Opened in 1996, the $13 million, four-story law library provides a technologically advanced and comfortable environment for study and research.
Home to the Law School's collection of 400,000 volumes, the library accommodates nearly 600 people in seating ranging from upholstered chairs to study tables and carrels. It is designed to meet both individual and group study needs, for access to the campus computer network and the Internet, for video and cable viewing, and even for recreational reading and e-mail communication.
An attractive red-brick structure with a central atrium, the library includes several Computer Assisted Learning Centers, each equipped with 11 IBM computers for searching Lexis-Nexis andWestlaw databases. Connecting a laptop computer to the campus network and the Internet is a snap, with access from 188 carrels and 44 four-person study tables located throughout the library, as well as wireless access from anywhere in the building. The Brian P. Lutch Computer Center also houses 7 Macintosh and 22 IBM computer with CD-ROM drives and various software packages for word processing, spreadsheets and databases.
Twenty-two library staff members are willing and able to assist in the use of the facility's resources. Librarians, all with advanced degrees, provide formal legal research instruction inconjunction with faculty in the first-year Legal Reasoning, Research and Writing program. They also teach an advanced legal research course, and lecture in a variety of workshops in the Fleet Legal Research Lab. And of course, they are always available to help with the most difficult legal research questions. The answer is never very far away; the library's membership in various library consortia makes resource-sharing easy and efficient.