Look a Little Harder

Today’s Tip is inspired by my colleague Jane Symons. As we occasionally do, Jane zipped out to another library to borrow a book for one of our lawyers – yes folks, print is still necessary for legal research.  She was looking for something in a government documents collection – yes folks, that is correct, not all government documents are on the interweb. The item was not where it was supposed to be on the shelf.

Jane says the library gods were smiling on her when after carefully scanning each item on the surrounding shelves she happened to glance a several stacks away and noticed the item on the shelf.  I say she was practicing excellent librarianship by not stopping her search when the item wasn’t where it was expected to be.

Never give up, never surrender. While that phrase quotes an ongoing joke from a fictional TV show, it does reflect the persistence that searchers should bring to legal research tasks.