SECTION 6

LIBRARY

A. Introduction

Surveys of law faculty and students for this self-study showed general satisfaction with the Law Library's staff, services, collections, and facilities. Reference service was singled out for special praise. The faculty seemed generally satisfied with all aspects of the Law Library. More than half of the student respondents expressed a desire for more computers outside the Computer Labs, and almost half wanted more computers in the Labs as well. We are continuing to add computers to public areas of the Library, but the Labs are filled to capacity. We anticipate that the new laptop requirement being implemented with the entering class of 2000 will have some effect on the need for computers in the Library.

In a question unrelated to services presently provided by the Law Library staff, the student survey asked whether students would be interested in taking a one-credit upper-level legal research course. Almost half of the respondents said yes, they would be interested, and another substantial number were unsure.

B. Staff

The Law Library staff consists of a Director who is a tenured member of the College of Law faculty, six full-time and three part-time professional librarians, eight full-time support staff, and approximately twenty-five OPS (Other Personnel Services - temporary full-time or part-time) staff who provide an additional nine FTEs of staff time. Since the last inspection, the Law Library has traded a support staff position in Cataloging for a new professional librarian position, that of Electronic Services Librarian. The Library was also able to add a new part-time temporary Assistant Reference Librarian position when two of the librarians requested a reduction in their hours. The Library's Video Technician (Senior Audiovisual Technician) position was transferred to the College of Law Computing Services Department in 1999.

Some of the rearrangement of personnel in the Law Library appears to be part of an ongoing trend in which staff resources are gradually being concentrated more heavily in Public Services and Computer Services and less heavily in Technical Services. The trend is noticeable when we look at the staffing patterns in the Law Library over the last twenty-five years. In 1975 the Law Library had two professional librarians and four support staff in Technical Services, for a total of 6 FTEs. In Public Services there was one librarian and one support staff person, a total of 2 FTEs. By 2000, there were 2.75 FTEs of librarians in Technical Services and 5 FTEs of support staff, a total of 7.75 FTEs, an increase of only thirty percent. By contrast, Public Services and Computer Services had 4.5 FTEs of librarians and 2 FTEs of support staff, totaling 6.5 FTEs, an increase of more than two hundred percent. We should note, however, that Technical Services still has more staff than Public Services and Computer Services.

The Electronic Services Librarian position was created with the assistance of Dean Weidner in August 1998 to provide more support for the Library and the College of Law in the creation and dissemination of electronic information. We were fortunate to have a staff member in a Library Technical Assistant (LTA) position in Cataloging who had completed his MSLS degree and who had become very knowledgeable about the World Wide Web and electronic information. To make the fullest possible use of his skills, we took the interim step of reclassifying his position to that of Computer Support Analyst in July 1997. In August of 1998 we were able to obtain a faculty (librarian) line from the University, funded by the College of Law, in return for giving up the Computer Support Analyst position.

The desire of two of the librarians to change from full-time to part-time schedules to better meet family needs allowed us to create the new part-time Assistant Reference Librarian position in August 1995. The Reference/ILL Librarian and the Acquisitions Librarian both preferred to switch to a three-quarter-time schedule. Using the unspent portions of their salaries, the Law Library was able to create a .75 FTE position for a less-experienced librarian. This position is classified by the University as a Visiting Librarian position, officially considered temporary employment, which allows greater flexibility in filling the position but which limits the number of years of employment for any incumbent.

Turnover among the professional staff has been quite limited. The Head of Public Services position, vacant at the time of our 1995 report, was filled later in 1995 and has had no changes since. The only turnover among the librarians has been in the Visiting Assistant Reference Librarian position, intended as a time-limited position.

The Law Library continues to pay for institutional memberships in the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) and the Southeastern Chapter, American Association of Law Libraries (SEAALL) for the librarians. The Law Library has usually been able to pay all expenses for librarians who attended professional meetings and workshops.

Of the eight full-time salaried support staff positions, only six are paid from appropriated University salary funds. The Circulation Supervisor and Circulation Senior Clerk are paid from an auxiliary budget supported by revenues from the Law Library's Photocopy Service. Given the downward trend in these revenues since 1995, we need to consider the possibility of transferring one or both of these positions to the appropriated budget. (See Section E. 6. for more discussion of the decline in photocopying.)

There has been some turnover among the support staff positions, largely because of the policy of the Law Library to hire paraprofessional staff who are interested in earning their MLS degree at FSU. We have had a number of talented LTAs who, having finished their degrees, have moved on to professional positions elsewhere. Since we have only a few paraprofessional staff, the turnover does have some adverse impact on the work of the departments while the supervisors hire and train replacements, but we still feel that we get the best people this way, even if we cannot keep them as long as we would like.

Transferring one LTA position from Cataloging to Computer Services (as described above) necessitated a number of changes among the support staff in Technical Services. Responsibility for processing new items was moved from Cataloging to Serials. An LTA position which was previously shared between Serials and Acquisitions was transferred entirely to Serials, and that person was placed in charge of processing. Thus, the Cataloging Department lost 1 FTE (one-third of its salaried personnel) and the Acquisitions Department lost .5 FTE, while the Serials Department gained .5 FTE of staff along with additional duties. Since the change Cataloging has had some problems keeping up with its workload. We are now re-examining the present division of responsibilities and staff to see what additional changes may be needed.

The Law Library continues to rely heavily on OPS help. In 1998-99 the Law Library used 18,117 hours of OPS help, the equivalent of more than nine FTEs; in 1999-2000 the number declined to 15,912 hours of OPS help. Most of these hours were used for staffing Circulation, reshelving books, filing looseleaf, processing new books, filling interlibrary loan requests, and other clerical and paraprofessional tasks. We also use OPS hours in Reference, especially in the Faculty Research Assistant position. While it might be desirable to have more salaried staff to perform these functions, we recognize that the University has only a limited number of positions available, and we appreciate the generous OPS support provided by the College of Law.

C. Collections and Collection Development

In June 1999, the Law Library collection contained 236,237 book volumes and 173,366 microform volume equivalents, for a total collection size of 409,603, ranking sixty-fifth among 182 academic law libraries in the United States. By June 2000, the collection had grown to 241,689 volumes and 177,822 volume equivalents, for a total collection of 419,511 volumes and equivalents; the 2000 ABA rankings are not yet available. In June 1999, the collection included 5,248 serial subscriptions, ranking fifty-sixth in the nation; by June 2000 the number of serials subscriptions was 5139. In June 1999, it contained 148,544 cataloged titles, ranking forty-second in the nation; by June 2000 this had increased to 151,520 cataloged titles. (See table of Law Library national rank by collection size, next page.) Records for all cataloged titles are available in the online catalog.

The Acquisitions Librarian examines all advertisements, listings, and reviews of new books and makes decisions for purchases in consultation with a committee consisting of the Associate Director, the Head of Public Services and the Reference Librarian. In addition, the Acquisitions Librarian and the Library Director examine catalogs of used books which can enrich and add historical materials to the collection. The Law Library is a selective federal documents depository; we regularly reexamine our depository selections to be sure that we are getting what we need. We currently select nine percent of offered documents. All documents added to the collection are cataloged and integrated with the rest of the collection.

The Law Library continues to maintain a strong American law collection, with special emphasis on Florida law materials and materials by and about United States Supreme Court justices. We receive complimentary copies of all Florida Bar CLE practice manuals and CLE Lecture Outlines. The Law Library's collection of materials by and about United States Supreme Court justices includes a substantial assortment of documents autographed or written in the hand of the justices, purchased with private funds.

The establishment at the College of Law of the Edward Ball Eminent Scholar Chair in International Law in 1986 and the Caribbean Law Institute in 1987 encouraged the Law Library to focus on developing its collection of materials on international law and transnational and foreign business law. Our concern was how to pay for expanding this area of our collection without harming other areas. During the six years between June 1989 and June 1995, the Caribbean Law Institute, a law reform study group funded by a federal grant, was able to provide an average of $25,000 per year to help pay for Commonwealth Caribbean law materials and other items of interest to the Institute. The College of Law was able to transfer substantial funds from salary conversions in 1990-91 ($344,483) and 1991-92 ($302,557) to support building the collection, but these funds tapered off in subsequent years, dropping to $16,455 in 1995-96. (Salary conversions cannot be a stable source of dollars for collection development and maintenance because the amount of money available depends on how much salary money is unspent and on other spending priorities in the College of Law.) As prices for all materials continued to increase, we had to look critically at all areas of the collection. In 1990-91, supported by conversion funds, our spending of $351,045 on foreign and international law materials equaled 34.5% of total collection expenditures of $1,016,837. By 1998-99 such expenditures had declined, despite price increases, to $98,556. In 1999-2000 expenditures for foreign and international materials rebounded slightly to $113,006, 14.6 % of total expenditures of $773,246.

When it became clear in 1995-96 that we would not be able to maintain a comprehensive foreign and international law collection, we had to set priorities. We have continued to maintain our strong Commonwealth Caribbean law collection, a resource not widely available among U.S. law libraries, and we continue to maintain a limited "core" collection of other foreign and international law materials. Beyond that, our purchases focus on titles regularly used by our faculty in their teaching and research. Items needed on a one-time basis are obtained through interlibrary loan.

The Law Library's materials budget is allocated to us by the University as a percentage of the funds allocated to FSU by the Board of Regents, from funds designated by the Florida Legislature. By established agreement, the Law Library receives fifteen percent of University library materials funds. Unfortunately, these funds, while traditionally designated in the state budget as "recurring funds," are not necessarily guaranteed to remain at the same level from year to year, nor do they make any provision for inflation in materials prices. The table "Expenditures and Sources of Funds" shows the year-to-year variation in recurring funds between fiscal year 1993-94 and 1999-2000.

Our general goal in collection development is to spend at least ten percent of our funds on new monographs, with the balance going to continuations. Between June 1990 and June 1995, however, our expenditures for continuations each year exceeded the amount of recurring funds allocated to us, so that each year we were dependent upon one-time allocations from the law school to maintain our subscriptions. In 1995-96 we began systematically reexamining all subscriptions and canceling those which seemed duplicative or less used. At its peak in June 1995, before this cancellation project, the Law Library collection had 6,489 active serial subscriptions and 5,828 serial titles; by June 2000 this had been reduced to 5,139 subscriptions and 4,512 titles. In 1995-96 and 1996-97 we saved $ 205,342 in subscription costs, with an additional $ 7,594 saved in 1997-98. With these reductions, we were able to lower our expenditures for continuations below the allocation of recurring funds. The Acquisitions Librarian continues to look critically at all subscription renewal invoices.

One aspect of collection development which is both a financial concern and one of providing our clientele with the best access to information is that of selecting print materials (paper or microform) versus electronic information. Issues here include ease of use of electronic versions, whether the electronic version is intended to supplement the Law Library collection or replace paper copy, who (law students or faculty, other university students or faculty, the public) may use the electronic resources, and the cost of various versions (including staff costs).

In some cases, electronic texts (at least in their present versions) are simply not as "user friendly" as paper. We experimented with the CD-ROM version of the Tax Management Portfolio series in 1995 and 1996, but returned to the paper copy in 1997 at the request of the faculty member who made the heaviest use of the product. When the choice is between electronic versions or paper copies of typical Law Library materials, such as case reporters or law journals which are included in our subscriptions to LEXIS or WESTLAW, many people prefer paper copy. In part this may be because they prefer not to read a lengthy document on the computer screen, even though the electronic version usually offers superior search and retrieval capability. We tried to get some sense of the overall preferences of the law faculty by including a question about paper versus electronic copy in the law faculty "Library Satisfaction Survey" distributed in January 2000. Of seventeen faculty who answered the question, thirteen preferred paper copy, two preferred electronic copy, and two said, "It depends." In general, the law students seem more eager than faculty to embrace electronic versions of legal materials. We expect that the laptop requirement being implemented with the entering class of 2000 will encourage this trend among the students.

In situations where electronic resources supplement the collection by providing easier access to information that would not be readily accessible in print, the decision to utilize such resources is relatively easy. The Law Library spends $600 per year for access to the InterAm database, which includes case law, statutes, and regulations from Latin American countries. Materials such as these are almost impossible to obtain consistently in paper copy from foreign sources. At the end of August 2000 the Law Library began a subscription to HEIN ONLINE which is now available the university community through the web. Another example of a valuable supplementary resource is JSTOR, an archival, full-text database of back runs of more than 150 journals in the social sciences, humanities, and mathematics. Access to JSTOR was purchased by FSU's Strozier Library, the main university library, in spring 2000. JSTOR is available to law faculty and students and has been welcomed with enthusiasm, since it allows the College of Law community ready access to journals which would otherwise only be available at the Strozier Library, some distance away on campus.

Another issue relating to access is that of the "volatility" of electronic information. Unless a database producer makes a conscious attempt to maintain an archive, we may find that older materials have vanished from the file. Failed negotiations between a publisher and a database company have resulted in a title being abruptly removed from a database. If a library cancels a database subscription, it is left, not with an outdated title or a closed back run, but with nothing at all. Thus the Library may want to maintain paper copies of a valuable title so that older issues can be stored for future need.

Even when an electronic version is satisfactory to use and contains the desired information, we have to consider various issues related to the Library's clientele and to its teaching mission. The tradition in the College of Law Legal Research and Writing program has been to allow students to learn and use electronic information sources only in their second semester. This requires the Library to collect a sufficient number of reporters and other basic research materials, including duplicate copies, to support the first semester of study. Were the College of Law to change its requirements, however, the Library still would not be free to replace all its paper copy with electronic information. Many of these electronic resources restrict access to College of Law faculty and students, but the Law Library, as part of a publicly-supported university, also serves the rest of the university and the surrounding community, including state employees and the local bar.

For some titles, a switch to an electronic version (or the acquisition of a new title available only in electronic form), can save money and/or provide wider availability. An example of this is the switch from looseleaf municipal codes to Web access. For years Municipal Code Corporation (MCC) supplied us with free copies of looseleaf codes for Florida cities and counties. In 1997 MCC began offering free access to the same information on the Web. As MCC has converted each Florida code to a Web resource, we have discontinued the paper versions (with the exception of the City of Tallahassee and the Leon County Codes) and have eventually withdrawn and discarded them. We save the money spent filing updates, and the codes are available on any computer with Web access.

Electronic resources can be costly in terms of staff time as well as money. Patrons may require special training to utilize the resource. Electronic resources must be separately cataloged, and where the catalog record includes a URL, the URL must be checked periodically to be sure that it has not changed. Negotiating prices and access arrangements (including issues such as public access versus faculty/student access only, number of simultaneous users, passwords, etc.) can consume a great deal of the Acquisitions Librarian's time. Providing access using computers also requires a great deal of time of highly-qualified staff. This has been a particular problem with CD-ROM files. Both initial loads and updates on CD-ROM often require hours of staff time. Fortunately, the Web seems to be making CD-ROMs less ubiquitous than they were a few years ago. Web-based resources generally require less time to set up or maintain.

D. Library Automation and the Law Library's Online Catalog

The Law Library uses an integrated library automation system based on NOTIS as modified by the staff of the Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA). The Florida Legislature created FCLA in 1984 with the goal of linking together the library catalogs of the nine (now ten) state universities in Florida. Librarians from all of the State University System libraries, including the FSU College of Law Library, participate in the ongoing development of the automation system through statewide committees that meet regularly to discuss library needs and make recommendations to FCLA. The automation software runs on mainframe computers located at the Northeast Regional Data Center in Gainesville, Florida and is maintained and modified as needed by the FCLA librarians and programmers. As an integrated system, NOTIS links various "modules" such as circulation and acquisitions to the same bibliographic record, allowing information about the circulation status of an item, whether it is on order, received and in process, etc., to be displayed in the online catalog. The circulation module maintains borrower records and produces overdue notices and bills for missing books automatically. NOTIS allows purchase orders and records of orders and payments to be produced and maintained online and it produces records that allow the Acquisitions Librarian to track expenditures by form of material and by jurisdiction. NOTIS was originally developed for use through dedicated terminals, but in recent years FCLA has modified it to allow it to be used in a Windows environment on PCs.

The most visible part of the library automation system for our faculty and students is WebLUIS, the Law Library's online catalog. WebLUIS is available on the Internet at webluis.fcla.edu. WebLUIS can be searched by author, title, subject, keyword, or call number. Three different search options ("Basic," "Advanced," and "Command") allow searches ranging from the simple to the highly sophisticated, including Boolean connectors and restrictions to specified formats, publication dates, and languages. Searches can be limited to the Law Library, to all the Florida State University libraries or libraries of another State University System campus, or to all the libraries of the SUS simultaneously. When a library has cataloged a Web site, WebLUIS allows the user to click on the URL and go immediately to the site. Users can e-mail lists of bibliographic records to themselves.

In addition to serving as the catalog for the libraries of the State University System, WebLUIS also provides access to more than one hundred bibliographic and full-text databases, including INDEX TO LEGAL PERIODICALS AND BOOKS, INDEX TO FOREIGN LEGAL PERIODICALS, LEGALTRAC, CONGRESSIONAL UNIVERSE, and MEDLINE. Some of these databases are loaded directly into WebLUIS so that the search commands are the same as in WebLUIS; for other databases WebLUIS serves as a gateway into a resource outside WebLUIS, such as RLIN or OCLC FirstSearch. When searching databases loaded into WebLUIS, a particularly useful feature allows someone searching a journal index to click one command to get the bibliographic records and holdings information for that journal at the user's home library and other SUS libraries.

As well as serving as a portal to a variety of commercially-produced databases, WebLUIS also offers several databases created by Florida's public universities. The Law Library has produced one of these, an index to the Florida Supreme Court opinions and briefs which Library personnel are putting on the Web. Users can click on the link on each record to go directly to the Web site for the case briefs. (For a fuller description of the Briefs Project, see the "Special Projects" section of this self-study.)

NOTIS is not without problems. As mentioned in the last report, we are still waiting for a good serials management module. Meanwhile, the Law Library uses the NOTIS acquisitions order records to check in unbound periodical issues, advance sheets, looseleaf releases, unbound supplements and pocket parts. Information about which periodical issues have been received appears in WebLUIS. The directors of the main libraries of each of the ten state universities (but not the directors of the SUS law and medical libraries), members of the librarians' committees (including representatives from the Law Library), and the staff of FCLA are reviewing other library management software systems on the market to see whether any of them offer such improved functionality in all modules that the SUS should consider switching from NOTIS to a newer system.

E. Public Services

          1. Library Access

The Law Library is open 92 1/2 hours per week during the fall and spring semesters and 90 1/2 hours per week during the summer semester.

The Library provides 24-hour access to all members of the College of Law community throughout the year. When the Library is closed to the general public, it controls access to its facilities via the College of Law's electronic keycard access control system. As of the last inspection, the Law Library provided 24-hour access to staff, faculty, the members of co-curricular organizations such as Moot Court and Law Review, and selected other students who requested access on an as-needed basis. During the spring semester of 1998 the Law Library extended that access to all law students. The decision has eliminated the need to provide extended hours during exam periods and has greatly increased the freedom of our students to research and study as their individual schedules permit. As might be expected, the decision to broaden access has also caused some security problems for the Library. With the increased after-hours traffic, we have had an increase in the generation of false alarms, which sound both locally and at the campus police station. In order to gain some measure of control over these alarms, we are exploring alternatives that will change the manner in which our students can exit the building in non-emergency situations.

The Law Library building was completed in 1983 and has accessible restrooms and elevator access to all floors. The Law Library staff assists with photocopying and retrieval of material for people with disabilities, and the staff has worked with Independence for the Blind and the Disabled Student Services Office on campus to provide special computer equipment for blind law students and provide reserved rooms as needed.

          2. Reference

The Reference Department is staffed by one full-time librarian, the Head of Public Services, two part-time Reference Librarians who each work thirty hours per week, and an OPS Reference Librarian who works on weekends. The Serials/Government Documents Librarian regularly works at the Reference Desk, and the Associate Director is available to answer reference questions in the late afternoon.

Reference help is provided by librarians in person at the Law Library 56 2 hours per week during semesters. The Law Library also has evening telephone reference service, which allows patrons in the Library to speak with librarians by telephone on Sunday - Thursday evenings during academic terms for a total of 15 hours per week. The Reference Librarians provide extensive assistance to College of Law faculty, law students concerned with class or clerking assignments, other students in Tallahassee, members of the bar and their secretaries and paralegals, and members of the general public.

A new reference service offered by the Law Library is an OPS Research Assistant who helps the Reference Librarians provide research assistance to the faculty. The assistant is usually a law student, but has also been a recent law school graduate, and in one instance, a doctoral history student. Many of the research questions involve non-law topics that are connected to a legal research topic of the faculty member. Another request is for the review of the legal and non-legal literature at the beginning of a research project. The service has proven quite popular with faculty.

The Law Library has access to many electronic research products, including the INDEX TO LEGAL PERIODICALS, LEGALTRAC, CONGRESSIONAL INFORMATION SERVICES INDEXES, MARTINDALE-HUBBELL, FLORIDA STATUTES, FLORIDA ADMINISTRATIVE CODE, THE FLORIDA RULES OF PROCEDURE, CCH STANDARD FEDERAL TAX SERVICE, and other non-law bibliographic indexes in the arts, sciences, social sciences, business, education, and psychology. New sources of information are constantly being added. Many of these resources are made available through WebLUIS, the online catalog and database system of the State University System.

Even though the Law Library is changing to Web-based subscriptions wherever possible, the Library still has a substantial number of CD-ROM titles. Many of these are available on dedicated PCs in the reference area of the Library, but there are many more that could not be loaded there, in some cases because licenses restrict them to use by faculty and students only. The inadequate size of the older CD-ROM server limited our ability to provide access to these resources via the College of Law network. Strozier Library (the main FSU University Library) recently donated to the Law Library a more robust and much larger CD server, which we hope will allow us to better exploit our CD resources.

The Head of Public Services and the Reference Librarian offer classroom instruction and "hands-on" library exercises and tours for the College of Law summer orientation program. Dozens of Law Library tours are given annually for first year law students, students from other departments at Florida State University and from other Tallahassee colleges. The Reference Librarian offers individualized research refresher courses for students in preparation for clerkships or summer jobs.

          3. Interlibrary Loan

Interlibrary loan (ILL) at the Law Library is handled by the Reference Librarian, a half-time OPS librarian and a half-time OPS student assistant. The Law Library is a member of OCLC, the Research Libraries Group (RLG), and COSELL, a consortium of southeastern academic law libraries which provides ILL service to its members at no charge. Most interlibrary loan requests are placed via the OCLC ILL system or by telephone.

The volume of ILL work in the Law Library has continued to increase in recent years. In 1994-95 the Law Library initiated 267 requests and received 258 items; in 1998-99 the Law Library initiated 438 requests and received 425 items; in 1999-2000 the Law Library initiated 708 requests and received 698 items. In 1994-95 the Law Library received 3,782 requests from other libraries and filled 2,858 of them; in 1998-99 the Law Library received 4,056 requests and filled 3,654 of them; in 1999-2000 the Law Library received 3,402 requests and filled 3,049 of them. (The FSU Law Library is mandated by the Florida Administrative Code to provide fee-paid ILL assistance to inmates in Florida prisons. A substantial number of the requests received by the Library are from the Department of Corrections.) We believe that our lending policies often allow us to obtain items not usually loaned by other libraries, for our students and faculty.

There is continued growth in the number and variety of ILL requests initiated by the Law Library over recent years. This is attributable to increased demands from law faculty, students editing articles for the three College of Law journals, and students writing papers for innovative courses, particularly on international law topics. The Law Library meets the ILL needs of College of Law faculty not only while they are engaged in research and writing, but also after the paper is accepted for publication. Law reviews published by other schools which are publishing articles by our faculty, are often unable to locate materials that we have previously obtained for our faculty via ILL, and must request the items from us. There continues to be a need for permanent staffing in ILL.

          4. LEXIS and WESTLAW

Since the last inspection, both LEXIS and WESTLAW have discontinued providing terminals for student use. All student and faculty access is now handled via general-purpose computers, at home or at the law school and library.

LEXIS and WESTLAW are available on all the PCs throughout the College of Law and Law Library. Access on PCs in the public spaces of the Library is provided through the World Wide Web interfaces that the two companies have recently brought online. The remainder of the faculty, staff and student-accessible PCs within the College of Law and Law Library provide access via both the Web-based and traditional proprietary software interfaces. Printers supplied by LEXIS and WESTLAW are located in the Faculty Library and in the student journal offices.

Statistics continue to show increasing use by students. WESTLAW usage increased from 9,186 hours in 1994-95, to 13,232 in 1998-99 and dropped slightly to 12,966 in 1999-2000. LEXIS usage increased from 2,146 hours in 1994-95, to 3,690 in 1998-99 and to 5,676 in 1999-2000. It is less clear how accurate the most recent figures are, or how well they reflect student and faculty use of electronic resources. The shift to Web-based research impacts both issues.

Both WESTLAW and LEXIS are moving toward Web-based products which cannot track usage by connect time. At least some of the hours reported to us by both companies are estimates based on numbers of searches. In addition, Florida State University now has a contract with LEXIS for access to a product called "LEXIS-NEXIS ACADEMIC UNIVERSE" (a more limited database than the principal LEXIS database) which provides unlimited access for all faculty and students. Presumably some law students use that as well, but we have no record of that usage.

We also know that our students also use a variety of Web-based electronic resources, such as the Library of Congress's THOMAS site for federal government information, the Online Sunshine Web site maintained by the Florida Legislature for information about Florida laws and pending bills, and other electronic resources. Many of these sites are linked to the Law Library's home page for easy access by students and faculty. We believe that our students make heavy use of electronic research sources, but we have no accurate way of tracking their usage. We anticipate that the student laptop requirement being implemented with the entering class in Fall 2000 will increase student usage of online resources.

          5. Circulation and Reserves

The Law Library's Circulation Department consists of a Circulation Supervisor (an LTA) who supervises the work at the Circulation Desk as well as stack maintenance and reshelving, a Senior Clerk who works with Reserves and with the Photocopy Service, and 10-15 part-time OPS student assistants (primarily undergraduates). One or two students are scheduled to staff the Circulation desk and reshelve books during every hour that the Library is open. Lack of supervision during evenings and weekends is sometimes a problem since the Circulation Supervisor can be present only forty hours per week.

Circulation control of materials is maintained through the NOTIS circulation system, which provides automatic production of overdue notices and bills. FSU ID cards serve as library cards for faculty, staff, and students. Anyone in the community may borrow books from the Law Library collection after completing a registration form and presenting identification. A large part of the collection does not circulate, however, including looseleaf services, case reporters, statutes, law reviews and journals, and reference materials.

The Law Library Reserve collection is maintained by the Senior Clerk. We are moving toward greater of use of electronic reserves, scanned or downloaded documents which are available through Law Library computers for students enrolled in College of Law courses.

          6. Photocopy Service

The Law Library continues to operate its own Photocopy Service, and since the last inspection we have added a computer printing service, which uses the same magnetic-strip Copicards as the photocopiers. Copicards are available for purchase at the Circulation Desk. One copier may be operated with coins. Receipts from the photocopiers go into an auxiliary budget which pays for equipment, supplies, service contracts and the salaries of two staff members. Currently the Law Library has six Xerox photocopiers in the photocopy room, one in the Faculty Library, and one for library staff use. It has four laser printers, including two networked printers and one stand-alone printer in the Computer Lab, and one networked printer in the Reference Area. A color printer has been purchased and installed for public use.

The development of the World Wide Web and its availability on our public access PCs created a demand for laser printing in the public spaces of the Library, and an attendant need to recover the costs from that printing. The Library addressed this need by installing a network-based printing control system that makes use of the same card control system that we have historically used for our photocopiers. This system presently offers access to three laser printers, two of which are located in the Student Computer Lab, and the third is in the reference area on the second floor. As the Library increases the number and distribution of public access PCs, we will also expand the locations of available "printing stations" to which users can direct their print requests. A third location is presently awaiting installation on the third floor.

Card sales, recording of receipts, and management of photocopier maintenance and supplies are coordinated by a Senior Library Clerk. Receipts from the coin operated machine and from Copicard sales are collected and counted daily and deposited weekly.

The long-term viability of the Photocopy Service as it is presently structured is questionable. At the time of the last report, we noted that the number of copies made was fairly stable at 1.1 - 1.2 million per year. Since 1994-95 we have seen a steady decline in the number of copies made to a low of slightly more than 600,000 in 1999-2000. Revenues have declined as well. The Photocopy Service lost money for several years, although it did manage to break even in 1998-99 after we raised prices and stringently cut expenses. We raised our rates again in August 2000. The continuing decline in the number of copies made, even after we introduced computer printing services, suggests that students are feeling less need to have paper copies of materials such as cases and law review articles, for which they have computer access. When the College of Law mandates student ownership of laptop computers in Fall 2000, we expect that even fewer students will pay to copy materials which they can download at no charge. We need to reduce our staff salary expenses by transferring one or both of the staff positions now funded by the Photocopy Service into regular University salary lines. This will allow us to continue to provide the service while keeping prices at an affordable level.

G. Computer and Audiovisual Services

          1. Computer Services

The staff of the Library's Computer Services Department consists of two librarians, the Computer Services Librarian and the Electronic Services Librarian, plus part-time student workers who staff the Computer Labs during limited hours each week.

The Computer Services Librarian provides support for Library hardware and software needs and maintains the law students' Computer Labs. At the time of the prior inspection, this librarian devoted a significant amount of time to College of Law faculty and staff computing needs. The arrival of the new Director of Computing Services for the College of Law, with his new and expanded staff, has reduced this demand This, along with the transfer of most of the audiovisual responsibilities, allows the Computer Services Librarian to better serve the needs of the Library and the Computer Labs.

The Electronic Services Librarian maintains the Library's Web page, assists the staff with software and hardware problems as needed, and helps with the instruction of the faculty, staff, and students in the use of software and the Internet. The Electronic Services Librarian, in partnership with the Head of Public Services, assists faculty with their Web pages and with the identification and production of Web resources that support their research and teaching efforts. Our present Electronic Services Librarian was responsible for converting the Law Library's Florida Supreme Court Briefs and Opinions Project (described under "Special Projects," below) from a microfilm-based project to one distributed via the Web. He also supervises the part-time staff member who handles the ongoing work of the Project.

Both of these librarians also assist the College of Law Computing Department staff by providing direct support to our law students for software and home Internet access questions. Through their membership in the College of Law Technology Working Group, a committee which also includes the College of Law's computer personnel and the Library's Head of Public Services, they provide input into the implementation of technology in both classroom and office environments. These librarians also perform the initial training that all incoming students receive in the use of the Computer Labs and their resources.

The Law Library's Web page has been under continual development since 1995. The Web page supports the research interests of both students and faculty. It links to many resources, including the "Course Connections" page which lists course materials and locally-created topical research pages, the "Other Databases" file which provides links to both legal and general resources, the WebLUIS online catalog, the Florida Supreme Court Briefs and Opinions Project, and to pages providing information about Library collections and services.

All Library personnel have PCs located at their desks and have access to a wide array of computer-based resources appropriate to their position. NOTIS/LUIS (the integrated library automation system that provides the State University System's shared catalog resource) is available through each employee's PC. OCLC is available to Technical Services and Reference staff. Cataloging, Acquisitions, and Reference staff have access to computer-based tools that serve their responsibilities and help to integrate the various resources they must access on a daily basis. All Library personnel have access to the Internet (World Wide Web) and possess a University-supplied e-mail account.

The student Computer Labs, located on the third floor of the Library, contain twenty PCs running Windows NT. Printing is available on a pay-for-print basis, with three laser printers located in the Labs. Payment is handled with the same copy control devices used with our photocopiers. A network-based printing system serves two of the printers and also permits Lab users to print to other locations in the Library. The third printer is part of a dedicated PC workstation that acts as a backup for network outages or other problems, guaranteeing that the students will always have at least one printer available. The Lab computers offer full Internet access, LEXIS, WESTLAW, word processing, spreadsheet and utility software. Staffing in the Labs consists of OPS students, present for only 20 hours per week, and primarily during the evening hours. We recognize the need for more Lab staff and hope to address this in the near future.

We anticipate that the Labs will be impacted in the coming years by the College of Law's laptop computer requirement. Beginning with the first-year class of 2000, all entering law students will be required to own a laptop that can utilize the College of Law's wireless networking system. We expect that this may make it desirable to change the mix of hardware in the Labs. At this point we are not certain what place "docking station" workstations may have in the Labs. We continue to monitor the discussions concerning the need for "docking stations" but are ambivalent as to whether persons using laptops capable of connecting to the local area network through wireless technology will have a need to connect their laptops to full-size monitors and keyboards.

Staff support for student-owned computers is also a concern. In addition to the computers purchased to meet the laptop requirement (which have at least the advantage of all being from one company with which the College has a service arrangement), many of our 2L and 3L students, who already own laptops, are taking advantage of Internet access via the wireless system. Providing support for these computers could easily become a significant time burden and a liability risk. Policies regarding support of student-owned equipment must be careful to insulate staff from unreasonable expectations.

In addition to the Lab computers, the Law Library also has an interactive videodisc workstation (located in a separate room) for skills-oriented instructions with real-time feedback. One faculty member uses this resource regularly in connection with classroom instruction. Additional interactive video exercises have been acquired on CD, but until the new CD server is online, access to them is limited.

2. Audiovisual and Video Services

At the time of the prior inspection, the Computer Services Librarian and the Video Technician who worked under his supervision served the audiovisual needs of the College of Law. In March 1999 the Video Technician position, along with most of the responsibility for classroom video and audiovisual support, was transferred to the College of Law Computer Services Department. Today the Library is responsible only for video and audiovisual services in connection with the Library's archive of Florida Supreme Court Oral Argument videotapes, the Reserve Collection's audiovisual library, and the College of Law's historical video archive.

H. Technical Services

          1. Acquisitions

The Acquisitions Department coordinates the selection of library materials, places orders and processes invoices for all titles, and administers acquisitions budgets. The Department consists of the Acquisitions Librarian, a Library Technical Assistant, and an Accountant. Two student assistants are employed part-time.

The Acquisitions Department uses the FCLA version of the NOTIS system for automated ordering, claiming, and recording of payments. Through the NOTIS system we are able to trace the payment history of titles in our collection back to 1989-90. The State Automated Accounting System (SAMAS) is used to process invoices for payment to vendors. An interface between NOTIS and SAMAS is needed because much of the same information must be entered into both systems.

A Web-based database program, ARROW (Ad-Hoc Report Request Over the Web), is used to create various reports for the department using information in the NOTIS system. These include reports listing items ordered for faculty, expenditures for faculty office copies, items on order, and items received but in process. The MS Excel program is used to create spreadsheets detailing expenditures by fiscal year or by jurisdiction. A database of canceled subscriptions and a "wish-list" of titles for future consideration are kept using MS Access.

We have contracted with one of our book jobbers, Yankee Book Peddler, to begin a limited approval plan. This plan will allow us to automatically receive most books published by university presses on general or U.S. law as soon as they are published. If successful, this approval plan could be expanded in the future.

We are canceling fewer subscriptions than in past years, but the Acquisitions Librarian continues to review all invoices. Subscriptions for titles which are no longer in regular use or which have risen dramatically in cost are canceled. A certain number of subscriptions are canceled every year due to the effects of inflation and a generally flat budget.

Many Law Library resources are now being purchased in electronic form, and these purchases require negotiation of license agreements and means of access. This is done by the Acquisitions Librarian after consultation with the Collection Development Committee and the Computer Services Librarians. The Acquisitions Librarian is also a member of the State University System (SUS) Electronic Collections Committee, which makes recommendations on databases to be purchased for the entire State University System.

          2. Cataloging

The Cataloging Department describes about 1,800 new titles each year, chooses access points for these descriptions for the online catalog (WebLUIS), and assigns classification numbers for a useful arrangement of materials on the shelves. In addition, the department "maintains" existing bibliographic records, executing withdrawals, reinstatements, replacements, and added copies, as well as updating of subject headings to current terminology. Growth and maintenance of an online authority file (establishing unique forms of name for personal or corporate authors and for series titles) also occupy some of the department's attention. In 1996-97 the Law Library Cataloging Department was invited to join the Program for Cooperative Cataloging coordinated by the Library of Congress, and the Catalog Librarian received training in the Name Authorities Cooperative (NACO) program. In 1999, she received training in series authority work. The FSU Law Library is one of only a few law libraries in the United States that participate in this program.

Staffing in the Cataloging Department consists of one librarian, one Senior Library Technical Assistant, and one OPS student assistant who works part-time. Until April 1996 the staff included two Senior LTAs, but in that month the second LTA was transferred to Computer Services, as described above. Since the loss of one salaried staff member, the cataloging backlog has grown larger than is desirable, and the staff has not had time to undertake the reclassification project necessary to make fullest use of the new KZ (Public International Law) classification schedule. We are looking at ways of addressing the staffing needs in Cataloging, including some rearrangement of present staff and duties among the three departments in Technical Services, as well as the possibility of hiring a temporary cataloger.

Cataloging has completed a number of special projects in recent years, including adding Internet addresses (URLs) to the bibliographic records of law reviews and bar journals that have full text, tables of content, or other data on the Web. They also added and edited bibliographic records for nearly two hundred Web sites containing Florida city ordinances and county codes, and for state administrative codes.

The Catalog Librarian is very active in professional work outside the Law Library, including committee work, panel presentations, writing, and Section officer for the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), chair of the Local Arrangements Committee for the 1997 meeting of the Southeastern Chapter of AALL (SEAALL), chair of the Florida SUS Libraries Task Force on Staff Workstations, and member of the editorial board of CATALOGING & CLASSIFICATION QUARTERLY, an international journal. She has edited a book, THE LCSH CENTURY: ONE HUNDRED YEARS WITH THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SUBJECT HEADINGS, which will be issued by Haworth Press in 2000.

3. Serials/Documents Department

The Serials/Documents Department supervises serials check-in, looseleaf filing, and bindery control. The Serials Librarian also has cataloging responsibilities, including serials record maintenance, cataloging title changes, and recataloging serial titles. Responsibility for processing new materials was transferred from Cataloging to Serials in 1996. In addition to these serials-related tasks, the Librarian also oversees the federal depository program.

The Serials/Documents Librarian is assisted by a staff of two Senior Library Technical Assistants, one in charge of serials check-in and looseleaf filing, and one who manages the bindery operation and processing unit. They in turn rely on approximately 90-100 hours per week of OPS employee time. OPS tasks include filing looseleaf (including filing in faculty offices), opening and sorting mail, retrieving and delivering materials to and from government agencies and faculty offices, preparing and processing items to be bound, processing and labeling cataloged materials, and receiving and checking in government documents. It would be desirable to replace some of the OPS hours with a full-time support staff position to train and supervise looseleaf filers.

Serials check-in is handled through the State University System's modified NOTIS system to update the Library's holdings and to claim lagging subscriptions in a timely manner. Although the department uses ARROW as a tool for reports and claiming purposes, we still need an automated claiming system with predictive check-in. The Serials-Client module in development at FCLA was intended to address these and other issues in serials check-in but has been placed on "hold" as the State University System libraries search for a new system to replace NOTIS.

Cancellations of subscriptions over the past few years have somewhat reduced the amount of filing. Materials must, however, be labeled as "canceled" and at a later time reviewed for retention or withdrawal.

The Law Library's Journal List is now available on the Law Library's Web site for easy access to Library journal holdings. A paper copy is periodically published for limited distribution.

The Law Library selects nine percent of federal documents available to the public through the federal depository program. With additional online government resources available, the Law Library also works cooperatively through the Leon County Government Documents Caucus (consisting of five federal depository libraries) to meet government information needs. The Law Library participated in a federal depository self study in 1999 in lieu of an on-site inspection. As a result of the study it was recommended that the Law Library develop a informative government information Web page and a written service policy for electronic formats. We are currently working on such a service policy. The expansion of our government documents Web page is a long-term project presently under development.

The Serials Librarian is the Law Library's representative on the SUS Technical Services Planning Committee. She made a presentation on the Law Library's Retention and Storage Policy at the 1999 SEAALL meeting.

I. Physical Facilities

The Law Library is housed in its own building, completed in 1983. The building contains 34,026 net square feet on three floors, with 32,292 net square feet used as Library space. (A Faculty Library of approximately 1,560 net square feet is located in B.K. Roberts Hall.) All but one of the Library staff offices are located on the second floor, which is also the main entrance floor. The Library was repainted and had new carpet and linoleum installed in 1998. A wireless computer transmitter system was installed throughout the Library in 1999 to allow access to the College of Law network. New signage as well as improvements to the heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) system (which cannot effectively cool spaces such as the Computer Labs which were not part of the original building design) are still needed. With some minimal exceptions, the building has proven to be very usable.

Space Concerns

Space in the Law Library is becoming a major concern because of University-mandated increases in College of Law student body size as well as growth in the Library collection. According to ABA Standard 703, the Library should provide study seats equal to fifty percent of the total enrollment of law students. Rearrangement of third floor book stacks in fall semester 1998 to meet ADA requirements for aisle width substantially reduced the seating on that floor. The total number of Library study seats was reduced from approximately 400 to 350. Applying the ABA standard, 350 seats would be adequate for a student body of no more than 700 students. In fall semester 2000 the enrollment was 727 students, up from 683 students in fall semester 1999, and up from 633 students in fall semester 1996. If this kind of increase continues, within a few years the enrollment will be 750-800 students. This would require a minimum of 400 study seats, which cannot be accommodated in the Library at its present size.

The size of many of the Library carrel study seats is also inadequate. The Library has 112 carrel seats. Of these, 47 have study surfaces of ten square feet, but 65 have surfaces of only six square feet. The College of Law is implementing a student laptop requirement with the entering class of 2000, but the smaller carrels are too small to accommodate someone with a laptop computer and other books and papers. With the wireless transmitters throughout the building, law students should be able to sit down anywhere in the Law Library, connect to the Internet and work on course assignments, but they will find it difficult, if not impossible, to work in the smaller carrels. Exchanging the smaller carrels for larger ones is desirable but would reduce the number of carrel seats from 112 to 84, further exacerbating the problem of inadequate student seating.

Space for group study rooms is also a problem. When this building opened in 1983, the third floor had five group study rooms (designed for 4-6 students each), three seminar/conference rooms (12-15 students each), and three typing rooms (1-2 students each) available for a student body of approximately 625 students. Today, of the original rooms, only two seminar rooms are available for student use (when not being used for classes). The other rooms have been taken over by faculty, law school staff, or law student organizations. When four of the original group study rooms were assigned as faculty offices, the Library was able to carve out four smaller (4-person) rooms from stack space, but one of these has become an office for the Law Library Florida Supreme Court Briefs Project. The special requirements of students with disabilities have frequently required us to dedicate a room to one student's needs for several years at a time. Given the importance of group study as a part of the law school experience, the number of study rooms for students seems seriously inadequate and will only become more so as the size of the student body increases.

The size of the Law Library collection continues to increase as well. The number of paper volumes rose from 209,796 in June 1994 to 241,689 in June 2000. The rate of growth has slowed somewhat in recent years, however, because of reduced acquisitions budget, increased materials costs, and an ongoing program of vigorous weeding. The percentage of occupied shelving hovers just under eighty percent, with the second floor stacks, which house the federal and Florida collections, and most of the National Reporter System, being the most crowded area. Despite the increasing reliance on electronic information resources, paper volumes are still a vital part of the Library's collection. Without additional space, the Library will be forced to remove increasing numbers of books. Unfortunately there is no remote library storage facility in the Tallahassee area. Items that are weeded must simply be discarded.

The Library Director has been asked to consider the ramifications of the loss of the Faculty Library, which is the only space available in the law school complex for additional offices or classrooms. Losing that 1,800 linear feet of shelf space would mean that most of the Faculty Library collection would have to be discarded, because there is no space for those books elsewhere.

Computer Lab space is also a cause for concern. Although improved by modest renovation work in fall 1994, the Computer Labs need more and better-designed space. The Labs were carved out of third floor stack space and furnished with low-cost computer furniture. The two Labs contain a total of twenty workstations which are limited to use by College of Law students. Ventilation is an ongoing problem because in the original building plans, that space was part of a much larger open area. The HVAC system was not designed to cool enclosed spaces housing clusters of heat-generating computers. The Labs are only minimally adequate, but expansion and reconfiguration are not possible given the space limitations in the Law Library. The increasing emphasis in the College of Law on the use of computer technology in the educational process will mean increasing demand for training sessions and for space suitable for computer-assisted learning and research applications. It would be desirable to have at least three state-of-the-art Labs, each with their own entrance from a public area for ease of access.

Office space for the librarians who support the computers and electronic resources is also inadequate. The Computer Services Librarian, who is principally responsible for the operation of the third-floor Computer Labs, uses a very small room in the Micromaterials Room on the second floor as his office. The Electronic Services Librarian, who also provides support and training for students using the Labs, has an equally tiny office located behind the Circulation Desk on the second floor.

A possible solution to many of these problems would seem to lie in the construction of a fourth floor on the Law Library building. The building was designed to facilitate construction of a fourth floor. A fourth floor would provide space for state-of-the-art computer labs which could also be used for College of Law classroom instruction. Offices for the Computer Services and Electronic Services Librarians could be conveniently located near the Labs. The fourth floor would offer space for more student study rooms and carrels. It could also provide space for one or more classrooms designed for collaborative distance learning projects with other law schools, as well as space for College of Law faculty or staff offices. In addition, moving the Computer Labs to the new fourth floor would provide some growth space for the collection by freeing up approximately 1,000 square feet of space on the third floor. Once the Lab walls were removed, the HVAC system would be able to manage the temperatures in this space far more effectively.

Given the anticipated growth in student enrollment which generates a demand for more study seats and classroom space, the continued growth of the Library collection, and the need for more technologically-sophisticated instructional space for computer applications and distance learning, the University would do well to consider adding a fourth floor to the Library building. Planning for construction of a fourth floor actually began in 1995 with the appropriation of some limited planning funds by the Legislature, but the work stopped when other University projects were given higher priority. This would seem to be a good time to reconsider the College of Law's space needs and see how the fourth floor could help to meet them.

Other Physical Facility Problems

The Law Library has an ongoing problem with leaks from the roof, rain seeping in around the windows, and leaks from third floor plumbing. We have discussed this with campus Maintenance staff, and it appears that the Law Library building is overdue for a new roof and other repairs. We are uncertain, however, when funds will be available.

In fall 1989 the College installed a Sonitrol electronic system which controls access to almost all of the College of Law complex. Because the system is computer-controlled, the Computer Services Librarian became the principal in-house Sonitrol system operator. The system controls access to various parts of the complex based on an elaborate time schedule. Each member of the law school community has an electronic access card, and the system computer is programmed to give each user individual access authorization. When a card is lost, access for that card is canceled in the system, and it becomes useless to the possessor. The Library has benefitted from being able to secure the Library building, the Computer Labs, and the Photocopy Room with a reliable control system.

The Sonitrol system, however, continues to consume a burdensome amount of the Computer Services Librarian's time. The constant need to update the system for lost cards, replacement cards, and schedule changes for breaks, holidays, and special events requires almost daily attention to the system. The present Sonitrol system is more than ten years old and lacks some of the features that make newer systems easier to manage. A major upgrade is needed.

J. Special Projects

In the 1970s, the Law Library began a project of microfilming the briefs for Florida Supreme Court cases which had opinions published in the Southern Reporter. Financial support for the Briefs Project was provided by the academic law libraries in Florida, which then received copies of the microfilmed briefs. In 1999, with the encouragement of the Court, the Law Library began moving this project from microfilm to the Web. The Electronic Services Librarian did much of the initial work in setting up the Web-based project, which includes the full text of Florida Supreme Court opinions and the briefs in those cases, displayed in PDF format, in a file linked to the Law Library's Web page. Briefs and opinions on the Web page are arranged by docket number, but an index in the WebLUIS online catalog allows searchers to locate cases by the names of parties and then link directly to the briefs. A part-time employee, supervised by the Electronic Services Librarian, converts the electronic files provided by the Court, scans paper files for which electronic versions are not available, creates the Web links and the index records for WebLUIS. Financial support is still provided by the Florida law school libraries, but now the briefs are available to the public worldwide.

In addition to links to the briefs and opinions, some of the Florida Supreme Court cases on the Web also have links to videos of the oral arguments in the case. Beginning in 1985 the College of Law began videotaping all the oral arguments held in open court in the Florida Supreme Court. The Law Library maintained an archive of the videotapes, with copies available for purchase by attorneys and the public. The Library continued this project until fall 1997, when WFSU, the local public television station, assumed responsibility for taping and distribution. They broadcast the arguments live over the Internet and via satellite to selected markets across the state, and they also maintain a video archive of arguments since 1997, which can be viewed over the Internet We still receive a physical copy of each case taped at the Court and maintain an archive of all the tapes, which now includes more than three thousand cases. Copies of tapes are used by classes in the College; they are also available for sale from our archive, or for viewing in the Library at no charge. The tapes are frequently used by attorneys who are new to the Court or who plan to argue similar issues. Where the arguments are available through the WFSU Web site, we have created a link from the Briefs Project files to the oral argument for that case.