We are considering extending borrowing privileges to attorneys and would
appreciate hearing from other academic law libraries regarding your policies
and experiences. We are interested in libraries that currently lend to
attorneys and those that have in the past and have discontinued the
practice.
Our questions include:
To whom do you extend borrowing privileges - firms only, firms with
librarians only, individual attorneys, your alums only?
What materials do you lend to attorneys - all materials that circulate,
limited categories of materials, materials that do not circulate to your
students?
How long is your attorney borrowing period, and how does it compare to
borrowing periods for students?
What sort of registration, borrower card or other documentation do you
require?
Do you impose fines for overdue materials, and are they the same as those
charged students?
Is your lending program free or do you have a fee-based membership?
Are materials borrowable and fee-based or free service differ between your
alums and other attorneys?
How long have you been lending to attorneys?
What problems, including loss of materials and uncollectable fines, and
payoffs have you seen as a result of lending to attorneys?
Do law firms ever reciprocate on a formal or informal basis. For example,
if someone in your school needs access to a title not available in the
academic community, will firms ever let librarians or students use their
collections to access these materials?
Please respond to me directly. I will post to the list a summary of
information collected.
If you have written policies you can attach as a WordPerfect or Word
document, that would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks so much.
Barbara West
Associate Director for Research and Instruction
Thurgood Marshall Law Library
University of Maryland (Terps Rule) School of Law
410-706-3728
bwest@law.umaryland.edu
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