Faculty Liaison Program
To make it easy for you to receive the information services you need or want, the library has given you a library liaison, who can serve as a first point of contact for library services. Your liaison will keep you up to date on any new services or resources that may be useful to you. You are encouraged to share your teaching, research, and service interests with your liaison so that your liaison’s current awareness and research assistance can be tailored to your needs. Your liaison will contact you at least once prior to each semester to offer assistance with course preparation and support for your scholarship.
The liaison program is intended to ensure that each faculty member’s library needs are identified and met. It is not intended to restrict your choices. You are always welcome to contact anyone on the staff who can meet your needs.
Database Information and Support
- Finding Our Databases
Most of the library’s collection resources are now electronic resources. You can find many of these resources by title in the library’s catalog: CLICsearch
Although the individual titles in many of the library’s databases appear in the catalog, some do not. The library staff encourages you to explore the list of databases which are available to you and to take note of those most likely to be of use to you. You will find a list of the law library’s databases and short descriptions of them at this link: http://libguides.stthomas.edu/lawdatabases
- Westlaw, LexisNexis, and Bloomberg Access and Assistance
Megan McNevin (ext. 2-4906) is our primary contact with Westlaw, LexisNexis, and Bloomberg and can assist you with password or access problems. You may also call Westlaw (1-800-WESTLAW or 1-800-937-8529), LexisNexis (1-800-455-3947), or Bloomberg (1-888-560-2529) directly for assistance.
The librarians and our vendor representatives can provide specialized training for you and your research assistants. Please contact your liaison if you would like to arrange training.
- Support for Other Databases
If you need help using any of the library’s other databases, contact your liaison or any of the research librarians.
Support for Teaching
- Complimentary Copies of Textbooks
Many publishers offer complimentary copies of textbooks to faculty who might adopt the books for a course they are teaching. Please contact your liaison or Leslie Kiley (ext. 2-4914) if you would like to have library staff request complimentary copies of books related to your course.
- Textbook/Course Pack Alternatives
If you choose to create your own course materials, the librarians can assist you by identifying potential resources and by creating links on your course site to your online readings. If you have been planning to use a paper course pack, consider moving to electronic versions of the readings that are available electronically at the University of St. Thomas. That will eliminate the need for some copyright permissions and reduce costs for your students.
Some publishers offer their own electronic textbook alternatives and may allow you to customize the content. More information is available here: http://libguides.stthomas.edu/textbookalternatives.
- Course Reserves
Faculty may put materials on reserve for a course. Course reserve materials can be made available electronically, either through the online catalog or by creating links to the materials from your Blackboard course. Course reserve materials can also be made available in hard copy for check out at the library circulation desk for a two-hour loan period.
If you want to place a photocopy of an article or part of a book on reserve, you generally need copyright permission to do so. See the section on Copyright below.
We suggest one copy for every ten students for required readings, fewer copies for optional readings. The library staff will make additional copies of reserve items whenever it appears necessary to provide good service to your students.
Please contact Stefanie Hollmichel (ext. 2-4947) to place items on reserve. Course reserve materials are taken off reserve at the end of each academic year.
- Copyright Policy and Procedure
The UST copyright policy can be found at http://www.stthomas.edu/copyright/.
The copyright web pages include fair use tools, a Copyright Permissions Request Form, information on alternatives to copying (including information on creating durable links from articles directly to your Blackboard course site), and information on copyright law, policies and procedures.
At the law school, Henry Bishop (ext. 2-4970) helps faculty obtain copyright permissions.
- Blackboard (Course Management) Support
Your liaison can assist you in developing your Blackboard course site. If you allow us to be added to your course as a teaching assistant, we can build content for your class. We can post links that will allow your students to easily access library databases, research guides, articles you want your students to read, and useful tutorials. Please contact your liaison if you would like assistance in building your course site.
- Research Class Sessions
The librarians are available to visit classes (especially those with a research component) and provide research instruction on general and subject-specific legal research strategies and resources. Contact your liaison to arrange a research class session. Consider including a research session in your syllabus, when one is appropriate, if know you have to miss a class and prefer not to cancel or hold a makeup class.
- Exercise/Problem Development and Updating
Librarians can help you develop new exercises, problems, and assignments for your courses. We can check existing problems to make sure they still work and update them for you with current research.
- Course Research Guides
Librarians can develop research guides on both legal and multi-disciplinary topics, focusing on the print and electronic sources available to your students. We can tailor a guide to a specific assignment or provide a general subject guide for your course. The guides can be posted on your Blackboard site, the library website, or both. Here are some examples of research guides that we have prepared:
Public International Law Research
Labor & Employment Law Research
Choosing a Research Paper Topic
Bar Examination Preparation (including sources that have sample bar exam questions)
- Tutorials
Librarians can develop video, Flash, or HTML5 based web tutorials that demonstrate research resources and techniques. We can also identify existing tutorials that would be helpful for your students (or your own professional development). These tutorials can be loaded on or linked to your Blackboard site. Tutorials can be used to train students how to use a particular database, how to find statutes using Westlaw or LexisNexis (instead of purchasing a statutory supplement), or how to navigate a particular website.
- Computer Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI)
Our subscription to the CALI library includes over 930 lessons covering 48 legal subjects. Faculty and students can access the CALI exercises via the web at http://www.cali.org. Please contact the library (ext. 2-4900) for a CALI authorization code. Librarians can help identify CALI lessons that would be useful to your students.
- Exam Archives
Faculty may place old law school exams on reserve for students to review. Exams can be made available by photocopy or through electronic reserves. Contact your liaison or Stefanie Hollmichel (ext. 2-4947) to place exams on reserve.
- Detecting Plagiarism
Plagiarism can be intentional or due to sloppy/lazy citation practices. It is a growing problem in many academic settings. Your liaison can research suspected plagiarism for you or suggest search strategies for you to use. Common strategies include:
Running a phrase search using several internet search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Bing, etc.);
Running a search against Safe-Assign, a Blackboard tool for detecting plagiarism;
Using full-text databases to run phrase searches; and
Using commercial, fee-based products.
Support for Scholarship
- Literature Reviews and Bibliographies
Your liaison can develop literature reviews and bibliographies on topics you plan to research.
- Citation Management and Tracking
The librarians can assist you with citation management resources, including RefWorks, Zotero, and other software.
The librarians can also assist you in setting up citation tracking alerts to track citations to your own scholarship. Google Scholar has recently released a beta version of its citation tracking service. Log on to your Google Account and click the “My Citations” link on http://scholar.google.com
You can start by setting up a profile for that service here.
- Training for Your Research Assistants
The research librarians are available to offer training and research consultations to your research assistants. Consulting with a librarian usually saves the RAs time and ensures that faculty members receive quality research results. Please have your RA contact your liaison to arrange a training or research consultation, and please notify your liaison of your research assistant hires so that we can offer them our assistance.
You may authorize your research assistant to obtain library materials on your library record. You can print and complete an online authorization Research Assistant Authorization Form or have your research assistant pick up the form at the library service desk: Research Assistant Authorization Form.
- Indexing Faculty Books
Librarians can provide professional indexing services for your books. For information, contact Paddy Satzer at ext. 2-4903.
- Support for Publishing Your Scholarship
Librarians can help identify potential publishers for your books and articles and information on their submission requirements. Some useful resources include:
ExpressO – http://law.bepress.com/expresso - this is a fee-based service that allows you to submit your articles electronically to multiple journals and tracks the progress of your submissions. Contact Henry Bishop at ext. 2-4970 for ExpressO account information.
SSRN – The University of St. Thomas School of Law Legal Research Paper Series is found at http://www.ssrn.com/link/st-thomas-legal-studies.html. Professor Sisk coordinates SSRN submissions.
Law Review Electronic Submissions – The Ohio Northern University Petit College of Law hosts a web site where authors can select multiple law reviews and submit an article via email. Click here to see the list of law journals that accept electronic submissions
WashLaw - http://www.washlaw.edu/lawjournal - includes an annotated list of law journals with links to the journals.
Washington and Lee – Law Journals: Submissions and Rankings http://lawlib.wlu.edu/LJ/ - provides editorial addresses, submission policies and ranking data.
Display of Faculty Publications
The library maintains a display of faculty publications at the entrance to the library. Faculty members are asked to supply a copy of each of their publications for this display. You may put display copies in Ann Bateson’s mailbox or drop them off at the library service desk.
- Faculty Bibliography
The library maintains a bibliography of faculty publications. Please notify your liaison when you have a new publication that should be added to the bibliography.
Current Awareness Services
- Alerts and Clips
The librarians can arrange for you to receive current awareness services that are tailored to your needs and interests. Your liaison can assist you in setting up alerts to be delivered via email or through RSS feeds.
E-Mail Alerts
Legal Scholarship Network – subscribe to journals in your areas of interest and receive abstracts of working papers, articles, and notices of conferences and calls for papers via email
Berkeley Electronic Press Legal Repository (Bepress) – receive alerts for working papers and pre-prints in your areas of interest; sign up at http://law.bepress.com/repository/search_by_subject.html
BNA Email Alerts – The library’s BNA databases cover a wide range of law and policy areas. Sign up to receive email summaries (with links to the full article) for the publications you select.
Alerts (LexisNexis) – The Alert service on LexisNexis allows you to track cases, statutes, regulations, and issues in your areas of interest by running a search query in selected databases. Your liaison can help formulate and set up searches to run according to your needs and interests.
Westclip (Westlaw) – You can set up automatic searches in Westlaw databases just as you can in LexisNexis.
- Chronicle of Higher Education
Contact Paddy Satzer (ext. 2-4903) if you would like to receive the daily email alerts from the Chronicle.