Arguing that the typical legal bibliographic course is a "curricular anomaly" which emphasizes the characteristics of law books, this article advocates a fundamental shift away from the bibliographic orientation to an emphasis on the research process, i.e., how researchers use the books. The discussion examines the drawbacks inherent in a bibliographic teaching approach and explores how, despite these drawbacks, the bibliographic orientation came to dominate legal research instruction. Legal research is defined as a series of steps in the course of which a researcher develops a comprehensive strategy for selecting appropriate resources that may yield a solution to a legal problem, and a teaching approach that emphasizes this process is proposed as a means of overcoming the drawbacks of bibliographically oriented instruction. The benefits of shedding the bibliographic orientation for both teachers and students are explained, and it is argued that this approach would align the legal research course with other law school courses and move it into the curricular mainstream. (CGD)