March 10, 2005

          Please get Rutter Group Guides for all areas. Cal Western has them. USD should. I graduated from here and refer to research here, but have been disappointed by the lack of these resources.

Jennifer Thornton, 1998 Grad

March 10, 2005

          Your request provides an opportunity to explain how carefully the LRC acquisition decisions are made. Below are some pertinent excerpts from the LRC Collection Policy, which can be found in its entirety at http://www.sandiego.edu/lrc/lrc/virtualtour/pdf/collectionpolicy1.pdf. This detailed policy was developed in consultation with the law school faculty.

Library Mission and Priorities

The mission of the University of San Diego Legal Research Center is to support the curriculum and programs of the law school, promote the advancement of legal scholarship, and meet the legal information needs of the University....

                    In furtherance of its mission, the Legal Research Center allocates resources and sets service priorities to serve patrons in the following order:

                    1.       USD law students and law faculty;

                    2.       Non-law USD faculty and students;

                    3.      USD law alumni;

                    4.       USD non-law alumni;

                    5.       The San Diego legal community; and

                    6.       Members of the public seeking documents selected for the LRC collection. ...

Evaluation Factors for Prospective Purchases

A number of factors are used to evaluate prospective LRC purchases. Depending on circumstances, the weight of individual factors varies. Therefore, the following considerations are not listed in priority order. ...

          1.       Significance of the subject matter within the law school curriculum, realm of faculty research interests, and general developments in the law;

          2.       Origin of request (the greatest weight is given to law faculty and law student requests, the least weight to the requests of non-alumni practicing attorneys for practice materials); ...18. Intended audience and use (practice materials are carefully evaluated for their usefulness in the academic setting).

          These and all other policies reflect the library’s obligation to focus its resources on supporting the classroom work of presently enrolled students and the scholarship of the professors who are teaching them. While we work to provide a welcoming environment for alumni after they have graduated, we have a primary service responsibility to those currently enrolled and paying tuition, just as we did to you while you were a student here.

          Current USD law students have full access to Rutter materials via the LRC’s Westlaw subscription. Adding the print version would cost a purchase price of nearly $6,500, plus annual update and maintenance costs of between $2,000 and $3,000 and would take up a significant amount of our diminishing free shelf space. Because we know that our alumni have free access to these print materials at the San Diego County Public Law Library, we do not consider it remiss for the library to devote the considerable savings we realize from not purchasing print Rutter materials to continuing to enrich the collection in the subject areas designated for priority in the Collection Policy.

Ruth Levor

Associate Director