Look Before You Leap

AALL president Sally Holterhoff's President's Desk email yesterday featured an announcement that the State-by-State Report on Authentication of Online Legal Resources (254-page PDF) is now available. Editor-in-chief Richard Matthews and Mary Alice Baish, AALL Washington Affairs representative, along with state law librarians and other volunteers have done a lot of work pulling this together.

As the press release states, the report sought to determine "whether government-hosted legal resources on the Web are official and capable of being considered authentic."

Given how often law librarians and patrons alike use online resources for quick reference instead of walking over to the stacks, this is a good reminder that even government-hosted sources may not be official law.

In Florida, for example, many of our legal sources are freely available through hosts such as the Florida legislature and the Florida Courts websites. However, they are NOT the official version of Florida law, nor is any effort being made to authenticate them. The report also notes that there is no disclaimer anywhere on these sites to direct users to the print versions as the authoritative version of the law.

Photo by Pietor.