Faculty Services
The law library provides numerous services that support faculty research and teaching. A partial list of those services is below.
Librarian-Faculty Liaison Program
Each faculty member has a specific reference librarian who serves as that faculty member’s library liaison. Liaisons coordinate faculty access to library services.
Lectures on Legal Research
Reference librarians are available, with advance notice, to provide lectures on legal research in most subject areas. Reference librarians currently lecture in a number of edited writing courses and are available to do so in any writing course in which research guidance will be useful.
Research Projects
Reference librarians will assist faculty with research projects that are not too large in scale (and thus more appropriate for research assistants). Contact your library liaison to request research assistance.
Bibliographies
At your request, reference librarians will perform literature searches and prepare bibliographies. The uses to which faculty may put this service vary, but include investigative searches in areas of potential research, subject searches for ongoing faculty research, and publication searches for possible faculty appointments.
Support for Faculty Research Assistants
Library liaisons are available to provide research assistance to faculty research assistants. This will help assure that the research assistants’ approach is efficient and comprehensive.
Books and Photocopies from SMU Libraries
Contact your library liaison to request library books or photocopies of library materials. Please indicate if you need the items on a rush basis. Underwood library materials circulate to law faculty through the end of the spring semester with unlimited automatic renewals.
Interlibrary Loan
The library has arrangements with numerous libraries and commercial suppliers for obtaining books and other research materials not otherwise available at SMU. We can obtain most items in a week or less, though it sometimes is difficult or impossible to obtain particularly rare or fragile materials. Submit your interlibrary loan requests either to your library liaison or using the “Interlibrary Loan” link at http://libcat.smu.edu.
Course Reserves
To place material on reserve, contact Winston Tubb, Collection Services Manager, (wtubb@smu.edu; ext. 8-1832) or call the Circulation Desk at 8-3383. When placing photocopies or books on reserve, please allow one or two days for the Circulation Staff to process the material.
You can view a list of material on course reserve by clicking on the “Course Reserves” link in the SMU Library Catalog, (http://library.law.smu.edu/). In addition to course reserves, Underwood keeps many heavily used titles on permanent reserve.
Circulation Proxies for Research Assistants
You can create proxies that allow your designated research assistant(s) to charge materials at any SMU library to your library account. To create circulation proxies go to http://www.smu.edu/cul/apps/proxyrequest/ and complete the online forms.