Law School and University Libraries

Abstract

Over time changing circumstances in legal education, scholarship and practice influenced law school library collections. Currently, increased demands for non-legal material and new technological enhancements are changing the law school library's environment. As a result, cooperative and collaborative collecting activities are flourishing between the University of Denver's law school library and its general library despite the autonomous administrative structure of the law school library.     

Converting the Future of Public Academic Law Libraries

This article focuses on the current predicament in which American public academic law libraries find themselves given the budgetary and space constraints that have been passed down to them over time. By examining the current standards and future possibilities that govern these particular libraries, this article seeks to assist acquisitions librarians within these libraries with a way to examine, maintain, and purchase a collection that will take their library forward, prove their value and worth, and stay within their constantly dwindling budgets while remaining true to the library's core mission and obligation of providing services and support to the law school's faculty and student body.     

Money and Leadership: A Study of Theses on Public School Libraries Submitted to the University of the Philippines' Institute of Library and Information Science

The author suggests the importance of knowledgeable leadership as a factor in improving Philippine school libraries. He offers a brief case study of how two different libraries fared with similar levels of funding. One without outstanding leadership did not advance; the other with knowledgeable leadership made large advances. This report is drawn from the author's earlier degree research at the University of the Philippines' Institute of Library and Information Science.     

DEVELOPING A DIGITAL REPOSITORY FOR A HUMANITIES RESEARCH NETWORK: THE PIONEER PROJECT

The Australian Research Council's Network for Early European Research (NEER) is a recent initiative aimed at broadening and deepening research in the field of medieval and early modern European studies. An integral part of the Network is its Digital Services Programme, which integrates a range of digital strategies designed to advance the Network's goals. Among these strategies is a project to develop a national discipline-based digital repository known as PioNEER. This paper looks at the issues that have arisen in the course of this project.     

Improving Research and Learning in Higher Education in Portugal: Digital Resources,E-Books,and a Discovery System as Enabling Factors for Students

ABSTRACT

This article describes a library's implementation of digital resources for research, teaching, and learning at a higher education institution in Portugal. A school specializing in education and teacher education established strategic performance areas related to digital resources for the fulfillment of its mission, which included some functions of the academic library. The library implemented a discovery system, and the school invested in a wider range of resources, including e-books, both acquired and institutionally published. The library's training programs were also revised to promote the new system and electronic resources. This case study describes how an academic library in Portugal responded to institutional needs, illustrating how libraries everywhere must connect to the larger vision and demonstrate value through technologies, integrating digital and print resources to provide access built around users' needs.     

Fostering a Community of Scholars at the University of Warwick: The Wolfson Research Exchange

This article focuses on the University of Warwick's Wolfson Research Exchange which opened in October 2008. It describes the varied environment that the facility offers to Warwick's research community, and explores the service model provided. The new approaches to learning space design and the students’ expectations that informed and influenced the Research Exchange's creation (as well as its ongoing service development) are also discussed. This case study provides an overview of the Research Exchange's developments, successes, and lessons learned which could be applicable to other institutions exploring dedicated spaces and support for their research communities.     

The Digital Humanities Summer Scholarship: A model for library-led undergraduate digital scholarship

ABSTRACT

The article offers a model for library-centered undergraduate engagement with digital scholarship based on two years of successful implementation at Lafayette College. Librarians designed a competitive six-week summer internship where undergraduate students built their own digital research projects. Through their original projects, students practiced traditional research methods and simultaneously explored subfields of digital scholarship. The article's topics include the relationship between digital scholarship and information literacy, the library's role in facilitating digital scholarship, and the internship's design and execution. The article also includes reflections and recommendations for sustainable implementation.     

Center Stage: Performing a Needs Assessment of Campus Research Centers and Institutes

Outreach to research centers and institutes is often overlooked in academic libraries. This article discusses a needs assessment conducted by the Liaison Services Department at the University of Houston Libraries that reviewed library services to centers and institutes at the University of Houston's main campus. The assessment was conducted for two purposes: to build collaborations with centers and to determine how the libraries might create new services and/or market existing services to meet the centers and institutes' growing research needs.     

Ranganathan's Third Law and Collection Access at Norcia: An Assessment

ABSTRACT

S. R. Ranganathan's Third Law of library science implies that books need help finding their way to each reader. From this law flows twelve corollaries which, when adapted to present day conditions, suggest evaluative criteria for assessing access to traditional book collections. In this essay, the author evaluates progress made over the last seven years in establishing a new library in Italy, employing the Third Law as a guide.     

Applying Research in Special Library Settings

ABSTRACT

Special librarians encourage their users to base decisions on vetted research results and quality information, yet when faced with a problem in their own work, they are more likely to turn to their network of colleagues than to published research. While learning from the experience of colleagues is valuable, greater application of research and evidence-based practice in the special library sector could benefit these libraries in making good, strategic decisions. A few studies have examined whether practitioners use library and information science research and what barriers keep them from doing so. Engaging practitioners and scholars in productive collaboration and communication can help practitioners find and apply lessons learned from research in their work and encourage more participation in research by special librarians. In turn, increased diversity in research settings can benefit all libraries as they evolve and learn from each other's experiences.     

Can I Bring My Gun? A Fifty-State Survey of Firearm Laws Impacting Policies Prohibiting Handguns in Public Libraries

In Capital Area District Library v. Michigan Open Carry, 826 N.W. 2d 736 (2012), the Michigan Court of Appeals concluded that state law preempted the library's weapons policy prohibiting firearms in the library. This survey asks how laws in each state impact similar policies prohibiting handguns in public libraries.     

Measuring Value in Open Access Repositories

Open access institutional repositories were created to promote access to information, encourage scholarly communication, and demonstrate institutional prestige. While these repositories have been widely adopted, the quality of their contents often fails to represent their institution's scholarly output. Moreover, current research uses measurements of quantity, not quality, to assess their value. In response, this article opens new areas of scholarly inquiry by assessing the quality of contents. This is accomplished through a cross-sectional study of repositories at American colleges and universities across the academic spectrum, using citation indexing to identify an institution's articles and authors of highest impact.     

New York State Public Library Systems and Their Services

This research revisited the conditions for establishing and funding public library systems in New York State Education Law and the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education, examined public library systems' organizational mission statements, and analyzed the public library systems' 2007–2011 five-year Plans of Service and 2008–2009 annual reports. The study found that public library systems in New York State generally provide services following the instructions in the state law and regulations and in their mission statements, although there are wide-ranging variations of actual service activities among public library systems based on their organizational and demographic characteristics.     

RLG and OCLC: Combined for the Future

On July 1, 2006, The Research Libraries Group, Inc. (RLG) and the Online Computer Library System (OCLC) combined their organizations and resources. RLG's products and services were integrated with OCLC's, and RLG's program initiatives went forward within an expanded OCLC Research division. This was a historic moment for libraries and research institutions consonant with the incredible changes in the information environment that had been underway during the previous decade. The expansion of WorldCat that resulted and the renewed attention given to research libraries by OCLC in the merger has positively impacted libraries around the globe.     

Perceptions of the Future of Cataloging: Is the Sky Really Falling?

Cataloging procedures have evolved in many academic research libraries over the past 10 years. Some predicted trends—outsourcing, original cataloging by paraprofessionals, more digital material—have been borne out. Others, such as a decline in the amount of material to catalog or in the number of professional catalogers, have not. Changes have been mostly procedural and have not affected the catalog itself. Recently, however, the emergence of powerful Internet search engines has allowed researchers to bypass the catalog. This has led some to question the wisdom of continuing it and others to vigorously defend current practice. In 2005–2007 this debate became especially heated, but a consensus appears to be emerging that although the character of the professional cataloger's job will continue to evolve over the next 5 to 10 years there will not be a revolution. The cataloger's basic skills will still be needed and the fundamental nature of cataloging will remain much as we know it.     

Marketing Law Libraries: Strategies and Techniques in the Digital Age

SUMMARY

Marketing is no longer a sporadic activity undertaken on an ad hoc basis, but rather has become an integral component of every library's day-to-day operations. This article provides an overview of basic marketing principles and then examines effective marketing strategies and promotional techniques in an academic environment. While viewed within the context of the law school setting, a majority of the marketing activities discussed are equally applicable in other types of law libraries.     

Retention Matters: Academic Libraries Leading the Way

Academic libraries have always strived to be purposively involved in the university's mission attainment efforts. Today, the increase of retention levels is paramount, and, in many cases, it is at the center of higher education institution's strategic plans. For Andrews University, for example, the goal is to reach 80% in the next five years. In the United States, student retention efforts become even more critical due, in part, to declining enrollment numbers set off by soaring higher education costs. Academic librarians are aware of the library's role in the university's overall efforts to increase persistence rates and curtail attrition. Through a literature review, this article highlights how academic libraries are participating in this process. This study focuses on how academic libraries can be leaders in their Institutions by adopting a user-centered philosophy and services that will promote life-long learning, enhance students’ academic experience, and promote engagement, leading to retention.     

HIV/AIDS research in India: A bibliometric study

This article looks at the growth over time of Indian AIDS research output based on bibliographic data from PubMed and Web of Science. Authorship distribution was examined using Lotka's law. Bradford's law of scattering was used to identify core journals. The study identifies active institutions and statewide distributions of Indian AIDS research output. The yearly analysis of data shows that there is a rapid growth of literature from 1992 onwards. Still, in an international sense, relative productivity of India is low and requires more focused research and development.     

Strategies for the Development of Public Libraries: A Survey of Selected Public Libraries in Lagos State,Nigeria

Public libraries serve as valuable assets in meeting a community's strategic goals. This article investigates strategies for the development of public libraries in Lagos State, Nigeria. Observation and questionnaire methods were used as research tools. The population of the study consists of librarians and users of public libraries in Lagos State. The eleven public libraries and twenty local government libraries in the state were surveyed. The major findings were that public libraries in Lagos State were not adequately funded and that the parent body has yet to meet the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) standard of public library establishment. The study highlighted the challenges facing public libraries in Lagos and offered some remedies.