LIBR 220-11
Resources and Information Services in Professions and Disciplines (Focus on Legal Resources)
Summer2006 Greensheet
Marc Lampson
E-mail
Office Location: Virtual (more contact information will be provided in the first week of class)
Office Hours: Virtually, anytime.
| Greensheet Links Textbooks Course Requirements |
Resources Blackboard Blackboard Tutorials |
Students must self-enroll for this course on Blackboard prior to the first day of class, officially designated as June 1. You will be required to use a password access code which I will provide using MYSJSU Messaging system prior to June 1.
Course Description
This course will introduce current and aspiring information professionals to the basic legal resources for the federal legal system and the California legal system. The course will cover those resources that are likely to be of interest to legal professionals and the general public, particularly people visiting Public Libraries and Public Law Libraries.
The course is designed for people with little or no initial familiarity with legal resources, but having an interest in learning about these resources to be able to help other people – for instance, library patrons - find legal information. Although much of the course will involve electronic resources, the student should be willing and able to visit a "brick & mortar" law library on at least two occasions during the early weeks of the session.
The emphasis will be on answering legal resource questions that one is likely to receive at a reference desk in a public library.
Course Objectives
The fundamental objective of this course is for the student to learn the basic resources that both lawyers and non-lawyers are likely to need and use when seeking out legal information and are therefore likely to ask information professionals for assistance in finding.
In pursuit of this objective, the student will:
- Learn the federal and state governmental units that make primary law and the type of primary law they make;
- Learn how to identify the major types of primary law and secondary authority for both federal and state jurisdictions;
- Learn where the nearest brick-and-mortar law library is and how to find materials in it;
- Learn how to use online resources – both "free" and "pay-for-view" resources – in locating legal information;
- Learn the major print, online, and pay-for-view sources for legal information;
- Learn how to find – in print, in pay-for-view databases, and on "free" Web sites - the major types of primary law and secondary authority for both federal and state law;
- Learn how to answer questions from patrons about basic legal resources and direct those patrons to the best sources for legal information;
- Learn the relative merits and shortcomings of in print, online, and pay-for-view sources for legal information;
- Learn strategies for developing search terms for using "finding tools" in print, online, and pay-for-view databases for legal information;
- Research, write, and produce a guide to a specific area of law (a "pathfinder") that could be utilized by patrons needing legal information.
This course supports the following SLIS objectives:
- Teaching Goal: Teaching students the major theories, important principles, and current practice in the following areas:
- Information transfer, specifically, legal information;
- Advocacy and leadership for citizen access to information and knowledge resources, which are especially critical because they involve the legal system in which citizens are involved, often in crisis situations;
- Service Goal:
The School fosters service through
- Providing opportunities for interested students throughout California to take courses from an ALA-accredited degree program closer to their homes and places of work.
- Leadership Goal: The course furthers the School’s leadership role through:
- Taking advantage of new information and communication technologies.
- Developing distance learning opportunities throughout California.
- Creating and facilitating lifelong education.
Textbooks
Required Texts
The required textbooks for this course are:
- Steven Elias & Susan Levinkind, Legal Research: How to Find & Understand the Law (13th edition 2005) Berkeley: Nolo Press. If you have an earlier edition, the oldest edition you should use is the 10th edition, 2002.
- Lisa Guerin & Patricia Gima, Nolo’s Guide to California Law (8th edition 2004) Berkeley: Nolo Press. If you have an earlier edition, the oldest edition you should use is the 7th edition, 2001.
Recommended Texts
Many texts on legal research and the legal system are in print. Any one of them published in the past 5 years would probably provide additional help but I do not recommend that you spend lots of money on any other text other than the two listed above.
Course Requirements
Assignments
The assignments for this course are:
- Quizzes & Research Assignments (200 points)
The student will take five online, timed quizzes worth 40 points each. These quizzes will be posted every 2 weeks, on a Friday and will be available for three days. Posting dates for Summer 2006 will be June 16, 30, July 14, 28, and August 11. While quizzes may be somewhat unusual in a graduate course, they are designed with a specific purpose in mind – answering reference questions – and will involve not just rote learning but actual hands-on familiarity with legal resources.
The idea of the "quiz" is to represent as well as possible in the print format the type of reference question one might receive at a reference desk and for which one would be expected to have a relatively "ready" answer. The quizzes will also be somewhat unusual in that to answer many of the quiz questions, will have to first complete a research assignment, often in a "brick and mortar" law library. The quizzes, in conjunction with the corresponding research assignment, in the aggregate will be worth 200 points. - Discussion Boards (75 points)
About once a week I will post a new topic for a new discussion board that focuses on the topic for the upcoming week, e.g., secondary sources, statutes, etc. I will generally pose a question or two to get the discussion rolling and then I’ll "lurk" while students actively participate in the discussion. The questions will not typically have a "right" or "wrong" answer; therefore, students should not expect the instructor to intervene because I have found such intervention usually stops discussion.
Likely Discussion Board Topics:- Legal Systems
- Free Internet Legal Research – Report other helpful sites; Evaluate sites; evaluate relative merits of "free online sites" to print and pay for view
- Secondary Sources
- Westlaw/Lexis
- Constitutional Law
- Statutory Law
- Case Law
- Regulatory Law
Students will be given a maximum of 5 points per discussion board for a maximum of 75 points for the semester for their substantive contribution to the discussion board for the week. Because there are eight discussion board topics, as listed above, students can "skip" one of the topics.
A separate, ongoing "discussion board" will also be posted called something like "The Hallway," where I will actively participate around questions concerning course logistics, assignments, quizzes, and other sorts of questions that arise in hallway conversations after "class." The Hallway Discussion Board will not be graded. - Special Project (25 points)
Students in the last two weeks of the course will work on and then submit a one-page, double-spaced "search strategy" sheet describing a legal topic of their choice and describing how they would advise a patron to research that topic. The due date is August 11, 2006. The project will be graded based on a checklist that I will provide to you when the project is officially "assigned" near the final two weeks.
Grading
During the course you can earn a maximum of 300 points. At the end of the course I
grade by taking the highest number of points earned by a student, let's say 293, as
the 100% mark. Grades are then assigned according to the SJSU standardized grading
scale, so students earning 97 to 100% of 293, would receive an A.
| 97-100% of highest points earned, e.g., 293 | A |
| 94-96% of highest points earned, e.g., 293 | A- |
| 91-93% of highest points earned, e.g., 293 | B+ |
| 88-90% of highest points earned, e.g., 293 | B |
| 85-87% of highest points earned, e.g., 293 | B- |
| 82-84% of highest points earned, e.g., 293 | C+ |
| 79-81% of highest points earned, e.g., 293 | C |
| 76-78% of highest points earned, e.g., 293 | C- |
| 73-75% of highest points earned, e.g., 293 | D+ |
Plagiarism
All assignments submitted must be your own work. Sources must be properly cited in papers as specified in class. The San José State University regulations governing plagiarism will be enforced.
Academic Integrity
Read the SJSU Academic Integrity Policy
http://www2.sjsu.edu/senate/S04-12.pdf
Reasonable Accommodation of Disabilities
If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability,
please e-mail me as soon as possible. Presidential Directive 97-03 requires
that students with disabilities register with the Disability Resource Center
(DRC) to establish record of their disability.
No matter where students reside, they should contact the SJSU DRC to register. The DRC Web site: http://www.drc.sjsu.edu/
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