LIBRARY POLICIES

A.     To articulate the Law Library’s current collection development philosophies and practices to the law school community

B.     To guide the Law Library administration and staff responsible for providing access to materials to support the law school’s teaching and scholarship needs

C.      To provide a framework for the Law Library administrators and staff members making decisions regarding the development, maintenance, preservation, and retention of the Law Library’s collection

 

This policy statement describes the Law Library’s current collection development practices and will be modified as needed to reflect any significant new goals and procedures implemented by the Law Library. Note that in this policy, “collection” includes “ownership or reliable access.” See ABA Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools 2021-2022, Standard 606(a). Appendix A.

The Law Library’s principal objective is to acquire, maintain, and provide access to materials that support the current instructional, scholarly, and administrative needs of Villanova University’s Charles Widger School of Law, which consists of approximately 40 full-time faculty members and several dozen adjunct law and graduate tax faculty, serving over 600 students in the full-time JD program and five joint-degree programs: JD/MBA JD/LLM in Taxation, JD/LLM in International Studies, LLM in Taxation/MT in Taxation, and JD/MPA program.  Graduation requirements include a Practical Writing course, and six credits of Experiential Learning. The Experiential Learning credits are earned through externship placement or work in one of the six Clinics: Civil Justice Clinic, Clinic for Asylum, Refugee, and Emigrant Services, Clinic for Law and Entrepreneurship, Farmworker Legal Aid Clinic, Federal Tax Clinic, and Interdisciplinary Mental and Physical Health Law Clinic. The Law School also supports three student-edited journals, Moot Court Board and the Trial Advocacy Program. In addition, the Law School currently has five Centers of Excellence: The Villanova Law Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation, The David F. and Constance B. Girard-diCarlo Center for Ethics, Integrity and Compliance, The Jeffrey S. Moorad Center for the Study of Sports Law, The John F. Scarpa Center for Entrepreneurship and Law, and The Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy. Finally, the Law School has a number of faculty committees and student support and administrative offices, such as Career Strategies and Academic Success, which the Law Library supports.

As ancillary objectives, the Law Library is open to the law school’s alumni, the Villanova University community, area law librarians and attorneys, and members of the community in our geographic region.  The Law Library seeks to balance all of its objectives with the efficient use of the institution’s financial resources and currently available space.

The Villanova Law Library was founded in 1953.  The first Library Director, Arthur Pulling, was a nationally renowned librarian, who had previously been director at the University of Minnesota and Harvard Law School Libraries.  This experience served the Law School well. He built a solid collection by convincing Harvard to allow the new Villanova Law Library to purchase many of their duplicate copies of historic texts and treatises. He also acquired entire collections from defunct law libraries.  This formed the basis for the comprehensive and systematic collection of American legal treatises and scholarly monographs from the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  In addition, the Law Library acquired and still retains many reprints and some original editions of classic texts of 18^th and 17^th century English and early American common law.  The Law Library continues to maintain and preserve this historic research collection.

The Law Library became a United States Government Depository Library in 1964 and currently has a significant collection of federal legislative and administrative documents, including a complete Serial Set and several decades of congressional hearings.  This collection is supplemented with those available through subscription services, such as HeinOnline, as well as those freely available government collections such as those from the Library of Congress and the Government Publications Office. In addition, the collection includes commercial microfilm reproductions of historic sets of the Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, and legislative documents from the U.S. Congress.  The Law Library currently selects approximately 9% of the documents offered to depository libraries by the Federal Depository Library Program.  A separate section of this policy describes the selection of U.S. government documents. See Appendix B.

Throughout its history, the Law Library’s acquisitions have emphasized research on current American federal and state law in an academic institution.  In addition, the Law Library has sought to acquire contemporary and historical American and foreign law resources to support instruction in the development of the common law, as well as significant foreign and international legal resources for research and instruction in the global development of both public and private international law.  As a Catholic and Augustinian institution, the Law Library’s collection also includes extensive materials on law and religion, church and state, canon law, natural law, and political and legal philosophy.

More recently, the Law Library has adapted to significant budget cuts, the proliferation of reliable free and commercial online sources for legal information, global health crisis limiting in-person access to the physical collection and a growing emphasis on preparing students for the practice skills needed in the legal profession.  As a result, the Law Library has undergone a major shift from print to electronic access for most sources of current legal information.  At present, our print acquisitions focus primarily on Pennsylvania state and federal materials, scholarly legal monographs, and practice-related titles. The Law Library relies heavily on electronic subscriptions to provide professors and students with 24/7, remote access to the legal research platforms standard in the field. 

The Assistant Dean for Library and Information Services and Associate Professor of Law is ultimately responsible for all acquisition decisions. Under the current practice, the Assistant Dean consults regularly with and receives recommendations from the Associate Directors and r librarians in making these decisions.  Minor purchases are delegated to the Associate Directors. The Law Library relies on a number of sources for identifying prospective resources for the collection:

A.     Faculty Requests:  Virtually all requests submitted by faculty members are approved.  If the cost is significant, the professor’s liaison librarian or the Associate Directors s may explore alternative formats, sources, or means for obtaining the information, but typically faculty requests are honored.  Format decisions – print or ebook – are made based on use predictions and faculty preferences. Regardless of format, materials purchased for faculty members are processed and included in the library catalog and circulate as library materials.

B.     William S. Hein & Co., Inc. Green Slip Service:  The Law Library also relies on the Hein Green Slip Service to identify new monographs, treatises and journals for the collection. These are reviewed by the Associate Directors and reference librarians who provide recommendations for purchase and format preference.

C.      Review of Existing Subscriptions: Annual bills for existing subscriptions are reviewed by the Director and administrative group to consider their continued relevance, price, and new access options.

D.     Other Sources: The Associate Directors and reference librarians review other sources of information about new publications and resources, including law-related blogs and listservs, publishers’ and vendors’ catalogs and announcements, major bibliographies, and book reviews.  The Associate Directors and reference librarians also make ongoing recommendations for new titles based on interlibrary loan requests and faculty and student research interests.

E.      Clinic Library: The Law Library maintains a separate practice-oriented collection of books in the offices of the Law School’s Clinical Programs.  The resources in this collection are based primarily on the recommendations and requests of the clinical professors who run the various clinics in consultation with their liaison librarians. The areas of practice include civil and juvenile justice, immigration and asylum law, federal taxation, farmworkers’ rights and entrepreneurship.  Materials for the Clinic are fully cataloged in the online catalog.

A.     General Criteria: The general criteria for evaluating all prospective acquisitions and retention decisions for the Law Library’s collection are: 

• significance of the subject matter to institutional research and instruction
• importance/credentials/reputation of the author
• accuracy of information
• potential for use by members of the Law School community
• importance to total collection
• authoritativeness/reputation of the publisher or producer
• significance of the title in bibliographies, lists and recognized critical surveys and reviews
• current and/or permanent value
• availability through Villanova University’s Falvey Library
• scarcity of materials on the subject
• purchase price
• continuation costs
• availability of other formats
• reliability and longevity of the format
• accessibility and ease of use
• desired or necessary level of duplication of title or information
• available space
• technical processing and maintenance costs
• lasting scholarly value

B.     Specific Criteria

Language: Most materials are purchased in English, if available.  Materials in other languages are occasionally purchased when specifically requested by a faculty member.

Chronological Focus: Primary emphasis is on the current law of the American legal system, and its history from the founding of the European colonies in North America.  Works on the history of the common law and civil law traditions, systems, and jurisdictions are acquired selectively, to the extent that they support the current research and instruction of the Law School.

Electronic Access Considerations: Whenever possible, the Law Library seeks to provide access to subscription databases via IP authentication rather than through the use of individual user accounts. IP authentication allows off-campus users to access databases with relative ease via our proxy server while also extending on-campus database access to visitors, alumni, staff and other library users who may not otherwise qualify for an individual user account. Access support services are provided for both types of databases with individual registration codes distributed to students, faculty and staff for user account platforms while IP authentication database URLs are edited to include proxy information prior to posting to the Law Library’s law databases webpage.

EBooks are generally preferred over print if the title is likely to be of interest to more than a few members of the law school community. When not cost prohibitive, ebooks with unlimited user access/DMR-free licenses are selected. The law library purchases most ebooks through the Gobi system in cooperation with Falvey Library.

Rare Books: Rare books and manuscripts generally are not acquired, though gifts of such works would be considered for the Law Library’s collection.

Duplication: Duplication of print titles in the collection is generally avoided with the exception of materials used heavily for Law School courses and by members of the Law School community.

A.     Core Collection

The Law Library provides the Villanova Law School community with “a core collection of essential materials through ownership or reliable access” as set out in ABA Standard 606(a). See Appendix A.

1.      Federal Legal Materials

a.      Cases – Access to current cases is provided through a variety of online subscriptions and free sources. Print reporters are available from publication inception through 2011-2013. The Law Library continues to receive volumes of United States Reports through the Federal Depository Library Program.

b.      Statutes – Access to the current statutory code is provided through a variety of online subscriptions and free sources.. The official United States Code and Statutes at Large are received in print through the Federal Depository Library Program.

c.      Regulations – Access to the current regulatory code is provided through a variety of online subscriptions and free sources. The Law Library receives and retains the Code of Federal Regulations through the Federal Depository Library Program.

d.      Congressional Materials – Access to current, recent, and selective historic congressional legislative history materials is provided through a variety of online subscriptions and free sources. The Law Library also receives and maintains a print collection of hearings, reports, and documents through the Federal Depository Library Program.

e.      Executive Materials (Administrative decisions, Presidential Documents) – Access to current and selective historic administrative decisions and all published presidential documents is provided through a variety of online subscriptions and free sources. The Law Library also receives and maintains a print collection of agency decisions, Public Papers of the President, and historic volumes of Title 3 Code of Federal Regulations selected through the Federal Depository Library Program.

f.       Treaties and International Agreements – Access to treaties to which the United States is a party is provided through a variety of online subscriptions and government sources. The Law Library also maintains print holdings for United States Treaties and Other International Agreements, Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America 1776-1949 (Bevans) and Treaties in Force.

2.      Pennsylvania Legal Materials

a.      Cases -- Access to current cases is provided through a variety of online subscriptions and free sources. The Law Library retains Pennsylvania State Reports in print from publication inception to date.

b.      Statutes -- Access to the current statutory code is provided through a variety of online subscriptions and free sources. The Law Library maintains a print subscription to the commercial annotated code, Purdon’s, and the official laws in Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes and Laws of Pennsylvania.

c.      Regulations -- Access to the current regulatory code is provided through a variety of online subscriptions and free sources. The Law Library maintains print subscriptions to the Pennsylvania Code and Pennsylvania Bulletin.

d.      Legislative Materials – Access to recent legislative materials is provided through a variety of online subscriptions and free sources. The Law Library has historic volumes of the Legislative Journal in print from inception to date.

e.      Pennsylvania-Specific Secondary Sources – In addition those available through a variety of online subscriptions, the Law Library maintains in print a state legal encyclopedia, specialized treatises, and practice resources.

f.       Pennsylvania-Specific Finding & Updating Tools – The Law Library maintains a print subscription to West’s Pennsylvania Digest. All citator services are provided electronically.

3.      State and Territories (Not Pennsylvania) Legal Materials: Access to case law, annotated statutory codes, session laws, administrative codes, and attorneys general opinions for all states and territories is provided through a variety of online subscriptions and free sources. The Law Library relies on electronic subscriptions for access to secondary sources for these jurisdictions.

4.      Secondary sources

a.      Treatises – Access to most treatises is provided through electronic subscriptions. Where electronic access is not available, a print subscription will be considered.

b.      Hornbooks and Study Aids – In addition to electronic access through electronic subscriptions, the Law Library purchases print hornbooks and study aids to support the Law School’s curriculum. Multiple copies are acquired based on demand.

c.      Scholarly Legal Monographs – The Law Library obtains these titles in print or as ebooks after careful consideration of the anticipated use, preference of the requester, cost, the availability of unlimited user access/DMR-free licenses and access issues.

d.      Journals – Electronic access to law journals is primarily provided through our subscription to HeinOnline. Additional access is available through free sources, other online subscriptions and digital repositories. The Law Library also maintains a historic print journal collection as space permits.

e.      Practice Materials – Access to these materials is provided in either print or electronically depending on format options, users’ preference, and intended use. For example, the Law Library currently has Bisel publications in print and provides electronic access to PLI Plus from the Practising Law Institute.

5.      Finding & Updating Tools

a.      Digests – Updated, current access to the West Digest System is available to the Villanova Law School community through individual Westlaw accounts.

b.      Citators – Major commercial legal databases and free online sources provide citator services. Print citators are not collected.

   

B.     Specific Subject Areas

The Law Library currently collects most heavily in the following areas:

• Tax Law
•  Corporate, Business, and Transactional Law
•  Clinic Practice areas
•  Sports Law
• Law & Religion
• Compliance and Ethics

In addition, the Law Library supports faculty scholarship areas of interest and the Law School’s curriculum, with an emphasis on courses requiring outside research, writing, or practice simulations.

A.     Villanova Law School Publications: publications of Villanova Law School faculty; Law School brochures, bulletins, event programs, and Law School examinations (as allowed by the faculty and provided by the Registrar)

Bibliographic Control and Processing: All materials added to the collection are fully cataloged and classified according to national standards.  Most materials are processed within one week of receipt, unless original cataloging is required. Catalog records for electronic subscriptions are purchased when funds are available.

Government Depository Material: As a selective federal depository, the Law Library acquires those documents that are of use for legal research and reference (See Appendix B:  United States Government Documents Collection Development Policy).

Reference Support and Research Guides: The proliferation of electronic sources for legal information increases the need for formal and informal instruction on legal research and legal information literacy. The Law Library provides this necessary support by teaching courses, offering presentations, consulting individually with researchers, and designing research guides (See http://libguides.law.villanova.edu/) 

Gifts: Determinations about accepting in-kind gifts are based on the same considerations affecting other acquisitions decisions, including duplication, relevance, and available space. Generally, no donor conditions are attached to the donated items and the Law Library retains sole responsibility for decisions regarding their classification, location, circulation and disposal.

Retention: Primary emphasis is on maintaining a research-level collection for current and future scholarly use.  As a research law library, the collection includes outdated and esoteric works that have value for scholarship purposes. Materials that are duplicated or available through other means may be withdrawn on the basis of their currency or limited utility.  Other factors determining retention include potential historical significance, cost of preservation, stability and affordability of electronic formats, and space availability.

This collection development policy will be reviewed each year and revised as necessary. Appendix A will be updated if changes are made to ABA Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools, Chapter 6, Library and Information Services.