Virtual Law Library

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The virtual specialist library for international and interdisciplinary legal research <intR> ² (pronounced: "inter- Zwei ", former name: ViFa Recht ) is a virtual specialist library that provides specialist information on the Internet in the field of law in an Internet portal under a uniform interface for research provides. She has been part of the specialist information service for international and interdisciplinary legal research since 2014 .

Organization and financing

The virtual library <intR> ² was activated on January 18, 2005. It was set up at the Berlin State Library , where the special legal collection area was also looked after. While the latter was limited to the acquisition and verification of “conventional specialist literature”, the Virtual Specialized Library Law includes digital sources. The portal is financed by the German Research Foundation.

Since 2014, ViFa Law has been integrated into the specialist information service for international and interdisciplinary legal research, which was established at the Berlin State Library. An extensive relaunch followed in January 2018, which went hand in hand with the introduction of a new design and name as well as the implementation of numerous new services.

Preparation and goal setting

The establishment of the original ViFa Law was preceded by extensive research since 2001 into the special information needs of legal scholars. The studies came to the conclusion that legal research and teaching have an above-average need for information compared to other subjects. Compared to academics in other subjects, legal scholars therefore need significantly more time both to research specialist information and to sort out irrelevant sources. The search for printed sources is in the foreground, while compared to other disciplines at that time much less research was done in online databases. Above all, the respondents wanted an improvement in the keywording of documents and meaningful abstracts . The search results should be better structured than was previously the case in the library catalogs, and access to full texts should be made easier.

The sources available in ViFa Recht were then summarized in a collective profile, from which, together with certain quality criteria, it should emerge which online sources are to be verified. When choosing, the needs of scientists in relation to those of practical lawyers are in the foreground. Legal laypeople do not belong to the target group. In particular, the offer did not include any legal texts as full texts and no case law. There should be no competition to the existing commercial database providers in this segment.

Modules

The current virtual specialist library <intR> ² comprises the following modules:

  • A discovery system via EBSCOHost provides access to the legal literature collected at the Berlin State Library and to other database services.
  • A blog planet with an international (mainly Anglo-Saxon) selection of legal blogs collects blog entries from over 100 legal blogs and makes them available for retrieval sorted by category.
  • A journal content service lists articles in numerous national and international legal journals, sorted by category.
  • A newsletter provides information on the portal's latest services as well as selected legal conferences, tenders and academic events.
  • A weekly new publication service created by the German National Library is integrated into the portal.
  • The new acquisitions by the specialist information service for international and interdisciplinary legal research at the Berlin State Library are sorted according to calendar weeks.
  • Since 2015, the specialist repository ( intR²Dok ) has made it possible to search for freely available full texts as well as to publish one's own legal texts using Open Access .
  • Public domain digital copies with legal content are also verified. Users with an academic background can also submit digitization proposals for works in the public domain themselves (digitization on demand).
  • A selection of high-quality databases and national licenses is available to authorized user groups in a virtual reading room.
  • The direct lending system enables authorized user groups from the academic environment to send literature directly to their home via the direct lending system.

Criticism and development

Even at the start of ViFa Recht, it was often criticized that the portal did not offer any real added value compared to the individual offers that it makes accessible under its surface. The online content law, which was initially still freely available, has not been used by everyone since 2007. It was also complained that legal weblogs were not recorded. Regarding the intR²Dok repository, it was complained that this was only open to members of research institutions, for example not lawyers or other legal professionals. The offer has been expanded slightly since then, and above all, German federal law and various collections of judgments have been included in the search for Internet sources. Four years after the start of the specialist library, the offer was little known among legal scholars and was used comparatively rarely.

With the relaunch of the website in January 2018, the offer was streamlined and adapted to current viewing and usage habits. The introduction of new services should strengthen the connection to the legal community and take into account the approach advocated by the DFG of user proximity of the specialist information services.

literature

  • Angela Pohl, Ivo Vogel: The Virtual Law Library: Specialized portal for law !? In: Law, Library, Documentation: Communications of the Working Group for Legal Library and Documentation 36 (2006), pp. 110–128. ISSN  2194-9646
  • Christian Mathieu, Ivo Vogel: FID law . In: H-Soz-Kult , October 25, 2018. Accessed May 28, 2019.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nina Causemann: ViFa Recht - Virtual Law Library is online! InetBib mailing list, January 19, 2005, accessed February 19, 2011 .
  2. ↑ Nina Causemann, Ivo Vogel: The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook . In: Library Service . tape 39 , no. 5 , 5, p. 599–614 ( The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook ( Memento from August 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF] 599, literal quotation from there). The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook ( Memento of the original from August 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zlb.de
  3. ↑ Nina Causemann, Ivo Vogel: The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook . In: Library Service . tape 39 , no. 5 , 5, p. 599–614 ( The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook ( Memento from August 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF] 602ff.). The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook ( Memento of the original from August 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zlb.de
  4. ↑ Nina Causemann, Ivo Vogel: The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook . In: Library Service . tape 39 , no. 5 , 5, p. 599–614 ( The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook ( Memento from August 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF] 603). The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook ( Memento of the original from August 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zlb.de
  5. ↑ Nina Causemann, Ivo Vogel: The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook . In: Library Service . tape 39 , no. 5 , 5, p. 599–614 ( The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook ( Memento from August 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF] 603, Quotation = While the average of all scientists for research and procurement around 25 hours of their own per month If you spend time, it is 32 hours in law. Employees of legal institutions research and obtain information 46 hours a month, while the average is just under 25 hours). The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook ( Memento of the original from August 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zlb.de
  6. ↑ Nina Causemann, Ivo Vogel: The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook . In: Library Service . tape 39 , no. 5 , 5, p. 599–614 ( The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook ( Memento from August 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF] 603). The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook ( Memento of the original from August 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zlb.de
  7. ↑ Nina Causemann, Ivo Vogel: The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook . In: Library Service . tape 39 , no. 5 , 5, p. 599–614 ( The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook ( Memento from August 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF] 602f.). The Virtual Law Library: Concept, Modules, Outlook ( Memento of the original from August 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zlb.de
  8. ^ ViFa Recht (Ed.): Collective profile for the specialist information guide of the virtual specialist library on law . November 2005, p. 1 f . ( vifa-recht.de [PDF; accessed on February 19, 2011]).
  9. ^ ViFa Recht (Ed.): Collective profile for the specialist information guide of the virtual specialist library on law . November 2005, p. 6 ( vifa-recht.de [PDF; accessed on February 19, 2011]).
  10. ^ Klaus Graf: Virtual Law Library: Case for the Court of Auditors? In: Archivalia . January 20, 2005 ( hypotheses.org [accessed October 25, 2016]).
  11. ^ Klaus Graf: Article databases on legal history . In: Archivalia . May 26, 2007 ( hypotheses.org [accessed October 25, 2016]).
  12. ↑ Jürgen Plieninger: ViFaRecht online. In: Netbib. January 19, 2005, accessed February 19, 2011 .
  13. ^ Klaus Graf: Lawyers discriminated: Legal repository only for institution-bound researchers . In: Archivalia . March 24, 2015 ( hypotheses.org [accessed October 25, 2016]).
  14. ↑ Henning Ernst Müller: Do you know the “Virtual Law Library”? In: beck-blog. September 30, 2009, accessed February 19, 2011 .