Both the physical and intellectual center of the School of Law, The University of Mississippi Law Library offers students a quiet, comfortable, and convenient place to study, research, and relax. It is regularly open and staffed more than 100 hours per week, with an extended schedule immediately before and during exam periods.

University of Mississippi law students have a variety of choices when it comes to finding library spaces that best suit their work styles. Some students prefer to make study carrels, their “home away from home.” Other students prefer to reserve one of the small group-study rooms or to work at the study tables, a number of which are wired for laptop-computer use, located throughout the library.

The library’s two computer labs are also popular work spaces. Renovated in 2002, they offer new Pentium-class Dell PCs, high-speed laser printers, and ergonomically correct chairs and tables. When lab PCs are not being used for online training sessions, they’re open to all law students—but only law students. All computers have Internet access and are equipped with word-processing, presentation, spreadsheet, and other popular programs.

The library completed a major renovation of its information technology infrastructure, including installation of a wireless local-area network. With these improvements, the Law School is even better positioned to offer its communities the full range of library services and resources essential for excellence in legal study and research.

With more than 300,000 volumes and volume equivalents shelved across three floors of open stacks, the library’s print and microform collections make up one of the most important legal information repositories in the southern United States. Growing by more than 5,000 volumes a year, these holdings include

• Judicial opinions from all federal and state courts, as well as those of English, Canadian and international tribunals
• U.S. and Mississippi Supreme Court briefs
• U.S. bilateral and multinational treaties
• All federal and state statutes
• Legislative history materials, including documents and finding aids
• Administrative agency rules and decisions
• United Nations documents and reports
• All significant U.S. legal periodicals, treatises, and other secondary sources

The library also serves as a federal and Mississippi government document depository and maintains a casual reading collection of general interest newspapers, magazines, and novels. For other nonlegal research and reading materials, the University’s main library, the million-volume J.D. Williams Library, is just a five-minute walk from the Law School.

Computer-assisted legal research is another of the library’s strengths. Via its Web site (http://library.law.olemiss.edu), the library provides law students access, both on site and off campus, to hundreds of online research resources, including Westlaw, Lexis, and other subscription-only databases. These services, and all other print, microform, and audiovisual materials owned by the library, are described in detail in LOUIS, the library’s online catalog (http://louis.law.olemiss.edu).

The library’s highly skilled and dedicated staff, including six librarians who have earned the J.D. and MLS degrees, are available to assist students in the use of these resources and to help meet all other information needs. The librarians also offer individual research consultations and classroom-style instruction on a variety of topics related to both curriculum and law-practice research. The library staff strives to collect, preserve, and provide access to the best legal information resources; to educate University of Mississippi law students in the effective use of those resources; and to support in every other way possible the instructional, scholarly, and service missions of the Law School and the University.

For more information about the library, please contact the director, Professor Kris Gilliland, at (662) 915-6836 or gillilan@olemiss.edu.