South Carolina Librarian Wins $5,000 Research Grant

For Immediate Release
June 6, 2002

The AALL Research Committee awarded a $5,000 AALL Research Grant to a reference librarian in South Carolina to analyze the research habits of the South Carolina bar.

Pamela R. Melton of the University of South Carolina Coleman Karesh Law Library will use the grant to survey a representative sample of the practicing South Carolina bar. The project will determine how much legal research bar members regularly perform and what resources they use to conduct research. The survey will identify which electronic and print resources South Carolina attorneys have access to, how often the attorneys use them, the size and location of their law firms, and how long the respondents have been practicing law. This type of survey has never been done before in South Carolina.

The survey results will enable Melton and her co-investigators to tailor the legal research and writing courses at the University of South Carolina School of Law so that students will be prepared to skillfully use the legal resources they will likely encounter when they enter practice.

Melton will work with Lisa A. Eichorn, associate professor and director of legal writing at the University of South Carolina; John Grego, Ph.D., director of the USC Statistics Lab; and the USC Statistics Lab to carry out the project.

This project is financed with a grant from the AALL Research Fund: An Endowment Established by LexisNexis™, which is administered by the AALL Research Committee. Created with a $100,000 pledge from LexisNexis™, the grants subsidize projects that create, disseminate, or use legal and law-related information that advances the profession of library science. For more information about the AALL Research Grants, please visit http://www.aallnet.org/about/grant_application.asp.

The AALL Research Committee, AALL and its corporate partner, LexisNexis™, extend their congratulations to this year's recipient of the AALL Research Grant.