Professor Custer has written several articles, many of which have been cited by prestigious legal authors including Eric Posner and Cass Sunstein, both famed law professors from the University of Chicago. His most recent article “The Truthiness of Thinkable Thoughts Versus the Facts of Empirical Research,” Law Library Journal Vol. 102:2 [2010-14], was awarded the open division of the 2009 AALL/LexisNexis Call for Papers Competition. In the article, Professor Custer considers the use of “literary warrant” as it effects the West Digest System, and reports on the results of a survey he conducted with both legal practitioners and law faculty. He concludes that the West Digest System has some viability, but it will need to extend its literary warrant to remain a player in today’s legal culture. He also, along with colleague Christopher Steadham from the University of Kansas Law School, recently co-wrote Kansas Legal Research. A textbook tailored toward law students published by Carolina Academic Press. 

Cited in a recent SSRN document, soon-to-be forthcoming article of the Journal of Legal Education called “Tenure and the Law Library Director,” Professor Custer was stated to have the most scholarly impact of any new director in the class of 2009 and that “new directors are beginning their directorships with better scholarship records than many of their predecessors have achieved at the end of theirs.”

Most recently, Professor Custer is serving as Chair of the noted Law Library Journal and AALL Spectrum Editorial Committee of the American Association of Law Librarians (AALL). He is Past President of the Mid American Association of Law Libraries (MAALL). He served as MAALL President in 2008/2009. He is also Chair of Continuing Status Tenure Committee of the Academic Law Librarians Special Interest Section of the AALL.

Professor Custer received his B.A. in political science from the University of Northern Iowa with high honors. He received his J.D. from the University of Arkansas-Little Rock. After briefly practicing law, he received his M.A. in library and information science from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is a member of the Missouri Bar.