I teach an Advanced Legal Research course at the UW Law School. I always conclude with a tour of the Wisconsin State Law Library. This year, we couldn’t be there in person, but Director of Reference Services, Heidi Yelk, kindly paid our class a virtual visit. As in past years, learning about the outstanding – and often free – services for Wisconsin licensed attorneys available from WSLL was one of the highlights of the semester. Here are several comments from my students this year:
“I really enjoyed learning about the Wisconsin Law Library! I hear about it often from the attorneys I work with but didn’t realize how practical a resource it was for once I graduate.”
“I loved learning about the state law library and I thought having the [legal practitioner] panel last week (where they all raved about the state law library) made this week’s learning about the library even better.”
And my favorite: “our State Law Library is the bomb.com”
What WSLL services were my students raving about?
- Free access to online legal databases – some even offering remote access* with a free library card
- Westlaw, Lexis Advance, Bloomberg Law
- Books Unbound (State Bar brown binders)
- Wisconsin Jury Instructions via Fastcase
- HeinOnline*
- Index to Legal Periodicals*
- LLMC Digital*
- League of Wisconsin Municipalities
- A-Z Legal Topic Guides – seriously these guides are amazing! They’ll help you get started with your research on virtually any legal topic
- Special Collections
- Wisconsin Briefs
- Judicial Council Materials
- Superseded Wisconsin Administrative Code
- Superseded Jury Instructions – Civil, Criminal, Children’s
- After Hours Service
- Inter-Library Loan (ILL)
- Document Delivery
- Borrow by Mail
- Research support from reference staff
- Research classes – free CLE!
- Room rentals
Thanks again to Heidi Yelk for her excellent virtual tour and to the WSLL for being awesome!