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Law Library: Students

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Student Services at the Law Library

Welcome to the UNH Law Library

Overlooking the scenic White Park in Concord, New Hampshire, the Law Library is your information center at the UNH School of Law.  Our students prepare for their legal careers in a specialty, Intellectual Property Library within a larger Law Library.  The Law Library's three floors include varied study spaces including 5 study rooms, the main collection, the IP Library, the Kenison Room for rare books, and the Gire Archives.

The general legal collection offers domestic legal materials to support the law school's curricular and clinical needs and provides targeted collections in Social Justice, E-commerce and Technology, International Criminal Law and Justice and an extensive collection of New Hampshire legal materials.

The Law Library staff provides full-service support and instruction for JD (residential and hybrid), MIP and LLM students guided by the faculty approved Informational Literacy Plan, detailing legal research instruction throughout the curriculum.  In addition to working closely with students and faculty on their research, we also teach a variety of for-credit legal research and information literacy courses throughout the curriculum.  We also work with students and faculty to provide research training, research help, subject area LibGuides, and curated collections.  

Keep up to date with the Law Library's events and news by checking out our blog.  Please also visit the internationally acclaimed, IP Mall, an open-access resource containing unique collections in copyright, patent, trademark, licensing, etc.  

 

Reserve Materials

Copies of all required course books are placed on Course Reserve each semester. You can check out any book on Course Reserve for three hours at a time. So that everyone gets a chance with the books, items on Course Reserve cannot be placed on "hold" or "renewed."  If you have any questions about Course Reserves, please contact Kathy Fletcher.

Lost in the stacks?  Try your orientating skills by checking out these maps of the Law Library to help you remind yourself where things are in the UNH Law Library.

You can also ask one of our friendly Law Librarians for help. 

You can find us at the Circulation Desk, on the main floor or in the IP Library (on the 3rd floor).  You can also just Ask Us! 

Food and Beverages

Food is allowed anywhere in the library--except for the Kenison Room and the Gire Archives. Patrons may bring in beverages from home or the Jury Box.  Covered containers are appreciated. Please clean up after yourselves and be sure to dispose of food waste in the specially-marked gray trash barrels. 

Noise Levels

Quiet conversations are allowed on the second floor and in study rooms.  Please note that the study rooms are not noise proof so conversations should be kept at a low level. Please take phone calls outside of the library if possible.

All other sections of the library are "silent zones." (Including the stairway).  If you need to talk or have a group study session please move to the second floor or a study room.  

 

The Law Library maintains group study rooms for the exclusive use of UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law students, law faculty, and law staff. These six rooms, designated for group work, are on the first floor. The study rooms are available for group or individual studying or viewing of videos.  People may check out the key for three hours a day.  This is not renewable.  Group Reservations (2 people or more) should be entered in the study room notebook at the Law Library circulation desk.  Write both names clearly.  Note the hours (no more than 3 per day).  Rooms may not be reserved for more than one week in advance by groups of 2 or more.  If a group is more than ten minutes late for a reserved time, they lose the reservation and the room is open for use on a first come first serve basis.  Individuals may sign in and use rooms that are available at the time of use but may not "reserve" a room.  During the exam period, rooms will not be checked out to individuals – even if no one else is using the room.

The Registrar's Office often reserves study rooms during midterms and/or finals.  These reservations have precedence over all other reservations and are held for the entire time of the reservation.    

The Library Desk Assistant is responsible for checking out study room keys for all students who wish to use study rooms. 

Study rooms are not soundproof.  Please keep conversations quiet.

As a courtesy to our recent law graduates, the Law Library allows access to group study rooms during bar exam preparation.

Westlaw/LexisAdvance/Bloomberg Law passwords

All law students and law graduate students will receive passwords and registration instructions to Westlaw, LexisAdvance, and Bloomberg Law during their orientation session.  These large legal research systems are what attorneys use in practice and are provided to you via the Law Library.  Please register these passwords upon receipt.  If you have trouble registering your password please contact Sue Zago, as soon as possible.

Online Training 

Each platform has its similarities and differences so training in each system is important.  Basic training sessions are available from self-paced tutorials/lessons listed here.  

 

Additional training resources are available from each company. The list of recommended videos will be recommended as the semester progresses.  

 

 

For more information about how the Law Library can help you be successful when you're on an Externship - take a look at our guide!

 

UNH Law Library provides study aids to help students best learn the law. 

We have an extensive collection of print study aids from publishers such as Wolters Kluwer, LexisNexis, West Academic and more that can be checked out for three weeks at a time.  We also have a collection of the Sum and Substance audio study aids for all first-year courses as well as a collection of flashcards.  They are located on the main floor of the Law Library in the Student Success Annex.  

Hybrid JD students - We license a series of electronic study aids from West Academic to assist our Hybrid JD students. Hybrid students can access these guides at https://subscription.westacademic.com/ and follow the instructions for access to these guides which also allow you to take notes, highlight, save favorites, download titles for offline access, and more.

2. Click Create an Account in the upper right-hand corner and follow the prompts
3. Please use your school email address
4. Setup your account and verify your school email address by replying to the confirmation email from West Academic (be sure to check your junk or spam folders)
Once your account is properly set-up, you can log-in and access these guides from anywhere.  For assistance with using the online Study Aids, please email Sue Zago 
 
 

Copiers and printers

The printer/copier/scanner machines are available on the second and third floors of the library. 

Scanning:  The machines are able to "Scan and email" and  "Scan to UNH One Drive" after they are unlocked with your UNH ID.  From the PaperCut menu, pick "Scan" for the PaperCut main menu.  Scanning and emailing is a free service.  Additional instructions for scanning are located on signs adjacent to the machines.  

Copying: Student IDs must be used for copying.  If you do not have enough money to copy the document you will get a message and will have to add money to your card to proceed. 

Printing: Student IDs must be used for printing.

Printing from a Library Computer

When printing from a library computer, you will be asked to choose an ID and job name. Proceed to either of the print stations on the Law Library second or third-floors. Tap your ID on the printers' ID icon. Pick the documents to print. (If you do not have enough money to copy the document you will get a message and will have to add money to your card to proceed.) You will have 24 hours after setting up a print job from your computer to retrieve it at a print station. After 24 hours the job will cease to exist.

Printing using the PaperCut printing system and your own computer
Login to the UNH Franklin Pierce Print Center and use the "Upload" button to upload documents that you wish to print.

Adding Money to an ID Card

All ID holders have a UNH Cat's Cache account that can be used as soon as a deposit is made to the account.

Cat's Cache can be accessed via your MyUNH account.

To add funds to your Cat's Cache account online:

  1. Access the Cat's Cache system at https://my.unh.edu/launch-task/durham/cats-cache.
  2. Login with your normal UNH username and password.
  3. Click the +Add Money link under the Cat's Cache balance displayed on the left side to start the process of making a deposit via a credit card payment.

Once that is accomplished, you can view transactions, statements and balances, make deposits and suspend a lost or stolen card. The Cat's Cache system is maintained by UNH Dining Services in Durham.  During normal business hours, you can call the Dining/ID Office at (603) 862-1821  

 

Check out the UNH Law Exam Archive (from 2014-present).

Law Review and Moot Court are fantastic opportunities for students to hone their skills in research, writing, organization, oral advocacy and leadership.  UNH Law has two law review opportunities for students; UNH Law Review and IDEA.  These are student-led organizations and more information on them can be found at https://law.unh.edu/academics/journals and https://law.unh.edu/academics/experiential-education/moot-court

The following research guides have been developed for students participating in either Law Review or Moot Court but may be helpful to students wishing to learn more.

Borrowing:

Interlibrary loan is a set of cooperative agreements among libraries and library consortia which allows us to borrow needed materials which are not in the UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law collection.   UNH Franklin Pierce School of  Law is a member of the New England Law Library Consortium, the New Hampshire College and University Consortium and OCLC (The "Online Computer Library Center"), a world-wide consortia of over 16,000 libraries "dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs" 

 Interlibrary borrowing is restricted to UNH School of Law students, faculty, and staff.  We cannot borrow materials on behalf of alumni or attorneys.

Lending:

The UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law Library will provide interlibrary lending and copying services to other libraries in academic institutions,  for-profit organizations and law firms, as well as public libraries.  We do not accept requests from individuals.  If you are not affiliated with an academic institution and wish to borrow material from the Law Library, please contact your local library to place a request. We also lend items in our circulating collections to non-academic libraries.

The UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law Interfaith Prayer & Meditation Room is an inclusive and welcoming space for Franklin Pierce Law students, faculty, and staff who are of diverse religious and non-religious backgrounds. This room is on the first floor of the law library and is designated for quiet prayer, contemplation, meditation, reflection, and practice anytime the building is open.

Community members with questions about the space can contact Lauren Berger, Assistant Dean for Students.

 

SHARED USE GUIDELINES:

· This space may not be used as a study space

· No alcohol or food may be brought into the room as these items are not permitted in worship spaces in some traditions

· If meditation or religious practice should not be disturbed, flip the sign on the door to indicate ‘Do Not Disturb’ while keeping time considerations in mind for other users

· If a user is open to another user also quietly using the room at the same time, flip the sign on the door to indicate ‘Please Enter Quietly’

· The room is intended to be a quiet space with the exception of sounds that are a part of a user’s prayer or meditation practice

· Remove shoes upon entering and leave them on the shoe mat near the door

· If users prefer to keep shoes on, they must use the plastic shoe covers provided

· Use wipes provided to clean shared surfaces before and after use

· The burning of candles or incense is not permitted in the building

· Use QR Code by the entrance to provide feedback or recommendations for the space

· When exiting, the sign on the door must be reset

· Items may not be left in the space

· The key shall be checked-out at the library front desk

· The space can be used on a first come, first served basis for no more than 2 hours

 

First Year Course Guides

CALI Tutorials (Password required)

UNH Franklin Pierce Resources - search for books, ebooks, articles, databases and more

Library Search - be sure to sign in with your UNH username and password to get access to all Law Library resources including databases and ebooks. Want some tips on how best to use Library Search?  Check out this video to get started.

Databases for online research

Questions? Ask us!

Offered by the Law Library for UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law students, faculty, and staff to help with research questions. 

The chat service is only offered during the Fall and Spring semesters. If the service is unavailable, your question will be answered via email. You can also email any of the law librarians with your question, and we'll get right on it.