The next time someone tells you that “it’s all online” or that they don’t need law libraries or law librarians, ask why it is that the smartest guys on the block, the U.S. Supreme Court Justices (with apologies to excellent law professors and lawyers everywhere), still have a law library and professional law librarians (plus support staff).
U.S Supreme Court appoints new Law Librarian (January 17, 2012, press release).
Whenever someone tells you that they “don’t need no stinkin’ law library,” beware – why doesn’t that person want you to have access to the nation’s laws and to the collected wisdom of legal scholars through the centuries?
U.S. Supreme Court Justices are some of the smartest legal scholars in the country and not only do they have the smartest law clerks from the best law schools, but they have a stellar law library. You don’t hear any of them saying, “why don’t we save some taxpayer money by closing the law library” – do you?
I saw this quote in a recent article about the retirement of the current U.S. Supreme Court Law Librarian – they have a staff of 28!
Oregon Legal Research Blog