Dr. Ronald B. Standler
Information Resources
Table of Contents
Introduction
DIALOG databases (scientific, engineering, medical, business information)
Westlaw databases (e.g., court opinions, statutes, regulations)
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
Local Libraries
Conclusion
Introduction
Bumbling around in on-line databases can easily waste hundreds, even thousands,
of dollars and can either return too much to read or miss relevant material,
which, together with the need to learn unfamiliar search skills, quite
understandably intimidates new users.
I have used DIALOG online databases since 1981 and
I have used Westlaw extensively since December 1995.
A statement of my experience
in searching and retrieving information is given in a separate webpage.
My experience enables me to search quickly and efficiently
for information in physics, electrical engineering, and meteorology,
as well as search for relevant court cases, statutes, patents,
and government regulations.
Because I have more than 16 years of experience in scientific and
engineering research, and because I am also an attorney,
I can do more than merely find technical information:
I can also interpret it in the context of law, as well as
provide critical reviews of the technical information.
A description of my services is given in a separate
webpage.
DIALOG
I subscribe to the DIALOG collection of more than 450 databases,
which can be accessed through the modem on my computer.
The databases in science, engineering, and medicine mostly contain
bibliographic citations and abstracts for articles in archival journals
and proceedings of symposia that have been published since 1966 (for medicine),
since 1969 (for physics and electrical engineering),
or since 1972 (for meteorology).
To find earlier publications, one must search printed abstracts in a library,
which is a tedious process that can take more than ten hours.
I most frequently use DIALOG to search for the following:
- electrical engineering
- physics
- meteorology
- U.S. Government publications, including technical reports of
scientific or engineering research sponsored by the Government, since 1964
- engineering standards, including safety standards
- U.S. and foreign patents
- trademarks
- full text of many newspapers in the USA, Canada, and Europe.
(This resource has become less useful in recent years,
as newspapers have made their archives accessible on the
Internet.)
Westlaw
I also subscribe to the Westlaw collection of more than ten thousand
databases, which can be accessed through the modem on my computer.
These databases contain the full text of:
- all reported federal court cases in the USA:
- all U.S. Supreme Court opinions since 1790
- all U.S. Court of Appeals reported opinions since 1891
- all U.S. District Court reported opinions since 1789
- also some unreported opinions from federal courts since 1945
- all reported opinions of state courts, back to the beginning of the
West Reporter series (e.g., A., N.E., N.W., P., S., S.W.,
Cal.Rptr., N.Y.S.). Westlaw has recently added older cases
so that its coverage of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
is complete back to the year 1804,
and its coverage of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is complete back to 1754.
- U.S. Patents Quarterly since 1926 (contains many patent, copyright,
and trademark cases not reported elsewhere)
- U.S. Code Annotated (USCA), from 1990 to present
- legislative history of all U.S. federal statutes since 1948
- U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), from 1984 to present
- state statutes and regulations (i.e., public utilities commission rules)
- amicus curiae briefs from the U.S. Supreme Court since 1995
There are major advantages to using Westlaw, compared to using
printed materials in a library:
- Westlaw permits quick searching of large amounts of material
from different sources. Not only can one search for conventional legal
topics (as in a search of printed Digests), but one can also search for
quotations from cases, citations to cases (and immediately retrieve the
text surrounding the citation), and the occurrence of specific words
(a more narrow search than in topics in the printed Digests).
- Westlaw also contains documents that are too recent to be found
in printed materials in a library. For example, the paper version of
U.S. Reports first appears on library shelves about four years
after the Supreme Court issued the opinion, and the interim bound copy of
the West's S.Ct. Reporter first appears on library shelves about one year
after the Supreme Court issued the opinion.
- Westlaw contains some unreported state and federal cases that are
not available in published volumes. Westlaw also contains much information
that is not available in law libraries.
- Text that is downloaded from Westlaw can be searched by a computer
for all occurrences of a word or phrase, which is both much faster and
more certain than reading hundreds of pages of printed text.
cost of Westlaw
Westlaw is expensive. In Nov 2003,
a single search of state court opinions
since 1945 in all fifty states cost US$ 100.
Often, after reading the results of the first search, one learns additional
keywords or issues that need to be searched, so one legal research project
generally involves several different searches.
That is why I purchased a subscription to
unlimited use of Westlaw databases that contain:
- all reported cases from courts in all fifty states in the USA,
- all reported cases from all federal courts in the USA, and
- current statutes from all fifty states and the federal government.
I do not charge my clients for expenses of searching
these databases in Westlaw.
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
Since January 1999, I have also subscribed to
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly,
which has an online archive of all unpublished appellate court
opinions in Massachusetts, beginning in 1993. Their archive also
includes some trial court opinions in Massachusetts,
which were submitted by attorneys or judges.
Local Libraries
I have access to the following local libraries:
- Franklin Pierce Law Center, Concord, NH (excellent for intellectual property law)
- New Hampshire Supreme Court, Concord, NH
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology libraries (excellent for physics, engineering, and meteorology)
- Boston University Medical School
I can obtain materials that are not in these libraries through interlibrary loan
at Franklin Pierce Law Center or
from various commercial document delivery services.
In addition to simply finding relevant publications,
I can interpret the information in the context of technology and law,
and prepare critical reviews of the information.
Conclusion
Some attorneys think on-line searches are too expensive,
but searches are much cheaper than the cost of ignorance.
Searches for reported cases on similar facts are an excellent
way to find relevant statutes and legal theories, and to avoid arguments
that failed in the past for good reason. And briefs with many citations
can be more persuasive than arguments without citations to authority.
Companies and individuals often spend hundreds of hours of time "reinventing
the wheel", when a search of technical literature would have quickly
allowed them to build on the results of others and would have avoided
wasting many thousands of dollars filing a patent application
that is invalid because of the existence of prior art.
Copyright 1998-2003 by Ronald B. Standler
This document is at http://www.rbs2.com/scdc.htm
revised 15 Nov 2003
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