The Mysterious Affair at Squire: Using Code-Breaking Games to Deliver Law Library Skills

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 218-222
Author(s):  
Lizz Edwards-Waller
Keyword(s):  
Full Range ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Print Materials ◽  
Legal Databases ◽  
Library Catalogue ◽  
Library Skills ◽  
Virtual Conference ◽  
Law Library

AbstractThe Squire Law Library has designed and run a series of popular escape room-style events, aimed at masters and undergraduate law students. Intended to prompt students to explore the full range of legal resources available to them, the games typically challenge participants to open a locked safe: relying on legal databases, the library catalogue and print materials to decipher a six-digit combination. This article, based on Lizz Edwards-Waller's presentation at the BIALL (virtual) conference 2020, reflects on the practicalities of running and promoting code-breaking events within the library and considers the benefits of this style of event in addition to, or instead of, more traditional law library orientation tours.

Exploring User Training Needs at Middle Temple Law Library

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 80-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Gow
Keyword(s):  
Information Literacy ◽  
Research Training ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Skills Training ◽  
Training Needs ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
User Training ◽  
Library Users ◽  
Library Resources ◽  
Library Skills

AbstractThis research, conducted by Erin Gow, aims to explore the information literacy and legal research training needs of users of the Middle Temple library.* In order to do this it focuses on the patterns of use of library resources by users, reasons for these patterns, previous training users have received, and general evidence of user training needs in law libraries. The research as a whole was generated in result of the recognition that many Middle Temple library users require further legal research skills training in order to confidently find and employ the extensive resources available through the library. Before such training could be developed, however, research needed to be conducted into the specific capabilities and needs of the unique user base at the library. As a result of the research the current habits of library users have been explored, their general training levels and needs identified, and recommendations made about how to structure training so as to address these needs and best serve users. It was discovered that Middle Temple library users generally visit the library frequently, and are already confident using certain materials such as textbooks. Despite confidence in using certain common materials, users struggle to take advantage of the full range of resources available, making training necessary. The difficulties many users currently face in the library stem from a general lack of information literacy and library skills training.

The N.Y.U. Law Library Catalogue Revisited

1989 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 11-32
Author(s):  
Julius J. Marke
Keyword(s):  
Library Catalogue ◽  
Law Library

Using Lego® Serious Play® in Higher Education with Law Students: Encouraging Playfulness and Creativity within Library Workshops

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 222-226
Author(s):  
Alan Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Student Engagement ◽  
Virtual Learning ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Academic Librarian ◽  
Academic Settings ◽  
Virtual Conference

AbstractThe following article began life as a ten-minute presentation titled ‘Building student engagement brick by brick; using Lego® Serious Play® to explore subject engagement in HE’, presented at BIALL's 2020 virtual conference on 12 June 2020. Since 2016 I have been incorporating Lego® Serious Play® (LSP) within my practice as an academic librarian at Middlesex University. This article will explore how I have embedded LSP into workshops with students and staff, the tactics employed to gain acceptance for using LSP within academic settings and offering some tentative predictions on whether playful approaches will be successful in the current Higher Education (HE) landscape, dominated as we currently are by virtual learning and screen technologies.

scholarly journals Challenges Associated with Utilization of Legal Information Resources by Postgraduate Law Students in Federal Universities of Northern Nigeria

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-47
Author(s):  
Hadiza Umar ◽  
Victoria Sokari
Keyword(s):  
Sample Size ◽  
Information Resources ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Academic Excellence ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Technological Advancement ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Legal Information ◽  
Legal Databases

The paper investigates the challenges associated with utilization of legal information resources in the faculty of law libraries in federal universities of northern Nigeria. The study employed quantitative research method using cross-sectional survey research design. The population of the study comprised of 1,348 postgraduate law students in the libraries studied. Simple random sampling equation (SRS-Equation) was used to select the sample size for the study. A total of 308 postgraduate law students was therefore the sample size chosen for the study. A self-developed questionnaire was used to collect data. A total number of 308 copies of questionnaire were administered personally by the author and 4 research assistants, out of which 271 were returned and found useful for further analysis. Data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics with the aid of SPSS (v21). Findings revealed that, the printed legal information resources were highly utilized by postgraduate law students except e-resources and on-line legal databases that had low utilization. Some challenges associated with the utilization of legal resources were insufficient copies of books, inadequate reading facilities and defaced information resources; inadequate infrastructure for accessing resources electronically, insufficient computers and interrupted power supply, among others. The study concludes that, despite the technological advancement and globalization the world is experiencing, postgraduate law students in federal universities of northern Nigeria are yet to fully enjoy the vast electronic legal information resources, and this could significantly affect the quality of legal researches and academic excellence in legal profession. The study recommends among other things the need for the provision of adequate electronic legal information resources and regular subscription to online legal databases in the faculty of law libraries in federal universities in northern Nigeria. Keywords: Utilization, Legal Information Resources, Postgraduates, Law students, Libraries

Building a Transsystemic Law Library Collection

2012 ◽  
pp. 327-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryvon Côté
Keyword(s):  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Library Collection ◽  
Canadian Law ◽  
Mcgill University ◽  
Law Library ◽  
Unique Program

The Faculty of Law of McGill University decided to take an unprecedented step in 1999 in replacing the approach of training to undergraduate law students with the creation of a new legal education curriculum referred to as “transsystemic legal education.” This unique program, geared towards all undergraduate McGill Law students, consists of learning two legal systems, including civil and common law in a comparative and interdisciplinary approach. This article discusses how the law library at McGill had to break from a traditional approach of building a law library collection regarding the practice of Canadian law to acquire the scholarly material needed by professors and students. This meant a complete rethinking of the collection development profile with an increased focus on multilingual legal material from Europe and other legal jurisdictions worldwide, and could only be done with a good collaboration between the library and the faculty members.

Use of Mobile Technologies by Law Students in the Law Library: a Detailed Investigation

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zaki Abbas ◽  
Andrew MacFarlane ◽  
Lyn Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Mobile Technologies ◽  
Electronic Resources ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Mobile Interfaces ◽  
Digital Formats ◽  
Law Library ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractThis paper follows up from a previous study on this topic and outlines the second part of a wider, two-part study on the information seeking behaviour (ISB) of law students. Exploratory work was outlined in a previous publication17 and there we found that although mobile technologies offered benefits to law students seeking information for their academic studies, there was concern from law librarians that the use of electronic resources via both non-mobile and mobile interfaces resulted in a loss of skills required for information retrieval due to the increasing capabilities of electronic resources’ search interfaces. To gain more insight into how law students were using mobile information resources, and better understand the advantages and disadvantages of such, we extended our study to a wider cohort and employed more research techniques including a focus group. This final phase of our study was conducted between 2015 to 2017. Here our cohort included another set of law librarians (13) and a further 54 law students. We expanded our research tools to include 2 thematic questionnaires and a focus group exercise. Our findings discovered that law librarians were concerned with the intangibility of digital formats. Law students remained indifferent to this aspect and valued the speed, multi-tasking and near-ubiquitous accessibility attributes that electronic format use via mobile technologies provided. These learnings and more, with conclusions, are reported in the course of this paper written by Zaki Abbas, Andrew MacFarlane and Lyn Robinson.

scholarly journals Use of Mobile Technologies by Law Students in the Law Library: an Exploratory Study

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 180-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zaki Abbas ◽  
Andrew MacFarlane ◽  
Lyn Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Information Seeking ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Mobile Technologies ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Electronic Resources ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Initial Work ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Law Library

AbstractThis paper outlines the first part of a wider, two-part study on the information behaviour of law students. The authors are Zaki Abbas, Andrew MacFarlane and Lyn Robinson. The background and motivation for the study have been described in a previous publication1 which reports the results of interviews with three academic law librarians. Our initial work found that although mobile technologies offered benefits to law students seeking information for their academic studies, there was concern from law librarians that the use of electronic resources via both non-mobile and mobile interfaces resulted in a loss of skills required for information retrieval due to the increasing capabilities of electronic resources’ search interfaces. To gain more insight into how law students were using mobile information resources, and to further understand the advantages and disadvantages of such resources, we extended our study to a wider cohort. This second phase, of our first part study, was conducted over two years (2013–2015). During this time, we carried out interviews with thirteen law librarians and fielded both quantitative and qualitative questionnaires to 36 law students. We also conducted a greater review of literature and examined several existing information-seeking models. We used the results of the research from this phase of study, together with the knowledge from the literature to propose a novel information-seeking behaviour (ISB) model for law students. These findings are reported within this paper. The second part of this research will look at expanding our research cohort to cover a wider audience throughout the UK and use a focus group to validate our proposed model. This will be reported in a following paper.

scholarly journals The use of online legal information access and retrieval devices in the e-library of the Faculty of Law, University of Calabar, Nigeria

2020 ◽  
pp. 30-40
Author(s):  
Juliana Nwakaego Agwunobi ◽  
Pius Tom Umoren
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Information Search ◽  
Information Access ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Legal Information ◽  
Research Instrument ◽  
Bona Fide ◽  
Online Access ◽  
Law Library ◽  
Structured Questionnaire

This study examined the availability of online legal information access and retrieval devices and their utilization in the e-library of the Faculty of Law, University of Calabar. To aid the study, the faculty of law students constituted the population of study. Of this 433 students formed the sample of the study being the bona fide law library registered students who completed and returned the questionnaire.The research instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire. The instrument was designed to elicitinformation on the availability of fifteen online legal information and access devices in the e-library library and the extent of their utilization in accessing and retrieving legal information in the library. Findings reveal that although the e-library library had a number of the sampled online access and retrieval devices there were disparities in their usages by the students. The disparity in the utilization of these devices stemmed from the fact that some were heavily utilized than others, while some were non-existence. The study further showed that but for the manifest problems that affected the usages of the devices, the level of patronage implied that the e-library seems to be the in-thing in contemporary information search and access for possible utilization to meet desired goals.

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