The D’Angelo Law Library welcomes new students

The D’Angelo Law Library welcomes the JD class of 2024 and the LLM class of 2022. The D’Angelo Law librarians will introduce new JD and LLM students to the Library’s resources and services during tours and presentations during orientation. We hope you will take advantage of our vast resources and knowledgeable staff. There is a great deal of new information to process, so please remember that if you ever have any questions about the Library, please ask us!

We’ve gathered what we think is the most important information on our website and in the Library Guide for Law Students, but we also wanted to highlight our Top 5 services and resources here:

1. Reference librarians are here to help.

Our reference staff is knowledgeable, helpful, and accessible by email, chat, phone, and in person. Each Bigelow section also has a Reference Librarian assigned to teach legal research sessions over the course of the year. You can consider that librarian as your point of contact in the library, although all of our librarians are available to help you. We are available seven days a week through email, chat, phone, or in person at the Reference Desk. See our Hours page for the exact hours.

2. Start with the Law Library website.

The Library website can direct you to services and tools to help you find what you need to study law and conduct legal research. Use our website to get research help, find databases, learn library policies, and keep up with the latest library and legal research news.

3. Access information using our primary discovery tools.

Library Catalog: You can search the Library Catalog for books, electronic materials, and more. The University of Chicago Library has over 7 million books and access to hundreds of thousands of electronic resources, so if you are looking for something, you should start with the catalog, and chances are we have what you are looking for.

Databases: The Library offers access to hundreds of databases covering various subjects. To locate a database to use for your research, use Database Finder, a tool that enables you to search for a particular database by name or browse by subject to identify relevant databases. The Law Library also provides a list of the main databases used for legal research.

Access to Bloomberg Law, Lexis+, and Westlaw Edge is restricted to Law School students, and each law student will be supplied with an individual account. You will get registration information during orientation. If you have any questions about these resources, please do not hesitate to Ask a Law Librarian.

Research Guides: The reference librarians have created research guides on a variety of legal topics. These guides give you starting points for doing research in particular areas of law. Students should find especially useful the 1L Success Portal and the Upper Level Success Portal, which gather together tools, such as study supplements and past exams, for each of the required courses you will take during 1L year and the core classes taken by 2Ls, 3Ls, and LLMs. These tools should aid your understanding of the challenging concepts that will form the bedrock of your legal education.

4. We offer a number of on demand services.

Scan & Deliver is an electronic document delivery service that enables members of the University of Chicago community to obtain scanned portions of books or journal articles from the Library’s collections. Requests should be made online, directly from the Library Catalog. Requested documents will be scanned and delivered within four business days. We will scan chapters from books or single articles from journals, provided that the chapter(s) or article does not exceed 20% of the entire book or journal issue.

The Library also offers a paging service to retrieve uncharged Library books located in all campus libraries. Materials will generally be collected within three business days and placed on hold at the Circulation Desk. You will receive an email when your item is available for pick-up.

While searching the Libary Catalog, you may also occasionally come across items with the location Mansueto or one of the two D’Angelo Law Library annexes. You can request materials from these storage collections to be delivered to the Law Library. It generally takes less than 24 hours, and you will receive an email when your item is available for pick up at the Law Library circulation desk.

5. You can easily get books from other institutions.

Use our Interlibrary Loan service if you need material that is not available here on campus.

If the material you are looking for is not available via interlibrary loan, Ask a Law Librarian, and we’ll be happy to help you locate the material.

University of Chicago students in other schools and programs are welcome at the D’Angelo Law Library. If you are interested in an introductory D’Angelo tour or a research consultation with a law reference librarian, please use the Ask a Law Librarian service to schedule a time with one of us.