Educator Resources: Access to CALR & Other Online Resources
Core Competencies  |  Law Librarianship Course Syllabi  |  Books & Articles

Updated Sept. 10, 2007

Several vendors provider access to their services for library school teachers and students:

BNA

BNA, Inc. is pleased to offer 30-day free electronic access to BNA publications to law school, library school, and paralegal program instructors and students each semester. This offer is the result of requests from many instructors who incorporate BNA materials in their curriculum.

BNA publications are used by both law schools and practicing attorneys. Our current awareness services are widely respected news services that allow students to monitor what the courts, Congress, and agencies are saying about the law, locate cutting edge legal issues for paper topics, and gain valuable insight into the real world legal and compliance issues faced by practicing attorneys. These titles include The United States Law Week, Antitrust Trade & Regulation Report, Criminal Law Reporter, and other specialty publications. BNA’s comprehensive reference libraries bring together top-notch secondary source analysis, primary sources, and unique topic finders and classification schemes to help students learn how to find the law. These reference libraries include BNA’s Labor and Employment Law Library and BNA’s Intellectual Law Library, among others. A full list of BNA publications is located on our website at http://www.bna.com/.

Free passwords provide access to this information on BNA’s electronic platform 24 hours a day. Contact Kammie Hedges, 202-452-4470, for passwords and with any questions.

CALI

The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) is offering to make its Internet-based legal education materials available to library schools. CALI is a non-profit consortium of law schools devoted to exploring and supporting research into the effective use of computer-mediated legal instruction. The materials on their website, which are currently being used at 195 law schools, were written by law professors and law school librarians; and they are regularly reviewed and updated.

Although the materials cover many areas of law, the most useful ones for library students may be those in the area of legal research and writing. CALI has over 30 interactive lessons that deal with various aspects of legal research. You may view the list of lesson titles and brief descriptions at: http://www2.cali.org/index.php?fuseaction=lessons.subjectlist&cat=LWR.

To run a lesson, you must first register on the CALI website. Contact LaVonne Molde, 612-627-4908, for the authorization code for library school faculty.

The registration instructions are listed below.

  1. Go to www.cali.org and click on "Not a registered user yet?"
  2. In the field requesting an authorization code enter your code.
  3. In the field for—State or Region, select: Elsewhere in the world.
  4. In the field for—Are you affiliated with a CALI Member School, select CALI Member School.
  5. In the field for—Select your School or Organization, select Library School.
  6. Complete the rest of the registration form and click on the Submit button.
  7. In subsequent visits to review lessons, you will not need to use the authorization code; to logon you will only need to enter your email address and the password you created when you registered.

If you have problems registering or if you decide that you would like to use any of these materials in your course and assign them to your students, contact LaVonne Molde. She will set up a registration authorization code that you may distribute to your students. There is no cost to you or your students for using these programs.

Penny Hazelton's tips on using CALI lessons:

  1. LessonLink allows you to link directly to the lesson you want your students to do. However, it only links to the flash version of the lesson and some students will have computers not fast enough to run it quickly. So include directions to link to the web version of the lesson as well.
  2. I ask students to turn in the lesson report (certificate) indicating the number of questions they got right. With each lesson I require, I require a minimum percentage of correct answers. I give 1 or 2 points for this effort.
  3. They have to add their name to the lesson report box so you know who is turning in what.
  4. The Windows version has to be downloaded and takes more time to run. The Web version is best but most have fewer questions than the flash version which is real graphical.
  5. Cannot easily assess the number of questions asked in any lesson. But I found that the flash version has more questions than the web version.
  6. Remind the students that to learn everything, they need to click on every link.
  7. Here are the ones I have used:
    1. Citation Form for Briefs and Legal Memoranda: very long, but great review.
    2. Codification: great review of how codes are created; short; I use after Introduction to State and Federal Statutes.
    3. Evaluating Websites: excellent; great screen shots and examples; short.
    4. How to Find Case Law Using Digests: excellent; uses print tools; lots of graphics; short.
    5. Introduction to Secondary Resources: excellent; about 1 hr; quick review of basic secondary sources.
    6. Introduction to State and Federal Statutes: excellent; really helps students; follow with Codification lesson.
    7. Researching Federal Administrative Regulations: very long (2-3 hrs), but excellent content; good quiz.
    8. Researching Federal Legislative History: excellent; short; very good content students will remember.

LexisNexis

LexisNexis provides lexis.com and nexis.com IDs to faculty and students at graduate schools of library and information science.

The instructor of the course needs to send a note, with the title of the course, and course number if applicable, and a list of first and last names of the students to:

Jude T. Hayes
jude.hayes@lexisnexis.com
212-309-7813
Fax: 845-258-6105

Jude will issue the passwords once the request is submitted. Feel free to contact Jude directly if you need further information.

Westlaw

Under the direction of its Librarian Relations group, West offers the following resources specifically for library schools. The promotion includes:

  • Free Westlaw access for use in courses in mater's level programs. Individual westlaw.com passwords for faculty and students are provided by West. For a subscriber agreement, e-mail Lori Hedstrom, Manager.
  • West research guides, which can be used alone or as part of a larger curriculum, to introduce students to basic legal research materials and methods. Teaching materials regarding research in specific databases or topical areas are also available. E-mail Lori Hedstrom for more information.
  • http://west.thomson.com/librarian/education/programs.asp