1. Topical Legal Research Courses at The Boston College Law School Joan Shear Legal Information Librarian and Lecturer in Law Presented at AALL 2005 Annual Meeting San Antonio, Texas

2. Topics Today

3. Advantages How To Get Approved Goals Teaching Expansion Plan

4. Advantages

5. You can’t teach everything Not enough time in the first year Not everyone needs to know everything Not everyone wants to know everything Target information to interests

6. Getting Approved

7. Get Champions – Faculty allies Start with known allies – Guest research lectures Interview faculty – Find more allies and more ideas

8. Goals

9. Use exclusively examples from this subject Reinforce basic concepts Use more sophisticated searching techniques Introduce tools and sources not covered in first year Legislative history Administrative law Introduce specialty materials

10. What to Include/Exclude

11. Make what you do count Get ideas from others Activities teach better than lectures Don’t feel bad about repetition Adult learners need to hear something six times Let them know that that is more out there They can discover it for themselves if they ever need it

12. Expansion Plan

13. Continuing courses Immigration Legal Research International Legal Research Environmental Legal Research This spring we’re adding IP Legal Research Tax Law Research Other courses faculty want us to add Health Law Research Federal Legislative History – Bankruptcy