Collecting the History of Legal Technology

Do you have boxes of stuff stowed away in your office/storage rooms? Full of things like old Lexis/Westlaw manuals, instructions on how to use antiquated systems, old UBIQ terminals, that sort of thing? DO NOT THROW THEM AWAY. Send them to me! Inspired partly by my anthropological background and partly by the work of Jason Scott who preserves computer history with the Internet Archive, I would like to start collecting our shared legal technology history before it all ends up in dumpsters. I do not have a concrete plan right now. It might just end up that I send it to Jason and have it end up in the IA when they have scanner time (which wouldn’t be a terrible thing.) I can also see having a technology museum type thing that I bring out at CALIcons. What ever happens, it’d be a shame for it to be lost. You don’t have to send stuff now. But if you should find yourself cleaning out boxes and are ready to pitch stuff, I hope this email pings a spot in your brain where you say, “HEY! I SHOULD SEND THIS TO SARAH!” Send it to me at CALI HQ in Chicago. If someone else has a great interest in preserving this sort of stuff (or has already started collecting), let me know and I’ll be happy to have you be the contact person.

Sarah Glassmeyer | Director of Content Development
Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction/CALI
565 West Adams, Chicago, IL 60661
312-906-5316 | 312-906-5280 – fax
[email protected]
http://www.cali.org/

Posted in: Features, Legal Research