Cornell Law Library Annual report
1985/8G
Introduct ion Three themes dominated the Law Library year of 1985/86: compute r-b ase d information, and collection development and ma1 ntenance.
space,
apace is a constant concern as the law library has outgrown Myron T a y l o r . This year we had to move some books out of the stacks in order to shelve new acquisitions. This year also saw the development of the schematic design for the extension of Myron Taylor to accommodate the l i b r a r y ’s needs as well as those of the rest of the law school. Getting information into and out of computers contin ue d to occupy many hours of planning and training in order to achieve effective operati on and retrieval by students , faculty and staff. Training students to use LEXIS and WESTLAW as well a providing software for compute: assisted instruction and word processing were the activities most visible to the students. Planning for the im ple mentation of the Cornell Univers it y L i b r a r i e s ’ computerized information system was another high priority for staff this year. To have more of the law library collection rep resente d in that system meant work on converting records from catalog cards to mach ine -r ead ab le form in the RLIN system. Acquisition of an IBM PC— XT for staff use is enabling us to revise and upgrade several aspects of our internal operations. Co mpu te r -b a s ed information The Library acquired an IBM PC-AT which is configured to allow its eventual use for catalog ing Cyrillic materials without t r a n s 1 lteration and enteri ng the records directly into the RLIN system. Presently it enhances our statistical record keeping and provides access to word pro ces sin g for all the library staff. Next year we plan to implement a fund accounti ng program for our acquisitions and to transfer the routing of materials to faculty and staff from manual Kardex procedures to efficient co mpu te r-b as ed processing. We also plan to acquire project planning software to better organize the myriad projects now in progress and contemplated for the future. These projects range from the reclassi fi cat io n of the publications of the European regional communities next year to the stack shifts that will be requi re d in the building of the addition to Myr on Taylor and the r e co n di ti oni ng of the present stack areas. This year a concerted effort was made by John Hasko to apprise faculty of the resources available from the Center for Co m put er -As sis te d Legal Instrution (CCALI), with the result that the programs were used in at least five courses. The student response was enthusiast i c .