Resumen de Law Libraries and Laboratories: The Legacies of Langdell and His Metaphor

Richard A. Danner

• Law librarians and others have often referred to Harvard Law School Dean C.C.

  Langdell’s statements that the law library is the lawyer’s laboratory. Professor Danner examines the context of Langdell’s statements through his other writings, the educational environment at Harvard in the late nineteenth century, and the changing perceptions of university libraries generally. He then considers how the “laboratory metaphor” has been applied by librarians and legal scholars during the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. The article closes with thoughts on Langdell’s legacy for law librarians and the usefulness of the laboratory metaphor.