CRIV CONNECTION

Author: Jean Davis, Associate Librarian for International Law, Brooklyn Law School Library

At Brooklyn Law School (BLS), LibraryFest runs like a Ferrari F40. Our “Enzo Ferrari” is Dacia Cocariu, reference/outreach librarian and adjunct professor of law. On September 25, over 160 BLS students and administrators attended LibraryFest. Approximately 100 of the students visited four (or more) research stations staffed by vendor representatives and BLS Library’s team. These students earned entry into the LibraryFest raffle.

I asked Dacia how she developed LibraryFest into a fun and successful event.   

Q: When do you contact vendors to participate in LibraryFest?

A: I start reaching out to vendors at the end of June, since our event occurs in September. Vendors often wish to staff multiple law libraries’ fall events. Providing advance notice of our desired event date is important.

Q: Approximately how many vendors do you invite?

A: I invited 12 vendors and our library’s team to participate in LibraryFest 2025. Vendors who participated were: Bloomberg Law, CALI, Lexis, Oxford University Press, ProQuest, Thomson Reuters, and Wolters Kluwer. I explained that LibraryFest would occur from 12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. in a high-traffic area in which people could eat. I noted that our library would provide coffee and ice cream. So, vendors knew in advance that it would be fine to offer food treats at their displays.             

Q: Why choose the 12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. time period?

A: To take advantage of a scheduled break between many morning and afternoon classes and to offer students coming to campus for evening classes the opportunity to attend LibraryFest before the start of their classes.

Q: Why choose a first-floor, indoor location rather than the BLS outdoor courtyard?

A: An indoor location means no potential weather issues and easy set-up of equipment (including a TV and computer monitors).      

Q: How do you market LibraryFest?

A: My colleagues spark interest in LibraryFest during August library orientation sessions for new students. I create a poster to display in BLS Library’s circulation area and in a popular study area. I also display the poster on the library’s/school’s digital signage. I email BLS students shortly before the event. Sue Silverman, reference librarian and adjunct professor of law highlights LibraryFest through BLS Library’s Instagram account and Eric Yap, reference librarian and adjunct professor of law touts LibraryFest in the BLS Library Blog. Brittany Persson, associate professor of law and director of the library promotes LibraryFest at an administrators’ meeting preceding the event. All librarians who teach research classes to 1Ls and LLM candidates publicize LibraryFest. Finally, some BLS legal writing faculty may provide “participation credit” to their 1L students who attend this event.    

Q: Do you have tips for a librarian who seeks to run a similar event for the first time? 

A: Students enjoy food, swag, and the chance to win prizes while learning! Prior to the event, share information with vendors about sources likely to interest attendees. For example, we informed Wolters Kluwer representatives that BLS Professor Seán O’Connor, inaugural Allen Grubman Chair in Media and Entertainment Law teaches a Music Law course. To support this new course, our library recently added Kohn on Music Licensing to our school’s VitalLaw subscription. Tell library team members that their participation as greeters, research station staffers, and responders to exhibitors’ questions is key to LibraryFest’s success. Include in your library’s display a sign with a QR code directing attendees to the site of your research guides. Also provide a computer and large monitor so your librarians can field questions “on the fly.” Be open to new ideas. For example, If John Mayer, executive director of CALI, offers to virtually attend LibraryFest through a TV that CALI will purchase/donate, just say: YES! After the event, the TV became one of the prizes offered to BLS students who qualified to participate in a raffle. If you include a virtual participant, ensure that attendees can easily interact with the participant. BLS Library team members staffed CALI’s station throughout our event.           

Q: Is there anything you wish to do differently next year?

A: I am hopeful that we will have even more vendors participating next year.

Q: Are there new exhibitors you wish to see at LibraryFest 2026?

A: BLS provides students with large, searchable digital collections of study aids via a subscription to Aspen Learning Library. Next year, we will invite a representative from Aspen Publishing to highlight this collection. Also, Center for Art Law is in our backyard: DUMBO, Brooklyn. BLS now subscribes to this Center’s Case Law Corner, a tracker of art and cultural heritage cases. Since BLS has an Art Law Association and offers an Art Law Seminar, this Center’s publications and programs seem like a valuable future addition to LibraryFest.   

At LibraryFest 2025, the author of this post visited each station and asked the representatives what they chose to highlight. Below are summaries of their responses.

Bloomberg Law, represented by Miche de Jean, client service partner:

Miche de Jean noted Bloomberg Law is a highly reliable source of legal news written by legal experts. This includes both legal news to stay on top of developments (recently, courts have been very busy) and news on how the legal industry is developing. Miche de Jean likes to show researchers how to start with a broad search in Bloomberg Law News and then use filters to narrow results. This vendor representative also likes to show students how to access a practice center and obtain legal news focused on a subject area.

Brooklyn Law School Library, represented by the entire team:

We asked attendees to introduce themselves so we could highlight library research guides tailored to their needs. For example, we directed first-year students to 1L Resources, Tips, and Tools. We showed upper-level students in a National Security Law course our recently updated guide: National Security & Human Rights: Resources. For BLS clinic participants, we promoted guides such as: Disability Rights, Housing Justice and U.S. Immigration Law Research Starting Points. We noted that librarians could showcase resources at meetings of BLS student organizations. We offered to investigate purchase options for books that members of student organizations might wish to read and/or discuss. We listened attentively to students’ suggestions for future library initiatives. 

CALI, represented by John Mayer, executive director: 

CALI offers free law school casebooks that all law students can use. CALI has signed up two new authors to write books on constitutional law and appellate advocacy. CALI is actively interviewing authors all of the time.  CALI provides a one-time payment to a faculty member for a book shared through a Creative Commons license. CALI also provides 1,400+ “faculty-authored, peer-reviewed, web-based, interactive” lessons for law students. CALI is conducting ongoing research with artificial intelligence (AI) to create new learning resources, including work on a simulation authoring system that uses AI to aid the faculty author.

Note: Alice Ristroph (Les Fagen Professor of Law at BLS) wrote the CALI eLangdell book: Criminal Law: An Integrated Approach.      

LexisNexis, represented by Theia Milano, practice area consultant, LexisNexis Legal and Professional and BLS Lexis Law student associates:

At the pumpkin-themed LexisNexis station, vendor representatives showed the basics of how to ask a legal question in Lexis+ > Protégé. Through Lexis+ > Protégé > Ask, researchers also can easily create 50-state surveys comparing laws and administrative codes. Results include AI-generated summaries and citations to primary sources with links. (It could take up to 15 minutes to generate a 50-state survey.) Recently, LexisNexis offered a series of webinars for law students on using generative AI in legal research, writing, and practice. This series concluded on October 2.

Oxford University Press, represented by Ryan Warden, regional manager of sales, development, and customer success:

BLS subscribes to two Oxford Law Pro modules containing over 400 titles: Financial, Corporate, and Commercial Law + International Law and International Organizations. There is now an AI Research Assistant specific to Oxford Law Pro. Results of a query in this AI research tool are limited to the Oxford content to which a customer subscribes. An Oxford Law Pro subscription also includes the new series of Expert Essentials articles. These are “digital only” overviews of timely topics (e.g., AI, climate change, and cryptocurrencies) written by experts. The BLS Vis International Arbitration Moot team visited Ryan Warden to ask questions about the Financial, Corporate, and Commercial Law module.

ProQuest, represented by Mary Siegel, senior manager, product sales, academia & government:

BLS subscribes to the new, large ProQuest Government Documents database. This searchable database provides BLS researchers with access to ProQuest’s entire government documents portfolio. ProQuest Government Documents database includes U.S. bills, the U.S. Serial Set, Congressional hearings, and Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports. It also provides U.K. Parliamentary papers. Mary Siegel provided a handout for attendees. The handout describes this database’s subcollections and its specialized search features.

Breaking News: “Coming late in 2025, ProQuest Research Assistant will be available in ProQuest Congressional, part of ProQuest Government Documents, helping researchers quickly assess and explore key government documents through AI-powered insights. Available for Hearings, Reports, Public Laws, Committee Prints, CRS Reports, and other document types, it delivers Key Takeaways that highlight main points, clarifies Important Concepts within context, and suggests Related Research Topics to guide further exploration—all at the individual document level.”

Note: The author confirmed with ProQuest representatives that ProQuest Research Assistant will be available to those who have a subscription to ProQuest Congressional.

Thomson Reuters, represented by Mitra Niknam, academic account manager:   

Adopting an audience-centered approach, Mitra Niknam highlighted to students the availability of Black’s Law Dictionary in Westlaw Precision. A researcher can add a definition to a folder or to a “Keep List” accessible from Westlaw Precision’s home screen under: Tools > Keep List.  Mitra Niknam also commented that when she was learning how to read cases, editorial enhancements created by West attorney-editors were “incredibly powerful.” In particular, she found the case synopsis and headnotes to be valuable. She shared this insight with attendees and explained how linked headnotes in Westlaw are useful to find additional cases addressing the legal issue in the headnote. At LibraryFest, Mitra Niknam highlighted CoCounsel in Westlaw and advised law students to be aware of each faculty member’s AI policy. She encouraged students to think of CoCounsel as their personal legal assistant, while recognizing that any responsible user will thoroughly review their CoCounsel results, and link to/read the legal sources cited in the CoCounsel results. This Academic Account Manager described CoCounsel as a tool to engage with Westlaw in a new way.

Note: Thomson Reuters is now announcing that law school faculty and librarians will acquire new AI tools in CoCounsel Legal on October 15. 

Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory, U.S. (WK), represented by Roslynn Hinton, senior account & relationship manager and Stefanie Efrati, customer success manager:

WK’s team created a handout highlighting 18 digital resources in the BLS subscription to VitalLaw. These resources ranged from noted evidence treatise: The New Wigmore to the Healthcare library of news, practice tools, and primary sources. BLS librarians appreciated this handout because 1L students might not know that VitalLaw includes noted treatises like Farnsworth on Contracts and Harper James and Gray on Torts. Roslynn Hinton’s advance request to borrow a large monitor made it easy for the BLS Vis International Arbitration Moot team to view her introduction to Kluwer Arbitration database. Recognizing that some attendees soon would be summer associates and entry-level attorneys, the WK team also highlighted “smart charts” in VitalLaw. Since BLS subscribes to tax collections in VitalLaw, Stefanie Efrati highlighted the State Tax Smart Chart.  She demonstrated how a BLS researcher could choose a jurisdiction like New York, then check a tax topic and obtain a summary with links to primary law and CCH explanations. She also noted that a number of law firms subscribe to VitalLaw’s corporation law and corporate governance resources. Stefanie Efrati highlighted the Corporation Law Jurisdictional Compare Smart Chart (in which one can search by topic and jurisdiction) as a popular time-saving tool.         

Wishing you success in planning your versions of LibraryFest!