Please take my remarks in context - IF you are an examiner that knows what you are doing, which I assume that everyone on this site is, then you know the strengths and weaknesses of the system that you are using. You KNOW whether to outsource a job based on the weaknesses of the systems that you have. So the source, in that regard, IS irrelevant, especially if you are turning out the same product as someone who had to physically go to a courthouse - which should always be the case.

And considering that IS what the case is, this discussion is not about where people are getting their information. What this discussion is about job preservation for those that do not want to have the records online - which is a valid thing to discuss. My problem, STILL, is that I know how to abstract a title, I KNOW how to do the search in the field, and I KNOW that I can do most of it from an office and be more valuable to my company being in the office and turning out twice what the examiner in the field can produce because of the ease of working through the computer. The assumption that because I work from an online site (which happens to be the official record for the City of New York, but who cares about that minor detail, right?) that I do not know how to abstract, and should not be allowed to enter into a group like NALTEA or ALTA, makes my blood boil.

The bottom line in this industry is learning how to do a search right to begin with - not the source of the information. The ability to know what needs to be in a search will determine if a search can even be done via a web-site to begin with.

If a search can be successfully completed via web-based information, who is anyone here to say that such a thing is not permissable?