into the 21st century. In 1992, the Supreme Judicial Court unveiled a $140 million plan to build a new Suffolk County courthouse on a 3.1 acre site on New Chardon Street, Boston, and renovate extensively the existing complex in Pemberton Square.[1] When these construction and renovation projects are completed around the turn of the millennium, the Social Law Library will join the Supreme Judicial Court, the Appeals Court and the administrative offices of the Chief Justice for Administration and Management in Boston's venerable " Old Courthouse."

It is fitting that the Social Law Library (the oldest law library in the United States[2]) will join the Supreme Judicial Court (the oldest court in continuous service in the Western Hemisphere, operating under the oldest, still functioning written constitution in the world[3]) to occupy this national historic site. Completed in 1895, the Old Courthouse is an exemplar of American courthouse architecture, built in an era when courthouses were designed as "grand monuments to justice" and where the "majesty of the courtrooms themselves the intended to mirror the majesty of the law."[4]

While the librarian and trustees[5] are proud of the Social Law Library's past and pleased to relocate in what will be an impressive and beautifully renovated public space, our focus is on the future. The Old Courthouse's exterior will remain in the 19th century German Renaissance style, but the Library's renascent interior is being designed with future functionality in mind.

The current plan is for the Social Law Library to occupy the fourth and fifth floors of the Old Courthouse. The scheme will more than double the overall square footage that the library presently occupies, providing for pleasant, skylighted reading rooms, ample areas for administrative functions, and sufficient stack space for significant expansion of the collection.[6] The plan also calls for the construction of new elevators so that the library can increase its hours and patrons will have direct access. of course, the newly renovated space will have all modern amenities and be in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act[7].

Perhaps most impressive is that the new Social Law Library's facility will allow both on-site patrons and remote users to take the fast track on the information superhighway. For example, in addition to traditional reading and study space, the library will be equipped with more than 50 PC computer workstations, all replete with built-in floppy and CD-ROM drives, printers and scanners. Patrons will be able to access remote databases (e.g., WESTLAW and LEXIS/NEXIS) as well as the Internet. Combined with word-processing, scanning and database management software, access to these and other on-line and CD-ROM databases will enable patrons to download or scan information directly into briefs, memoranda or other documents they create at the library and then either print those documents at their workstation or send them via e-mail to their firm, client, opposing counsel, or even the court.

We are on the cusp of a new century one which is marked by an information explosion and technological revolution that for a decade has been changing the role of libraries and librarians, the research habits of lawyers, publishing formats, and, perhaps most importantly for the private bar, law-firm economics. Planning for the increasingly automated future is therefore of vital importance, particularly for those of us in the information business, where faster and faster microprocessors are dictating the pace of change, and doubly important for those of us at the Social Law Library charged with meeting the information needs of our users in a fiscally responsible manner. The design of the new Social Law Library at the Old Courthouse is a blueprint for the law library
of the future, based on informed choices that meet the needs of our users.

This article will address what Harvard Law School Librarian Harry S. Martin, III identifies as an unfortunate "lack of visibility"[8] about law library trends and economics in the context of the Social Law Library's blueprint for servicing the bench and bar as we approach the 21st century.

Reconciling the Virtual and Traditional Law Libraries

As we prepare to move into the 21st century the threshold questions that transcend all others concern the ramifications of automation. Will emergent technologies diminish reliance on the printed page and, perhaps, even displace the need for traditional libraries and librarians? Why build a new library when computers and telecommunications are going to replace books anyway?[9]

For a decade there has been increasing discussion about the virtual law library: a library without walls, with no book shelves, and where an expanding universe of information is accessible via compact disks and a proliferation of on-line services. Some have speculated that the public-domain Internet will soon supplant the increasingly expensive commercial services as we move into a paperless society. Visionaries believe that someday all legal research will be done from office desktops, by lawyers unassisted by librarians, and there will be no need for real books.

That there is a major shift underway in the delivery of legal information constitutes a "noncontroversial observation."[10] For example, although firms have been making efforts to downsize administrative staffs and overhead during much of this decade, an American Lawyer survey, conducted several years ago by Hildebrant, Inc., pointed out that "[t]he only clear areas of staff growth ... have been in the areas of telecommunications and management information systems."[11] Only 5.8 percent of law firms responding to a 1993 Chicago-area survey reported that they have no on-line services.[12] Some reportedly subscribe to 20 different databases.[13] CD-ROM is also catching on. According to another survey cited by Lawyers Cooperative Publishing, 88 percent of law libraries polled currently provide CD-ROM research technology.[14] Architects who work with law firms report an unmistakable trend toward technology-wired offices with smaller libraries.[15] Where once large law-office libraries with volumes of books served as a visual statement that lawyers were learned in the law, the marketing motif is now high-tech. Too many books send the wrong message. They look quaint, not cutting-edge.[16]

The overwhelming consensus among commentators, however, is that the demise of the traditional book is not at hand, nor is the legal community's dependence on comprehensive library collections and skilled librarians.[17] There are a host of factors why "the comprehensive library without walls is not becoming a reality nearly as fast as existing technology would suggest that it might."[18] Far-sighted technologists who predict the imminence of an entirely virtual law library are myopic to the practical impediments of implementation; they neither focus on the substantial problems that intellectual property law present[19] nor do they appreciate that the research habits[20] and technological aptitudes of many lawyers make sophisticated computerized legal research frustratingly foreign for the foreseeable future. "There may be computers in everyone's office," one commentator has aptly observed, "but, for the most part, they are used for word processing,or an occasional LEXIS or WESTLAW search."[21]

Notwithstanding these impediments to the library without walls, precedent and stare decisis make even the oldest law treatises, case books and collections of statutes sources of law that never become obsolete and always need to be close at hand. Because of deadlines and other time-sensitive demands of practice, "needed information is never optional and never needed tomorrow-even if it is impossible to obtain."[22] Hence, law books simply cannot be destroyed, superseded by current materials, or even warehoused at distant sites when an essential authority-even if centuries old-is of precedential value.

That there is a demand and necessity for readily available materials is not an academic point. In this past year, patrons have relied on the Social Law Library to produce from its collection such diverse titles as A Treatise on the Pleas of the Grown (1724), Bee's Admiralty Reports (1810), Journal of the Convention for Framing a Constitution of Government for the State of Massachusetts Bay (1832), A Practical Treatise on the Law of Slavery (1837), Brannan on Negotiable Instruments (1911), Rowley on Partnership (1916), Pomeroy on Equity jurisprudence (1941), Walker on Patents (1964)-just to mention a very few of the older authorities that lawyers and judges have needed. Thus, as long as stare decisis is a central jurisprudential principle, timely access to a comprehensive collection of both older and contemporary materials will be critically important to patrons of the Social Law Library. But what of the future?

If West Publishing, the owner of one of the leading computerized legal research services, WESTLAW, is any indication, the future of the printed word is not in imminent danger. West publishes nearly 60 million books and pamphlets, over 20 billion pages each year, and it continues to invest heavily in both computerized legal research and automated systems designed to expand its traditional publishing services.[23] The trend suggests that, while on-line services and CD offerings will certainly proliferate, legal publishers will also be printing more and more paper-bound books, specialized newsletters and hard-copy reporter services.[24] Both large-scale electronic publishing and desktop publishing systems have actually increased the production of traditional books.[25]
Thus it is fair to conclude that although electronic media is expanding quickly, law libraries will be part virtual and part physical. The impact of modern technology is not so much new forms of information retrieval, but the exponential expansion of information in multiple formats. The information industry is therefore not rendering libraries obsolete; it is revitalizing them with new technology and challenging librarians to provide more sophisticated and specialized information services.

Coping with the Information Explosion
Lawyers and librarians for years have been facing an information explosion. Even before computers became commonplace, it was recognized that both the amount of recorded legal literature and the size of major law libraries doubled every 15 to 17 years.[26] Former Harvard Law Librarian Morris L. Cohen wrote the now classic statement that "the materials of our law seem to be marked by an accelerating birth rate, an almost non-existent mortality rate, and a serious resistance to contraception on the part of both judges and legislators."[27] The recent advent of computerized research technology ensures that legal information will now grow exponentially. Traditional library collections supplemented with CD-ROM can grow tenfold without taking up any more space.[28] Patrons are no longer restricted to the growing mass of materials, both traditional and CD-ROM, shelved in their library or available through interlibrary loan. A proliferation of on-line databases and world-wide interconnecting networks increases the amount of information beyond imagination.

Coping with this information explosion poses serious professional and fiscal problems, not only for individual lawyers engaged in legal research but also for persons responsible for overseeing library budgets. As the amount of information increases, the researcher's ability to identify and locate specific information decreases. Although professional standards and ethical requirements dictate that lawyers perform thorough research on behalf of clients, lawyers are getting caught in the squeeze between the ever increasing bibliographic resources and decreasing time to do exhaustive research. Those who have surveyed the research habits of lawyers have estimated that in a normal week only 16.7 percent of a typical attorney's time is devoted to legal research.[29] Given the financial pressures of practice today, where cost-conscious clients question every billable hour, it is not likely that lawyers will be able to afford more time for study, despite the ethical responsibility to perform thorough research.

Shrinking research time, some have speculated, has contributed to the declining state of legal research today.[30] We are all familiar with the frequent laments of academic commentators, deans, judges, law professors, and even practitioners themselves, who bemoan the quality of briefs, memoranda, and arguments.[31] In at least one very popular (if now somewhat dated) study of the work habits of lawyers, legal research was not included as one of the lawyer'sfour central skills? drafting, advocacy, negotiation and counseling.[32] Perhaps this explains why, when one study asked lawyers about their use of traditional library aids, only about 5 percent indicated that they consulted the card catalog.[33]

Is it realistic to think that technology makes legal research easier for the average attorney than consulting a card catalog? Given the number of CD-ROM and on-line services available, one would think that quick, convenient and comprehensive answers to legal research questions are available to anyone equipped with a modem and desktop computer.

Experience, however, has shown that the ease of use of CD-ROM products, on-line search services, and database management programs is greatly "overstated" and "effective product use requires substantial technical expertise."[34] Anyone who has attempted to use more than one CD-ROM or on-line service knows that the search logic varies from product to product, thereby requiring the user to understand and master search protocols that differ from publisher to publisher.[35] "Unless an individual is a heavy researcher, the need to move from product to product may demand a constant relearning effort."[36] Such technology requires willing users who are both comfortable with computers and have the time to master myriad sets of search commands.

It is true that there are a growing number of "outriders at the front of the herd" who understand research protocols and can navigate the systems where there are vast resources available.[37] But what about those of us back in the herd? Most lawyers have precious little time for legal research, and few currently feel entirely comfortable or confident in cyberspace.

Now, more than ever, lawyers need the assistance of librarians in locating and using the materials from the overwhelming inventory of legal information available. Confronted with a changing array of competing information technologies, lawyers must rely increasingly on librarians who have an expert's blend of subject-specific knowledge, research savvy and technological skills. The point was made at a recent conference on "Society and the Future of Computing," sponsored by the Los Alamos National Laboratory that while advances in operating systems and processor speeds will certainly continue, the focus of effective information retrieval must now shift to people-especially librarians instead of machines.[38] Librarians and other information specialists must increasingly become the future's "search tools," essential if patrons are to find "information needles in digital haystacks."[39]

The Information Explosion and Law Firm Economics
In addition to the problems posed to individual researchers, those charged with maintaining extensive library collections face increasing financial pressures. With respect to traditional paper-copy materials, there are not only more titles to purchase, price increases have gone up 500 percent in the last 15 years.[40] It is not unusual for reference books to be priced between $200 and $500.[41] Even accepting complimentary books can be costly; some have estimated that handling, maintenance and storage costs can reach $100 per volume.[42] Automation also is expensive. The cost of CD-ROM technology still prices many smaller firms out of the market.[43] Larger firms face staggering on-line charges that require strict monitoring for those who do not conduct their search effectively.[44] On-line time is money. Overall, prices for on-line services seem likely to rise, especially as more services become available and the files for established services, such as WESTLAW and LEXIS, continue to grow. Futurists that predict an on-line library where research is seamless and simple unfortunately gaze beyond the contemporary marketplace, which is crowded with competing vendor claims that frequently remain unrealized in the realworld environment of law firms because the promise of increased efficiency often includes an astounding price tag and requires additional staffing. Many technological "solutions," unfortunately have thus proven to be economically unsound.[45]

Automation is not a panacea; it neither simplifies research for lawyers, nor is it less expensive for those charged with library budgets. In fact, the expense of maintaining an adequate library "frightens" many law school deans who view the library as a "financial black hole.[46] Public law libraries across the country are "besieged" by money problems and are responding primarily by "slashing acquisitions, canceling subscriptions, delaying updates and sending back books already ordered."[47]

Both large and small law firms are under financial pressure as well. There is a growing emphasis on law firm economics. Profitability is coming under closer scrutiny than ever before. Firms are looking for savings and efficiency by cutting administrative expenses while searching for new sources of revenue and seeking to hold on to ones they have. Administrative staffs are downsized, unproductive lawyers are let go, and space per-lawyer and staff to lawyer ratios are reduced in an attempt to cut hurdle costs.[48]

Not exempt from law firm economics, libraries constitute a significant segment of backroom overhead. Librarians are facing growing pressure to economize and, at the same time, increase services to keep up with the expanding research requirements of law practice. As Richard A. Leiter explains:

There is an interesting dynamic at work in law libraries as we head into the twenty-first century. Economics are playing a stronger role in the management of law firms, causing many firms to reexamine overhead costs and to look for ways to increase profitability. At the same time, firms are naturally looking at ways to increase the breadth of their practice by diversifying, or by simply branching out into new geographic areas. Library support of such moves is inherently expensive. if you add this to all the new areas of practice that our governments are creating for attorneys, the fact that new reference and research materials to support practice in those areas are often fantastically expensive, and the fact that regular upkeep of typical materials is only getting more costly, it is a most difficult time to be called on to trim budgets. But this is precisely what is occurring.[49]

"Many libraries are already being given specific instructions to cut budgets in accordance with general budget goals without regard to the actual cost increases of library materials or effects on effectiveness of collections."[50] Perhaps the most extreme example of the effort to economize library expenses was taken earlier this year by the Chicago office of Baker & McKenzie, the world's largest law firm, when it fired (without notice) all 10 members of its library staff and turned over all library services to an outside vendor.[51]

Altering the roles and responsibilities of librarians may be one area where law firms may be cutting costs from library budgets at the possible expense of loosing in-house research expertise. An American Association of Law Libraries survey, conducted by Altman and Weil, Inc., suggests that many firms are outsourcing traditional library functions while, at the same time, asking firm librarians to perform a variety of tasks not directly related to their special training (e.g., manage litigation support, supervise paralegals, perform conflicts checks, supervise records management, etc.).[52] This comes at a time when effective librarianship requires more specialization, not less. For example, the growing field of international law requires special knowledge of multinational sources and, as suggested above, selecting, managing and assisting users with on-line services and other technology are, in themselves, specialties. if the skills of law firm librarians are diluted by other duties, the next step may be for firms to follow Baker & McKenzie's example and outsource all library services to specialists.

Cost Control Through Interlibrary Cooperation
Cooperative resource sharing between and among a number of libraries, however, can be used effectively to control escalating collection costs without sacrificing service. Chicago law school libraries, for example, have mitigated collection costs by forming a loosely organized cooperative for book-sharing and collection development.[53] Law firms in Washington, DC also have established a new interlibrary loan consortium,[54] perhaps to reduce enormous rental fees for what is, according to the Altman & Weil survey, the largest reported library shelf capacity per lawyer in the nation.[55] (Patrons of the Social Law Library will be pleased to learn that among the major cities mentioned in the survey, Boston firms have less library shelving per lawyer than all but three. Of the three cities with less shelf space, two have extremely large central institutions like the Social Law Library.[56] As explained in greater detail below, when the Social Law Library moves into its new quarters, it will double its shelf capacity and thereby further relieve the pressure on firms to build their own expensive collections.)

Such interlibrary cooperation and networking is clearly the best way to minimize costs and maximize resources. In this context, Harvard Law School Librarian Harry S. Martin, III writes, library cooperation is not [just] a method of limiting costs but rather as a way of expanding existing resources, as a way of tapping the total world of legal information, a world even the largest research library can no longer accommodate within its walls. .. Those who are willing to contribute to the growth of the information resource, who are willing to help build the infrastructure of the megalibrary, are most likely to benefit.

We all face the difficulties of collecting foreign law a providing access to legal information in a world in which legal practice and scholarship is increasingly international. Many of us face deteriorating historical collections that are essential to a discipline founded on precedent. ... We are interested in sophisticated technical systems that can manage a variety of bibliographic formats, but we are not individually able to afford such systems. We have common interests in the bibliographic control of large microform sets and of full-text databases, which are now lost to all but the most sophisticated users, but which are ideally suited for cooperative solutions.[57]

As Edgar J. Bellefontaine's article, published elsewhere in this volume, points out, such cost-effective cooperation is, in a word, the Social Law Library's raison d'etre.

Blueprint for the Social Law Library
The foregoing discussion makes clear that the Social Law Library faces a number of challenges as it designs its new facility and expands its services to meet the changing needs of its patrons. The size of the library's traditional collection must grow, while, at the same time, the library must provide patrons both access to, and expert assistance with, the latest CD-ROM databases, on-line services, and emerging technologies. For the foreseeable future, the Social Law Library will have to serve two kinds of library patrons, those with either technophobia or technophoria, depending on the level of fear or fascination with emerging technology.[58] It seems equally clear that law librarianship is becoming increasingly specialized and segregated, depending on the segment of the bar that librarians serve. The Social Law Library's staff must continue to evolve as the "law librarians' librarians," information specialists upon whom both lawyers and librarians can rely.

Continuing Commitment to Comprehensive Collection
When the Social Law Library moves, its book storage capacity will more than double from the 200,000 volumes in the present facility to approximately 465,000 volumes (not including microfiche or CD-ROM titles) in its new quarters. This expanded capacity will ensure that our patrons will continue to have ready access to one of the largest collections serving a practicing bar in the United States. When the Social Law Library compares its holdings to the most recent national survey of similar state, court and county libraries conducted by the' American Association of Law Libraries, its collection size (total holdings) ranks fourth in the nation. When analyzing the rate of annual collection growth, the Social Law Library ranks among the top five of 84 libraries surveyed.[59] Notwithstanding such favorable comparisons with counterparts in other major American cities, the Social Law Library's present cramped quarters required the adoption of a restrictive acquisitions policy for the last several years. With more than double the shelf space in the new facility, the library will once again be free to acquire materials aggressively.
As already noted, the Social Law Library's extensive collection has enabled Boston law firms to keep their library shelf space per lawyer and presumably the rental fees for that space, lower than their counterparts in most major American cities. By more than doubling the library's shelf capacity, the new facility will further relieve law firms of the pressure to develop their own extensive in-house collections and should have a correspondingly beneficial impact on the associated personnel costs of maintaining and servicing those collections.[60]

The increased book-shelf capacity will enable the Social Law Library to broaden its collection development policy and expand its acquisition of those unique items that serve as the traditional measure of excellence for scholarly research collections.

Demands for legal information on a worldwide scale have surged with the increasing globalization of the economy. International law is one area of the collection that will be significantly expanded to meet the research needs of local firms that are "aggressively internationalizing" their practices.[61] Due to the lack of financial and technological resources in many foreign countries, it is reasonable to predict that growing international collections will be dominated by paper materials for the foreseeable future.[62] Indeed, the development of Western European databases is not yet on a par with WESTLAW and law books in any format are difficult to acquire in the Third World.[63] The increased size of the Social Law Library's new quarters will make it possible to expand the library's foreign and international holdings, as well as add staff members with the specialized knowledge required to effectively service these collections.

Automated information Center
Given the pace of technological change, no one can accurately predict how information technology will affect library services in the future. The librarian and trustees have nevertheless embraced automation and are designing the Social Law Library's new quarters, and developing new patron services, to accommodate continuing technological change. Although automation is frequently associated with images of the virtual law library in which all legal information is accessed electronically, it first plays a vitally important, yet often overlooked, role in the effective management of traditional paper collections and in the efficient delivery of patron services.
With a collection as large and diverse as the Social Law Library's, access to detailed holdings information is of utmost importance. Since 1986 the library has been developing machine-readable records-an "on-line catalog" of the library's holdings as the first step in establishing a computerized legal information network. In 1993, the initial phase of the system adopted by the library, the Virginia Tech Library System (VTLS), became operational.

The library's on-line catalog, which is accessible virtually at anytime from anyplace, includes an easy to use menu-driven search system for novice users and command-driven search protocols for advanced users. The catalog also provides extensive on-line search assistance, as well as information on operation and staffing. Through the catalog, patrons can borrow items, order photocopies, and transmit reference questions and renewal requests to library staff members. Eventually, patrons will be able to determine if a specific item is in the library's collection and if that item is available for circulation. And, if an item is checked-out, on-order or at the bindery, patrons will be able to place a hold on that item it is sent to them upon its return.

By the time the Social Law Library moves into its new quarters, the on-line catalog will not only provide traditional catalog information for the entire collection, but it will also allow remote and on-site access to an abundant array of additional information, both from the library's own holdings as well as from other databases linked to it. For example, the system will enable users to view the "Table of Contents" of individual publications, or search the actual contents of a book, or access other on-line catalogs using VTLS search commands. Thus remote patrons will be able to search, as a familiar example, the Index to Legal Periodicals and readily identify whether a particular publication is available at the Social Law Library or, possibly, part of another collection connected to the library's interlibrary loan network (such as the New England Law Library Consortium whose reach currently extends to all New England academic law libraries).

Once VTLS is fully functional it will begin to approach what many view as the virtual law library. For example, when a bibliographic record retrieved in the Social Law Library's On-line Catalog is linked to an image of a book (residing in the Social Law Library's minicomputer or accessible through a shared network) patrons will be able to read and download materials without leaving their office desks. Scheduled to be available next year, the catalog also will provide patrons access to Internet sources. Users will be able to retrieve a title from the on-line catalog and, from this machine-readable record, access the corresponding Internet site. For example, if a user needs to read the Mayflower Compact or a recent Federal Register, the user can locate the appropriate title from the Social Law Library's On-line Catalog and "point and click" on an icon to access the corresponding Internet database.

While, as discussed earlier, automation will not obviate the need for the Social Law Library to develop a comprehensive collection of traditional materials, it is clear that the library is no longer an isolated island of information. It is quickly evolving into an information center, a gateway for patrons to access a universe of information beyond the library's walls.

When the library moves into its new quarters, its computing environment can also be likened to a hub where on-site or remote users can be connected to an almost infinite variety of bibliographic information, interlibrary loan opportunities, and quickly expanding possibilities for electronic transmission of full-text data across the country, and even around the globe.

By serving as this hub of information, the Social Law Library will be fulfilling its historic mission of providing members with comprehensive access to as much legal information as is conceivably possible at the lowest expense to members. By pooling purchasing power in partnership with the commonwealth (which not only provides the library free rent but also an annual appropriation for its services to the judiciary), library proprietors and subscribers can continue to utilize an unsurpassed bibliographic resource, a resource of greater breadth and depth than any single public or private entity could afford. This is as true for the emergent electronic media as it has been for the traditional collection. There is no economic reason why law firms should build their own comprehensive collections of expensive CD-ROM materials, especially those needed on a "just in case" basis. For remote users, the library's collective purchasing power provides the best chance of negotiating favorable "site licenses" for on-line services and CD-ROM vendors.

Professional Information Specialists and Patron Services
The new Social Law Library will deliver an additional cost-effective benefit through the expertise of the library's professional staff, both in terms of informed collection development and personal service to patrons. The information explosion gives "rise to a desperate need for careful and critical evaluation of the competing services."[64] Years ago, former Harvard Law School Librarian Morris Cohen aptly observed that the "money wasted by otherwise hard-headed lawyers on unused and ill-used books would be a professional scandal if lawyers were aware of their ignorance and gullibility."[65] In the future, those in charge of collection development must be more vigilant to guard against such gullibility in the face of this expensive new age of information technology, Unencumbered by the increasingly nonbibliographic responsibilities facing law firm librarians, the Social Law Library's professional staff, which is entirely dedicated to library service, will take the lead to evaluate and develop the plethora of information sources required by the legal community. In addition to its efforts to develop the most comprehensive and cost-effective community collection, the Social Law Library also must encourage cooperative collection development so that participating libraries will complement one another to maximize resources as much as possible. in a sense, all the law libraries in greater Boston should eventually be thought of as one interconnecting (via cooperative interlibrary loan and electronic sharing) megalibrary.

With respect to patron services, one must remember that the information explosion has not been "user friendly." Even the most sophisticated patrons can easily get lost in the superabundance of both print materials and electronic media. Measuring a library's quality merely by the size of its collection is an outmoded benchmark of excellence; new standards must emphasize service over collection size.[66] There is no longer a bright line between skilled reference and sophisticated research as librarians at large research institutions like the Social Law Library must stand "more directly in the information path, acting as information specialists, buffering the end user from the black boxes called 'law library' and 'online collections'"[67] Given the pressures facing private librarians to perform an array of other law-firm functions, and the possible trend for MIS managers (skilled in automation but not in legal research) to assume more control over library operations and budgets,[68] the Social Law Library staff will be increasingly relied on as specialists that provide reliable assistance for the most sophisticated legal research problems. As we plan the Social Law Library's future, staff will be our most important resource, because even the most extensive legal collection is useless without the tools and services provided by staff that promote and facilitate access.

Conclusion
Although the librarian and trustees are looking to the future, we must not forget our founding principles. it is worth reflecting on the observations of former Chief justice of the Supreme judicial Court Edward F. Hennessey, who now, following a long tradition of judicial involvement in the Social Law Library's management, serves on its Board of Trustees.

Since its inception in 1804, [the Social Law Library] has been a vital research resource continually relied upon by this Court. There is no doubt, as the well known legal historian Frank W. Grinnell observed, that 'the Social Law Library [has] helped to give the Supreme judicial Court of Massachusetts its position in the judicial history of this country.'

Today, the Social Law Library remains one of the most comprehensive legal repositories in the entire nation and as such it performs an important service to the citizens of the Commonwealth. It is the public which ultimately benefits from the research contributing to the reasoning of judicial decisions and the opportunity for thorough study by counsel in the preparation of legal argument.[69]
As Chief justice Hennessey's comments make clear, for nearly two centuries the Social Law Library has been a cornerstone of the administration of justice in the commonwealth. All of our constituents-the courts, large firms, small firms, sole practitioners, and legal service agencies share equally in what has been an unsurpassed and cost-effective resource. As the Social Law Library prepares to move into the 21 st century, it will continue to serve its constituents to ensure that they have the information necessary to advance our common interest in the highest professional standards and our common goal to advance the administration of justice.

Footnotes:

The author wishes to express the indispensable assistance of Robert J. Brink, executive director of the Flaschner judicial Institute. Mr. Brink worked from 1975 through 1984 as the Social Law Library' Director of Special Projects and he has since served as i library consultant, preparing, for instance, the Social Law Library'~ Long Range Report which anticipated the Library's response to many of the trends in this article.

1. Doris Sue Wong, SJC details $140 m plan to expand, renovate, BOSTON GLOBE, October 6, 1992, at 16; Robert 1. Ambrogi, SJC Plan Calls for New Suffolk Courthouse, MASS. Law. WKLY., Oct. 12,1992, at 1.

2. As with many venerable institutions, there are several libraries vying for the distinction of being the "oldest." See Edgar J. Bellefontaine, The Social Law Library: 175 Years of Service to the Bench and Bar of Massachusetts, 24 B.B.J. 5, 16 (November 1980) ("The Social Law Library is today the oldest membership law library in the United States operating under its original name and charter."). But see Morris L. Cohen, Research Habits of Lawyers, JURIMETRICS J. 183, 190 (1969) (claiming that the library of
the Philadelphia Bar Association is the oldest law library in America).

3. BENJAMIN KAPLAN, Introduction: An Address, in THE HISTORY OF THE LAW IN MASSACHUSETTS: THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 1692-1992 8 (Russell K. Osgood, ed., 1992).

4. GEORGE PEET & GABRIELLE KELLER, COURTHOUSES OF THE COMMONWEALTH vi (Robert J. Brink ed., 1984). "[The Old Courthouse] is a mountain of Massachusetts granite, 450 by 190 feet. ... [The Great Hall is a] colossal space, [that] even without its dome, rises from below a parade of allegorical figures sculpted by Domingo Mora through a series of balustraded balconies, colonnades, and arcades to culminate in a vaulted ceiling, decorated frescoes, which is five stories above the ground." Id. at 107.

5. The Librarian is Edgar J. Bellefontaine. Members of the Board of Trustees are James A. Brink (President), Jeffrey Swope (Treasurer), Mary Ellen O'Mara (Clerk), Edward F. Hines, Jr., Frederick D. Grant, Jr., Henry C. Dinger, William E Looney, Jr., Mary H. Schmidt, Hon. Edward F. Hennessey, William L. Patton, and J. Owen Todd.

6. See Planning Options: Renovation of Suffolk County Courthouse (May 20, 19941 (This unpublished report, prepared by architects CBT/Childs Bertman Tseckaes Inc. and the DCPO, is identified as CBT 93730/DCPO JSB 92?7001). The current plan also calls for high density stacks and the special collections to be located on the first floor and the first-floor mezzanine.

7. Pub, L. 101?336, July 26, 1990, 104 Stat. 327. Pub. L. 102-166, Title 1, s.109(a), (b)(2), Title 111, s.315, Nov. 21, 1991, 105 Stat. 1077, 1095.

8. Harry S. Martin, In, From Ownership to Access: Standards of Quality for the Law Library of Tomorrow, 82 LAW LIBR. J. 129, 144 (1990) ("This lack of visibility, of course, must be countered. At
budget time, we librarians still need the backing of scholars and senior faculty. Mr. Martin's point is that remote users, automation and backroom operations have made the internal workings of academic libraries less visible, but not less important. The point is true for most libraries as well.

9. Others are being asked this exact question. See Kenneth E. Dowlin, The Neographic Library: A 30?Year Perspective on Public
Libraries, LIBRARIES AND THE FUTURE: ESSAYS ON THE LIBRARY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 30 (F.W. Lancaster ed., 1993).

10. Peter W. Martin, The Future of Law Librarians in Changing
Institutions, or the Hazards and Opportunities of New Information
Technology, 83 LAW LIBR. J. 419, 420.

11. Joseph B. Altonji, Overview. Looking for Savings and efficiency in nonlegal operations, Am. LAW., December 1991, at 16. Although this survey was taken in 1991, the author suggests the observation represents a continuing trend.

12. Jill Chanen, Chicago Lawyer Survey: Law firm libraries, bucks, books and bytes, CHI. LAW., SEPTEMBER 1993, AT 18, 20.

13. Id.

14. Survey summary published in a 1995 report prepared for, and available at, the Social Law Library by students at the Boston University School of Management.

15. Ed Finkel, Law library designs go smaller to get bigger at lower costs, CHI. LAW., September 1993, at 18, 70.

16. See id. For related view, compare Ed Finkel, Law school libraries emphasizing technology growth in legal research, CHI. LAW., September 1993, at 4: ("'Books are what, Middle Ages technology' said Mikie Voges, director of the legal information
center and associate professor Chicago, Kent College of Law. 'They're very nice and they have a lot of artistic value, but...'").

17. See Martin, supra note 8, at 132 ("[T]he growth of this technology has convinced many that the end of the traditional book is at hand. Well, perhaps. I am convinced that the world, too, will end someday, but I have difficulty accepting the prediction carried by the bearded figure with the placard that it will be tomorrow."); Richard A. Leiter, The Developments in the Practice of Law and Their Impact on the Enterprise of Law Publishing, 11 LEGAL REF. SERV. Q. 129, 135 (1991) ("High technology is not the end-all it was supposed to be. We are no closer to a paperless office or library than we were twenty years ago."); Mary Brandt Jensen, Is the Library Without Walls on a Collision Course with the 1976 Copyright Act., 85 LAW LiBR. J. 619 (1993) ("Although the amount of information available in electronic form is growing steadily ... the comprehensive library without walls is not becoming a reality nearly as fast as existing technology would suggest that it might."); Holly M. Moyer & Mark E. Estes, How to Make Best Use of CD-ROM, NAT'L L.J., July 22,1991, at S11 ("[D]espite the promising future of CD-ROMs and other technology, the 'library without books' is still far off.").

18. Jensen, supra note 17, at 619.

19. id.

20. Most legal researchers still prefer books, after all, "no computer can be built that can facilitate and accommodate the one unique characteristic that all legal researchers have in common: the ability to read more than one book simultaneously." Leiter, supra note 17, at 136. See generally, Moyer & Estes, supra note 17, at S11 ("CD-ROM requires a different searching style than many lawyers are used to") (because each disk contains so much information, a single user monopolizes all its contents thereby making a vast amount of other material on the disk unavailable to others).

21. Ethan Katsh, The Law Librarian as Paratrooper, 83 LAW LIBR. J. 627, 630 (1991).

22. Leiter, supra note 17, at 132.

23. The publication figures were secured from West Publishing's Internet Information Center, (http://www.westpub.com) on August 10, 1995, and information relating to West's investment in automated publishing systems was provided via phone to West's media relations department on the same date.

24. See Leiter, supra note 17, at 136, 137. (Leiter told those attending the 1991 Symposium of Law Publishers that there are "new frontiers that legal publishers need to develop" because "vast amounts of primary legal materials are not reported at all, or are only reported in a limited fashion." The future developments in "law publishing will not be so much in the development of new formats as it will be in the development of greater, expanded coverage.")

25. Martin, supra note 8, at 133.

26. Id. at 187; Jensen, supra note 17, at 620 n.6.

27. Morris L. Cohen, Research Habits of Lawyers, 9 JURIMETRICS J. 183, 187-88 (June 1969). Cohen wrote this when he was Librarian of the Biddle Law Library, Univ. of Penn. School of Law.

28. Carole W. Knobil, Future Library Will Have Ten Times Data, LEGAL TIMES, June 29, 1981, at S25.

29. Cohen, supra note 27, at 191.

30. See id. at 193.

31. Id.

32. Id. at 183-84.

33. Id. at 192.

34. Sabrina I. Pacifici, Law Libraries Aren't just Books, LEGAL TIMES, May 22, 1995, at S36.

35. Moyer & Estes, supra note 17, at S 11.

36. Id. (With respect to the Internet, there is unquestionably a wealth of useful information, but for many time-strapped lawyers, the net is "complex, obscure, difficult and unstable.") See also Hadrian R. Katz, Internet Use Spreads Through 'World Wide Web,' NAT'L L.J., January 30, 1995, at CIO; Gary Chapman, Search Tool of the Future- Librarians, Los ANGELES TIMES, August 17, 1995, Business, Part D (pointing out problems with the organization and retrieval of information on the Internet).

37. Robert Berring, Editorial, 13 LEGAL REF. SERV. Q. 1 (1993).

38 Chapman supra note 36 at 2, Business, Part D.

39. Id, Chapman goes on to report: "[L]ibrarians are an untapped source of innovation and expertise in an age when everyone talks about information overload but nobody does anything about it." "What's needed today is a better understanding of how to organize and present information, and how people use that information once they have it." See also, Chanen supra, note 12, at 23 ("Where you have information that is so overwhelming as to be useless to people, then what you need is a filter. ... You will have information seekers and you will have information providers.").

40. Margaret Cronin Fisk, The Fight for Access: Public law libraries battle budget cuts, NAT'L L.J., July 27, 1992, at S10.

41. Id.

42. Chanen, supra note 12, at 22.

43. Id. at 19.

44. Id. at 21.

45. Pacifici, supra note 34, at S37.

46. Martin, supra note 9, at 135.

47. Fisk, supra note 40, at S1.

48. See generally Altonji, supra note 11, at 8.

49. Leiter, supra note 17, at 138.

50. Id. at 130.

51. Baker & McKenzie To Librarians: Check Out, Am. LAW., May 1995, at 14. This is not the first major law firm to outsource its library staff to specialists. See Donna Tuke Heroy, Outsourcing
The Library Services: Death Knell for the Profession or An Idea Whose Time Has Come., 26 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF LAW LIBRARIES NEWSLETTER, June 1995, at 1.

52. Private Law Libraries: A Survey of Compensation, Operations and Collections (1990) conducted under the sponsorship of the American Association of Law Libraries by Altman & Weil, Inc., at 7 & 8 [hereinafter AALL Survey].

53. Finkel, supra note 15, at 4.

54. Pacifici, supra note 34, at S36.

55. AALL Survey, supra note 52, at 3.

56. The three cities where law firms have less shelf space than those in Boston are New York, Philadelphia and Chicago' In the most recent national survey, the Association for the Bar of the City of New York had 685,000 volumes and the Jenkins Memorial Library in Philadelphia had 405,307 volumes. Id. at 579. The Social Law Library had 308,572 volumes for the same period. See 1990 Annual Report of the Social Law Library.

57. Martin, supra note 9, at 136.

58. See Berring, supra note 37, at 2 ("Librarians have to be contortionists for a decade. We must be willing to accommodate the needs of those who are sophisticated and we must be willing to hold the hands of those who fear or cannot understand the change. We must be both traditional warehouses of information helping people find the correct product on the shelf, and we must be technological gateways to the miracles out there on the InterNet.").

59. These rankings were extrapolated from comparisons of Social Law Library's collection size and rate of annual growth with thefigures reported for the same period in Ruth A. Fraley, survey Of State, Court, and County Law Libraries, 83 LAW LIBR. J. 543 (1991). The author wishes to thank Karyn Allen, head of SLL's Technical Services for conducting these comparisons.

60. At $20 per square foot, the Social Law Library's new 62,577 square foot facility (consisting of reading room, reference area, book stacks, technical services and other backroom operations) would be worth $1,251,540 annually on the open market.

61. William W. Horne, Seeing Red at Hale and Dorr, AM. LAW., DECEMBER 1990.

62. William A. Steiner, Future Trends in International Law Librarianship, 26 THE LAW LIBRARIAN 316, 317 (June 1995). ("It might seem prima facie that the greatest use of electronic media would occur in the wealthiest and technically most advanced counties, above all the United States.").

63. Martin, supra note 8, at 133.

64. Martin, supra note 10, at 425. See also Martin, supra note 9, a 145 ("Someone will have to manage, fund, coordinate, develop an provide the plethora of information sources to be found in the la library of the future.); Katsh, supra note 21, at 630.

65. Cohen, supra note 27, at 193.

66. Martin, supra note 8, at 139.

67. Martin, supra note 10, at 424.

68. Heroy, supra note 51, at 390.

69. Edward F. Hennessey, 24 B.B.J. 2 (November 1980). Also consider the opinion of United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit that the Social Law Library is of "inestimable benefit to the public." United States v. Proprietors of the Social Law Library, 102 F.2d 482. The court went on to make these salient observations: "The entire framework of our system of law rests upon the soundness of the judicial decisions of the courts, which depend on the thoroughness and care with which counsel have presented their cases, and the courts have opportunities for study and research. More than that, the foundation of our government itself
rests upon principles of law that are essential to its preservation and the benefits that flow from it. To this extent an opportunity for research and an examination of those principles on which the correct decision of each case rests, and to enable lawyers to advise clients as to their rights in order to safeguard personal and property rights, and to furnish opportunity to study those principles on which our state and federal government rests by a class of [professionals] who have been trained to understand and interpret them, is of vital consequence to the public at large." Id. at 484.