Category Archives: News

Resource Lists: What do you think? We want to know!

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Vectored image of small people standing on and around a ginormous stack of books with a laptop balanced on top. The laptop screen shows the Resource List logo. Many of the small figures are reading books or on devices.

We’re in the midst of gathering feedback about Resource List use within the School of Law and would like to invite our students to get involved in a short focus group that will help us shape our approach to lists in the future.

If you’re available on Wednesday 17 April 2pm to 4pm and will be in Central Edinburgh then please email our project manager Karen to register your interest.

Tea, coffee and cake will be provided and participants will receive a £10 gift card for Blackwells, which can be used to purchase any of their worldly goods (including books, games, stationery and much more!).

There are eight spaces available. The focus group will take the form of informal discussion with some structured questions about whether or not you use the List system, what you like about it, and will give you lots of time to provide your thoughts and discuss with others in the room. All feedback will be used to inform the development of lists within the school and responses will be anonymised.

If you have any questions about the process please contact Karen Stirling by email.

Resource Lists logo: a stylised graphic of a white book open to the centre pages shows on a teal background. Text underneath the book image reads 'Resource Lists'

(NOTE: Date changed from 26th March to 17th April to gather more participants.)

Academic writing help: Royal Literary Fund Fellow

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A student sits at her laptop, typing.

Photo by @Aspen on nappy.co

Are you a student who is struggling with academic writing? Are you a staff member who knows of a student who isn’t quite getting the hang of writing at University level?

Perhaps you need to book an appointment with our Royal Literary Fund Fellow. Mary Paulson-Ellis is a well-respected expert in the field of writing, and has been a writing mentor, workshop leader, tutor and writer-in-residence for many organisations including the National Centre for Writing, the National Galleries of Scotland and the Edinburgh International Festival. She is also a committee member for the Society of Authors in Scotland, and student feedback from her first semester working at Edinburgh has been enthusiastically positive. She specialises in helping students in any discipline hone their writing skills and she does this by arranging one-to-one appointments with students in the Main Library.

The service is free, confidential and individual to each student’s needs. To find out more about the service you can visit our RLFF page, or to book an appointment please email Mary directly. 

Library Tours for Staff 2024

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Are you a new or existing staff member who would like to find out more about the University’s libraries?

Join an Academic Support Librarian on a 20 to 30-minute in-person tour of one of our ten Library sites. Find out about key library services including EdHelp, borrowing, printing, and study spaces. Discover the general print collections at the Library and explore the subjects covered. These tours are suitable for staff in all roles across the university and staff can visit as many of our libraries as they wish.

The currently scheduled dates are listed below. To book a tour, visit Event Booking.

Schedule of library tours:

Main Library

22 January @ 09:30, 6 February @ 10:30, 6 March @ 14:00, 2 April @ 10:30, 8 May @ 14:00, 12 June @ 14:00 (additional tours to be confirmed)

Art and Architecture Library

5 March @ 09:15

 

Edinburgh College of Art Library

6 February @ 09:15, 9 April @ 09:15, 7 May @ 09:15, 11 June @ 09:15

 

Law Library

12 February @ 10:00, 21 March @ 11:00 (additional tours to be confirmed, or email law.librarian@ed.ac.uk for more info).

 

Moray House Library

25 Jan @ 11:00, 22 Feb @ 11:00, 21 Mar @ 11:00, 25 Apr @ 11:00, 23 May @ 11:00, 20 June @ 11:00

 

Noreen and Kenneth Murray Library

14 Feb @ 15:00 (additional tours to be confirmed)

 

New College Library

30 Jan @ 16:00, 27 Feb @ 16:00, 26 Mar @ 16:00 (additional tours to be confirmed)

 

Royal Infirmary Library

26 Jan @ 10:00, 7 Feb @ 10:00, 26 March @ 09:30 (additional tours to be confirmed)

 

The Lady Smith of Kelvin Veterinary Library

24 Jan @ 14:00 (additional tours to be confirmed)

 

Western General Hospital Library

25 Jan @ 10:00, 19 Mar @ 12:30, 22 May @ 13:00

Welcome to Week One!

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Hello, and if you’re a new student joining us for the 2023/24 academic year we look forward to meeting you in the Law Library soon!

We are Anna Richards and SarahLouise McDonald, and we are your Law Librarians. Anna works the first half of the week, SarahLouise the second, and you can reach us both by email on law.librarian@ed.ac.uk at any time.

Photos of Anna and SarahLouise (L-R). The background is formed of a white space with black and blue geometric shapes behind the photos.

You may have already met us at one of the several induction sessions we’ve been running over the past week or two. If you missed them you can find recordings on the Law Librarian Media Hopper Channel:

The slides for each session are added as ‘attachments’ to the videos above. Please note that captions are automatically generated and we’ll endeavour to get them corrected over the coming month.

One session which wasn’t recorded was the Diploma Welcome to the Library session which was delivered face-to-face. If you’re a Diploma student you should already have access to the slides via your Learn pages, but if not you can find them here: Law – Diploma induction 2023.

If you’re looking for information on using the physical library, we recommend you check out the Law Library webpages and take a look at our Virtual Orientation Guide (Microsoft Sway document – other formats are available by request). We hope that you’ll get in touch with either ourselves or our colleagues on the library helpdesk by contacting EdHelp if you have any queries. See you in the library!

Would you like to be the next LexisNexis Student Associate?

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Each year our major databases recruit for a new Student Associate to fill the role of training and peer support. LexisNexis have announced they are currently looking for a student at the University of Edinburgh to fill this position for the 2023/24 academic year. Please see the attached flyer for more information:

LexisNexis Student Associate Job Advert

The closing date for applications is 17th July, applications can be submitted in the form of CVs at the following link: https://bit.ly/3IyxXDO 

Good luck!

 

Bloomsbury Professional Ebooks: formerly on LexisLibrary

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We want to alert students to a change we’re dealing with regarding Bloomsbury Professional ebooks which were formerly offered on the LexisLibrary platform.. Unfortunately going forward these will no longer be available on this database, and we’re working on access to them via Bloomsbury’s own platform instead.

The courses affected are mainly Property, Evidence, Criminal, Employment, and Contract Law, and the book titles are as follows:

  • Walker & Walker: The Law of Evidence in Scotland
  • A fingertip guide to Scots Criminal law
  •  Commercial Leases
  • McDonald’s Conveyancing Manual
  • Conveyancing Practice in Scotland
  • Property Trusts and Succession
  • Mental Health, Incapacity and the Law in Scotland
  • Scottish Law of Leases
  • Scots Criminal Law
  • Employment Law in Scotland
  • Contract Law in Scotland
  • Missives
  • Scottish Planning Law
  • Scottish Older Client Law Service
  • Drafting Wills in Scotland
  • International Sucession Laws
  • Thomson’s Delictual Liability
  • Tolley’s Estate Planning
  • Tolley’s Inheritance Tax
  • Tolley’s Company Law Handbook
  • Style Writs in the Sheriff Court

While negotiations are ongoing with Bloomsbury (and until the end of May 2023) we’ll be able to access all of these titles using a trial they’ve given us to their own platform, providing students from 2022/23 access through the end of Semester Two exams. The procedure for finding these books is as follows:

  1. Visit the EResources Trials page
  2. Click on ‘Bloomsbury Professional Scots Law Titles’
  3. You will be prompted to log in with your usual username and password.
  4. You’ll arrive at a page that will give you the username and password to use on the Bloomsbury site
  5. Click the link to Bloomsbury (it helps to do this in a new tab or window so you can copy the log in details), then enter the username and password to log in.
  6. Use the navigation on the left hand side to access the title of the book you need.

This information has been added to the DiscoverEd records for these books, and I will also be circulating it via newsletters, blogs and other communication channels. Please do share this information with your classmates to assist them with their study or research if they require access to these books.

If you have any issues accessing these items please email us on law.librarian@ed.ac.uk.

Warm wishes from your Law Librarian

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Working in the Law Library today has been like night and day since the study space scramble of last week, and that’s because most students have now finished up for the term and are beginning their winter breaks. The Law Library is still open until 4.50pm tomorrow (Thursday 22nd December), and we will then close our doors until Wednesday 4th January 2022. If you are studying or conducting research over the winter break you will find our online resources remain accessible via the usual channels, but should you run into difficulties we will not be able to respond to any messages until we return in January. Alternatively the Main Library is available during the holidays, you can find out more on their page on the website.

It’s been a bit of a tricky year in the land of Law Libraries as we’ve been short staffed for much of Semester One both on the Helpdesk and in the Academic Support Librarian team. We appreciate your patience while we do what we can in the time available, and look forward to Semester Two where we hope we’ll be back up to a full complement before too long.

We wish you a pleasant and restful winter break and hope for your health and happiness during your time away from the University. See you next Semester!

 – SarahLouise 

Christmas tree on display in the quad at Old College.

 

American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside

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The library has access to a new collection from JSTOR.

Image of books stacked on a small table in the foreground on the mezzanine of the Law Library, looking out across a room full of students studying in the Senate Room (out of focus).

Books stacked on a table on the Law Library mezzanine. Photo by Sam Stills, copyright University of Edinburgh.

American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside.

The first newspaper published within a prison by an incarcerated person was Forlorn Hope, in 1800. Since then more than 450 newspapers from U.S. prisons have been published. Some are still in publication today such as Angolite and the San Quentin News. 

This collection brings together hundreds of these periodicals from across the US into one collection. Representing various institutions there is special attention on women-only institutions.

The collection is open access and can be accessed via the A-Z list of databases.

 

 

Finding material for your research and studies

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It is nearing the end of semester and the pressure to complete dissertations and study for exams is on. The Law Subject Guide is one place where you can find quick links to useful resources.

As well as linking to the databases we also have a section on where to find the key eBooks and Law Reports. This provides a helpful at-a-glance guide to where to find particular reports or statutes, and we’ve also added a document which shows which books are available via each of our databases.

TIP: When you download the PDF, open the document use the CTRL+F shortcut on your keyboard to search for the name of the book you’re looking for to see which database has it! 

Don’t forget there are also videos demonstrating how to use the law databases more effectively available on the Law Librarian Media Hopper Channel, and you can always email for advice if you encounter any issues: Law.Librarian@ed.ac.uk

Access to Lexis PSL modules

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Over the last few weeks the library have been working with the tutors on the Diploma course to set up access to four modules from Lexis PSL.

Aimed at diploma level students it offers practice notes, precedents, forms and current awareness alerts.

Access is provided to four specific modules within this database –

  • Banking & Finance,
  • Commercial,
  • Private Client
  • Property.

Specific Scots Law content is available within these modules which is why they were chosen to compliment the current resources that are available to students undertaking this course.

You can access it from the Law databases page at:

https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/library-databases/databases-subject-a-z/database-law

When you get logged in, you will automatically arrive in the Property module. To switch to other modules, use the dropdown arrow next to the word ‘Property’ in the top navigational bar. The modules we have access to will have a tick next to the titles.

Screenshot taken from the LexisPSL website demonstrating the dropdown arrow on the top navigational bar, and showing the resultant module options displayed in a grey box below the bar.

If you wish to move over to LexisLibrary without returning to the Law Databases page, you can do that using the dropdown arrow next to the Lexis PSL page title.

If you have any problems with this or any of our other databases, please get in touch by emailing law.librarian@ed.ac.uk.