Faculty Services
The Biddle Law Library has a full range of services to support the teaching and research needs of the Penn Law faculty.
Library Liaison: Every faculty member has a librarian liaison who is here to help you with all of your research needs. Your library liaison will also monitor your teaching and research interests and notify you of new resources and services that may be of interest to you.
Faculty Document Delivery: The library will obtain whatever books, articles or other materials you want. If a book or article is not available in the Biddle Law Library, we will retrieve it from other campus libraries, obtain it through interlibrary loan, or purchase a copy. We will deliver materials in print or electrically, whichever you prefer. You may send your requests to your library liaison or to fdd@law.upenn.edu.
Reference: Your library liaison is also your research librarian. Our librarians handle a wide variety of research requests, ranging from those requiring a quick answer to an extensive examination of issues and resources. No request is too small or too large. Wonder whether your request is appropriate? We can’t say “yes,” until you ask.
Research Assistants: Your library liaison can work closely with your research assistant to help develop research strategies for your projects as well as provide general guidance. During the summer, the library has several law students serving as faculty research assistants who can help you with your short-term research projects.
Proof-reading and footnotes: The library can help you in the final stages of your scholarship by proofreading your articles, completing the footnotes, and putting them in the proper format required by your publisher. Please contact Tim Von Dulm at tvondulm@law.upenn.edu.
SSRN: The library posts all faculty working papers and articles to SSRN and other relevant scholarship repositories. You may send your papers to Bill Draper at bdraper@law.upenn.edu
Classroom Support: Your liaison librarian can provide a wide range of services to help you with your classes: identify materials for the class, creating a research web page listing relevant research sources for your students, and providing research instruction on specialized topics are just some of the examples.
Interlibrary Loan: We will borrow from other libraries any materials you need that are not available at one of the Penn or Drexel libraries.
Book Purchases: We routinely buy databases, books, and journals based upon faculty suggestions. If you are developing a new research interest, we will also review our current holdings and work with you to insure that the collection has what you need. Please contact Merle Slyhoff at mslyhoff@law.upenn.edu for any materials you want added to the collection.
Personal copies: Sometimes faculty wish to buy books or journals for their personal collections. We can order these for you and arrange to have them paid from your research account. Please contact Jeff Grillo at jgrillo@law.upenn.edu.
If you have any other questions or suggestions on how we can support your teaching or research – whether or not you believe it is a “library” service, please don’t hesitate to let us know. You may always contact Paul George, Associate Dean and Director of Biddle Law Library at pmgeorge@law.upenn.edu.
