Author: Ellen Augustiniak

Online Services Librarian
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New on the shelves

Books that came in to the Law Library last month are now listed on our website. We plan to update the list every month, so check back if you’re curious about new books coming in.

Rutter CA PracticeIn December, we received books on a variety of topics, including historical and current legal issues and international law, as well as a title from the ever-popular Rutter series of California practice guides.

The Law Library’s collection is constantly growing as we purchase books and other resources to support the scholarly and clinical work of faculty and students. We value feedback from everybody who uses the library, and we hope you’ll let us know if you have a suggestion for a new book or journal!

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Citators – you get what you pay for?

One theme from 1L legal research classes is that legal research tools all have their shortcomings, and careful researchers should make informed choices about how they use them. A recent white paper demonstrates that “how was this case cited” reports are not all created equal. (Spoiler: in some cases, the expensive ones do a much better job.) The authors do, however, note a workaround:

While we recommend NOT relying entirely on any of the citator services provided by Google Scholar, Fastcase, or Casemaker, legal researchers can still use these databases to learn if their cases are still good law by taking the extra step to run a search using the party names as keywords. . . You’ll need to read the resulting cases (but only those decided after your case was decided) and then discern for yourself how the subsequent cases treated your case.

Carole A. Levitt and Mark Rosch. Are all Citator Services Created Equal? A Comparison of Google Scholar, Fastcase, Casemaker, LexisNexis, WestlawNext, and Bloomberg. (PDF, ePub, and Kindle-friendly versions available online at netforlawyers.com; PDF also available online from Stanford Law Library.)

Via Stanford Law Library Blog, Jan. 10, 2013.

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January Progress Report

Downstairs. Newly sealed floors await carpet. This area used to have large shelves of reporters, statutes, and ALRs.

The end is in sight! Floors are being sealed in preparation for carpet installation this week. Shelves have been installed, and walls are getting prepared for final coats of paint.

After the last construction walkthrough–tentatively scheduled for late January–there are still several steps to complete. Before the new spaces open, the books will go back on the shelves, artwork will go back up on the walls, and furniture will be delivered and arranged.

I’ll update here as dates are finalized!

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Progress report

construction snapshot
Downstairs. Stairs up to the Main Level are behind the plastic sheeting.

The expansion project continues over the break, and this week is an especially noisy one. Remember that wall of shelves on the lower level that used to greet you at the bottom of the stairs? It’s gone now!

In addition to bringing down entire walls, crews are working on lights, installing shelving, and prepping the floor this week.

If you plan to use the Library over the break, please remember that we have earplugs at the desk.

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Find books on your phone

Now you can search for books, journals, and other material in the new mobile-friendly version of ANTPAC. This simplified interface is much easier to read and use on a small-screen device. Try it out at airpac.lib.uci.edu.

You do still have to use the “Classic” desktop version of ANTPAC if you’d like to log in to see what you have checked out. And there are a few other little things that you can’t do in the mobile version. But in general, this new mobile site provides a zippy, clean way to find books and journals at the Law Library and other UCI Libraries.

We hope you’ll like it!

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No construction during Reading & Exams

The construction team confirmed today that their plans for a quieter Reading & Examination period are still on target. The schedule calls for crews plan to work very early mornings during that time. This means that, barring any delays in the next couple of weeks, there will be no construction when the Library is open (8 am – 11 pm) during exams (December 3 – 14.)

Before exams, crews plan to finish as much as possible. Inspections, drywall, and electrical work are all on the schedule. After exams, crews will resume the full-time schedule and focus on some noisier tasks like installing shelves. So if you’re planning to use the Law Library over the winter break, you might want to check back here for updates!

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Formatting citations

If you’ve been applying Bluebook rules recently, you might have thought to yourself “I bet a computer could do this so much more quickly and easily.” And you would have been correct! So I offer here a couple of notes about using technology to help with citation-formatting, especially for journal articles and books.

  • Google Scholar now has automagic MLA, Chicago, and APA-style citations. From the Google Scholar Blog, “To copy a formatted citation, click on the “Cite” link below a search result and select from the available citation styles.”
  • Did you know there are specialized browser and desktop tools to help manage citations? The UCI Libraries has a great chart that compares features of “Bibliographic Management Software.” (Bluebook is supported by all of the examples on the chart!) (The Law Librarians here are big Zotero fans. It’s fantastic to look through articles and, every time you see a good one, just click a button to have your browser plug in the title, author, and other relevant details into a list of citations. When you’re done with the research, you highlight the citations you want for a bibliography and export them in whatever format you want.)

We are truly living in the future.

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Interlibrary Loan (ILL) – Articles

Would you like to get an “exact copy” of a journal or newspaper article from a print title that we don’t have on campus? You have options! One way to do so is to use the UC-eLinks “Citation Linker” form for Articles. Another way is to find the journal in Melvyl (uci.worldcat.org) and click the orange Request button. (When it’s working correctly, Melvyl should give you the same eLinks form—one that says Locate the article from your citation.)

This form asks for all the details we’d need in the Law Library if we were going to, say, call another library and ask them nicely if they’d make us a copy and send the PDF along? (Or, failing that, a microform or hardbound version.) This includes author, title, and page number, in addition to the name of the publication and the date.

So even though you can continue without filling in the whole form, you shouldn’t skip over the details. We are more likely to be able to get what you need quickly if we have all the information we need from the start!

If you need help working with an incomplete citation or using the ILL Request forms, please stop by the Reference Desk. Reference hours are Mon-Fri, 9-5.

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PLI Treatises & Guides

Bloomberg Law is now the exclusive online source for titles from the Practising Law Institute. PLI titles offer guidance on fairly narrow practice areas, and they include several titles that are updated yearly.

One way to browse the list of titles in Bloomberg Law is to go to Search & Browse > Books & Treatises. (Law students can register for a Bloomberg Law account at bloomberglaw.com/activate.)

Screenshot from bloomberglaw.com

This update brings up a couple of issues related to legal publishing, and academic publishing in general:

  1. Digital still has room for improvement. The layout of the these titles is not highly optimized for on-screen reading. For example, links aren’t live. (Not in the indexes in the titles I checked, and not in the footnotes.) And there’s an awful lot of white space around the textual content. But page numbers are there, and footnotes are displayed at the bottom of each section so that the body text is scan-able. So, while this is a nice start, it still seems like we’re waiting for beautifully-designed and highly-usable digital titles from legal publishers.
  2. Online is evolving. These titles used to be available from another online legal research vendor, but that changed this month. It’s yet another example of online content moving around as publishers and licensing agreements change.
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Upstairs study rooms – construction starts!

Work begins Thursday upstairs on the main floor, where there will eventually be more study rooms for law students.  Thursday’s activities should involve hanging plastic and removing carpet.

Please note that there will be a slight “simple green” odor from the carpet-removal process.  The crew plans to use an air filter to help with the smell. But the air filter will add a bit of noise as it circulates the air.

Related links: Earplugs and Study Space at UCI

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