Library Renovation Nearing Completion

The renovation of the reserve room and development of the law library's first floor Research Commons is nearing completion. Research materials have been moved back into the space and are available for faculty and student use. The newly configured reference desk is now staffed by the reference librarians and additional seating and work tables continue to arrive daily with the final installation to be completed on Monday, November 22. Your patience is greatly appreciated as we work to finish up this dynamic new study and work environment.

Library Receives Art Gift

The whimsical statute “A Lawyer More Than Adequately Attired in Fine Print,” inspired by the work by American artist, James Christensen, was donated to the library by Dean Paul Cox in memory of Ronald Taylor Astin.  Mr. Astin, Dean Cox’s brother-in-law, received his J.D. from the University of Chicago (1977) and was a successful corporate partner with the law firm of Vinson & Elkins (Houston and Washington, D.C.) and a professor at the South Texas School of Law in Houston.

The artwork is located in the glass display case to the left of the stairs to the second floor along with an accompanying description.  You are invited to closely examine Christensen’s lawyer and decide if you agree with his portrayal of the law profession: 

"In a world of black and white, this attorney is more comfortable in the grey area. As he studies a grain of truth, his watch records the billing hours not in minutes but in dollars and his assistant provides just enough rope for his clients to hang themselves. The scruffy stuffed owl is sewn onto his jacket for the impression of wisdom and he displays an adequate supply of loopholes on his jacket. Does he remind you of a lawyer you know?" -James Christensen

Library Hours: Thanksgiving Recess, Exam Period and Winter Recess

November Lobby Display: Exam Resources

The monthly displays in the library are always intended to be informative, as well as to bring some color and interest to the library lobby. But in most cases, these displays contain an educational element as well. The next time you’re in the library, please take a look at the November display. It ties in with a Thanksgiving theme, but its educational focus is the resources the library provides for exam preparation.

Titled, "Thanksgiving for the Abundance of Exam Prep Resources," the display showcases a number of print resources on helpful study practices, exam preparation strategies, and faculty expectations relating to the examination process. It also includes numerous online resource links, some provided by other law schools and/or law faculty, that will address some of the concerns you might be experiencing, especially if you are facing law school final exams for the first time.

The individual books in the display are available for check-out and the library owns duplicate copies of many of the titles. Please be sure to take the books to the Circulation Desk, along with your JagTag, to charge them out. A handout list of the online resources is in the basket near the display. Feel free to take a copy for future reference.

While you’re admiring the cornucopia of vegetables, fruit, nuts, and fall foliage, and the resources, please don’t forget that the most abundant resource in the library is the collective legal research experience shared by our enthusiastic and knowledgeable reference librarians. If there are any questions we can answer or sources we can help you locate, please don’t be shy. We’re here at your service and are always happy to assist you in finding the materials you need.

One final note. The law library faculty and staff extend their best wishes to you for a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving week and continued success as you prepare for and take fall semester final exams.

Spotlight On: BNA Online Resources

Going Beyond Lexis and Westlaw

Beyond Lexis and Westlaw, there are many other online legal research resources from which law faculty, law students, and lawyers do their legal research. The library has a rich supply of online resources for research. Besides Lexis and Westlaw, some online resources are very well known like HeinOnline. But some law students have never heard of the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA), an independent law publisher of more than 300 print and online news, analysis and references services. BNA is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, with reporters covering Capitol Hill and the world for over 75 years.

Specialized Coverage of Specific Legal Topics

BNA provides intensive coverage of legal, legislative, regulatory, economic and international developments on a wide range of topics. BNA print and online resources are heavily used in law firms because of their proven specialization (and at less cost for many law firms) in the areas of tax law, labor and employment law, environmental law, professional conduct, criminal law, family law, antitrust law, and securities regulation. Access to a variety of BNA products is available from the library's electronic resources page.

The library’s online BNA database collection includes antitrust and trade regulation, corporate practice, criminal law, family law, international environmental law, labor and employment, securities regulation, BNA tax management portfolios, the ABA/BNA Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Conduct, and United States Law Week. BNA provides thorough reporting and analysis on legislative activity, case law, and legal trends.

BNA Provides Good Tools for Topic Selection and Specialized Research

New members of law reviews and journals often have difficulty locating a new legal topic or case on which to write about. BNA has many publications that are good resources for student writers beginning their search for a legal topic. Law review topics often need to be timely and unique. The topic you choose can allow you to demonstrate your analytical, legal, and writing skills. BNA’s coverage of hot topics provides the researcher with resources that are needed to find information on breaking news or a current topic on which legal commentators may have not yet written. BNA provides a Hot Topics section that includes Editor Pics and My Pics.

U.S. Law Week Features

BNA publications cover over 200 sources, published daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. Coverage includes a variety of specialized legal news sources such as intellectual property, privacy, banking, commerce, bankruptcy, and labor and employment. BNA’s United States Law Week covers all areas of the law. Many law faculty and law students throughout the country use United States Law Week to identify Hot Topics, Editors Pics, and My Pics for topics to write about for potential publication. Key features of United States Law Week include (1) Circuit Splits and (2) From the Editors. Core Sections include (1) Case Alert, (2) Legal News, and (3) Supreme Court Today.

In addition to United States Law Week, there are many other BNA publications, which can be useful in selecting topics and doing research. Some of the BNA online resources available to law school faculty and students include, among others, ABA/BNA Lawyers' Manual on Professional Conduct; Antitrust & Trade Regulation Report; Corporate Practice Library; Family Law Reporter;International Environment Reporter; Labor and Employment Law Library; Securities Regulation & Law Report; U.S. Law Week; and BNA Tax Management Portfolios. The library's electronic resources page provides a complete list of full-text BNA online titles available to you.

Sign up for e-mail headlines and alerts from BNA publications

Law faculty and students may sign up for current e-mail headlines and alerts from a variety of BNA publications. The service is free with multiple delivery options. Users may link directly from the email summary to the full-text articles. Step-by-step account set up instructions walk you through the process; or contact a reference librarian for assistance in setting up your account.

Questions

If you have any questions about using any BNA online resource or any legal resource, or setting up your personal BNA account, please contact the library's reference librarians at the newly remodeled reference desk, or by phone 317.274.4026, or use the live reference chat.

The Paper's Due When? Everything You Wanted to Know about Writing A Legal Research Paper But Were Afraid to Ask

Writing a seminar or other legal research paper involves using a wide variety of primary and secondary resources and scholarly literature. Your research topic may involve interdisciplinary research that requires you to use cultural, political, economic, historical, and social sciences sources. This article provides an introduction to print and electronic resources beyond Westlaw and Lexis (and Google) and includes general research and writing guidance. As always, the law library’s reference librarians are available to provide you with additional assistance. You may call the reference librarians at 317.274.4026; or locate a member of the library reference staff in the library’s online directory. Additionally, students may chat through instant messaging with a reference librarian.

Identifying a Paper Topic

Identifying a paper topic of interest to you within the broad parameters of your seminar or class assignment can be as daunting as researching and writing the paper itself. Often, consulting with your professor or librarian or browsing legal sites is helpful in finding a topic and to develop the necessary background for your topic. The following may help you discern a topic to research and write on:

• Social Science Research Network (SSRN) provides access to scholarly work and articles prior to formal publication. Scholars post working drafts and abstracts for comment and feedback.
• The Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress) provides preprints of scholarly work prior to publication in journals.
• Jurist (University of Pittsburgh School of Law), is a legal news and real-time legal research service read by academics and practitioners.
• Various National and local legal newspapers such as: The National Law Journal, New York Law Journal and the Indiana Lawyer (available in print in the library's Research Commons and online).
• Various Legal Looseleaf Services (in print and online) report on current developments in rapidly changing areas of law and are often good sources for paper topics. The library subscribes to print and electronic resources on a wide variety of topics, including, antitrust, corporate, criminal, health, securities and tax to name a few. The resources may be found on the library’s electronic resource page and through IUCAT, the University's online catalog.
• BNA, Lexis and Westlaw services each provide topical and research topic selection advice on their respective websites.

Researching Your Paper Topic

After choosing your topic, you will want to review both print and electronic resources to confirm there are sufficient primary and secondary sources available to you to fully research and write on your topic. The following provides general information on how to access books, articles and other research information.

Finding Books and other print materials

• IUCAT searches the Indiana University catalog for print and electronic materials. You may directly request materials from other Indiana University libraries through the "Request Delivery" link
• WorldCat provides comprehensive coverage of the world’s great library collections – containing more than 44 million books, videos, maps, sound recordings, scores, archives, manuscripts, and more – representing 400 languages. Please use your ILLiad account or see a law librarian for assistance to request materials through interlibrary loan or to set up a personal ILLiad account.
• Oxford Scholarship Online (available via the library electronic resources page) is a vast cross-searchable library which access to the full text of 2,763 Oxford books. The publications range from the foundations of legal history and philosophy to analytical and comparative work on legal doctrines and empirical research on law in modern society.
• Making of Modern Law (available via the library electronic resources page) has the full-text of over 22,000 treatises on U.S. and British law.

Finding Articles

• Hein Online is a comprehensive, image-based collection of hundreds of legal periodicals and other legal collections (Federal Register, U.S. Reports, and other legal classics). This is a fully-searchable online database.
• Westlaw (TP-ALL or JLR)
• Lexis (U.S. Law Reviews and Journals, Combined).

Finding Other Research Materials and Resources

• The Law Library's extensive electronic database collection provides access to a wide variety of current and historical primary and secondary resources. An annotated list of electronic resources is on the library's webpage.

Finding Indiana Materials

Indiana-specific resources and collections are available at the Indiana Supreme Court Library, Indiana State Library and Indiana Historical Society. Each of these institutions is a short walk from the law school.

• Indiana Supreme Court Law Library maintains a comprehensive collection of legal materials and is a repository for publications produced under grants from the State Justice Institute. The Law Library is also designated as a selective depository for United States Government publications.
• Indiana State Library is responsible for collecting and preserving all types of information and data about the state of Indiana. Researchers may visit the Indiana State Library or direct questions to the reference staff by phone (866-683-0008). The State Library website provides a complete listing of Online Reference Resources & Databases.
• Indiana Historical Society has print and digital material documenting the history of Indiana. Online digital resources include personal papers, business records, oral histories, photographs, postcards, prints, posters, paintings, films and videotapes. The print collection includes books, pamphlets, microfilm, maps, sheet music, printed ephemera and small artifacts.

Writing Your Paper

If you want a refresher on academic writing, the library’s collection includes helpful print resources. Here are a few examples:

• Academic Legal Writing: law review articles, student notes, seminar papers and getting on law review, 4th ed., Eugene Volohk, KF 250 V65 2010
• Just Writing: grammar, punctuation and style for the legal writer, 3rd ed., Anne Enquist, KF 240 O18 2009
• Scholarly Writing for Law Students: seminar papers, law review notes, and law review competition papers, 3rd ed., Elizabeth Fajans and Mary R. Falk, KF 250 F35 2005
• Legal Writing: getting it right and getting it written, 5th ed., Mary Barnard Ray, KF 250 R39 2010
• The Little Book of Plagiarism, 1st ed., Richard Posner, K 1485 P67 2007

There are also many valuable online writing resources: CALI (Computer Aided Legal Instruction) Lessons and other sites provide refreshers on citation format, grammar, writing and plagiarism, among other topics:

• ALWD Citation Form
• Punctuation and Grammar Basics for Law Students
• Punctuation and Grammar: Advanced
• Plagiarism - Keeping Out of Trouble
• The Plagiarism Court: You Be The Judge, from the Fairfield University DiMenna-Nyselius Library. This tutorial explains plagiarism and discusses “its legal and ethical consequences.” Included are suggestions for “note taking, documentation, and writing strategies to … avoid accidental plagiarism.”

Frequently Asked Questions about Online Research Guides

What are Online Research Guides?

A Research Guide is a good secondary resource to use when researching an unfamiliar area of law as a research guide pulls together the key primary and secondary resources on a particular topic. Guides include both print and electronic resources and often are structured to guide the researcher through the topic. Research Guides are created by law librarians and subject specialists and often are available online for free.

How do I find an Online Research Guide?

Research guides are found on academic law library and state and federal library and archive websites. For example, the Law Library of Congress provides detailed research guides by country and state in its Guide to Law Online. The Law Library of Congress is a great place to start if you are researching in an unfamiliar jurisdiction. For example, a Library of Congress state law guide may include links to administrative regulations, attorney general opinions, state government sites, judicial opinions, statutes, legislative history and legal guides particular to the jurisdiction. Keep in mind when searching for research guides that this resource may also be called a pathfinder, resource guide or research resource.

The following are a few means of locating online research guides:

• the CALI search engine is useful for searching across all law school websites;
• the Cornell University legal research search engine searches law library websites, including catalogs;
• a google search using "pathfinder" or "research guide" combined with the topic to be researched; and
• legal periodical indexes may be helpful in locating research guides that have been produced as articles and published in journals.

Evaluating an Online Research Guide?

As with with all resources, research guides need to be evaluated before being used. Standard criteria such as the following should be used to evaluate any guide:

• currency (check date of last revision or update);
• credentials of the author and the website hosting the guide;
• comprehensiveness (does the guide include print and electronic materials; is access to some material blocked due to subscription rights); and
• audience (does the content meet your needs).

One last reminder. Research guides, however helpful and authoritative, are secondary sources and should not be cited. As any secondary resource, a research guide is designed to introduce the topic and guide the research; it is not a substitute for research.

Online Citation Resources

CiteGenie and Zotero are two free online citation tools. The following provides a brief description of the features of each tool and information on how to access each service.

CiteGenie

CiteGenie generates a citation in correct Blue Book format. When using Westlaw or Lexis, this tool allows you to highlight a section of case law, right mouse click and “copy” the selected text to a clipboard. When you paste the selected text into your word processing document, the Blue Book citation is automatically generated and entered after the text.

Here are few tech tips when using CiteGenie:

• CiteGenie is a FireFox plugin; download the plugin and use Firefox.
• CiteGenie works best with case law and Lexis and Westlaw. (For example, it doesn’t generate a complete parallel citation in correct Blue Book format from Google Scholar.)
• You can download CiteGenie from the website, which also contains helpful FAQs and a chart that explains how to use CiteGenie in conjunction with Westlaw, WestlawNext and Lexis.
• CiteGenie is free for 90 days; further use requires registration and payment.

Zotero

Zotero is a free, open access extension that generates a citation in correct Blue Book and other formats.

• Zotero is a free, open access extension that runs in Firefox.
• Zotero senses when you are looking at an item and shows an icon for it in the Firefox location bar. Click on the icon to add the item to your Zotero references.
• Zotero works on all webpages and catalogs and many subscription databases, including some unique ones like HeinOnline and LexisNexis Academic.
• Zotero includes a number of other features helpful to researchers, including the abililty to:
  • save webpages and attachments in your Zotero account;
  • annotate saved web documents; and
  • tag, retrieve and share items in your Zotero account.
• You can download Zotero and access the user guide and tutorials from the website.
• Due to increasing interest in Zotero at Indiana University, the IU Libraries have created a Zotero listserv to build an online community for Zotero users at IU. This listserv is for anyone that uses Zotero as well as those who are interested in learning more about Zotero. The listserv provides a way for members of the Indiana University community to ask questions and share their knowledge and experiences with using Zotero. To subscribe to the listserv, send an email to listserv@indiana.edu with “subscribe zotero-l” in the body of the message (leave the subject blank).

Librarian and Staff News

Judith Ford Anspach, Professor of Law and Law Library Director, presented as part of the "Training Camp: How Libraries Can Benefit Hosting a Library Practicum Student" panel at the 61st Annual Ohio Regional Association of Law Libraries, October 20-21, 2010.

Wendell Johnting, Cataloging/Government Documents Librarian, was elected Secretary of InULA (Indiana University Librarians Association) for 2010-2012. He also continues to serve on the Board of the Indiana Library Federation's Human Resources Board.

Pamela Mueller-Anderson joined the circulation staff of the library in November. An alum, Pam received her J.D. in 2006, and her MLS in 2009 from the Indiana University School of Library and Information Science.

Steven R. Miller, Reference Librarian, was elected as the 2010-2011 President of InULA. Mr. Miller's article, "United Nations Databases and Web Sites for Legal Research and Education," is the cover article of the October, 2010 issue of Res Gestate. The article is available on Westlaw.

Ruth Lilly Law Library
 Lawrence W. Inlow Hall
 530 West New York Street
 Indianapolis, Indiana  46202-3325
Reference Desk - (317) 274-4026
Circulation Desk - (317) 274-4028

Hours are posted on the website and in the library.

Library hours - http://indylaw.indiana.edu/library/hours.htm
Reference hours - http://indylaw.indiana.edu/library/libservices.htm#RefHours