Many people believe that the "Net has changed everything."
And it has - - to some extent.
The Internet offers vast quantities of
information, some of it authoritative, unique and valuable - and some of it not.
Some of it free, some fee-based.
In short, the Internet
poses unique challenges in finding, assessing and managing information. In fact, a Nua Internet Surveys report of a survey by NEC Research
Institute in Princeton, NJ, reports that only one-sixth of the information available on
the Internet is indexed and can be accessed using any one search engine (Northern Lights©
currently has the largest database). In contrast, one-third of all Internet
information was indexed in 1998 (when HotBot© had the largest database).
In contrast, proprietary
fee-based electronic databases like Lexis/Nexis©, Dialog©
and DowJones© specialize in providing sophisticated search tools to
quickly and easily find information. Source
material is carefully screened and validated. BUT, proprietary fee-based database
research is limited to the information someone else considers valuable - and access
doesn't come "cheap."
Our electronic information
training goal is to assist legal professionals in
selecting the most effective and efficient information resources, locating information on
that resource, assessing the quality of the located information, and managing its access
and use.
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