How adept at using Westlaw and Lexis are your students?

[Sue Mecklem]

We're giving our new associates orientation tomorrow and have been discussing/debating what we think they should already know. :) For those of you at law schools, do you think they understand the reasons one might want to use terms and connectors or Boolean language rather than natural language searching? Do you do most of the training or do the Westlaw/Lexis reps? And how do you succinctly teach that (in ten minutes...)

[Deborah McGovern]

We (the librarians) do basic training for many of the 1L's in their mandatory first semester Legal Skills and Values course. Then we get them again in the Advanced Legal Research classes second or third year. Westlaw and Lexis reps also offer training on a continuous basis. We certainly provide the students with background on why to use terms and connectors and Boolean searches, some of them understand.