www.le.ac.uk
The Invisible Librarian: Teaching Legal Research Skills at the University of Leicester
HEA Teaching Research Skills to Law Students workshop 5 February 2014
Eugenia Caracciolo di Torella, Jackie Hanes, Dawn Watkins & Loveday Hodson
Once upon a time …
• Learning Legal Skills – cases and materials– how to read a case (black letter approach;
socio legal)– computer skills– how to write a legal academic essay– how to present
• Analysing Law
Positives Challenges
assessment
large numbers
different abilities
changing needs to
meet
reasonably good
feedback
very hands on course
Who is the invisible librarian?
Who is the invisible librarian?
Jackie HanesLiaison LibrarianUniversity of Leicester
1 librarian & 450 UG law students
Me Law
And 7 other departments!
Me
Archaeology &
Ancient History
Law
English
History
Museum Studies
History of
Art & Film
Criminology
My teaching
• 1 hour lecture as part of the law module
• Delivered in early October (Week 2)
• Part presentation, part demonstration
• Focus on finding items on a reading list
Lecture outline
• About the library
• Find books & journals
• Starting research
• Find leg & case law
• Legal databases
• Total
• 15 minutes
• 10 minutes
• 5 minutes
• 10 minutes
• 10 minutes
• 50 minutes+ 10 minutes in and out of the lecture theatre
Support materials
• Library user guide
• Law subject pages
• Online legal research tutorials
What’s good?
• New - no library lecture two years ago!
• All students receive a library induction
• It’s the only time I meet all law students– I return to being the invisible librarian
What’s bad?
• No engagement with students
• No practical experience
• No assessment of learning
• No reflection on learning
• No feedback from librarian
My dream session …
• 2 hour practical in IT classroom
• Students learn legal research skills by doing– In class activities to assess and
feedback
• Aim higher: advanced legal research skills– Go beyond the reading list– Independent legal research skills
• Opportunity for questions and answers
The maths
• Largest IT classroom = 50 students
• 450 undergraduate law students
• 450/9 = 9 teaching sessions
• 9 x 2 hours = 18 hours teaching
Is it practical?
• Is there capacity in the student timetable?
• Are there enough IT classrooms on campus?
• Is there capacity in the librarian’s workload?– 56 hours teaching in October 2013– Can I add another 18 hours in 2014?
Invisible librarian
• Does the librarian have to teach legal research?
• Can the librarian write the teaching materials – to be delivered by academics from law school?
• Can we use existing tutorials differently?– Now: voluntary IT surgery in week 3– Future: compulsory legal research
practical?
eLearning
• Can we use elearning to teach legal research?
• Develop a legal research elearning module?– Make better use of existing online
tutorials? – Create new online lectures and
tutorials? – Use elearning for assessment and
feedbaack?
Future
• Continue to be the invisible librarian
• Work more closely with the law school to develop the curriculum
And now for something completely different…
© Pierre-Louis Hutt
The creative case study
• Read James Boyd White’s ‘Introduction to the Student’, from The Legal Imagination (University of Chicago Press, 1985)
• and
• D. Watkins, ‘The Role of Narratives in Legal Education’ (2011) 32 (2) Liverpool Law Review 113
Write a fictional narrative account of one of these cases
• Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company [1892] EWCA Civ 1
• Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100; R v
• Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273 DC
Students’ response - generally
Seminar 2: Creative case study and presentation skills
Very Good Good Statisfactory Poor Very Poor
1 2 3 4 5
35 52 51 25 1819% 29% 28% 14% 10%
Specific responses..
“very refreshing to learn about this and inspiring…thank you”
“The Creative case study was completely useless…”
A much less controversial innovation
Assessing Research Skills: Some Practical Issues
• Creating assessment for students who arrive with a diverse range of research skills.
• Creating an assessment that is (appears to be?) sufficiently rigorous.
• Agreeing as a team what the core skills are.
• The practicalities of marking in compulsory UG modules…
• Our technical knowledge when it comes to online methods of assessment.
The Problem of Abstraction…
• Assessment is abstracted from the substantive modules’ content.
• Assessment is abstracted from the librarian’s contribution.
