Free legal resources on the Internet are great for everyone's needs. Until they aren't. So, what do you do next?

Libraries — public libraries — are for many a community the place where citizens expect to find law-related resources: Federal and State legislative and regulatory materials, and in many larger communities case law and lawyer-oriented secondary sources for those carefully researching legal issues. The move to web-based legislative, administrative and other legal resources by Federal and State governments and court systems is, of course, a trend to be welcomed. But those resources will be limited in their practicality for in-depth legal research.

At SIBL we have traditionally housed a substantial collection of legal resources for U.S. Federal and New York State law research. We have, over the years, tred warily among online resources to cover legal topics, conscious of their cost and ultimate usabilty by the public.

The time has come. It's here. The resource: WestlawNext. An adaptable, more user-friendly interface for the well-recognized Westlaw databases. It covers and updates content from the bulk of our paper format resources for U.S. Federal and New York State law as well as providing access to a selection of resources new to NYPL. You can visit us at SIBL use it.

Come join us on Thursday, March 28th at 3:15 p.m. when I will be giving an introduction to our WestlawNext database. We'll be offering an overview of the resources included in our subscription, as well as an opportunity for hands-on searching. No registration is necessary, although space and database access is limited. Can't make it? Check our SIBL class schedule for repeats.