Transcript 2013 Law Library Dean`s Fellow Orientation Presentation

Dean’s Fellow Workshop
Pence Law Library
June 5, 2012
6:00 PM
Room 101
Welcome
Amy Taylor, Access Services Librarian
[email protected]
Access Services
Amy Taylor, Access Services Librarian
[email protected]
Access Services
 Circulation
 [email protected]
 Interlibrary Loan
 [email protected]
Circulation
 Pence Law Library
 18 weeks for general collection material
 My Leagle
 Network user name/password
 University Library
 6 weeks for general collection material
 Proxy borrowing form
 http://www.american.edu/library/services/upload/ProxyAuthorization.pdf
 My Aladin
 Last name/AU ID or barcode/affiliation
 Check your accounts
My Leagle
MyALADIN
Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
 Use ILLiad service via Pence
http://library.wcl.american.edu/ill.cfm
 Create an account
 Find material using WorldCat or enter citations manually
 Include faculty sponsors’ name on every request
 Borrowing period set by lending library
 Check your account
WorldCat
Using Worldcat for ILL
Prefilled ILL form
Library Notices
 Very important to keep your account clear for registration,
graduation, transcripts, etc.
 If you have questions or problems, touch base with us and we
can help.
General Library Sources
Ripple Weistling
Reference Librarian
[email protected]
Summer Reference Services
 Ask a Librarian
 https://library.wcl.american.edu/ask.cfm
 Email reference assistance
 [email protected]
 Instant messaging assistance
 Summer hours M-F 1:00-5:00
Summer Reference Services
 Reference desk assistance
 M-F 1:00-5:00
 In person
 Telephone – 202-274-4352
 Reference librarian office visits
 Librarian offices, Rms. 109 -115 in Reserve Room
 M-F, business hours
 Appointments encouraged
Appointments with a librarian
 John Heywood, Foreign and International Librarian, Rm 115
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[email protected]
Susan Lewis, Associate Director for Public Services, Rm 114
[email protected]
Bill Ryan, Foreign & International Librarian, Rm 112
[email protected]
Amy Taylor, Access Services Librarian, Rm 105B
[email protected]
Ripple Weistling, Reference and Electronic Svcs Librarian, Rm 111
[email protected]
Remote access to
Pence/AU Library databases
 Log in from anywhere in the world
 Pence Law Library databases
 Use your my.american.edu login/password to access
 AU Library databases
 Use your AU ID number to access
Pence Law Library website
library.wcl.american.edu
 Encore or Leagle – Pence Law Library catalog
 Your starting point for what’s available from the library
 Research Tools link
 Your guide to all library research resources
 Articles indexes and databases
 Your starting point to find articles (better than Lexis/Westlaw)
 Information Resources links
 Databases and websites
 Topical
 A-Z
Finding books and other library items
 Encore or Leagle – Pence Law Library catalog
 Your roadmap to what’s available from the library,
in any format:
 Physical collection – books, periodicals, microform, DVDs
 Databases and other electronic resources
Bloomberg BNA Library – US Law Week, etc.
 HeinOnline
 Arab Law Quarterly
 Many more
 Websites

Finding periodical articles
 Legal articles indexes: Research Tools Page
 Include LegalTrac, ILPB, Current Index to Legal Periodicals, Index
to Foreign Legal Periodicals
 Large collections of journals indexed
 Good place to do topical article searching
 Some articles are available in full text; others are citations
 If full text isn’t available, then HeinOnline or LexisNexis/Westlaw
 LexisNexis, Westlaw, HeinOnline
 Great for finding articles with known citations
 Not so good for topical article searching
 Smaller collections of journals indexed
Finding databases and websites
 We have a large collection of legal databases and
websites on a variety of topics
 Access them from
 Information resources by topic link
(library.wcl.american.edu/resources/topics.cfm)
 Information resources, A-Z link
(library.wcl.american.edu/resources/resources.cfm)
Databases You Need to Know About
 ProQuest Congressional - the definitive source for legislative
history research
 Bloomberg BNA Library – a large collection of databases on a
range of legal topics
 Bloomberg Law – Legal, business, and news database; a good
source for docket information
 (for access, go to bloomberglaw.com/activate and sign up using your WCL
email)
 U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978 - an excellent
source for historical Supreme Court research
 Social Science Research Network - articles and working papers
from law and other social science disciplines
Non-Legal Resources - AU Main Library
Non-Legal Resources
 AU main library has an extensive collections of non-legal
databases in arts, business, international studies, social science,
etc.
 You have access to all main library resources (see slide on
remote access, above)
 Search Databases or Find Journals
 Find Journals (by title) when you have a citation
 Search Databases when you’re doing topical research
 Databases are organized alphabetically and by discipline
Find Journals
Select the appropriate journal
Search Databases
International & Foreign Law Sources
John Heywood
Foreign and International Law Librarian
[email protected]
Definitions
 Municipal Law – A nation-state’s domestic law
 Foreign Law – A foreign nation-state’s domestic law
 Comparative Law – The study and comparison of the
domestic law of 2 or more nation-states
 International Law – The law governing the inter-relations of
nation-states
Foreign & Comparative Law
 This is not as easy as you think it will be
 Each of the 192 or so nation-states in the world has a distinct
and complex legal system that, just like ours, requires years
of study to master
 Most countries neither legislate nor adjudicate in English
 The first place to start is the Foreign Law Guide, available on
our A to Z list
International Law
 3 sources of international law:
 Treaties
 Custom
 General Principles of Law
 The last 2 would take us until sometime tomorrow to discuss
how to find….come see Bill or me
 Treaty finding can also be daunting, but we have a few tips
that will help you 75% of the time
 For the remaining 25%, come see Bill or me
General International Law Info
 The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, from
our A to Z list
 Janis & the nutshell are both excellent
 Research Guides from the American Society of International
Law, NYU, LLRX, etc.
 My own online IL list is useful (it links through the WCL
proxy server):
http://internationalcourts.net/presentations/InternationalLegal
ResearchOnline.php
Finding Treaties
 US Treaties
 If the US is a party, it is US domestic law, and fairly easy to find
 HeinOnline has a Treaties & Agreements Library with almost
everything you need
 The most current US treaties & agreements are on either the
State Department or Trade Rep’s websites
 Treaties not yet consented to are on Thomas
 Lexis/Nexis & Westlaw are useful, especially if you want to see
how US courts have interpreted a treaty
Non-US Treaties
 May be much more difficult to find
 A UNTS or LNTS cite makes life easier
 A treaty between 2 foreign countries, especially if neither
have English as an official language, and also especially if they
are developing nations, can be a real challenge
 Come find Bill or me
Zotero & EndNote
John Heywood
Foreign and International Law Librarian
[email protected]
Reference Management Software
 Tools to help you collect,
organize, cite, and share
your research sources
 There are many competing
products
 We will talk about the two
most popular:
Zotero & EndNote
 Free open-source software
(both free as in beer and
free as in speech)
 Developed by scholars for
scholars
 Organizes all of your
sources: bibliographic info,
notes, pdfs, websites, etc.
 One-click source collecting
 Automatically senses what
type of source you are
storing
 Grabs database search
results from library
catalogs, LegalTrac,
amazon, Google Scholar,
etc.
 Will not import from
Lexis/Nexis or Westlaw
 Lets you tag your sources
and notes
 Integrates with Word,
LibreOffice, & GoogleDocs
so you can insert sources
into footnotes in whatever
style you choose
 1500+ different styles,
including the Bluebook,
Chicago, & Oxford
 Syncs with zotero.org so
your info is available on the
web or on multiple
machines
 Work with your data on
any web browser
anywhere…just login to
your free zotero.org
account (300 Mb free,
$20/year for 2 Gb)
 You can share your
research
 Easy backup of all your
work
 Easy to generate a
bibliography
 Mobile apps for iOS &
Android which you can use
while offline or on
 2 versions:
 One that lives inside
Firefox as an extension
 One that is standalone with
plugins for Firefox, Safari,
& Chrome (IE works as
well, but it is very clunky)
 Both versions work with
Windows, Mac, & Linux
Get it at:
zotero.org
 Proprietary software
owned by Thomson
Reuters, the folks who own
WestLaw
 Will not import from
Lexis/Nexis or Westlaw
 Works well with most
other databases
 Very similar in function to
Zotero
 A standalone app with
plugins for Word and IE
 Has a web app called
EndNote Web which allows
collaboration
 Works in Windows or Mac
 Has 5000+ styles,
including the Bluebook,
Chicago, & Oxford
 Has a mobile web app, but
you must be connected to
the web while using it
 No user-defined tags
 Retails for $299.95, but
you can download it from
AU for free while you are a
student
 Go to:
myau.american.com
Which to choose?
 They are both very useful
 Zotero is always free, and
your data is in an open
format
 EndNote is free while you
are a student, and your data
is in a proprietary format
 Most folks I know despise
Endnote, but your mileage
may vary
Research Strategies &
Useful Print Materials
Amy Taylor
Access Services Librarian, Pence Law Library
BEGINNING YOUR
RESEARCH
Get organized!
 Create a research log, whether in paper, on a spreadsheet or
in a word-processing document.
 You will need to keep track of the sources you consult and
use for your paper in order to provide complete citations and
full bibliographic information of every source you cite or use
generally.
 Be thorough!
Source Gathering
 If you need a source that is not available at the Pence Law
Library, you can obtain it through interlibrary loan.
 Be sure to leave enough time to obtain your source through
ILL – it may take as long as 2 weeks to get your material.
 Additional information on interlibrary loan is posted at
http://library.wcl.american.edu/ill.cfm
Your Research Strategy
 Depends on what you know
 The less you know the more you need secondary sources
 Legal pubs are either chronological, by subject or both
 ALWAYS update your research (Keycite/Shepardize) and
generally pay attention to the dates of what you are using
Evaluate websites
 Rely on authoritative and
 Use Google Scholar – an
unbiased sites
 Know your search engines
and how they work
 NEVER use (or admit to
using ) Wikipedia
 Keep a record of the sites
you visit and preserve their
URL’s
amazing resource but it’s
complicated
 Use more than one search
engine
 NEVER rely exclusively on
the Internet (or Lexis and
Westlaw)…
More
 Legal research sources derived from the print - “human
ordering” (key numbers, indexes, citators). Your skills are
derived from the online world – you need to bridge that
divide to do the BEST research
 Let someone else do the initial and basic work for you (and I
don’t mean the office paralegal!)
Update Your Research!
 Always be sure to use the most current information
available.
 Use Shepards and Keycite to insure that the cases you use are
still good law, and consult the most recent version of
applicable statutes and regulations to determine if they are
still in force and have not been amended.
Keeping your Research Updated
LexisNexis Shepard’s
Updates
Google Alerts
Westlaw Alerts
CONCLUDING YOUR RESEARCH
Ask yourself the following:
 Did you answer the question you originally started with?
 Have you checked and updated all the sources you used and
cited?
 Are you seeing the same sources every time you attempt to
do further research.
 If you do you are probably finished, especially if your deadline is
approaching.
More questions?
or
Still looking for a source?
 Consult an expert reference librarian. Come to the Reference
Desk in the library or email us at [email protected] If it
takes you longer than 10 minutes to find something you are
better off asking the experts – your librarians!
Please do not forget to fill out
your evaluation forms
Thank You,
Pence Law Library