Research and Scholarship Support

• Law Faculty Document Delivery
• Campus Book Delivery
• Interlibrary Loan
• Current Awareness
• Material Requests

Teaching Support

• Research Lectures
• Course Reserves
• Past Exams

Reference and Research Services

Reference Service

Please feel free to contact any of our reference librarians with your research questions. Reference librarians are available at the Reference Desk or in their offices. Please feel free to visit us, contact us at 335-9005, or email lawlib-ref@uiowa.edu with your research questions.

If you require extensive research assistance, contact Amy Koopmann, Assistant Director for Faculty & Instructional Services / Scholarly Communications, at 335-9823 or amy-koopmann@uiowa.edu.

Research Lectures

Reference librarians are available to guest lecture about legal research sources and skills for your class subject, create library and online exercises for your students, or create a legal research guide of print and online resources for your students’ use. Lecture topics may include subject-specific areas, such as securities law, environmental law, or tax law. Lectures may also focus on specialized legal research topics, such as legislative history or online research techniques.

If you would like a reference librarian to visit your class, contact Ellen Jones at 335-6829 or ellen-jones@uiowa.edu.     

Current Awareness

Law Faculty can subscribe to several online current awareness services, including the Current Index to Legal Periodicals, daily and weekly newsletters from Bloomberg Law, news alerts from VitalLaw, and SSRN e-journals. Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg Law have services that automatically run saved searches on a regular basis to assist researchers with monitoring developments in areas of interest.

If you would like assistance setting up any of the current awareness services, contact Amy Koopmann, Assistant Director for Faculty & Instructional Services / Scholarly Communications, at 335-9823 or amy-koopmann@uiowa.edu.

Material Requests

Law faculty may submit purchase requests for items not otherwise available in the Law Library. Please send your requests to the Law Library Acquisitions team at lawlib-acquisitions@uiowa.edu. Please indicate in your email if you are requesting an office copy purchased using your faculty office account, or whether you are recommending the title for the Law Library's collection.

Law Faculty Document Delivery

Library research assistants are available to retrieve and deliver requested items for law faculty during the academic semesters and summer sessions.

Document delivery services include:

• retrieving books, articles, and other items;
• picking up books from faculty offices for return; and
• finding and printing or emailing items from online sources.

To ensure delivery of the correct item, please include as much citation information as possible. If you have only minimal citation information, we will use our best efforts to locate the correct item.

Library research assistants typically fulfill requests not requiring interlibrary loan or storage retrieval within one business day Monday through Friday. During intersessions and exam periods, when the library research assistants are not working, delivery may take longer.

Please send document delivery requests to lawlib-doc@uiowa.edu. If your request is time sensitive, please copy Amy Koopmann (amy-koopmann@uiowa.edu).

Faculty Carrels

Law faculty may request a secure carrel for faculty research. A limited number of secure carrels are available on the ground floor and third floor of the Law Library. Carrels are checked out for one year and may be renewed. Law faculty may check library materials out to the carrel.

If you would like a secure carrel, contact Dawn Banovitz at 353-5305 or dawn-banovitz@uiowa.edu.

Circulation and Borrowing Services

Law faculty may borrow most library items for one academic year; materials marked "Shelf Copy" may be borrowed for one semester. "Shelf Copy" materials include state codes, digests, certain copies of reporters and journals and "high use" treatises. Materials marked REF, DOC REF, TAX TABLE, or INDEX TABLE also do not circulate.

Office Retrieval

On occasion, a library staff member may need to retrieve an item from a faculty office. If the faculty member is not in, a library staff member may enter the faculty office, retrieve the item, and leave a signed form indicating which publication has been removed. The item will be returned within twenty-four hours, unless the library staff member has made other arrangements with the faculty member.

Return and Renewals

At the end of the semester, faculty members receive an email notice that library materials are due. Law faculty should return library materials that are no longer needed to the Circulation Desk or renew their items on InfoHawk+. Faculty members may contact the Circulation Desk at 335-9002 or lawlib-infohawk@uiowa.edu to arrange pickup of borrowed materials. Items that are unreturned, lost, or unaccounted for will be billed to the faculty member consistent with the general University policy regarding replacement of lost library materials.

Faculty Research Assistants

Research Assistant Training

Reference librarians offer legal research training sessions for faculty research assistants. If you would like to schedule a legal research training session for your research assistant, contact Amy Koopmann, Assistant Director for Faculty & Instructional Services / Scholarly Communications, at 335-9823 or amy-koopmann@uiowa.edu.

Law faculty and research assistants can also refer to the Faculty RA Library Guide for additional information on library support for research assistants.

Faculty Research Assistant Proxy Cards

If you wish to have research assistants or administrative assistants obtain books for you, please complete a proxy authorization form and return the form to the Circulation Desk. Upon completion, proxy borrowers are given a proxy card that permits them to check out items from the Law Library and University Libraries on behalf of the faculty member. Faculty members are ultimately responsible for items borrowed on their behalf.

Printing

Printing accounts are administered through Information Technology Services (ITS). 

Ask a Law Librarian

Please feel free to submit your questions to the following contacts: