HEARSAY News from KU’s Wheat Law Library | Fall 2021
THIS ISSUE We’re back! (If not quite back to normal)
New Wheat Law Library website design
Hybrid legal research teaching model
Green Hall | 1535 W. 15th St. Lawrence, KS 66045-7608 law.ku.edu/library lawref@ku.edu
DIRECTOR’S CORNER Welcome to the fall 2021 issue of Hearsay, the longstanding newsletter of the Wheat Law Library. We are pleased to bring you this new edition as our stacks and study rooms are once again filled with the in-person conversations, interactions, and laughter that had been largely virtual or hybrid for so long during the pandemic. Things may not be entirely back to normal yet, but it has certainly been heartening this semester to see so many friendly and familiar faces return en masse to Green Hall. Though masks and the occasional Zoom meeting are still with us, the pivot to a more traditional educational setting has been a welcome and reinvigorating development for all of us.
In this issue, we hope you will enjoy catching up with us and meeting our new student workers, and also learning more about our efforts to reimagine the legal research component for the Lawyering Skills program. With a renewed sense of optimism for a promising new academic year and beyond, the Wheat Law Library faculty and staff remain committed to serving our constituents and fulfilling our crucial mission of connecting people to the legal information they seek. Now more than ever, it is clear that both elements of that mission are entirely reliant upon the other. Information is of little consequence without the people and connections that make it meaningful. This longstanding principle of librarianship is not simply an academic axiom, it is now an insight of practical significance for us all. And it is also why we, as always, hope to see you in the library. Christopher L. Steadham, JD, MLIM Wheat Law Library Director
The challenges of recent years have revealed important lessons in numerous areas. These include lessons about legal education and shifting research strategies, but also lessons about the importance of community and what makes the library a special place in so many ways. Things that might have been taken for granted in the past, like the serendipity of browsing the stacks or a brief discussion with a friend at a study carrel, are now recognized for the unique opportunities they represent. I think it is safe to say that students, faculty, staff, and public patrons have all been struck by just how irreplaceable our library is, as a place for learning and also as a place for community.
The Wheat Law Library is an integral part of the University of Kansas School of Law, serving the law school and university community in legal and interdisciplinary scholarly pursuits and providing access to legal information for legal professionals and the general public. Want to learn more? Check out: law.ku.edu/library
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The new Wheat Law Library website Pam Crawford | Assistant Director for Public and Technical Services
In the beginning . . . “The University of Kansas School of Law Library has embarked on a systematic approach to the maintenance and development of World Wide Web pages to provide the broadest possible access to our resources and services. This effort will be managed by a WebPage Project Executive Committee which includes Joyce Pearson: Associate Director/Project Coordinator; Pamela Tull: Electronic Services Librarian/Project Director; Joe Hewitt: Automation Manager/Technical Coordinator; Chris Jones: Binder Specialist/Elder Law Clinic Home Page Support; and Elizabeth Bartlett: Computer Lab Manager Technical WWW Support” (August 1995) Now, 26 years and several versions later, we are excited to introduce the latest Wheat Law Library website. While the URL is still the same as it was for our previous version, nearly everything else has been reorganized, restyled, and reformatted. Don’t worry though, we still provide various methods of access to invaluable content and easy-to-use menus as part of our great new look. Margaret Hair, the director of external affairs, and Ashley Golledge, former communications specialist, and a host of others worked tirelessly for months to get the new platform, overall format, text and design in place. All that was left for me to do on the new law library site was update library content, move each section to new locations on the site, and create new URLs for the PDFs. Oh, and remember to update both the previous and the new websites until the new one went live! You will immediately see the difference when you access the homepage at law.ku.edu/library. Lots of white space, a large photo of the Reference Room, and topical selections in six bright blue boxes: Library Hours, Research & Study Guides, Legal Databases, User Services & Policies,
The redesigned Wheat Law Library homepage on the KU Law website.
Ask a Law Librarian, and About the Library. Directly below the blue boxes is the New Resources link to recently added books, databases and other resources at Wheat Law Library. On the far left of the page, you have easy access to the menu of all other law library content as well as everything on the rest of the KU Law site. Of special note is our large selection of Research & Study Guides for research of legal topics, as well as a 1L Survival Guide to Wheat Law Library, Cite-Checking for Law Review & Law Journal Staff, Kansas Legal Forms, and a Basic Guide to Legal Research. The listings are updated frequently and new ones are added as new topics arise. Due to our change in platform, however, we could no longer house the documents on our server. Over 1,000 documents have been moved to the SharePoint site, given entirely new (and extremely lengthy) URLs, and may be easily accessed. The User Services & Policies section includes the Interlibrary Loan Request Service, which offers an easy, online way to request materials not held by our library but often available from other libraries. You can email us at lawill@ku.edu, call 785-864-9264, or just fill out a request form live and in person at the Circulation Desk. We are very pleased with the new and improved website. We hope you will be, too. As the only “surviving” member of the 1995 WebPage Project Executive Committee, I’m happy to say this latest version is my favorite! Wheat Law Library | Hearsay
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Hybrid model of teaching legal research is here to stay Blake Wilson Assistant Director for Instructional & Faculty Services The instruction of legal research to first-year students may have been slowly evolving, but it was ready for the pandemic. Shockingly ready. I attended law school in the early 2000s. At that time, legal research was something mentioned but not assigned. One or two days during the first semester of our first-year Lawyering course, a librarian would come to lecture us armed with a PowerPoint presentation and a cartful of books. I can’t say that it was ineffective. I can say that it was not optimal. For one thing, there was only a mention of online resources such as Westlaw and Lexis. Neither database was introduced to us until second semester. Also, there was no hands-on, research specific learning. We had no research assignments to cut our teeth on outside of what was required to write a Motion for Summary Judgment. When I started teaching at KU Law in 2007, things were better. The librarians were given their own time to spend with the students outside of the first-year Lawyering class. On the third floor, where all the research material for Kansas is kept, each small section would meet with a librarian. There the students were shown the books and how to use them. Following an assignment borrowed from a research workbook, the students would work their way through legal problems, unrelated to what they were working on in the lawyering course. These assignments could be a bit tough to wade through since they weren’t written specifically for Kansas, but they were doable. However, just as with my law school experience, Westlaw and Lexis were kept out of the curriculum until the spring semester. It didn’t take long before the Lawyering instructors and the librarians had a sit down to discuss what was and was not working. This was part of a larger conversation going on that resulted in the creation of a Lawyering Skills Boot Camp for incoming 1Ls. First on the agenda was the research assignments. It proved too
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difficult trying to get research problems written for a nonKansas jurisdiction to work out. These were re-written for the Kansas researcher. Next came the issue of the librarians’ times not being included in the students’ schedules, much to the shock and dismay of the students. Working with the administration, we were able to get these times placed on the first-year students’ schedules as a research lab. Next was access to Westlaw and Lexis, more specifically to their citators. Until this point, students were asked to use the book version of Shepard’s to determine whether the cases cited were good law. However, the serial collection we had on hand was no longer being updated and its usefulness waned with each passing semester. Students would need access to an online citator. They would need earlier access to Westlaw and Lexis and during Boot Camp seemed to be the logical choice. Training on each database would then be done later and then full use of Westlaw and Lexis would be available half-way through the first semester so they could use each for their open memos. This model held well until fall of 2020. Because of social distancing requirements and closing off the library stacks, the research labs had to focus exclusively on online content. After searching the landscape for various resources, we landed on Core Knowledge for Lawyers and the associated book Legal Research Demystified: A Step-by-Step Approach by Eric P. Voigt. Core Knowledge guides the user through a problem using Westlaw and Lexis. It then questions, corrects and grades the students’ work. The librarians would then be there to go over any questions that seemed to give students the most problems. This was a stark change, but stark changes were the norm. We weren’t sure about the end results. The idea behind using books stems from several different ideas: 1. Books may offer better retention. This has been studied and discussed since e-readers first came available with mixed findings. My take is that everyone is different and, for some, the experience of book research causes greater
retention. In order to determine whether this is the case, you must do it. 2. Not everything is online. Or it may be behind a paywall. Or you may have to be a member to gain access. Or it may have an embargo on it so that the publisher can make money selling the books as well as licensing content to vendors. There are many reasons this may be the case. 3. Legal informatics is based on the write-submit-publish model, which has carried over to the digital world. Understanding this process and working through it on paper solidifies such notions as slip opinions, legislative service publications, and administrative regulations. I had to wonder: Would the students gain the skills needed to conduct the research for the first-year Lawyering Skills course? Turns out the answer is “yes.” The quality of work the students produced showed that there may be an advantage to getting the students online sooner rather than later. This led to the discussion of how to proceed in fall 2021. It was obvious that we wanted Westlaw and Lexis moved up in the curriculum. Keep in mind that when I started, the databases weren’t even accessible until the second semester. Now we are
discussing online research from the jump. However, I stand by the notion that in order to create the ability to correctly analyze a legal issue, one must be proficient in both book and online research. Through some work with the Lawyering Skills faculty and the library faculty, we developed a hybrid model of research instruction that gives students early access to online resources while keeping them in the books. The method is quite simple. I cut out a couple of the book assignments and modified them, making them simpler. These were then divided into three categories: Secondary Sources, Common Law, and Statutes. The first two weeks of the library lab consists of book-based research, with week one being Secondary Sources and week two being Common Law & the Digest System. Week three is Common Law using online resources through Core Knowledge. Week four finds the students back in the books, looking at Statutes. Week five and they are looking at Statutes online. While the jump to earlier online research for students was a response to an unprecedented situation, it proved to create some advantage. Students are now given an even greater head start honing their research skills while at the same time building the analytical skills that come from diving into books.
Upcoming KU Law events Barber Emerson Bluebook Relays October 29, 2021 Kansas Law Review Symposium November 15, 2021 Online, Zoom webinar law.ku.edu/judicial-conduct
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Meet the circulation desk student employees
Cassidy Bee is a 2L from Colorado. She graduated from KU with a degree in psychology and minor in business. She has a dog named Captain and enjoys going home to Edwards, Colorado during breaks.
Emma Dillon is a 3L from Oklahoma degree in cultural anthropology. She en palm, Jane Fronda.
Hannah Henry is a 2L from Omaha, Nebraska. She received her undergraduate degree in political science from KU. She enjoys traveling and is always planning her next trip.
Sam Klaassen is a 3L in the JD/MBA His time at the desk has paid dividends helped lead to him marrying one of the l
Olivia Ruschill is a 3L from Shawnee, Kansas. She is interested in litigation, and went to KU for undergrad, majoring in history and English. Upon graduation, Olivia is getting herself a big, fluffy dog so she can confide in someone about stressful workdays without committing an ethics violation. 6
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City, Oklahoma. She has a bachelor’s njoys spending time with her majesty
Patrick Grey is a 2L from Olathe, Kansas. Ever since watching Shrek the Third as a kid, he has dreamed of becoming a prosecutor. He also enjoys playing clarinet.
A program from Marquette, Kansas. s, as it has provided time to study and library’s patrons (a KU Law alumnae).
Braydn Monhollon is a 2L from Topeka, Kansas. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Kansas in political science and communication studies. He enjoys hiking and camping.
Katie Tepezano is a 3L from El Paso, Texas. She received a degree in criminal justice from The University of Texas at El Paso. She enjoys spending time with her dogs and traveling. Wheat Law Library | Hearsay
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Library staff directory OUR MISSION
Christopher L. Steadham Director csteadham@ku.edu 785-864-9242
Pam Crawford Assistant Director, Public & Technical Services pcraw4d@ku.edu 785-864-9264
Melissa Doebele Library Assistant mdoebele@ku.edu 785-864-3360
Jeff Montgomery Circulation & Serials Department Manager jmontgom@ku.edu 785-864-9252
As the largest and oldest law library in Kansas, the Wheat Law Library is an integral part of the School of Law. It serves the law school and university community in legal and interdisciplinary scholarly pursuits and provides attorneys, judges, and the general public with access to legal information. Key components of this mission include collecting and preserving Kansas, national, and international legal documents, teaching legal information literacy, and serving as a legal information gateway by providing access to sources beyond the scope of the physical collection.
LIBRARY HOURS August 26 - December 17, 2021 Mon - Thur 7:30 a.m. - 11 p.m. Friday 7:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. Saturday 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Sunday 10 a.m. - 11 pm
Produced by the Office of Communications at the University of Kansas School of Law,
Brenna Truhe Technical Services Manager brtuhe@ku.edu 785-864-3168
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W. Blake Wilson Assistant Director Instructional & Faculty Services wilsonwb@ku.edu 785-864-9253
2021. The University of Kansas is an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution. Photos: KU Marketing Communications, Margaret Hair