A pocket part (formally titled as a supplement, abbr. supp.) is a special document located inside the back cover of certain hardcover legal

reference books A reference work is a work, such as a paper, book or periodical (or their electronic equivalents), to which one can refer for information. The information is intended to be found quickly when needed. Such works are usually ''referred'' to f ...

Legal research Legal research is "the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support legal decision-making. In its broadest sense, legal research includes each step of a course of action that begins with an analysis of the facts of a probl ...

ers consult it to ensure that the most current law is examined. The pocket part was first introduced in 1916 by the

West Publishing Company West (also known by its original name, West Publishing) is a business owned by Thomson Reuters that publishes legal, business, and regulatory information in print, and on electronic services such as Westlaw. Since the late 19th century, West ha ...

to update ''McKinney's

Consolidated Laws of New York The ''Consolidated Laws of the State of New York'' are the codification of the permanent laws of a general nature of New York enacted by the New York State Legislature. It is composed of several chapters, or laws. New York uses a system called " ...

''. Available through

HeinOnline HeinOnline (HOL) is a commercial internet database service launched in 2000 by William S. Hein & Co., Inc. (WSH Co), a Buffalo, New York publisher specializing in legal materials. The company began in Buffalo, New York, in 1961 and is currently b ...

. A legal reference book designed to be used with a pocket part subscription comes in the form of a sturdy hardcover book with a large pocket built into the back cover. At regular intervals (usually annually), the publisher sends out a new pocket part, which is a saddle-stapled

pamphlet A pamphlet is an unbound book (that is, without a hard cover or binding). Pamphlets may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths, called a ''leaflet'' or it may consist of a ...

printed on cheap

newsprint Newsprint is a low-cost, non-archival paper consisting mainly of wood pulp and most commonly used to print newspapers and other publications and advertising material. Invented in 1844 by Charles Fenerty of Nova Scotia, Canada, it usually has an ...

. The part comes with a thick card stapled or glued to one cover, and that card is inserted into the pocket to hold the pocket part inside the book which it updates. A pocket part is cumulative, meaning that it includes all updates to the book between the original date of publication of the book and the date of publication of the pocket part. The task of regularly replacing pocket parts is one of the major chores of operating a

law library A law library is a special library used by law students, lawyers, judges and their law clerks, historians and other scholars of legal history in order to research the law. Law libraries are also used by people who draft or advocate for new l ...

. At the time of publication, the book is organized into numbered sections which are usually several paragraphs in length. A reader of the book would first identify and consult the section in which they are interested, and then consult the pocket part to ensure that the section has not been amended, deleted, or superseded in the years since the hardcover book was printed. If the relevant section is omitted from the pocket part, then the reader may safely assume that the version of the section in the book itself is still current (at least as far as the author, editor and/or publisher are aware). Since the law is always changing, a pocket part may eventually grow into a separate softcover booklet to be shelved next to its hardcover counterpart. Eventually, when a pocket part becomes nearly as big as its parent book (because most of the parent book's sections have changed since it was originally released), the publisher sends out a new hardcover volume with all the intervening changes incorporated, and directs subscribers to discard the old volume and pocket part. Then the process starts again. This tedious method of updating and using legal books made sense in the days when each page of a hardcover book was

typeset Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or ''glyphs'' in digital systems representing '' characters'' (letters and other symbols).Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random H ...

by hand from raw copy. It was easier to typeset a small 30-page pamphlet every year, rather than an entire 300-page book. Today, many legal reference books are now maintained in real time on legal databases as "living"

electronic documents An electronic document is any electronic media content (other than computer programs or system files) that is intended to be used in either an electronic form or as printed output. Originally, any computer data were considered as something inter ...

with all amendments continuously merged in. Modern imagesetters,

platesetter Computer-to-plate (CTP) is an imaging technology used in modern printing processes. In this technology, an image created in a Desktop Publishing (DTP) application is output directly to a printing plate. This compares with the older technology, co ...

desktop publishing Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online c ...

software, and

offset printing Offset printing is a common printing technique in which the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on t ...

have almost completely automated the process of typesetting such books. Therefore, many newer legal books are now simply republished every year (or every other year) in the form of easily recyclable paperback books; the

Oregon Revised Statutes The Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS) is the codified body of statutory law governing the U.S. state of Oregon, as enacted by the Oregon Legislative Assembly, and occasionally by citizen initiative. The statutes are subordinate to the Oregon Constitu ...

are an example of this newer practice.

References

Legal research {{law-stub

See also

References