ProQuest Research Library in a Nutshell

Introducing the newest member of our LibGuides lineup:  ProQuest Research Library

Want to know what ProQuest Research Library is?  What content does it cover?

Need some search tips?  From Boolean operators to truncation characters, we’ve got you covered.

Want to know how to use searchable fields and the Thesaurus feature?

In need of more information about viewing your results?

Want to know how the My Research tool can help you save, manage and organize the content and supporting materials you find in ProQuest?

Interested in some sample searches?

Check out this LibGuide to get more information on all aspects of ProQuest Research Library including content, searching, and viewing results on the new ProQuest platform.  And as always, don’t hesitate to ask your friendly library staff for assistance!

~Ashley Moye~

Check Out Our Video Tutorials!

Want to know more about using our specialized legal resources such as HeinOnline, ProQuest Research Library or JSTOR?  The Charlotte Law Library has tutorials for that.

Want to learn more about our library catalog?  Placing holds?  Accessing electronic resources from the comfort of your own home?  Searching our your course reserves?  Yep – we’ve got tutorials for those too.

Need some assistance with your legal research?  Stymied by legislative history?  In need of some guidance with your common law research?  Want to know more about resources like the USCA, ALR and CJS?  We’ve got you covered.

Just head on over to our Going Digital: Electronic Research Resources LibGuide and click on the CSL Video Tutorials tab to find all of these tutorials and more.

Check out this one on using the ScholarCheck feature in HeinOnline!

HeinOnline ScholarCheck

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~Ashley Moye~

UPDATED: Summer Access to Lexis Advance & More

Have you heard the news?

Lexis Advance will be available all summer for students engaged in the following pursuits:

•          Summer course preparation and assignments

•          Research associated with Moot Court, Law Review, or Law Journal

•          Research associated with pursuing a grant or scholarship

•          Service as a paid or unpaid research assistant to a professor

•          An internship, externship or clinic position for school credit or graduation requirement

•          Study for the bar exam

•          Research skill improvement for educational purposes

Students do not have to do anything extra to “register” for summer access besides just registering their Lexis Advance ID like many have already done.  If you need any help in registering, stop by the Reference Desk in the Library or contact our Lexis Representative, Carmela Orsini at carmela.orsini@lexisnexis.com or 678-646-8721.  See the Policy on Use of LexisNexis Law School Educational IDs for more information.

UPDATE: Students may also register for Lexis.com (Lexis Classic) for summer access for the same academic reasons as Advance.

Here’s the full policy:

Full Access to Lexis Advance™ this Summer for Academic Purposes
We are happy to announce that you will have full access to Lexis Advance™ to complete your research this summer. You simply need to be registered for Lexis Advance and use it for educational purposes only.

Registering for Summer Access

• If you’re already registered for Lexis Advance, you don’t need to do anything else to get Summer Access.
• If you aren’t a registered Lexis Advance user, click here for assistance from your Account Executive.

Guidelines for Summer Access
You may use your Lexis Advance ID from June 1 – August 1, 2012 for academic purposes** which include, but are not limited to:

• Summer course preparation and assignments
• Research associated with Moot Court, Law Review, or Law Journal
• Research associated with pursuing a grant or scholarship
• Service as a paid or unpaid research assistant to a professor
• An internship, externship or clinic position for school credit or graduation requirement
• Study for the bar exam
• Research skill improvement

Register for Summer Access to lexis.com®
If you require access to lexis.com for educational purposes this summer, you must complete the lexis.com registration form. This form will grant you full access to lexis.com from June 1, 2012 – August 1, 2012.

Rewards and Support throughout the Summer
Continue your research throughout the summer with your Lexis Advance ID – and earn LexisNexis Rewards points. In June and July, complete the monthly Spotlight YouTube video and quiz and you will earn 200 points for each.

Your school’s LexisNexis Account Executive is available to you during the summer for training and support. Feel free to contact him or her early to let them know your summer research goals.

You also have access to 24/7 customer support for help with Lexis Advance, summer access or research questions at 1-800-45-LEXIS (53947).

*Students and graduates (including December 2011 graduates) engaged in verifiable 501(c)(3) public interest work may apply for access to Cases, Codes, Law Reviews, Shepard’s, and Matthew Bender treatises on lexis.com through the ASPIRE 2012 program, which will be available in early April. Verifying documentation is required. Exclusions apply.

**“Academic purposes” do not include research conducted for a law firm, corporation, or other entity (other than a professor or law school) that is paying you to conduct research, or that is passing along the cost of research you conduct to a third party. These are deemed “commercial purposes.” LexisNexis is committed to ensuring that its educational IDs are used by authorized users for legitimate purposes. To ensure that the highest standards of consumer privacy and data security are met, LexisNexis regularly monitors search activity and reviews usage patterns. There can be consequences when inappropriate searches are performed.

 

Need summer access to Westlaw?   Go to Westlaw Password Extension for more information.

Come see us in the Library if you have any questions or concerns!

~Mary Susan Lucas~

Prisoner Sues Over WestLaw

What is better, print or electronic??  The debate between print and electronic resources continues to wage in libraries across the country, but now an unlikely stakeholder is weighing in.

Dwayne Harris has been incarcerated in a Ohio state prison, serving a sentence for rape, kidnapping, felonious assault and aggravated assault since 1989.  The prison library replaced the print copies of law books with an electronic subscription to WestLaw and upon doing so upset Harris.  Now, Dwayne Harris has filed a lawsuit against the prison and is asking for $80,000 in compensatory damages and up to $200,000 in punitive damages because in Harris’ opinion this shift from print to electronic  has violated his constitutional right to a law library.

Prisoners do, in fact, have a right to a law library or legal assistance ever since Bounds v. Smith in 1977, but the question is whether the resources in this Ohio state prison law library are adequate.  Although the library that Harris uses contains some books, 7 computers with WestLaw, and assistance from law librarians, he alleges that this is not enough.  In Harris’ complaint he states that the prison is missing 14 vitally important books from the American Association of Law Libraries minimum collection, that he is computer illiterate, and that 7 computers are not enough for all the prisoners to conduct legal research on.

As you can see, many people are weighing in on the debate between print  and electronic resources.  What do you think?

~ Brian Trippodo~

1L? There’s a LibGuide for That…

With the new semester just days away and our 1L orientation well underway, Charlotte Law classrooms are filled again and the school is bustling with excitement.  It seems like a fantastic time to point a finger at one of our newest LibGuides, Commonly Used 1L Resources.

This LibGuide is filled to the brim with tips, tricks and a variety of print and electronic resources hand selected by Charlotte Law students to help you survive your first year in law school.

Here you’ll find not only online materials specifically targeted to your 1L needs and books available through our library, but how-to-guides, tutorials, quick reference cards, specialized research guides and so much more…

Westlaw, TWEN, LexisNexis and CALI questions?  We’ve got you covered.  There’s even a collection of amusing law school videos to peruse when the stress quotient ratchets up too high and the sweet release of laughter is needed.  Check out this gem from George Washington University’s Law Review below…

So to all of our new students – enjoy the beginning of your semester, and be sure in the coming years to capitalize on all of the support the library can offer you on your journey!

~Ashley Moye~

The “WOW” factor – Encore Synergy and the Charlotte School of Law Library Catalog

You’ve seen the posters, the signs and the “WOW” buttons worn by staff and faculty.  Soon you’ll see a change in the CSL Library catalog. Beginning the week of August 15th, you’ll be able to construct and launch your search of library materials from a single search box, much as you would do a Google search.

Click here to discover the power of library search...

Encore Synergy provides a method of federated searching across various resources.  This means that in addition to searching the CSL library catalog for physical holdings at our school, you’ll be able to simultaneously search multiple resources. Not only will you be able to retrieve books, journal titles, e-books, DVDs and cassettes, but you will also be able to retrieve abstracts and full text articles from our specialized electronic resources.  Specifically, you’ll be able to retrieve full text articles from HeinOnline.

For example, if you wanted to search for only articles on the subject of Dred Scott, you would click on the word “articles” in the top left corner and enter the words “Dred Scott” in the search box.  You results would include a list of citations and access to the full text in pdf format when available.

Your results would also be sorted by source and listed along the left side of the screen.  For example, this search indicates that there were 1149  references to Dred Scott in the HeinOnline resource,  30 in the Legal Trac resource, and others available in the Making of Modern Law, etc.

The Charlotte School of Law Library staff will be presenting training opportunities and will be available to answer any questions you have concerning this resource.

~Susan Catterall~

Try the Facebook App for Libguides!

Click here to access the LibGuide App for Facebook

First off, what is a LibGuide?  LibGuides are electronic research guides that will make you a more effective and efficient researcher.  They are a “pathfinder” that will guide you to the best places to begin your research.  Charlotte Law Library has published ten LibGuides so far and we are always working on new ones.  Many of you have used the LibGuide for Electronic Resources as it has had over 13,000 views this year alone!  LibGuides are not just helpful for classwork – our dedicated librarians have also created LibGuides to guide our students through Academic Success and Professional Development, but you will hear more about those in upcoming weeks!

The reach of LibGuides extends far beyond our Charlotte Law Library community because it encompasses over 170,000 guides created by over 33,000 librarians at over 2000 libraries worldwide!  The LibGuides Community is searchable and you will find almost ninety law libraries represented by hundreds of LibGuides.

LibGuides are more accessible than ever thanks to Facebook.  The next time you login to Facebook, type “LibGuide” in the search box and you will be directed to where you can add the LibGuide app, giving you access through Facebook to all those helpful pathfinders located here at Charlotte Law Library and all across the country.  Try it today!

Have a suggestion for a new LibGuide that you would like to see here at Charlotte Law Library?  Email the Reference Desk and let us know!

~Mary Susan Lucas~

Happy 3rd Birthday, Open Access Directory!

May 1^st of this year marked the three year anniversary of the Open Access Directory.  What is the Open Access Directory, you ask?  It’s a wiki-based reference source containing simple fact based lists about open access (OA) in science and scholarship.  These lists include Blogs about OA, Data repositories, Educational materials about OA, Institutions that support open access, OA journal business models and more.

OAD believes that “by bringing many OA-related lists together in one place, OAD makes it easier for everyone to discover them, use them for reference, and update them. The easier they are to maintain and discover, the more effectively they can spread useful, accurate information about OA.”  As a reference work that lives on a social media platform, this resource is an ever-changing constantly-growing site where Open Access factual material is collected and maintained by all players in the OA community, making it an invaluable tool during any OA related research.

Want to know more about Open Access?  Check out our LibGuide at http://cslguides.charlottelaw.edu/openaccess for primary and legal open access search engines, links to blogs, wikis, newsletters and resource centers dedicated to open access, core documents in the open access movement and an A-Z listing of selected open access journals available on the web.

~ Ashley Moye ~

LexisNexis & Westlaw Summer Access

Just as a reminder, LexisNexis and Westlaw provide only limited access to students during the summer between late June and August 1st. However, students wishing to use their LexisNexis and Westlaw student accounts for a qualifying academic purpose may register to extend their access through the summer. If you did not request an extension from Westlaw or LexisNexis, your access will be denied.  Full access for continuing, non-graduating students will be restored on August 1st. LexisNexis and Westlaw strictly prohibit the use of student accounts for commercial purposes.

LexisNexis Summer Access

Lexis passwords can be extended for academic purposes over the summer at the Law School welcome screen.  Choose Account Help > Manage My Account > Summer Access Registration.

You must certify one of the following academic purposes to be granted full summer access:

• Class preparation and assignments;
• Research associated with moot court or law review/law journal;
• Research associated with pursuing a grant or scholarship;
• Service as a research assistant to a professor (either paid or unpaid);
• An unpaid internship, externship or clinic position for school credit;
• Clerkship for credit; or
• Bar review.

If you do not register for summer access, your LexisNexis student ID will be limited to career materials as of June 30th. Graduating students may extend their accounts to August 1st.  Graduating students whose employment has been deferred or who are pursuing public interest employment should considering applying for access through the LexisNexis ASPIRE program.

If you have any questions about LexisNexis summer access, please contact LexisNexis Technical Support at 800 45 LEXIS (53947)

Westlaw Summer Access

Summer access to Westlaw can be requested online at: http://lawschool.westlaw.com/registration/SummerExtension.aspx.

You may extend your Westlaw student password for summer use for the following academic purposes:

• Summer law school classes (use for law review competition, written work requirement, LLM paper or SJD dissertation);
• Law review or journal work;
• Project for a law school professor;
• Moot Court
• Unpaid non-profit public interest internship/externship or pro bono work required for graduation (does not include courts and government agencies).

If you have any questions about Westlaw summer access, please contact Westlaw Technical Support at 1-800-Westlaw.

- Lyn Batty -

Have You Checked CSL’s On-Line Catalog?

Purpose:

• The on-line catalog can provide you with resources on a particular subject or topic for research.
• You can find out if an item is available or unavailable. (If it’s unavailable, it will provide you with the due date or the time it is due).
• It provides you with the listing of our movie collection (go to ‘subject’ and type ‘featured films’ and click on the ‘feature films’ title).
• It provides the item call number and location. (If you need help from Circulation/Reference, please have the call number written down so we can assist you faster).
• You can find out what Academic Success Supplemental Materials we have in our CPAS/Academic Success Collection.
• You can check to see what items you’ve checked out and when they’re due by clicking the ‘My Library Record.’
• You can find out what textbooks your professor is using in class by clicking ‘Course Reserves’ and you can choose either by course or instructor’s name.
• The on-line catalog can be used on or off campus.
• If you’re viewing from home, you can look-up an item to see if it’s available or unavailable before leaving home. The next time you need to know if a book, movie or supplemental is available or unavailable, just check the on-line card catalog.

- Monica Alston-Carr -