For Faculty and Staff

Faculty Services Liaison Program

To support your teaching and research needs, the UW Law Library assigns a library liaison to each Law School faculty member.  Library liaisons help with any questions regarding campus collections and library services.  Here are some of the ways we are ready to assist you- please see the dropdowns below.

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Reference and Research Assistant Support

Contact your research liaison with quick reference questions or more in-depth projects such as scholarly literature searches, legislative tracking, database recommendations and training, as well as assistance with managing citations using Zotero.  In addition, we will gladly work with your research assistants on special assignments that require library resources.  Remember you can also email your questions to asklawref@law.wisc.edu or call the Reference Desk at 262-3394.

Document Delivery and Interlibrary Loan

To request document delivery or ILL, email docdel@law.wisc.edu or call the Reference Desk at 262-3394.  We will do our best to expedite the borrowing of books or obtain articles (electronic or print) from other libraries.

Current Awareness & Journal Routing

Is it a challenge to stay current with developments in the law? Ask your research liaison to  help you set up email alerts based on your research interests. The Law Library website has an extensive listing of legal and business resources to get you started.  Paper routing of journals and newsletters delivered direct to your office are another option.

Database Services

Bloomberg Law, LexisNexis, Westlaw, HeinOnline, the Making of Modern Law, ProQuest Congressional, ProQuest Legislative Insight, Books UnBound, and numerous other electronic subscriptions are available on the Law Library Web site.  Use these resources from your office computer or access them from home with your Net ID.  To schedule personalized training on these databases, to run an occasional search, or for password assistance, contact your research liaison.

Scholarship

Please see the below section on Scholarship & Scholarly Impact for more information about how the Law Library can help you with your scholarship.

Acquisitions

The Law Library staff compiles a monthly email list of its newly acquired titles, “Selected Recent Acquisitions”, which can be customized to your topic(s) of interest.  Send a reply email to docdel@law.wisc.edu and your book selections will be delivered to your office.  To subscribe to this email list or to recommend purchases for the Law Library collection,  contact the liaison for collections, Vicky Coulter.

Instruction & Classroom Support

Whether it be a library tour, a customized research guide, or a classroom presentation, start by contacting your research liaison or our Instructional Services Librarian, Jenny Zook, for assistance as you plan your curriculum.

Plagiarism Checks

When it comes time to grade papers, the Law Library can help you with checking your students’ work for plagiarism.

Turnitin is the new tool used for plagiarism checking which will be available to all instructions on campus in Fall 2019 through your course page on Canvas.

Note that Turnitin shouldn’t be relied on too heavily- it may flag some things that are properly cited and may miss other things, such as books and articles not available electronically. It maybe a good, quick starting point, however.

If you would like to use Turnitin, you have a couple of options. You can set up a Turnitin for your course on Canvas, and have students upload papers themselves. You can set it so that all uploaded papers are automatically checked. For assistance with this option, contact Jarrod Bogucki.

Otherwise, library staff can run a check for you if you send us an electronic copy of the paper. We will perform a manual check of a paper if you wish, although this takes more time. If you would like this option, contact Jenny Zook, the Law Library’s Instructional Services Librarian, for a consultation. Please briefly explain why you would like the paper checked for plagiarism. It is helpful if you can identify specific passages or footnotes that look suspicious.

Course Reserves/Circulation/Print Cards

The Course Reserve collection is located at the Circulation Desk.  Required readings and audio-visual materials can be placed on Course Reserve each semester.  Faculty may supply the item to place on Course Reserve or ask that the Law Library provide it, if possible.  Personal copies submitted will be barcoded and labeled to indicate the course.

To place materials on Course Reserve, stop at the Circulation Desk or contact Circulation Staff at 265-1128 or email circ@law.wisc.edu. This department circulates books to you from the Law Library collection or from any library in the University of Wisconsin System. Circulation Services can set up proxy accounts for your research assistants to check out books on your behalf. The Circulation Desk has three print cards available for Law faculty members to use- just ask at the desk if you need to use one to print something in the library.

Bloomberg, LexisNexis, & Westlaw IDs

Only law school faculty, staff and students are eligible for IDs.  For assistance with IDs, contact Emma Babler.

Research & Citation Management Tools

There are several tools available which can help you manage your research sources and automatically create bibliographies.

  • Zotero, a free Firefox extension, is especially recommended.  For assistance, contact Kris Turner.
  • Perma.cc is a tool that makes permanent links to articles/websites. For assistance in creating permanent links using it, please contact Emma Babler.
  • PowerNotes is a browser extension you can use to organize research across multiple web pages, browsers, and documents. You can easily clip text from any document or page and drop it into your research project (along with a citation!). To sign up for PowerNotes, just use your wisc.edu email account. If you have any questions or need assistance, contact a librarian.

Legal Citation (Bluebook)

The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation is currently in its 21st edition (2020).  Several copies are available for check out at the Law Library.  See our Interpreting Legal Citations for a quick guide to common citation types.

Note that Zotero can automatically create footnotes and bibliographies in the Bluebook citation style.

Research Funding

In addition to meeting the requirements of the funding entity, external funding proposals must be submitted in accordance with the guidelines and policies of the UW Office of Research & Sponsored Programs (RSP). Additional information and links to funding databases can be found at the RSP site. Proposals also must be approved by the Law School dean’s office.  For assistance with budget preparation, proposal submission, and approvals, you may contact Susannah Tahk.

I want to donate my books/materials. What does the Library accept as donations?

The Law Library will consider gifts of books and other materials, but accepts such gifts only if they conform to the library’s selection guidelines. The Associate Dean and Director of the Law Library or the Chair of the Collection Development Committee, in consultation with appropriate selectors, determine whether to accept a particular gift offer. If you are interested in making a donation, please contact Vicky Coulter.

For archival materials, the Law Library follows the collection/acquisition guidelines set out by UW Archives here. You can see detailed guidelines and details on collections at that link.

The Law Library will consider accepting faculty materials such as correspondence, biographical material, research related records and data, photographs and audio-visual materials, speeches and presentations, etc., as well as records from departmental or university-wide activities. (For full listing, please see the UW Archives link above.) If accepted, this material may be housed at UW Archives, the Law Library or partially digitized as part of the UW Law School Digital Repository at the discretion of library staff.

The library does not assign a monetary value to donated materials. We can, however, provide a letter confirming the contents and condition of the donation.

What should I do with the items I would like to donate that do not fit the Law Library's donation/gift criteria?

If a donated item does not fit our collection criteria, we may pass it on to the UW Madison Friends of the Libraries Book Sale, provide it to law students during a book giveaway, or recycle it at our discretion.

If you are interested in donating materials, please contact Vicky Coulter. She can work with you to review your material and identify the best way to proceed with your donation.

Scholarship & Scholarly Impact

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Scholarly Impact

As law school rankings have begun incorporating scholarly impact into their rankings systems, the Law Library is here to help you with your scholarly dissemination and visibility.

  • SSRN (Social Science Research Network)  is a hugely important tool for the visibility of your scholarship. Use this link to submit your articles and working papers to this repository of new and forthcoming scholarship.
  • Also mentioned above, the UW Law School Digital Repository is the place for UW Law faculty and staff to showcase their scholarship. It is a fully searchable and full-text (copyright-permitting) digital repository of books, book chapters and articles which resides prominently on the Law School web site.  Help keep the digital repository up-to-date by regularly submitting your new publications to Liz Manriquez.
  • Google Scholar Profiles: contact a librarian in order to link your Google Scholar Profile to your scholarship.
  • ORCiD: a persistent digital identifier that you own and control, and that distinguishes you from every other researcher. This is handy to add to your articles and helps other tools (like Google Scholar) link your scholarship to you. Contact Liz Manriquez to set one up.
  • Wisconsin Law in Action: A University of Wisconsin Law School Podcast: the Law Library hosts a monthly podcast focusing on UW Law School faculty scholarship. Please contact Kris Turner if you have a new working paper or article you’d like to discuss on the show!
  • Social media dissemination: please contact a law librarian if you’d like your scholarship disseminated on social media. We work with the External Affairs team at the Law School to showcase your scholarship on our combined various social media channels.
  • Copyright/permissions: Law librarians may be able to assist in understanding copyright and permission questions and can help locate resources and contacts that will make the procedures involved in both easier. For assistance, please contact Kris Turner. 
  • Scholarly Wellness Checks: a law librarian can sit down with you to review your various scholarly profiles and metrics. If you would like us to perform a scholarly wellness check, please contact Liz Manriquez.

Submitting Articles or Working Papers

  • Information for Submitting to Articles to Law Reviews and Journals: This guide contains information about submitting articles to over 200 law reviews and journals, including the methods for submitting an article, any special formatting requirements, how to contact them to request an expedited review, and how to contact them to withdraw an article from consideration.
  • Scholastica: Scholastica is a manuscript submission service used by some law reviews and journals. There is a small fee per submission.  Faculty and staff may contact Myra Sun for access.
  • SSRN (Social Science Research Network): Submit articles and working papers to this repository of new and forthcoming scholarship.
  • UW Law School Digital Repository: To showcase the scholarship produced by faculty and staff, a fully searchable and full-text (copyright-permitting) digital repository of books, book chapters and articles resides prominently on the Law School web site.  Help keep the digital repository up-to-date by regularly submitting your new publications to Liz Manriquez.
  • Open access: Open access works are scholarly works (articles, books, data, etc.) which are freely available online with (generally) few or no restrictions on reuse. Rather than charging readers to access the content, authors may be required to pay a publishing charge. The UW Madison Libraries have negotiated agreements with several publishers to subsidize author publishing fees for UW-Madison affiliated authors.

Faculty and Staff Awards Committee Guides to Awards

Awards are organized by category:

The new Faculty and Staff Awards Committee has developed a guide to help you identify awards for which you and your colleagues at the Law School may be eligible.

  • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Awards
  • Fellowships & Professorships
  • Service Awards
  • Teaching Awards
  • Writing & Scholar Awards, divided by subject and format
  • UW & Wisconsin Awards

Some awards appear on multiple pages if they fall into multiple categories. Each item includes a link to the award’s website and a brief description of the award. If information is available on when nominations are due, it will appear as “more…” under the description. If you have comments or suggestions, or are aware of an award that is not listed on this guide, please contact bonnie.schucha@wisc.edu.