Congratulations to the winners of our prize drawings from the Cornell Law Library’s student survey! 2L Joseph Pohlkamp is the winner of the reserved study carrel for Fall semester 2011, and 3L Lilian Balasanian won the $25 Cornell Store gift card.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate in the survey. Your feedback helps us make the library even better. We will share the results of the survey with you soon.
The library wants to know what you think–about our space, our classes, our reference and circulation desks, and more. Your feedback is especially important now as the Law School prepares to undertake a redesign project to improve how the building meets your needs. It should take you 5-10 minutes to take the survey, which is available here.
After you take the survey, you can enter a drawing for either a reserved study carrel for Fall semester 2011 or a $25 Cornell Store gift card. Thank you for your time and feedback.
Cornell Law Library will miss our colleague, supporter, and great friend Professor Robert S. Summers who retired at the end of last year. At his last contracts class in December of 2010, part of a series of Retirement Events, Professor Summers was honored by former and present students, colleagues, family, and friends. He had two opportunities to address the group and in his first brief remarks he said it was the most appropriate occasion “to express his profound gratitude for 42 years at Cornell Law School.” He expressed gratitude to his students, colleagues, research assistants, and administrative assistants, and “gratitude to the attentive and very helpful librarians – God bless them – their great contributions should be acknowledged more often.”
Later, near the end of the occasion, he said:
I wish also to express my profound gratitude and appreciation … to the excellent librarians, without whom naught! I’m a book worm and those librarians have satisfied the appetite of that worm in a most remarkable way. And sometimes I fear the librarians don’t get quite their due and I want to emphasize their importance.
And for a good many years I not only was heavily engaged in supporting our librarians here but I was chair of the Cornell University Library board. And we did our best to get people in line to support the Library budget and to support the efforts of the librarians to make the campus conscious of the profound importance of those libraries. We just tend too often to take all those books on those shelves for granted. Let me tell you there’s a lot of work behind that, a lot of careful attention behind that, and much gratitude is due.
We can use your input: Cornell Law Library is a Federal Depository Library, officially designated to have U.S. federal documents and information for you, the university, and the community. Primarily, we receive the law-related materials, such as U.S. Reports, the official U.S. Code, the Code of Federal Regulations, etc. We are obligated to organize and help you use the materials, in print and on the web, which come to us at no charge.
The Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) is conducting a web survey this month to learn what you think of the value of the program. The survey is at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HSLCRRB and is available until February 28, 2011. At the conclusion of the survey we will receive a report with aggregated responses and comments from our Law Library users, which will be used to help us determine the value of the FDLP here and to facilitate the development of outcomes-based performance measures.
If we are doing our jobs well, the federal documents will be a seamless part of the Cornell Law Library collection and services. Our aim is to integrate the federal documents with all the other materials in the library. You are encouraged to complete the web survey and let us know how we are doing!
A research attorney is available at the reference desk every weekend the library is open on Saturdays from 1:00 to 5:00 pm. No reference help is available on Sundays. If you are doing research for a paper this semester, you may find a research attorney’s guidance very helpful in finding resources that are difficult or seemingly impossible to locate. We don’t want you to be disappointed if you show up on Sunday looking for help. Research attorneys are also available to assist you at the reference desk from 9am-5pm Mondays through Fridays. You may contact any of the research attorneys via e-mail with a question or to make an appointment. Make A Plan – Work Your Plan – Get It Done!
Having top notch skills is invaluable in today’s job market, so the law librarians are offering three courses in the spring semester to help you hone those skills:
Business Law Research and Online Legal Research: Free Sources meet for just 6 ½ weeks at the beginning of the semester. International and Foreign Legal Research meets all semester. You can read full descriptions and contact the course instructor for more information to help you make your choice. See why so many law students say their advanced legal research course was the most practical course they had in law school!
Have you ever wanted to borrow a book held by the Cornell University Library system only to find out it is checked out, on reserve, or missing? Even though Cornell has almost 8 million volumes, this can certainly happen. What to do? If the book is signed out to another reader you can recall the book from the reader who has it, which can take up to two weeks. Or, you can go to Borrow Direct and request it.
The Borrow Direct group consists of Ivy League schools that have agreed to loan each other books for a month–so you have just gained access to seven additional university libraries. The books generally arrive within four working days. Now you can even renew books obtained through Borrow Direct.
To obtain a book through Borrow Direct online, go to Requests in the Online Catalog, doing a search, and requesting the book. Your request is tracked and you are kept informed when your request has been received, when it has been filled by the lending library, and when it has arrived at Cornell. You can then pick up the book at the circulation desk in the Law Library.
So, not only do you have the libraries at Cornell subject to your requests, you have those other Ivy League Schools library materials available to you. If you have any problems making a request, please see someone at the circulation desk. They will be happy to assist you.
If you are headed up to Olin Library for library materials, your trip may not be instantly rewarding. Olin is in the midst of a Fire Safety Improvements Project, which means various floors of the library and certain collections will not be accessible.
For specifics on the status of collections at Olin, check their schedule online, as well as the latest updates.
In the closed areas, the materials are still available but library staff will have to get them for you. They will retrieve materials once a day, Mondays through Friday, after 2:00 pm. No weekend retrievals.
To avoid a wasted trip, remember that many books can be sent to you here at the Law Library from Olin (and other libraries on campus). When you find the item in the online catalog, click “Requests” on the screen and complete the information, selecting LAW as the library to which you want it sent.
Pardon the dust while safety improvements are underway!
You can gain vital research skills for your career with one of the six courses offered next year by the Research Attorneys. Most of the courses last just 6½ weeks – you have room in your schedule for that! Take your pick from:
You can read full descriptions and contact the course instructor for more information.
Next year the three-credit Advanced Legal Research seminar will not be offered. So take advantage of this large number of research options in a course or two of your choice. The skills and confidence you will gain are invaluable!
Now is the time to set up a research consultation to prepare for your summer job. An appointment with a Research Attorney is the perfect way to get ready for your summer employment, whether you are clerking for a judge, working in a law firm, volunteering for a nonprofit, or researching for a professor. You can set up a mutually convenient time with the Research Attorney of your choice (or indicate no preference) using the online form. Let us know where you will be working and how we can help you. Maybe you want to know how to:
Appointments last about 15 minutes to an hour depending on your needs, and you leave with a handout listing materials to help you over the summer. We guarantee that a consult will be useful to you in the real world and encourage you to meet with us one-on-one.
