C|M|LAW Library Blog

Library and Information Technology (IT) Orientation is now open and available for all new students. Stop by the reference office in Room 112 of the law library to get started and speak with the librarian on duty. Reference librarians are available Monday-Thursday from 9am – 10pm and Friday 9am-7pm.

You will receive your IT credentials and a law library orientation sheet, which will be used to familiarize you with the law library. When the orientation sheet is turned in, you will receive registration information for Lexis, Westlaw, Bloomberg, and CALI. You will also receive information about our legal research seminars, CSU PIN creation, and Scholar, the library’s online catalog.

Orientation Week hours begin Monday, August 19:

• Monday-Thursday: 7am-10pm
• Friday: 7am-8pm
• Saturday: 9am-5pm
• Sunday: 9am-11pm

NOTES:

1. The library is closed Saturday, August 17 and Sunday, August 18.
2. A Reference Librarian will be available until 10pm Monday-Thursday during orientation week for students to complete Library and IT Orientation.

Perhaps you’ve noticed the word “LAW” on the wall of the base level of the law library but haven’t examined it closely.

The work is a ceramic plate collage by Cleveland artist Angelica Pozo that is made up of excerpts from 40 Federal statutes. The collage is installed on three large panels. According to Pozo, the concept behind the design is reflective of the difficulty of interpreting the law accurately.

Among the statutes the artist chose to include in the collage are: the Homestead Act of 1862, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Angelica Pozo website

C|M|Law Outreach & Instructional Services Librarian Laura Ray recently presented a poster at the 2019 American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting on “Legal Research Learning Outcomes and Assessment Plans: A Survey of Current Developments and Methods for Law Librarian Engagement.”  Laura worked with Stacy Etheredge, University of Idaho Law Library Associate Director, in a review of the websites of 84 law schools in 29 states and the District of Columbia.  [Ohio law schools were not included.]  The poster presented a composite summary of readily available law school learning outcomes* and assessment plans** related to legal research.  Only 11 law schools (13.1%) had well developed legal research learning outcomes, and 45 law schools (53.6%) had a simple statement of such learning outcomes.  The poster also presented sample mappings of legal research learning outcomes to law school curricula, performance criteria and measurement instruments for such learning outcomes, and suggested methods for law librarians to engage in the development of such learning outcomes and assessment plans.  In the coming year, Laura and Stacy plan to continue their survey by reviewing the websites of the remaining 112 law schools, as well as contacting law schools not providing information on their websites.

*Standard 302(b) of the American Bar Association (ABA) Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools specifies one of the four minimum learning outcomes to be competency in “legal analysis and reasoning, legal research, problem-solving, and written and oral communication in the legal context.”  **Standard 315 specifies conducting “ongoing evaluation of the law school’s program of legal education, learning outcomes, and assessment methods … to determine the degree of student attainment of competency in the learning outcomes and to make appropriate changes to improve the curriculum.”  Standards 302 and 315 were revised and became legally effective at the end of the ABA Annual Meeting on August 12, 2014, but the ABA did not require the application of these Standards until the 2016-2017 academic year. [See Transition to and Implementation of the New Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools August 13, 2014.]

Library and Information Technology (IT) Orientation is now open and available for all new students. Stop by the Reference office in Room 112 of the law library to get started and speak with the librarian on duty. Reference librarians are available Monday and Wednesday 9am-8pm, Tuesday and Thursday 9am-7pm, and Fridays 9am-5pm throughout July.

You will receive your IT credentials and a law library orientation sheet, which will be used to familiarize you with the law library. When the orientation sheet is turned in, you will receive registration information for Lexis, Westlaw, Bloomberg, and CALI. You will also receive information about our legal research seminars, CSU PIN creation, and Scholar, the library’s online catalog.