Legal Research

I'm not one given to casting stones at the efforts of the government to keep us informed electronically, but a change is under way that is very disturbing.  GPO Access, one of the stars in the free electronic resources firmament, is being replaced by something called FDsys.  Even the names are telling.  GPO Access is all about giving us access to what the Government Printing Office provides.  What, pray tell, is a FDsys? 

To the delight of those of us who teach legal research, GPO Access divides up the available resources among the three branches of government, and labels them.  Then it further divides the materals available for each branch and lists them all in subgroupings on the legislative, executive and judicial pages.  By contrast, FDsys takes a cue from Westlaw and Lexis, and presents us with the dreaded, hideously cryptic search box.  If you choose Advanced Search, you are invited to choose a database.  For the uninformed, trying to claw their way to an understanding of the processes of government, this is likely to prove the straw that sends them back to Google.  To move from GPO Access to FDsys is to replace something that's intuitive, nuanced and easy to search with something that's rigid and uninformative.