As a UC Berkeley law student you will need to make extensive use of computing technology to facilitate and enhance your legal training. You will use computers to prepare documents and reports; collaborate with fellow students, administrative staff and faculty; and perform online legal research.
The Law School’s Information Systems & Technology team and the Law Library Computing Services staff are continuously exploring innovative ways to utilize technology to enhance your legal education, and working to improve the services we already offer. Some of these services include: computer labs exclusively for law students, email accounts, computer hardware and software recommendations, law school computing orientation, training on using library-based electronic resources, hardware and software support as well as referrals to sources of help on issues that exceed our level of support.
CalNet ID
Your CalNet ID will allow you to log in to workstations in the law library computer labs and in offices of student journals and organizations. Your login will provide you with access to our Web-hosted resources and our online directory of Law School faculty, staff and students. You will have access to personal storage space, WebFiles, that is backed up regularly, as well as networked printers. Your CalNet ID and temporary passphrase (TeleBEARS PIN number) will be mailed to you in April. You can activate your CalNet ID by going to the Change CalNet Passphrase Web page and changing your passphrase. For more information, visit http://calnet.berkeley.edu.
Email Account
CalMail is a campus-wide email service offered at no cost to UC Berkeley students. CalMail email accounts are administered by Information Systems & Technology of central campus, a separate unit from Law School’s Information Systems & Technology Department.
When you receive your CalNet ID, you should create your CalMail email account. All students are required to sign up for an email account even if they plan to use another account for email. If you wish to enable mail forwarding, we have documentation posted on our website that will instruct you on how to do so. Email is used routinely by faculty members to disseminate course-related information and by administrators to notify students of important deadlines. Please read your email and respond to appropriate administrators as necessary. Law student email addresses are available to Law School faculty, staff and students through our integrated directory. When you create your email account, you may indicate if you want it to be made visible to other students.
Personal Computers The Law School strongly recommends that students own a laptop computer. Most of our services and support, and the legal profession in general, are oriented towards Windows-based PCs. Most classrooms have power to each seat and wireless connectivity so laptops can be used to take notes during class. It is also possible to take many law school exams on laptop computers.
Computer Labs
The Computer Labs are located on level 1M of the library. The facilities are available for use only by currently enrolled JD, LLM and JSP students. You must activate your CalNet ID and attend an orientation session to use the computers. There are 50 PC workstations available for use and are all connected to networked laser printers.
The PCs run Windows XP and have a full suite of applications including Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Dreamweaver. You will find information about all computing resources at: http://www.law.berkeley.edu/library/computing/
The computer labs are open whenever the law library is open, but at various times one of the labs may be used for training sessions. Lab assistants are available to assist students with setting up accounts, answer software questions and troubleshoot printing and other hardware problems. For more in-depth questions and problems, there are full-time technical support staff to assist students.
Network Access
Access to AirBears, the campus wireless network, is available in most locations throughout the law school. Use of the wireless network requires a laptop with wireless capability. If your laptop does not have built-in wireless capability, you will need to purchase a wireless network card. For more information, visit the AirBears section of the Communications & Network Services website at airbears.berkeley.edu.
Software Downloads
The university has obtained software license agreements that permit the redistribution of certain software to students, faculty and staff. Typically, these are license agreements for applications such as antivirus software, remote access/connectivity software and other miscellaneous programs. To see what is offered, visit software-central.berkeley.edu. You will be able to browse to see what is available, but you will need a CalNet ID in order to initiate downloads. At orientation, you will receive a “Connecting@Berkeley” (C@B) CD, which includes most of this software as well as all software necessary to configure your computer so that it meets the minimum standards required to ensure access to the campus network. For more information on minimum security standards, see http://security.berkeley.edu:2002/MinStds/AppA.min.htm.
LAW LIBRARY
The G.W. McEnerney Law Library is one of the world’s great law libraries. Its collection includes extensive holdings in Anglo-American law and foreign and international law. The law library is also home to the world-renowned Robbins Collection of religious, Roman, and civil and early English common law. The law library lives in two information worlds. Its collection of books and manuscripts is a priceless resource that supports legal scholarship at its highest level. The library staff has also worked hard to stay near the cutting edge of technological innovation, providing the latest software applications and access to a wide array of Web-based research tools and online databases.
The primary mission of the law library is to serve law students and faculty as they engage in the teaching and research that are central to the law school's existence. The library staff devotes a great deal of energy to providing a facility where law students can conduct print-based and online research. Some law students use the law library regularly. It is the place in which they prepare for classes, work on their notes and outlines, search the Web, write their papers, and check their email. Other students come to the library only when pressed to read a statute or law review for an assignment or to use the computer lab's laser or color printers. Still others never use the library. Whichever type of law student you are, the library likely offers services that will be of interest to you.
Law school can be an unsettling experience. The law library can act as neutral ground, giving you a space where you can do your class assignments, use the computer labs, ask the librarians for advice and assistance, do complex legal research for your classes or your jobs, or just sit in a carrel and create stupendous doodle art. The choice is yours. The important thing to remember is that the law library is here to serve your research needs. Thus, you should not hesitate to ask the librarians for a new service or to make suggestions. While the law librarians cannot always do what you want or ask, they will always take your suggestions seriously.
If you have questions about the library, please feel free to get in touch with any of the following people:
Kathleen Vanden Heuvel, Director of the Law Library and Adjunct Professor; 510-643-9147; kvandenh@law.berkeley.edu
Marci Hoffman, Associate Director and International and Foreign Law Collections; 510-642-0629, mhoffman@law.berkeley.edu
Michael Levy, Associate Director, Patron and Computer Services; 510-643-4025; mlevy@law.berkeley.edu
Law Library Study and Research Facilities
The law library offers a variety of places in which you can study and conduct legal research. The North Addition reading rooms have more than 100 seats, including 96 large carrels and 16 table-style study areas. The Main Reading Room, which contains an additional 100 study spaces, is the law library's oldest reading room and a popular study spot because you can bring in food and drinks. All reading room locations have wireless connectivity. The law library is also the home of the Computer Lab, (See the Technology Resources section for a complete description of available computer resources.)
Law Library Website (www.law.berkeley.edu/library)
The law library’s website contains detailed information about the library, links to major law-related and governmental websites and a database of past law school exams, so you can get a preview of the type of exams to expect in law school. Most importantly, the website provides access to a wide array of online databases that support both instructional programs and intensive scholarly research.
Lexis and Westlaw Lexis and Westlaw are proprietary, online, full-text document retrieval systems that permit access to state and federal cases, codes and regulations, as well as law reviews, newsletters, and selected legal texts and practice tools. Both services provide many databases that are organized by legal topics. They also include an ever expanding range of international and foreign legal materials. Both services have a wide range of newspapers, popular magazines and trade publications.
The law library’s subscriptions for Lexis and Westlaw are limited to UC Berkeley law school faculty, students, and staff, and visiting scholars registered at the law school. Personal passwords are issued to each entering student during mandatory computing orientation sessions, and remain valid throughout law school. All inquiries about passwords should be addressed to the reference desk. Training is limited to UC Berkeley law students. Instructional materials are available in the computer labs for both services and are free of charge.
UCB also offers access to LexisNexis Academic. This set of databases contains many of the legal research resources found in the law school’s subscription to Lexis, as well as news, business and financial information, medical and health information and general reference. In addition, LexisNexis Academic allows access to Congressional and Statistical databases and to the Government Periodicals Index. To use these databases you must be at a computer on the UCB campus; using AirBears or accessing the databases through the campus proxy server.
Reference Services Our reference librarians are some of the most knowledgeable law librarians in the world and are here to help you find answers to your questions. Please do not hesitate to ask them for assistance with any research question, law related or not. Some of the problems they can help you solve are:
Planning a research strategy
Conducting research using print and electronic research tools
Using LawCat and other online catalogs and databases
Tracking down mysterious or ambiguous citations and references
Learning to use Lexis and Westlaw (Boalt students only)
Finding information on the Web
During the academic year training classes will be offered on using the Internet, finding books or periodicals through online catalogs, and other computer-assisted research. More details will be provided as classes are scheduled.
Online Catalogs
LAWCAT
LawCat is the law library’s web-based catalog and the fastest, most direct form of access to the majority of the law library’s holdings. To search LawCat go to: http://lawcat.berkeley.edu or use the law library’s web page.
You can search LawCat by author, title, subject, keywords or call number. When searching from the keyword page you can also limit your search further by date, location, language and material type (e.g. books, serials.) LawCat uses standard Library of Congress Subject Headings. Cross references will guide you to the correct Library of Congress headings. Many publications purchased by the law library are also in electronic format. If there is an electronic version of a publication available a link will be provided from LawCat. You can also see which periodical issues we have received, which volumes are at the bindery and if a book has been checked out.
If you don’t find what you need in LawCat, or need explanations of the features of the system, ask a reference librarian.
MELVYL AND THE CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY
Melvyl - http://melvyl.cdlib.org - is one of the databases hosted by the California Digital Library (CDL) http://www.cdlib.org/. Melvyl is an online catalog that contains records for the libraries of all 9 UC campuses, including most branch and special libraries. Melvyl’s records are not comprehensive and coverage varies from library to library. Books bought before 1979 are the least likely to be listed. Ninety-nine percent of the law library’s holdings are on Melvyl.
In addition to Melvyl, CDL provides access to scholarly materials, databases of journal article abstracts and citations, electronic journals, and reference databases. The Melvyl site also has links to articles databases and other catalogs such as WorldCat, a national database that has records from most of the major research libraries across the country, including the Library of Congress. If you find something in WorldCat that is not owned by a UC Berkeley library, Hastings, Stanford Law Library or UC Davis Law Library, you can request it electronically at http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ILS/ibs.html or at Interlibrary Borrowing in Room 133 Doe Library.
PATHFINDER
Pathfinder, UC Berkeley’s web-based catalog, doesn’t contain the law library’s holdings, except for a very small number of items that have been sent to off-site storage (Northern Regional Loan Facility - NRLF). You should use Pathfinder for materials that you can’t find on LawCat but would like to find at another UCB campus library. You can gain access to Pathfinder from the LawCat homepage or from: http://sunsite2.berkeley.edu:8000/
Pathfinder will tell you whether a book at another campus library is checked out, so it may save you a trip across campus. It also allows you to renew books that you have checked out from some other campus libraries.
You can gain access to LawCat, Pathfinder, Melvyl, and other local law library catalogs through terminals located in the library lobby, Main Reading Room, and North Addition Reading Rooms, as well as from the computer labs and your own personal computer.
Remote Access to Library Resources
Many databases and electronic journals provided by the libraries at UC Berkeley, including the law library’s, are limited to computers in the UC Berkeley campus network. This is due to our license agreements with the vendors that provide these databases and electronic journals. If you’re not on the Berkeley campus or residence halls you need to use the Library’s proxy server service in order to be able to access these resources. Information on how to configure your browser for the campus proxy server can be found at: http://proxy.lib.berkeley.edu/
Other Campus Libraries
Law students also have access to the UC Berkeley library system, including Doe Library, the Bancroft Library and branch libraries, such as the International Studies Library, the Institute of Industrial Relations Library, and the Institute of Governmental Studies Library. By number of volumes, Berkeley’s holdings are the fourth largest in the United States and Canada.
