phoebe ayers wrote:
The printed list of serial killers will always be the same in that particular book; the database search may yield different results next year. As for availability, I don't know about HeinOnline, but there are different subsets of LexisNexis and most folks other than lawyers and law students don't have access to the really good and expensive one.
Two more notes: I don't know if there's specific protocol for legal databases; generally one cites a DB search with the name of the database, date of search, and your search string: "(au=brown) and (wd="serial killer*")". As for the not-finding-anything search... notoriously hard to prove or do definitively, yes. A very similar question was given to us in library school as homework :)
Perhaps then you're in a better position to provide guidance on how to deal with unsuccessful searches. ;-)
A search that yields nothing does not imply that nothing exists. Maybe the searcher is looking in the wrong library or database. If we are dealing with material that is difficult to verify it seems more honest to admit, "We have been unable to find sources to verify this after looking in these places," than to suppress the claims altogether. The outright deletion imposes a bias on the subject, perhaps out of ignorance. Stating that we have thus far found nothing after a search of specified sources leaves open the possibility that another editor may have access to other as yet untried sources.
To be sure there can be overriding considerations such as defamatory comments.
Ec