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Library Resources
Access to Law Library Material
Library material should be checked out at the Circulation Desk. All books and periodicals will be given the due date of May 2nd, no matter when they are checked out to faculty. Borrowed items may be returned to the Circulation Desk or left on the book cart in the faculty copy room. Items may be renewed at the Circulation Desk.
The Law Library conducts periodic inventories of the library materials in faculty offices, usually soon after the May 2nd due date, to insure that our records accurately reflect circulation status.
All material is subject to recall if it is needed by another library user. Items that are recalled for other patrons must be returned to the Law Library within two days. Upon request, we will return recalled items to the faculty member as soon as possible.
Online Catalog
You can access Galileo, the university’s online library catalog, at http://galileo.valpo.edu. Galileo contains the records for all material held in the Law Library and the Christopher Center library. Galileo indicates where an item is located; whether it is checked out; and, if out, when it is due back. While viewing the record of an item that has been checked out, faculty who have set up a PIN for their patron record can put a hold on that item by clicking the “Request” button.
Faculty can create and save “preferred searches,” and they can rerun any search simply by clicking on that search. If they select “e-mail notification,” they will be informed weekly on Tuesday of any items found by a preferred search that have been added to Galileo. For e-mail notification, go to “Your Patron Record” in Galileo and set up a PIN. (If you forget your PIN, contact Naomi Goodman.) Then proceed to set up the preferred search, including e-mail notification, by using the directions “For VU faculty and staff only: Setting up ‘My Galileo’ and search alerts” posted under “Other Information ” in Galileo.
For help in using Galileo, click on the “Other Information ” option on the Galileo opening screen, check the short guides offered under each search type within Galileo, or contact your library liaison.
Interlibrary Loan
Books or journal articles that are not available in the collections of either the Law Library or the Christopher Center, or online may be requested from other libraries through our online Interlibrary Loan program- ILLiad. To access this program, select the Interlibrary Loan link on our Library Information page.
Although we make every effort to get items quickly, it may take a book 7-10 days to be delivered. Articles may be received sooner.
For more information, contact the Interlibrary Loan Manager at (219) 465-7876 or e-mail Pat.Glenn@valpo.edu. The Interlibrary Loan Office is located on the 2nd floor of the Law Library in Room 253 near the computer lab and is open Monday - Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Book Purchase Requests
The Law Library makes every effort to acquire material required to support faculty teaching and research, within the constraints of the library budget. We are usually able to purchase treatises, videos, and monographs. Adding continuations (periodicals and loose-leaf materials) to the collection may be more problematic but is frequently possible. Please contact Mary Persyn or Gail Hartzell with your requests.
Reference Services
Our librarians are trained and experienced in many areas of legal, general, and subject-specific research. They can help you devise solutions to specific research problems or answer general questions about research methods. Feel free to stop by the library or make an appointment. Reference librarians are available Monday through Thursday, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.; Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; and Sunday, 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. Reference hours change during breaks and holidays. Appointments for reference assistance can be made outside regular reference hours.
Library Newsletter
The Law Library publishes a newsletter, The Reporter, on an irregular basis. The Reporter contains information about services, publications, and events of interest to Law Library patrons. Copies are placed in faculty mailboxes, and recent issues are available on the library’s web page. To access The Reporter electronically, visit the Library Information page
Library Blawg
The librarians now maintain a web log in order to keep VUSL faculty and students apprised of new sources of legal information, changes to trusted sources, or simply new developments or happenings within the library itself. Visit our blawg at http://www.valpolawlibrary.blogspot.com/ .
Research Profiles
Periodically, we survey the faculty to identify their administrative, teaching, and publication interests. The resulting Faculty Interest Profiles assist us in responding to faculty needs through our procedures for collection development, circulation, reserve, reference, and automation.
Staff Directory
The Valpo Law Library team consists of six professional librarians and six staff members. Our librarians all have master's degrees in library science and three also have Juris Doctor's degrees. All have extensive legal research experience and four teach the first year and advanced legal research courses.
It is impossible to run a successful library without highly skilled and energetic staff members. Valpo is fortunate to have some of the best. They are involved with the day-to-day activities of the library, including circulation, interlibrary loan and processing the variety of material that comes into the library.Visit our pictorial directory for more information on the Valpo Law Library team including contact information.
Faculty Publications
Visit our Faculty Publications page for a current list of publications written by Valpo Law faculty.
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Classroom Resources
Research Lectures
Librarians can provide your classes with instruction in specialized areas of research. We can also provide independent study students with one-on-one or group training. When teaching research strategies for a particular subject area, we focus on both online and print sources found in the Law Library and elsewhere. We can work with you to develop assignments related to this instruction. Please make arrangements early in your course planning. To schedule a lecture, contact Steven Probst.
Audio/Visual Services
Audio/Visual requests are no longer coordinated by the Law Library, but can instead be emailed to Donna Patterson, Associate Administrator of Technology. You may also contact Donna by telephone at extension7843 or in person at Office #263.
Audio/Visual requests should be made no later than 48 hours before the equipment is needed and should include your name, the date and time the equipment is needed, and the name of the classroom where the equipment will be used.
Library Tours
Librarians provide individual and group tours of the Law Library. Tours are customized to the needs of the person or group taking the tour. Tours can be very brief or comprehensive and detailed; they can be tailored to the needs of you and your research assistants or to an entire class. Advance notice is needed. Contact Mary Persyn for arrangements.
Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI)
The Law Library provides access to all of the exercises offered by CALI. They can be accessed from all computers in the law school and also from off campus (http://www.cali.org). The first time you access the site, you will be asked to create your own password. For the current authorization code needed to access CALI or for other assistance, contact Mary Persyn or Mike Bushbaum.
Online Class Reserve & Exam Collection
General Reserve Collection
The general reserve collection is composed of items of high use or importance. It includes unbound periodicals as well as hornbooks, treatises, form books, the Indiana Code, and Indiana practice materials. Reserve items are available at the Circulation Desk.
Course Reserves
Faculty members may place items on reserve for a specific class. These items may be from the Law Library collection, or they may be from the faculty member’s own collection, in which case they are returned to the faculty member at the end of the semester. Items formerly on reserve as photocopies are now scanned and placed in PDF format on the Law Library’s electronic reserve (e-reserve) website—http://www.valpo.edu/law/lawlibrary/ereserve.html. The username is always “reserve.” The password changes each semester.
You may place items on reserve at the Circulation Desk. Please allow 72 hours (or 72 hours plus the weekend if you bring the item in on a Friday) for your item to become part of the reserve collection.
At the end of the semester, course reserves are returned to library shelves and faculty mailboxes. This includes any material that was placed on electronic reserve.
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VUSL Faculty Resources
Faculty Publications Collection
One of the Law Library’s collection development goals is to acquire copies of all Valpo Law faculty publications. The library displays faculty publications on a rotating basis with other displays in the library display case. If you have an article or book published, please have a copy sent to Mary Persyn for the display.
Current Awareness Services
The Law Library offers the following current awareness resources and services for the law faculty. Please contact your library liaison if you need help using any these:
• We have print and electronic versions of United States Law Week as well as other publications of the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA), including Antitrust and Trade Regulation Report, Criminal Law Reporter, Family Law Reporter—Current Reports, Labor Relations Reporter/Labor & Employment Law Library, and Securities Regulation and Law Report. For online versions of these titles, go to http://www.bna.com/lawschool and click on CORE on the right side of the screen. You can access these titles from off campus if you have a password. Contact Mary Persyn if you need remote access to these titles.
• The Law Library offers SmartCILP, an e-mail service which prefilters the weekly Current Index to Legal Periodicals from the University of Washington Law Library. To use SmartCILP, you create a profile of subject headings and journals that interest you. SmartCILP responds with an e-mail message listing citations that fulfill your profile criteria and sorting them under the subject headings you have chosen. SmartCILP also allows you to view a journal’s table of contents. You can change your profile as your interests change. Contact your library liaison for help in setting up SmartCILP.
• Your library liaison can help you set up automatic searches to be run on a regular basis in either Westlaw Westclip or LexisNexis Eclipse. These searches can support your ongoing research or notify you when your work has been cited by other scholars.
• The Legal Information Institute website maintained by the Cornell University Law School offers e-mail bulletins designed to keep legal professionals current on the cases before the United States Supreme Court and the New York Court of Appeals and the decisions of these courts. To receive these bulletins, contact your library liaison or visit LII yourself at http://www.law.cornell.edu/.
• There are a number of listservs especially useful to law faculty. Your library liaison can show you how to subscribe to them, or you may browse the titles and subscribe yourself by visiting either http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/ or http://mail.abanet.org/archives/index.html.
• The Tarlton Law Library of the University of Texas at Austin posts law review tables of contents on their website:
http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/tallons/content_search.html
• The Law Library publishes a web log or “blog” to keep faculty and students abreast of new sources of legal information, changes to existing sources, and developments within the library. You may access this blog at www.valpolawlibrary.blogspot.com.• The Law Library will route books and periodicals to faculty. For routing of periodicals to which we currently subscribe, contact Noelle Raelson . When requesting that we order a new book or periodical, please let us know if you want it routed to you or if you simply want to be notified when it arrives.
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Faculty Lounge
Each working day, a library staff member delivers copies of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Christian Science Monitor to the faculty lounge. The New York Review of Books, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and Legal Affairs also come to the faculty lounge on their route through the law school.
Accessing Other Libraries in Indiana
The Law Library is a member of the Academic Libraries of Indiana, Inc. (ALI), an association of all 72 of Indiana’s academic libraries. Most ALI members allow faculty and students from other ALI institutions to borrow books on site if the faculty member or student possesses an ALI Reciprocal Borrowing Card. If you wish to visit another Indiana academic library and possibly borrow books, contact Mary Persyn to obtain an ALI borrowers card.
Accessing Law Libraries in the Chicago Area
The Law Library is also a member of the Chicago Legal Academic System (CLAS), which includes all the academic law libraries in Chicago as well as Notre Dame, Illinois, Northern Illinois, Marquette, and Wisconsin-Madison. Faculty from CLAS institutions can visit other CLAS libraries and use their collections. Borrowing rules differ from library to library. Contact the library that interests you for more information, or get in touch with Mary Persyn to arrange a visit.
Liaison Program
The library’s faculty liaison program has been instituted to insure regular, ongoing contact between the faculty and the library professional staff. Each faculty member is matched with a librarian liaison. The program is designed to be flexible to meet your requirements for library support. For example, your liaison can assist you with current awareness, online searches, and general reference services.
The liaison program is not intended to be the only means of interaction between the faculty and the library staff. Rather, it is an addition to the services we have offered in the past.
The liaison program is not meant to replace the use of research assistants by the faculty. We will be happy to help research assistants with problems that develop while they are working on your projects; however, due to other responsibilities, we are limited in the amount of time we can devote to any one research project.
A complete list of librarians and their assigned faculty members is available on our Law Librarian Faculty Liaisons page.
Research Assistants
At the beginning of each semester, the Law Library provides library orientation and training sessions for faculty research assistants. The sessions are designed to acquaint them with library procedures, to reinforce their research skills, and to improve the quality of assistance they provide to faculty. Contact Mary Persyn for further details.
Research assistants may check out reserve and noncirculating items for faculty in addition to circulating items. They are responsible for returning borrowed items in a timely manner.
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Professional Resources
Publishing Resources
Teaching Resources
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