Library Advisors

All Osgoode graduate students – both LLM and PhD candidates – are assigned a specific reference librarian to provide personalized advice and guidance in their research and to help them access specialized library services. Your assigned libray advisor is a professional librarian specialized in both legal and interdisciplinary research using the full resources of the Osgoode Law Library and other York University libraries; additionally, whenever possible, s/he will have a recognized specialization in your particular field of research. Your library advisor can help you with many tasks, including:

• Direction in indentifying and using library resources, both print and electronic, specific to your research
• Direction in identifying and accessing foreign, comparative and international legal materials (FCIL)
• Assistance in finding and obtaining difficult texts and documents
• Assistance in conducting interdisciplinary and empirical research
• Demonstrating and assisting with Lexis (Quicklaw), Westlaw and other electronic resources
• Assisting you with accessing our current awareness services

Though you are welcome to deal directly with any of the library staff, we encourage you to contact your assigned library advisor with any questions or recommendations.

Current Awareness Services

There are many ways for you to stay current with new articles and research published in your areas of expertise. Please do not hesitate to consult with your assigned librarian to develop a current awareness profile. Among useful services are the following:

• CILP (Current Index to Legal Periodicals): (link) A weekly email alert service from the Marian Gould Gallagher Law Library of the University of Washington School of Law (Seattle). Your assigned librarian can help you set up a SmartCILP customized selection of subject-specific alerts or tables of contents alerts for recently-published law review articles.
• Current Law Journal Content is a current awareness service from th Washington & Lee University School of Law.  Again, your assigned librarian can assist you in setting up a profile of selected law reviews so that you will receive weekly alerts of new articles as they are published.
• RSS Feeds: You may need to download and install an RSS Feed reader on your computer if you don't already have one. Your assigned librarian will be pleased to help you. For more information on installing, go to http://law.wlu.edu/library/feeds. The feed reader periodically connects to the journal listings and automatically retrieves the content pages.

Recommendations for Purchase & Rush Orders

If you learn of or need to consult any book – whether a new title or an existing titlet – that is not owned by the Osgoode Library or other library at York University and you believe it would be appropriate for our collection, please do not hesitate to submit a request for its purchase. Requests can be submitted to library services (libserv@osgoode.yorku.ca). If you specify that you need the book quickly for essential research, we can put a rush on the order and make sure it is delivered to you as soon as it is received.