Top Twenty Law Schools Based on the Library IndexThe size of a law school's library will always be a major consideration in evaluating the status of the school. The Library Index is a measure of a library's size in terms of its hard bound and microform volumes. It also includes the ratio between the number of volumes and student enrollment and the ratio between volumes and number of faculty members. You would expect the oldest law schools in America, like Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, to have well-established libraries with extremely large hard volume collections, and they do. Schools that are over one hundred years old, well-funded, and well-endowed should have large volume counts, but newer law school libraries should not necessarily be discounted by their lower hard volume count. Younger libraries tend to grow their microform and electronic collections, knowing how much space and resources it takes to store and maintain a hard volume collection. The most efficient way of maintaining a law library today is to look at alternative formats, of which microforms is one. Currently, the ABA counts only hard volumes and microform volumes, a technology that has been around for about 40 years. Libraries are looking to the newer technologies, such as networks, compact discs, and the Internet, to increase the resources available to their patrons. These library resources will be measured before long. Individuals comparing law schools are encouraged to inquire at individual schools about their newest technologies.
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