This guide is designed to provide students working on a journal with resources to assist in working on source and cite assignments, particularly with locating items that are not available through the law library.
Researching and writing a scholarly article is very different from the kind of research you have experienced while writing memos and briefs during your first year of law school. For assistance with the note writing process, from selecting your topic to researching the issues, see the Researching for Journal Notes, Comments and Paper Courses Guide.
Questions? Contact Philip Johnson at philipj@uic.edu
To get help from a person
Reference librarians are here to help you – just ask! Reference librarians can:
To find what the library has
Finding items at other libraries
WorldCat lists items at libraries worldwide and is especially useful in finding books. At the top of each record, you can find the OCLC number needed for interlibrary loan requests.
Visiting other libraries
Because our library is in a partnership with the other academic law libraries in Chicago (Chicago-Kent, DePaul, Northwestern, Loyola, and the University of Chicago), you can enter those libraries with your UIC ID. You can view materials at these libraries and make copies of materials, but cannot check them out in person. If you need to borrow an item, please submit an ILL request following the procedures described below. Cook County Law Library, the Seventh Circuit Library, and the Chicago Public Library’s Harold Washington Library are open to the public.
Borrowing items from other libraries
Interlibrary Loan (ILL) Interlibrary loan is a cooperative, voluntary system that allows us to borrow items from other libraries on your behalf. If you request an ILL, you are solely responsible for its return, unless it is a photocopy. Our interlibrary loan system does not enable librarians to select a specific length of time that interlibrary loan items will be loaned to us; each loaning library imposes its own limits. Every book loaned will have a due date, usually for 3-4 weeks. Place ILL requests as soon as possible; we do not know how long any individual request will take. It can sometimes take up to 4 weeks for items to arrive, though if they are available locally, they often arrive within 1 week.
How Do I Make an ILL Request?
Each journal has identified one person per article to submit all requests for ILLs to the library. The official ILL requestor will review the requests and submit them to Philip Johnson for processing.
Why would I not receive an item via Interlibrary Loan?
Libraries generally do not loan reference books, rare books, loose-leaf volumes, books kept on reserve, multi-volume sets, textbooks, study guides, CD-ROMs, and DVDs, entire issues or volumes of law reviews, journals, and newspapers, and very recently published materials. For these items, it may be quicker to get these sources directly from the author. Your request will not be processed if the requested item is in the library’s print or electronic collection, if another request has recently been made for the same item on behalf of the same journal, or if the item is available at Harold Washington Library across the street.