Book Title: Empirical Legal Research Services
Book Description: Legal Research Services covers the skills and core work of applied law and justice research support in law libraries. Foundational skills include subject area mastery and specialized approaches to reference interviewing, social science bibliography, and literature review researching. Core services include data and statistics acquisition, bibliometrics assistance, original data collection and data management support. Advanced services include quantitative study design assistance and survey instrument review, qualitative research support, and empirical legal research teaching. The book concludes with a snapshot of emerging law library service areas such as artificial intelligence product adoption and training. The innovative work of past and present law librarians is highlighted throughout the book.
Contents
Book Information
Book Description
Is the U.S. court system fair? Is Congress passing laws that help military veterans? Are local zoning decisions contributing to gerrymandering? Can we use data to improve attorney efficiency? Which legal texts should we collect in print? These questions illustrate the broad concerns of empirical legal studies and empirical legal research services. While law and social science research is celebrating its centennial, empirical legal research support is a newer library service. This book covers the skills that law librarians need to support evidence-driven research and quality improvement initiatives.
Empirical Legal Research Services begins with a historical overview of empirical legal studies. It then reviews the skills and services comprising applied law and justice research support. Foundational skills include subject area mastery and specialized approaches to reference interviewing, social science bibliography, and literature review researching. Core services include data and statistics acquisition, bibliometrics assistance, original data collection and data management support. Advanced services include quantitative study design assistance and survey instrument review, qualitative research support, and empirical legal research teaching. The book concludes with a snapshot of emerging law library service areas such as artificial intelligence product adoption and training. The innovative work of past and present law librarians is highlighted throughout the book.
Written by the nation’s inaugural empirical legal research librarian and former Head of Empirical Legal Research Services for the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale Law School, Empirical Legal Research Services is a practice-based primer for information science students and a resource for law librarians embarking on a new area of professional practice.
Winner of the 2023 Joseph L. Andrews Legal Literature Award and the 2023 Digital Publication Award of the Academic Law Libraries Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries. The Andrews award recognizes a significant textual contribution to legal literature of enduring research value, extensive effort, and/or impact.
Sarah E. Ryan is Associate Professor and Director of the Law Librarianship program at the University of North Texas.
License
Empirical Legal Research Services by University of North Texas is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Subject
Library and information services
Metadata
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Empirical Legal Research Services by University of North Texas is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.