The Library offers several ways to help you. Check out our Seminar Paper Research Guide and our extensive collection of subject-specific guides. We have designed guides that are specifically customized for Georgetown Law seminars.

For more personlized assistance, please schedule an appointment with one of the reference librarians A one hour research consultation with a reference librarian will help you create a superior seminar paper. More information about research consultations is available online.

You can review the textbooks for each course.
The library purchases all required and recommended books for Georgetown Law courses.
They are either shelved in the William Reading Room Reserve collection or available in the Williams Course Reserve collection at the Circulation Desk.

From time to time the Law Center may take on additional programs and personnel to advance new areas of teaching and research. The library has been called upon to assist in this regard by providing specifically requested space (in this case, one study room) for these initiatives. This arrangement is temporary with an end date still to be determined, though knowing how valued these spaces are, all involved are doing their utmost to limit the duration.

While we understand the attractions of Wolff study rooms, for planning purposes it may help to know that Williams study rooms (particularly those on the first floor) are reserved at half to a third the rate of those in Wolff. We hope that our new online reservation tool has made the rest of the process easier and more convenient. Library staff are always willing to assist students in finding space for their quiet study needs.

Earlier this week a few students were not able to access past exams online. The library has since solved the problem, and you should be able to use the collection now.

If you are still experiencing trouble with our exam collection please contact the circulation desk in person or by calling 202-662-9131. Every circulation desk staff member is able to correct the problem on the spot and provide you with instant access.

For more information about our exam collection, please consult our exam login page.

Yes! Beginning November 16.

The library is pleased to announce that an online reservation system is now in place for the Group Study Rooms in both the Williams and Wolff libraries.  You can reserve rooms online starting the week of November 16th.  To use this new service please visit the “Study Room Reservation System”

The new system incorporates library operating hours, so you can book available rooms during all library operating hours. The system integrates email notification, allowing one person to pick a study group location and notify all included group members.

You can also see details about each room, such as number of seats (from 6 to 10), availability of overhead projectors or writing boards. This information is found in Option 4  “View the List of Rooms“ on the Reserve a Room home page.

Students should use their NetID and Georgetown Law password to access the system.

You can now book a room in five easy steps:

1. Enter the netID
   of at least three persons (the minimum to qualify to reserve a room, including yourself).   Note on the right side of the page there is a “Georgetown University Directory Search” where you can search for the netID’s of your group.
2. Pick a date.
   A drop down calendar menu is presented when you click on the box.  Please note you can make only one room reservation per day, and you can reserve up to 1 week in advance.
3. Select a start and end time
   in 15 minute intervals. The maximum time allowed time is 3 hours.
4. Select the room
   from those available at your chosen date and time.
5. Review the data and submit the request.

We’ve built the system to incorporate existing policies for group study access, and we hope everybody likes having online access to the system.  Of course, for now, you’ll still have to be physically in the library to actually use a group study room.  You just don't have to come here to get one at another time.  :-)

With the advent of near-ubiquitous wireless internet access, distractions are hard to avoid.  The complete question we received was "Has the library ever considered having an internet-free room? That is, a study area where there is no internet/wireless access but computers are allowed. Just a (crazy archaic) thought for increasing paper-writing productivity.

We haven't yet considered this option, but we think it might not work very well in practice.  This is partly for technical reasons, and moreso because we think most students won't want it.

The technical issue is that it's difficult to reliably limit wireless internet access to a specific location. Wireless access points tend to overlap coverage areas, so we don't think it's easy to, say, turn it off for one area while not impacting another part of the library.

From a student perspective, we think people are concerned with more (and more reliable) Internet access, instead of technical restrictions.  A few years ago, we had a laptop-free zone in the library, but we found that many people didn't use it.  To better assess student preferences for quiet study, our 2007 Law Library Student Survey included the question: "What would your perfect quiet study space consist of?"  Almost everybody answering the survey responded to this question.  Somewhat to our surprise, the majority of students wanted laptops as well as headphone music, which you can see in this chart.



For students wanting to limit personal distractions, turning off your laptop wireless access might be the best way to avoid online distractions.  More advanced users might want to read "The Productivity Guide for a Computer Geek". The tips range from the obvious (e.g. turn off your computer, use a pen and paper) to the more advanced (e.g. altering your Windows host file).

One suggestion in this guide is to use a Firefox add-on called LeechBlock. This is a productivity tool that lets you block selected time-wasting sites you find most distracting. All you need to do is specify which sites to block and when to block them.

We have no plans to selectively disable wireless access, but we welcome ideas for other things we can do to help you be more productive.

We have several resources to help you with seminar papers and journal notes. Here are a few ideas:

The library has a research guide entitled Research Strategies for Seminar Papers & Journal Notes.

For those who want personalized research help feel free to come to either of our two reference desks or use our online Live Help service.

If you would like in-depth personal help, please sign up for a research consultation with a professional law librarian.

Whichever resource you pick, we are committed to helping you write a great paper.  After you are finished we can help you publish it.  Look for publishing tips on our Guide to Publishing Articles in Law Reviews & Journals.

Yes please do. We appreciate book purchase suggestions, especially from the Georgetown Law community.

Feel free to send them through the suggestions link at the bottom of the library's home page.

Alternatively, you can submit book purchase requests through the suggest purchases page of GULLiver, the library's catalog.

The student's full comment was:
"Williams Library Temperature Last spring, myself and many other students I know couldn't study in the library because of the constant icy chill. Now, the temperature is perfect, and I can study comfortably for hours on end. Good job, Williams!!"

The library's response:
Thank! With a building as large as Williams it is hard to maintain the perfect temperature throughout the 5 floors. Facilities engineers are constantly monitoring the temperature. We are glad their efforts are paying off. We’ll pass along your comments.

One last note:
The fifth floor tends to be cooler, especially in the winter.   The fourth floor tends to be warmer for most of the year. We have noticed that students work on specific floor based upon individual temperature preferences.

We constantly monitor the water fountains in Williams.
For your convenience we have two working water fountains on every floor. There is a water fountain in the Reading Room on the Computer Lab side of the room.

Because of the construction of the building two of the Library's water fountain may be indefinitely out of service. The fountain near the Rare Books Reading Room does not work. The fountain by the first floor bath room will have erratic water pressure

Please do report any problems with the other water fountains in the Williams Building.