The best thing I read today comes from an interview with DeCarlous Spearman, the Law Library Director at Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law. It was written by Mary Flood of the Houston Chronicle, copyright 2008, and published on Aug. 1, 2008. Here is a link to the full story if you would like to read more, but this question and answer struck me as particularly apt in today’s “let’s find our answer on the first page of Google’s result world.”

Ms. Flood asked the following question about technology’s effect on legal research:
“What do you miss? What has technology taken away?

A: What I miss is what technology’s taken away from the students.

Students now want quick, fast answers — yesterday. But they have no idea how to get the complete answers, or what it takes to get the entire picture. Technology’s taken that from the student body and even faculty members.

I call it the microwave age: If it can’t go in and come out ready in five minutes, they don’t want it. But that’s not enough. Research isn’t always quick. Complete research has to be comprehensive.

Sometimes one source won’t do it. But today students want what I call Wal-Mart research — one-stop shopping. Students 12 years ago were more patient. They mixed book research with Lexis or Westlaw. I’m not OK with the quick answers.”