Library & Networked Information Systems
Contact the Law Library
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Thank-you for submitting your request/comment.
The appropriate library department should respond to you within a couple of days. Feel free to contact hunterlawlibrary@law.byu.edu if you don’t hear back after 3 working days.
BYU Law Faculty/Students – please use the priority reference form for quick research help.
Copyright Request Received
Thank-you for submitting this request. You should receive a confirmation email shortly.
Do you need permission to use additional resources?
Copyright Permissions
The Digital Services Librarian is available to help with course-related copyright permission requests. When requesting assistance, please submit bibliographic and course information as soon as possible. The BYU Copyright Licensing Office has obtained blanket permission to use many educational materials for the whole campus. In the absence of a blanket license, we will attempt to acquire copies of ebooks for students to access. The final option, individual licensing through the Copyright Clearance Center, almost always involves royalties that must be paid by students.
Educational uses are not, per se, Fair Uses. An educational use is most likely to be considered fair when it is one-time, last-minute, does not involve fiction or drama*, and is limited in scope. In those circumstances, obtaining timely permission is recognized to be difficult. But even the Fair Use of copyrighted items should be reported to the Digital Services Librarian for record-keeping.
Please be aware that the Law School never assumes that using teaching materials more than once will be considered fair. And “consumables” (such as worksheets or problem sets) are never eligible for Fair Use.
Fortunately, in the United States many primary legal materials are deemed to belong to the public domain. Federal and State statutes, regulations and case opinions are increasingly available online as well as through LexisNexis and Westlaw. It is also generally reasonable to link to openly-available secondary resources without asking permission or paying royalties. Taken together with available LexisNexis and Westlaw resources, it is often possible to completely avoid making actual copies of most materials needed for preparing and teaching law classes.
Faculty should contact the help desk for assistance in preparing an interactive syllabus with links to required or recommended readings for any Law School class (“deep” links to LexisNexis or Westlaw resources may be included). The form below should be used to request permission processing for paper or electronic copying.
* A separate provision, §110 of the Copyright Act, exempts the use of many audiovisual formats for face-to-face classroom teaching. In interpreting §1201, the U.S. Librarian of Congress has ruled that capturing short excerpts of digital works for use in education can be a permissible circumvention of technical protection measures.
“Ask a Librarian” Options
Chat
Patrons may chat with a reference
Additional reference options are listed below.
Quick FAQs
Group study rooms are for the exclusive use of BYU law students. Study rooms are available for students to reserve for up to two hour blocks. You can find the online reservation system and study room policies here.
Step by step directions to using the online reservation system are as follows:
- Agree to the terms of the study room policies (found here).
- Enter net ID and password
- Under “My Reservation Templates” click “book now”
- On the left under “Date & Time” select which day and time you want to reserve a study room.
- To view all room options, click “Search” under “Locations.
- Select which room you want to reserve by clicking the “+” sign next to the room.
- If you know which room you would like to request enter the room number under “I Know What Room I Want” and select it from the dropdown.
- Click “Next Step”
- Enter reservations details
- Click “Create Reservation”
Yes, the Howard W. Hunter Law Library is open to members of the public needing to conduct legal research. Members of the public may use law library materials on-site and have access to certain electronic resources through 3 computer terminals on the main floor that are reserved for legal research. Members of the public may also access BYU’s wireless guest network within the law library. BYU Law School alumni and members of the Bar may borrow law library materials that circulate.
Members of the public needing reference assistance should visit this page to see the hours that reference services are offered. Reference employees cannot give legal advice.
During Fall and Winter Semesters, the Law Library is open from 7:00am until 12:00 midnight, Monday through Thursday; 7:00am until 10:00pm on Friday; and 9:00am until 10:00pm on Saturday. The Fall Semester Schedule begins on the first day of 1L Orientation — Wednesday of the third full week in August.
For Spring/Summer, the Law Library is open from 8:00am until 8:00pm, Monday through Friday and 10:00am until 6pm on Saturday. The Spring/Summer Schedule begins on the first day of Spring term classes.
The Law Library is closed on Sunday.
Holidays the Law Library is Open (8:00 am until 5:00pm):
- Martin Luther King Day
- Presidents’ Day
- Labor Day
Holidays the Law Library is Closed:
- Memorial Day
- Independence Day (or date observed)
- July 24th | Pioneer Day (or date observed)
- Thanksgiving (4th Thursday in November)
- Christmas Eve (or date observed)
- Christmas Day (or date observed)
- New Year’s Eve (or date observed)
- New Year’s Day (or date observed)
Other Exceptions to the Schedule:
- Day before Thanksgiving (8:00am to 5:00pm)
- Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving (8:00am to 5:00pm)
- Last day of Fall Semester Final Exams (6:00am to 6:00pm)
- Christmas Break (8:00am to 5:00pm, generally)
- Last day of Winter Semester Final Exams (6:00am to 8:00pm)
- Winter Semester Graduation (Spring/Summer schedule begins; 8:00am to 8:00pm)
For More Info / Source(s) (Links open in new window.)
The current Reference Desk hours are available here. Call the Reference Desk at (801) 422-6658 to inquire about future Reference Desk hours.
More FAQs
Reference Desk
The physical reference desk on the main floor of the BYU Law Library is open. See the hours for this service here. The BYU Law community may also make appointments to receive in-person reference services with a law librarian by emailing reference@law.byu.edu.
Additionally, many virtual reference options are available to both the BYU Law community and other BYU and community patrons to receive reference services. The hours that virtual reference services generally are available via the reference department are listed here. See the virtual options for reference services below.
Submit a Reference Question
Patrons may use the Contact Us form to submit reference questions. We will attempt to answer reference questions within two business days. We remind you that we cannot offer legal advice. We can provide answers to brief, factual research questions
Call
To receive reference services over the phone, call 801-422-6658. The hours that reference services generally are available via the phone are listed here. If a reference employee does not answer, feel free to leave a voicemail because it is checked regularly. You may also email us your reference question at reference@law.byu.edu.
Copyright Policy
J. Reuben Clark Law School and Hunter Law Library
The Law School is committed to the enforcement and protection of copyrights as both a legal and an ethical imperative. A copyright is a set of exclusive rights that vests in the author of an original work of authorship (including literary, musical, dramatic, pictorial, sculptural, and motion picture works). The copyright attaches upon the work’s creation (when it is “fixed in a tangible medium of expression”); current law does not require the formalities of registration or of a copyright notice such as the “©” symbol. The exclusive rights covered by copyright include the right to (1) copy or reproduce the work or portions of the work (including by making electronic copies); (2) prepare “derivative works” based on the original; (3) distribute copies of the work or portions of the work (including by electronic means); and (4) publicly perform or display the work.
Any faculty member, staff member, or student who intends to copy or distribute any material that is not in the public domain and is, therefore, protected by copyright must first receive copyright clearance from the law school’s Copyright Coordinator under the procedures set forth here, unless the copyright is held by that faculty member, staff member, or student. Copyright clearance is required even if the material is believed to be covered by the doctrine of fair use, and even if permission has already been secured from the holder of the copyright by the individual faculty member, staff member, or student. “Copying” and “distributing” include not only making and distributing hard copies, but also making any digital or electronic copies, posting such copies on the internet or the law school’s web page, or distributing copies via e-mail.
Any faculty member, staff member, or student seeking copyright clearance must contact the law school’s Copyright Coordinator. Requests for clearance should be submitted on a form approved by the Copyright Committee. The request should be submitted as far in advance of the use of the material as is reasonably possible (preferably at least one month in advance). The form for the written request may be completed in hard copy or on the law school’s web page, and will require the person submitting the request to (1) identify the copyrighted works in question by author, title, publication date, journal citation (where applicable), publisher (if known), and ISBN/ISSN (if known); (2) describe the nature of any copying and/or distribution (e.g., hard copies, scanning, uploading, etc.); (3) identify the name of the course and number of students to whom the material will be distributed; (4) indicate whether the person submitting the request has ever previously received permission to use the material in question, and attach any documents memorializing such permission; and (5) indicate whether the person submitting the request believes that a fair use privilege applies, and provide a brief justification for such privilege.
Many single copies made purely for research purposes will be covered by the doctrine of fair use, particularly where only a portion of the original work is copied. For such uses, the Copyright Coordinator may provide clearances that may cover certain uses, without requiring specific clearance requests for each individual copy.
If a faculty member disagrees with a decision of the Copyright Coordinator, appeal may be made to the Associate Dean for Faculty & Curriculum.