Additional Services for Law Faculty: Reference Services
Reference Librarians * Reference Liaisons * Classroom Instruction
The reference librarians have both law and library science degrees and considerable experience providing assistance and instruction in electronic and print legal research resources. Reference services for faculty include research, online database searching, compiling legislative histories, preparing bibliographies and research guides, and locating documents. Reference librarians also provide research instruction to faculty research assistants who are assigned the longer research projects.
The reference staff and their areas of responsibility are:
Raquel Ortiz (rmortiz@bu.edu, room 205, x3-8855): Head of Reference Services. Coordinates and supervises reference department activities.
David Bachman (dbachman@bu.edu, room 332, x3-8413): Reference Librarian and Liaison to Graduate and Curricular Programs. Coordinates research services to law school journals. Liaison to the LLM program in Taxation and the LLM program in Banking and Financial Law.
Steve Donweber (donweber@bu.edu, room 342, x3-8854): Reference and Educational Technology Librarian. Assists faculty to incorporate technology in teaching and research, including but not limited to CALI, CourseInfo, blogs, RSS feeds, wikis, and podcasts. Liaison to clinical programs.
Russell Sweet (rlsweet@bu.edu, room 332, x3-8853): Reference and Electronic Services Librarian. Coordinates LEXIS/NEXIS, WESTLAW and other electronic research services for law faculty and students.
Stefanie Weigmann (sweig@bu.edu, room 342, x8-4997) : Reference and International Librarian. Coordinates research services to the International Law Journal. Liaison to the Foreign Program Office.
The reference desk is located in the Pappas reading room, and all reference staff can be reached by calling x3-3151. Reference requests can be sent by email to lawlib@bu.edu. During the academic year, reference librarians are available:
| Monday - Thursday | 8:30am - 8pm |
| Friday | 8:30am - 5pm |
| Saturday | 9am - 5pm |
| Sunday | Noon - 8pm |
During the summer, reference librarians are available from 9am - 5pm, Monday through Friday.
Reference Liaisons
All full time faculty members are assigned a reference liaison, who provides specialized reference, research, and instruction. Liaisons are available to coordinate research projects, train research assistants, develop and teach research methods for substantive law classes, etc. Liaisons may also assist with current awareness needs, Courseinfo, research portal development, electronic research sources, and other educational or research technologies.
Classroom Legal Research Instruction
The librarians teach online research, legislative history, topical research, and advanced legal research. We enjoy teaching and we would be happy to teach a research component in conjunction with any law school course or seminar.
Our research instruction integrates print and electronic research and teaches students the most efficient resources to select for their research topics.
Please contact Raquel Ortiz (rmortiz@bu.edu, x3-8855) or Marlene Alderman (alderman@bu.edu, x3-8870) to request instructional services.