Law Faculty Services

Welcome to the Westminster Law Library. The library endeavors to help support your research, teaching, and scholarship. If you are wondering if the library offers a service not listed below, just ask us when filling out a Faculty Request Form.  Below is an overview of the library's most popular services for law faculty.

Services

• Research Support

  Research Assistance

  The librarians and library research assistant pool can help you with locating items for research, understanding what has been written on a topic (both in law and other fields), and helping you stay up to date on your areas of research interest. For the quickest research assistance, fill out a Faculty Request Form.

  Library Research Assistant Pool

  The library also hires, trains, and oversees a Library Research Assistant Pool. The Library RAs have received research training and are overseen by a librarian. If you have a research project you think might be appropriate for the Library RA Pool, fill out a Faculty Request Form.

  Research Assistant Training

  The law librarians are available to discuss research projects with research assistants and assist them in locating resources. Formal training for RAs are offered in late September and late May, but RAs may reach out to librarians for assistance at any time. Fill out a Faculty Request Form and select "Training Request" if you are interested in setting up training for your RA.

  Current Awareness Alerts

  To subscribe to SmartCILP alerts and/or any other alert service such as Law360, Law.com, Bloomberg, Westlaw, or Lexis alerts, fill out a Faculty Request Form.

  Law Review Submissions

  The University of Denver provides access to Scholastica accounts for law review submissions. Please contact Faculty Support Staff, facultysupportstaff@law.du.edu for help with Scholastica submissions.

  Organizing Research

  The library can help you with using various tools to help organize your research, including Zotero and PowerNotes. These research tools generally have similar functions, and thus what tool is best for you depends on your personal preference. 

  Zotero

  Zotero is a program that collects, manages, and cites research sources. It's easy to use, lives in your web browser where you do your work, and best of all it's free. Zotero allows you to attach PDFs, notes and images to your citations, organize them into collections for different projects, and create Bluebooked citations and bibliographies. Zotero is often considered the best citation tool for organizing legal research.  Set up an account and learn more about using Zotero. 

  Powernotes

  Like Zotero, PowerNotes is a program that collects, manages, and cites research sources and saves them in the cloud. PowerNotes users can take notes on websites and then organize the sources and notes into an outline. PowerNotes is considered good for group projects and note-taking. Set up an account and learn more about using PowerNotes. 
   

  Westlaw/Lexis/Bloomberg Access

  Law faculty have individual accounts for legal research platforms Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg. If you are a new faculty member in need of a password for these platforms, fill out a Faculty Research Form. 

   

• SSRN Faculty Submissions

  The Westminster Law Library will submit papers on your behalf to the SSRN. You may submit a citation only - a copy of the paper is not required. To request an SSRN submission, please complete the SSRN Submission form.

• Material Requests

  Document Delivery

  Faculty members may request periodical articles or books from any University of Denver Library and from any electronic resource to which the University of Denver subscribes by filling out a Faculty Request Form.

  Requested print material will be delivered to faculty mailboxes. If the requested material is currently available in the Law Library, it will be delivered by the next business day. If it is checked out by another patron or not available, the item can either be recalled from the patron or another copy will be requested via Prospector or Interlibrary Loan. You will be notified as to the status of your request.

  Requests for copies of articles or cases owned by the Law Library will be delivered electronically. If you want these materials to be delivered in print, they will be forwarded to Faculty Support staff for printing and delivery.

  Routing of Periodicals

  To have periodicals received by the Law Library in print routed to your office, fill out a Faculty Research Form and select "routing request."

  Suggest a New Resource

  Suggest a new resource for library purchase, and the library will consider buying it at the next acquisitions meeting. Please include your name in your suggestion.

  Suggestions can be submitted by filling out a Faculty Request Form and selecting "purchase suggestion." When suggesting an item for acquisition, please indicate if you want the resource checked out to you, placed on course reserve, or added to the collection.

• Instructional Support

  Research Instruction

  Do you require your students to write a paper this semester? Do they need to do legal or non-legal research in areas that are unfamiliar to them? The Law Library Reference Staff can help them get started!

  We can provide in-class or library presentations on legal and non-legal research materials in specialized topical areas. We will tailor our presentations to fit your class needs.

  The Reference Librarians have also developed research guides on a variety of legal research topics including environmental, international, tax, bankruptcy, and securities law. A specialized handout can be created to cover the research resources for your course.

  If you are interested in arranging a presentation or having handouts created for your class, please contact any of the teaching Research / Reference Law Librarians listed below or fill out a Faculty Research Request Form. We appreciate two weeks notice so that we can ensure your students a quality experience.

  The librarians can train you (and/or your students) on finding materials and using library databases and other resources. Fill out a Faculty Request Form and select "Training Request” if you are interested in scheduling a research training.

  Past Exams

  To make exams available online (or to remove them) fill out a Faculty Request Form and select "Add/Remove Sample Exams."

  Classroom Management System

  Canvas is the classroom management system available through the University of Denver. Canvas allows faculty members to post syllabi, outlines, and assignments, create class email lists, collect completed assignments, conduct online group discussions, and much more. Basic support for Canvas is available from Faculty Support (facultysupportstaff@law.du.edu). 

• Course Reserves

  We can place items on reserve one semester at a time.  If you would like the same item put on reserve in the following semester, please be sure to send a new request at that time so we know to keep it on reserve.

  If you would like to put something on reserve for your class, please fill out a Faculty Request Form and include the following information:

  1. Name of the book, item to be put on reserve*
  2. The name of the course

  
  * Note that if we do not own the item you are requesting, we may not be able to purchase the item for you.  However, if you have your own copy you'd like us to put on reserve, we are happy to do so.  But please note we will place library stickers on the item.

• Institutional Repository for Scholarship

  The library can add faculty scholarship to our institutional repository. Institutional repositories make faculty work more accessible to wider audiences, which ultimately makes the work more likely to be cited and recognized. To view the law school's scholarship available on the institutional repository, visit the Digital Commons. To request your scholarship to be added to the Digital Commons fill out a Faculty Request Form.

• Using Permalinks

  Perma.cc is a service that helps scholars, courts and others create web citation links that will never break. When a user creates a Perma.cc link, Perma.cc archives the referenced content and generates a link to an archived record of the page. Regardless of what may happen to the original source, the archived record will always be available through the Perma.cc link. Using Perma.cc ensures that material cited by authors will always be accessible to readers, preserving the foundation of legal scholarship online. To create a Perma.cc account that the library can manage for you fill out a Faculty Request Form. For more information on Perma.cc see this guide.