Casebooks, Bias, and Information Literacy—Do Law Librarians Have a Duty?

Abstract

Abstract The third principle of the American Association of Law Libraries’ Principles and Standards for Legal Research Competencies states: “A successful researcher critically evaluates information.” This evaluation includes evaluating legal information of material under criteria of “authority, credibility, currency, authenticity, relevance, and bias.” Does this standard include information contained in legal casebooks? This article’s goal is to show examples of case treatment in casebooks in Constitutional Law, Property, and Civil Procedure that demonstrate authors’ biases in their selection and editing of cases. Under the AALL standards and the ACRL Standards and Framework for Information literacy, librarians should teach students how to think critically about all the legal information presented to them—including casebooks.