The Law Library has a wide range of materials for use, ranging from books and periodicals to online databases.
Find a Book
Columbia University Libraries Catalog
To find a book or other physical item in the Law Library, search CLIO, the combined catalog for Columbia University Libraries. Using the post-search location filter Law will limit your results to Law Library materials.
Note the location and call number of the item you want. If the location is the Law Library's 2nd, 3rd, or 4th floors, you may go to the shelf and retrieve it yourself, or click "Pick Up" and have it retrieved by library staff for your convenience. For items with other Law Library locations, you can click the "Pick-Up" button to request retrieval of the material. You will receive an email once the item has been retrieved and is available for pickup from the Law Library Information Desk, or from the other CUL location of your choice. Certain items are not available for immediate paging, including rare books, microforms, and most items published prior to 1990. To access these items, please contact the Reference Desk.
For additional research help, see our online research guides or contact the Reference Desk.
Course Reserves
Course Reserves are located at the Law Library Information Desk. With Course Reserves, Law School faculty members may select and set aside books and other materials for 4-hour loans.
The Law Library puts material on Course Reserves only by a request from the course faculty member or faculty assistant.
Faculty members who wish to place an item on Course Reserves should fill out the Course Reserves Google form sent in advance of every semester. Students wishing for a book to be placed on Course Reserves should talk to the course instructor and have the instructor make the request.
Scanning
The Law Library has four professional-grade scanners for use with books and papers. They are located on the second and fourth floors of the Law Library.
You can choose to have the information sent to you via email, saved to several cloud storage options, or saved to a USB device. When scanning, it is best to keep individual files to no more than 50 pages to keep the file size manageable.
Offsite Storage
Some Law Library items are rare and valuable, in poor condition, or seldom used, so the Law Library does not keep them in the stacks but makes them available by request.
Much of the material housed off-site was published prior to 1990. Items shelved in Offsite ReCAP or Offsite Clancy storage can be requested by visiting a reference librarian at the Information Desk or emailing [email protected]. You will receive an email when your item is available at the Law Library Information Desk.