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Services for Students

The Collection

The Thurgood Marshall Law Library contains 426,000 volumes of Anglo-American legal materials as well as an outstanding international and foreign law collection. Extensive collections of both primary sources and secondary materials such as treatises are available. The library has also served as a selective depository for United States government documents since the 1970s, receiving many of the law-related documents that are published. Many electronic resources are available, including subscription access to legal and non-legal databases. The library's Catalog provides access to its holdings, as well as the holdings of other libraries within the University of Maryland System.

Circulation

In addition to law library borrowing privileges, law students and faculty may borrow from 14 additional Maryland public colleges and universities either by visiting the other libraries in person or by using the self-service "hold" delivery system available in the Catalog. Books requested via the "hold" system will be delivered to this library. The library also provides an interlibrary loan service for items not found in its collection or in the collections of other University System of Maryland libraries.

Computing Services

The Tydings and Rosenberg Technology Assisted Learning (TAL) Center in the library provides students with a multi-purpose computer facility equipped to meet their computing needs. In addition, law students can take advantage of the state-of-the-art TAL Classroom, an innovative, computer-equipped classroom. Also in the library is an accessible work station for students and faculty who require machine-assisted support. The law school is a member of the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI), which distributes computer-based lessons covering more than 30 legal education subject areas. Students may run the CALI programs from the TAL Center computers or may download them from www.cali.org and run the programs on their laptops.

Computer-Assisted Legal Research

Lexis and Westlaw, in addition to other electronic resources, are available for use by law students and faculty. The School of Law receives access to these services under special educational contracts stipulating that the services may be used only for educational purposes. Documents retrieved on Lexis and Westlaw may be downloaded to a disk or printed to dedicated high-speed laser printers. Student printers are located in the TAL Center; faculty printers are located at the User Services Desk.

Research and Reference

Reference assistance is available at the User Services Desk at the library entrance. Students may also work with a Research Librarian for more in-depth assistance and for advice on strategies for researching seminar paper topics or other research problems. Research Librarians have specialized knowledge of various legal subject areas, including health, foreign and international, and business law.

In addition to working with students on research projects, the library’s team of experienced law-trained librarians also teaches the required research courses. These courses include an introduction to legal research, taught to first-year students during the spring semester, and Advanced Legal Research, offered to students in the fall semester. Advanced Legal Research courses are offered in several legal subject areas, including environmental, business, and health law.

Course-Related Support

A library liaison has been assigned to all current law school courses. The purpose of this program is to give students a contact for all library-related questions that arise in the context of the course. Information about the librarian liaison and an e-mail address are automatically included on each Blackboard course page.

Librarians create customized research pages for seminar courses that meet the advanced writing requirement as well as for all clinic and advocacy courses. Each research page has been designed to serve as a starting point for research in a particular area of law. Librarians are available to speak to the classes about research strategies for the various topics.

Exam Files

The library maintains a file of previous course exams to which faculty members may choose to contribute. Exams are available to UM Law students, faculty and staff only.

Photocopying & Printing

Imaging Rooms are located on each level of the library and provide access to printing and photocopying. The Imaging Room on Level 4 is adjacent to the TAL Center and is restricted to student use. Students use a debit card system to facilitate copying and printing.