Welcome finalists!

Welcome back.
We hope that by the end of the year, you will have mastered enough basic research skills to feel confident about entering the law profession (if that's what you want to do). We also want to develop the idea that law librarians are your allies, both now and in the future.
So, if you're not feeling confident about independent legal research, sign up for a repeat database tutorial. If you want help with your assignment research, just ask. If you want a second opinion about how to use the New Zealand Law Style Guide, just ask. If there is something else you would like help with, just ask.
If you are doing Honours, we can help with additional research support and information about citation management (that's EndNote). Just ask.

Welcome third-years!

Welcome back!
If you're starting the research side of the Laws 498 programme this year, you'll be in the library for some library-based exercises and tutorials.
There are sign-up forms at the Law Library desk for

• the LexisNexis tutorial - 50 minutes, in the Law Library seminar room on the 6th floor
• the NZ database tutorial - 100 minutes, also in the Law Library seminar room
• the Exercise 2 workshop (do the library-based exercise, then go to the workshop), held in SR5

The library exercises are a good way to learn about the library, and about how legal literature works. Feel free to ask for help. And if you'd like a library tour, just ask.
We can also help you with your research assignments during the year. We won't do the research for you, but we can make sure you are using the most appropriate research tools.
And have a look at the Law Subject Guide. You'll soon know which sites you use most often, but it's worth exploring some of the other content as well. If you want an overview of NZ legal research, have a look at the mindmap on the Strategies page of the subject guide.

Welcome second-years!

And congratulations for getting into Law School.
We hope you'll get into the Law Library as well. You don't need to do much independent research this year but we still have a range of useful things, including

• Close Reserve material - search the Catalogue's Reserve menu by course code to see what's on Reserve for your courses this year
• law textbooks - great for getting an overview, and you can take them home. Search the catalogue, or ask us for suggestions
• lots of online stuff, chiefly via the Law Subject Guide, including online textbooks like Adams on Criminal Law, which you will find via the Brookers online databases link.
• books on suceeding at law school - browse theLaw Library shelves around KL130
• legal dictionaries and ordinary dictionaries at K120 (just inside the entrance)
  
• great study spaces - especially on the 9th and 7th floors

Do you want a library tour or a quick tutorial on using the online Adams? Just ask and we can set it up for you. Anything else you want to know? Just ask.
And make yourselves at home.

LexisNexis NZ's TLC

LexisNexis NZ has just unveiled a new site full of useful teaching and learning resources for the LexisNexis NZ site. It's called TLC (for Training, Learning, Consultancy) and it includes a series of iKnowledge Bursts (90-second how-to videos) and a series of more in-depth iKnowledge tutorials. Topics include legislation, commentary, downloading, forms and precedents. The how-to stuff on customisation doesn't apply to us as we do not have individual log-ons to Lexis.
Access to the training videos is free; the consultancy option is not free.
Definitely worth a look, but you will need to create an account and put up with a bit of administrivia. Apparently the resources will eventually be available from within LexisNexis NZ itself, which is where we'd like them to be.
Here's the link to the TLC site.

Hansard

Hansard is now online within 2.5 hours. Find out more at the New Zealand Parliament site.

postgraduate workshops

The Library is running a series of workshops for postgrads. You can sign up for one or for all. And they will be repeated in semester 2.
Find out more and register here.

changing how we change things

As of now, the Parliamentary Counsel Office is adopting new terminology for describing amendments, along with a general trend from passive descriptions ("is amended by adding") to active commands ("insert"). Worth a look.