International Legal Collections at U.S. Academic Law School Libraries
Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/slissrj Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Acknowledgements This article originated as a final research project for Professor Jean Bedord's fall semester 2011 graduate course, Information and Society (LIBR 200-05). I would like to thank Prof. Bedord for her suggestions, insights, and criticism. I am also grateful to the other students in the course for sharing their own research and thoughts via on-line discussion boards over the course of the semester.
A Comparison of Four Premier Academic Law Libraries in the United States and the United Kingdom: The Findings of a Valuable International Placement
Every night for ten nights last May, I returned to room 128 in the Westside YMCA (West 63rd Street, New York City — just off Central Park) armed with more behind the scenes insights, professional secrets and first hand accounts of US law library operation and management than one slim A5 notebook could hope to hold. I was fortunate to be in the United States on a two-week placement at Columbia University, visiting some of America's great law libraries — the law school libraries of Columbia itself, New York University and Yale University. Each morning after an orange juice, toasted cream cheese bagel and cappuccino, I would head out with the commuters to join the subway at Columbus Circle — uptown for Columbia or downtown for NYU. Every evening I would admire the energy of the mostly silver-haired athletes in brightly colored lycra returning to the Westside “Y” after numerous circuits of the Jackie “O” reservoir on the upper east side of Central Park. The park is 843 acres of creative space bound by impressive hotels, apartment blocks and the streets of Harlem. In May it is in perpetual motion from dawn to dusk with joggers, roller-bladers and cyclists weaving their way around the trees, fountains and numerous statues. Indeed it appears to be a huge magic garden, complete with beautiful street lamps that seem to come from C.S. Lewis's Narnia — another world, like the City itself, at once familiar and fascinatingly different.
Science fairs as learning tool for teaching excellence
Science fairs are usually considered to be a pedagogical and cultural activity that involves the students actively. Gifted students need challenges to further develop their skills while maintaining the motivation level. Science fairs may provide the informal environment that will request and allow these students of excellence to challenge themselves by developing a scientific research project. Despite being well known in different countries, in Portugal first steps are being made on the use and implementation of science fairs as effective pedagogical tool. In this work, we will present a 4 years study that was developed on a Portuguese school with the main goal of evaluating the advantages of this informal way of teaching. The study includes an analysis of the evolution of the students’ knowledge that have participated, or visited, the different science fairs. Some advices for the implementation of these projects will be given. The motivation of the students was monitored as well as the knowledge and skills effectively improved by this activity.