ZiefBrief

Law Library Closed on July 4th and 5th for Independence Day

The University of San Francisco is observing Independence Day on Sunday, July 4 and Monday, July 5, and university departments, including the law library, will be closed.  Be sure to check our website for the latest Zief operating hours.

Law Library Closed on Friday, June 18

The University of San Francisco is observing Juneteenth on Friday, June 18, and university departments, including the law library, will be closed.  Be sure to check our website for the latest Zief operating hours.

Zief Library Open Weekends in June

We are pleased to announce that the law library will be open on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 am to 5 pm for bar study for the remainder of June, beginning this Saturday, June 12. The law library is open to currently enrolled USF Law students as well as USF Law graduates studying for the July 2021 bar exam.

One of our campus Public Safety personnel will be present during these weekend operating hours to monitor the library's entrance, assist patrons who need help with access, and help ensure the safety and security of our patrons and the building. Library staff will not be available on weekends at this point in time. 

Be sure to complete the Dons Health Check and review our other library policies prior to your visit. Then use your physical or mobile One Card to enter the library. 

Currently, patrons must wear a face covering and sit at one of the marked library study seats so that appropriate distancing is maintained. Students must continue to adhere to USF's COVID-19 safety protocols in order to access the law library.

The law library's group study room online booking system is available. To comply with public health guidelines, only one patron may reserve and use group study rooms at a time.

We will provide further updates on July library hours and public health guidelines for library use as soon as we can.

Library's Chat Service Closed on Good Friday, April 2

In observance of Good Friday, a university holiday, chat service will be closed on Friday, April 2. We'll be back from 9 am to 5 pm on Monday, April 5!

Spring Break Chat Hours

During spring break week, the law library's chat research support will be available from 11 am to 4 pm on Thursday, March 11, and Friday, March 12. Our chat service will be closed on March 8, 9, and 10. We will resume our normal chat service hours (Monday through Friday, 9 am to 5 pm) on Monday, March 15.

Law Library Chat Research Support: Closed November 25 to 27

The librarians' live chat research help service will be closed for the Thanksgiving break starting Wednesday, November 25, through Friday, November 27. Chat research assistance will resume on Monday, November 30, at 9 am.

New Zief Digital Resources: Examples & Explanations, Glannon Guides, Emanuel Outlines & more!

We're excited about our purchase of new digital resources for USF Law students! You will sign in to use these online resources in the same way that you sign on to access other myUSF applications, such as campus email, course registration, etc.

• The law library’s Lexis Digital Library furnishes digital access with highlighting, note-taking, and printing options for study guides in the Understanding and Questions & Answers series. Check the Fall 2020 booklist to find out if your professor recommends an Understanding series text. In addition, the Lexis Digital Library has been enhanced to offer free access to the following required Fall 2020 course texts:

• Animal Law (Liebman): Wagman, Waisman & Frasch, Animal Law: Cases and Materials, 6th ed. (Carolina Academic Press 2019).
  
  
• International Human Rights Law (de la Vega): Donoho, International Human Rights Law (Carolina Academic Press 2017) & Weissbrodt et al., Selected International Human Rights Instruments and Bibliography for Research on International Human Rights Law, 4th ed. (LexisNexis 2009).
  
  
• Legal Research, Writing & Analysis I (Abelkop): Chew & Pryal, The Complete Legal Writer (Carolina Academic Press 2017 – note that the second edition will be posted as soon as it is available from the publisher).
  
  
• Legal Research, Writing & Analysis I (Hutchinson): McFarlane, Dudovitz & Rowe, California Legal Research, 3d ed (Carolina Academic Press 2016).
  
  

• The Lexis Digital Library also offers free access to Expert Learning for Law Students. This book is highly recommended by several USF Law professors and teaches students how to incorporate specific successful learning strategies into their law school studies.

• Our new Wolters Kluwer Online Study Aid Library offers access to these study guides: Examples & Explanations, Glannon Guides, and Emanuel Outlines. Students can personalize their accounts to take notes, highlight, and print digital books. Check the Fall 2020 booklist to find out if your professor recommends a Glannon Guide or Examples & Explanations text. The Wolters Kluwer digital library also includes over 200 videos with coverage of 21 course areas written and presented by law professors and practitioners.
  
  
• Whenever possible, the law library is purchasing some required course texts through Marketplace OverDrive and making them available to law students through the Lexis Digital Library platform. Unfortunately, any digital books that we purchase from publishers that aren’t affiliated with Lexis are subject to more restrictive loan rules. Each copy may only be borrowed by one student at a time for a period of 7 days. The following required Fall 2020 course texts are available to borrow for 7-day periods:
  
  
  • California Civil Discovery (Driscoll & Piasta): Moore et al., Depositions in a Nutshell (West Academic 2016).
    
    
  • Appellate Advocacy (Vu): Garner, The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style (West Academic 2019) & Legal Writing in Plain English (University of Chicago Press 2013).

The law library is reviewing publishers’ digital package offers on a rolling basis. We just added an ebook library with scholarly books on international law. We'll continue to add more digital titles throughout the Fall 2020 semester. Watch for the law library’s announcements in This Week at USF for details about new digital collections!

The librarians are available if you have any questions about accessing and using these materials. You can reach the librarian team via live chat, Monday through Friday, 9 am to 5 pm.  You can also email the team at: [email protected] 

We look forward to working with you this semester, and please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have suggestions about how the law library can assist you with your learning objectives this semester!

USF Observation of Juneteenth this Friday, June 19

This Friday, June 19 — Juneteenth — is a USF holiday, a time for the university to engage in anti-racism work. We hope you check out the excellent resources that Gleeson Library has compiled on its Anti-Racism Resources page! The Zief librarians' virtual chat service will not be staffed on June 19. We will be back on virtual chat on Monday, June 22, at 9 am.

Zief's Summer Research Assistance for USF Law Students

The research librarians will be available this summer to assist USF Law students.  Here are some of the ways that we can help you in summer externships, jobs, or volunteer work:

• Stumped by the research project you just received from a supervisor? A research librarian is on duty waiting to assist you via live chat Monday through Friday, 9 am to 5 pm.  You can also email your research question to the entire librarian team at: [email protected]
  
  
• Taking a class this summer? Our Lexis digital library offers USF Law students online access to two popular study guide series, the Questions & Answers series and the Understanding Series. There are no borrowing limits -- check out as many titles as you would like in either series. 
  
  
• Our librarian-created online research guides on over 30 different topics are available to guide you through unfamiliar research tasks, such as California and federal legislative history research, regulatory research, international and foreign law research, and more.
  
  
• Wondering what legal research databases are available beyond Lexis, Westlaw, and Bloomberg Law? Explore all of Zief's digital library offerings on this page.
  
  
• Doing research on a topic outside of the law? Remember that USF Law students have access to all of the Gleeson Library databases listed on this page.

Update: USF Law Library Remains Closed Until July 31

Summer 2020 USF Law classes are online, and only a very limited number of USF essential employees are accessing campus buildings. The law library will remain closed until at least July 31, 2020.  Please check this blog, your USF email, and the USF Coronavirus Resources page for further updates on campus operations.