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The Barbara and Maurice A. Deane Law Library is an integral part of the Hofstra University School of Law, and it is one of the outstanding law libraries in the metropolitan area. While the Library’s primary goal is to support the curriculum and research needs of the Law School’s faculty and students, it also serves the University community and members of the Bar who are drawn to the library by the quality of its collection and the caliber of its librarians.
Staffed with 10 professional librarians, seven of whom have both M.L.S. and J.D. degrees, the library is open seven days a week for a total of 99 hours. The Law Library’s mission is to provide users with easy access to a broad array of legal information sources, support faculty in their research and teaching, and assist students in developing legal research skills.
The collection consists of approximately 539,000 volumes in print and on microform. It includes a comprehensive collection of English language legal periodicals, and the statutes and case law for all state and federal jurisdictions. Treatises, encyclopedias, digests, citators, loose leaf services, and materials in related disciplines of interest to the legal profession are available. Current subscriptions are maintained to approximately 5,700 serial titles. The Library has a growing international law collection, which includes selected foreign legal titles, as well as comparative and international legal materials. It also serves as a selective depository for U.S. government publications, including U.S. congressional publications and materials generated by federal administrative and regulatory agencies and departments. The microform collection contains the records and briefs of all U.S. Supreme Court cases from 1832 to date and a collection of United Nations and congressional documents.
The Law Library provides extensive student study areas, including thirteen student study rooms and two computer research laboratories equipped with 45 personal computers. These computers provide access to e-mail, word processing, Lexis, WestLaw, the Internet and CALI (Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction). Law students are trained to use Lexis and WestLaw, sophisticated computerized legal information retrieval systems, by the law librarians and have direct access to these systems to conduct legal research. Students with laptop computers may connect to the Law School network at 120 data jack connections located throughout the Library or through the Law School wireless network.
The Barbara and Maurice A. Deane Law Library is a significant part of the Hofstra University Library system, which is among the 5 percent of those American university collections that contain more than 1 million volumes. All of Hofstra’s library facilities, including the approximately 1,350,000 volumes in the Axinn Library, are available for use by law students. Since writing and research are a fundamental part of the practice of law, the Law Library plays an important role in legal education at Hofstra. |