The Library hours for the BLS spring recess are:
Saturday, March 19: 9am – 10pm
Sunday, March 20: 10am – 10pm
Monday – Friday, March 21 – 25: 9am – 10pm
Saturday, March 26: 9am – 10pm
Sunday, March 27: 10am – 12am
For future Library hours, be sure to check our daily calendar which can be found on the Library homepage, in the lower right corner.
Enjoy your spring break!
The Library has hundreds of electronic books (E-Books) available in our collection. They are on a wealth of law-related topics and are accessible through SARA, the library’s online catalog. If you would like to learn how to find them, see examples of what we have and learn how to view or download them, please stop by the table on the first floor of the Library on Thursday, March 10th, 2016. We will be there from 12:30pm to 2:00pm. There will be e-book pens and chocolate candy for all those who stop by for a demonstration. See you there!
During the week leading up to Oscar Night 2016, the Brooklyn Law School Library will host a Pre-Oscar Movie Night. The event showcases the Prof. Robert Pitler movie collection of more than 1500 DVDs. Click on the link to see the complete list of titles. The collection is located in the Student Lounge on the First Mezzanine level of the library. BLS Library users are encouraged to borrow items from the collection to view either at home or in the Library Audio-Visual Room on the first floor.
The BLS Library Pre-Oscar night will take place on Wednesday, February 24 at 8pm in the Student Lounge on the first floor of the BLS Law School. From today until February 19, BLS students, staff and faculty can vote for the film they want to see. Ballots are located at the reference desk. Stop by to vote and help decide which film to see.
From the Oscar contenders in the BLS Library collection, the nominees are:
The winning title will be announced in advance of the Pre-Oscar Movie Night. Before the screening of the film, Prof. Lawrence Fleischer will give a brief talk about the late Prof. Robert Pitler. Refreshments will be served.
Welcome back to your Spring 2016 Semester at BLS.
The first day of classes is Tuesday, January 19th.
Here are the library’s hours from January 19th –
Monday – Thursday 8am-12pm
Friday 8am-10pm
Saturday 9am-10pm
Sunday 10am-12pm
On Monday, January 18th, Martin Luther King Day, the library will be open from 9am-10pm.
On Monday, February 15th, Presidents Day, the library will be open from 9am-10pm.
For additional information on library hours, see library hours.
Attention all students! Remember to return your library books on or before Tuesday, December 22, 2015. It is the due date for all semester loans. If you do not turn in your books on or before December 22, you will incur fines. If you are unsure whether or not you have items checked out to you or if you have incurred any fines, you can log into your library account from the SARA catalog. You log into your account with your BLS credentials (first name.last name and your BLS password). Once logged in, you can see the items currently checked out to you, along with the items’ due dates. If you would like, you can renew any overdue item. You can also view your complete fine history, including outstanding fines and fines paid. Finally, you can review and update your personal information the library has on file, including your mailing address, phone numbers, and email address.
The Library will be closed Thursday, December 24, 2015 through January 1, 2016 for Winter Break,
Saturday, January 2, 2016: 9am – 5pm
Sunday, January 3, 2016: 10am – 6pm
Winter Session, Monday, January 4 – Sunday, January 17:
Monday – Friday: 9am -10pm
Saturday: 9am – 10pm
Sunday: 10am – 10pm
Monday, January 18 (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day): 9am – 10pm
During the reading and exam period all students must make a reservation to use a library study room. Mandatory study room reservations will begin this Friday, December 4th at 8:00am. All study rooms will be locked on Friday, December 4th. In order to access your reserved study room, you must go to the first floor circulation desk to charge out the key.
The link to the study room reservations is on the library homepage under “Related Links” on the right side of the page.
Study Room Policies:
· Study rooms are for the use of groups of two or more students
· Study rooms may be reserved for the current day and two days ahead
· Study rooms may be reserved for periods from 30 minutes up to four hours
· Students are permitted to reserve one study room for a maximum of four hours per day
· Study room reservations are monitored and reservations violating these policies will be deleted
· Instructions for making reservations and a list of rooms available are on the study room reservations page
Library Hours for the Reading & Exam Period:
· Friday, December 4th – Monday, December 21: 8:00am – 2:00am
· Tuesday, December 22nd: 8:00am – 10:00pm
On Wednesday, December 23rd, the library will be open from 9:00am – 5:00pm.
Good luck on your exams.
Reinventing the Library, a NY Times Op-Ed by Argentine-born Canadian anthologist, translator, essayist, novelist and editor Alberto Manguel is worth reading for anyone interested in the future of libraries. Recognizing that the dismantling of libraries occurs in periods of economic crisis when cutting funds to culture seems so easy to some, the author envisions a future as more than a simple matter of economics. He states:
Libraries are resilient. Intent on surviving in an age where the intellectual act has lost almost all prestige, libraries have become largely social centers. Most libraries today are used less to borrow books than to seek protection from harsh weather and to find jobs online, and it is admirable that librarians have lent themselves to these very necessary services that don’t traditionally belong to their job description. A new definition of the role of librarians could be drafted by diversifying their mandate, but such restructuring must also ensure that the librarians’ primary purpose is not forgotten: to guide readers to their books.
Libraries have always been more than a place where readers come to read. The librarians of Alexandria no doubt collected things other than books: maps, art, instruments, and readers probably came there not only to consult books but also to attend public lectures, converse with one another, teach and learn. And yet the library remained principally a place where books, in all their various forms, were stored for consultation and preservation.
The Op-Ed article notes that libraries are forced to take on functions that society is too miserly to fulfill, and meeting those obligations diminishes funds for buying new books and argues that in changing the role of libraries without preserving the centrality of the book, we risk losing something irretrievable. But libraries deal with more than Books. They also offer Information. A bibliocentric view of libraries stresses the importance of printed texts and ignores the expanding nature of library services. Such a view may contribute to library image problems. Increasingly, libraries offer information services not just printed books. Brooklyn Law School Library provides both. Recently, BLS Library hosted its Fourth Annual Library Databases Research Fair. This week and next, BLS Library Director Janet Sinder scheduled Bluebooking for Success workshops on using the Blue Book geared to first year students and others. Where possible, BLS Library purchases books in eBook format. This means users can access books online through home computers, library computers and mobile devices. It is not just printed books that “show us our responsibilities toward one another, help us question our values and undermine our prejudices, lend us courage and ingenuity to continue to live together, and give us illuminating words that might allow us to imagine better times.”
With libraries changing from print to digital repositories and information centers, consider two recent Second Circuit Court of Appeals decisions: Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google and Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust, 755 F.3d 87 (2d Cir. 2014). Both decisions expand access to collections available in libraries, making material accessible in new ways to researchers and readers and providing access for print-disabled persons. Court opinions validating book scanning shows how libraries are changing. They must now deal in information that it is used and produced in diverse new ways. All libraries, both public and private, are adjusting. Libraries remain as important as ever to information literacy and the preservation and of culture and learning.
In anticipation of the first year Research and Citation Quiz, the Library will offer two review workshops.
The workshop on Bluebooking with Success will be offered twice; you may attend either session. Please bring your Bluebook!
Tuesday, October 20, 2015, 4:00pm – 5:00pm, Room 601
Thursday, October 22, 2015, 5:00pm – 6:00pm, Room 503
You may bring your research questions to this Question & Answer Workshop. We will also go over some sample quiz questions.
Monday, October 26, 2015, 5:00pm – 6:00pm, 7th floor Moot Court Room
Looking forward to seeing you at these timely and helpful research & citation review sessions.
The Fourth Annual Library Databases Research Fair will be held on Tuesday, September 29, 2015. The Fair will be held in the Student Lounge from 3:00pm to 6:00pm. Representatives from the following legal research companies will be here to demonstrate their databases:
Come and learn how these databases will help you with your legal research. There will be handouts, light refreshments, and a raffle drawing for prizes including gift cards and gift bags.
Save the date: Tuesday, September 29th, 3:00pm – 6:00pm, Student Lounge.