University of Virginia Library

LIBRARY—LEGAL BIBLIOGRAPHY.

The Law Library is accommodated by its own library rooms, separate
from the general University library. The rooms are heated by steam and
lighted by electricity, and are located with special reference to the convenience
of the law students. A librarian is in attendance during working
hours.

The library contains complete sets of the decisions of Alabama, Arizona,
Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho,
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota,
Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North
Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, United States Supreme
Court, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. It contains
the National Reporter System, complete; the American Decisions;
American Reports; American State Reports; Law Reports Annotated; a

valuable collection of English Reports; and all the modern search-books,
in the form of general digests (including the Century) and Encyclopedias,
besides a large collection of text-books.

While the student is not encouraged too early to venture for himself
into either cases or text-books, save for the purpose of verifying or clearing
up some proposition of the lecture, or for the preparation of opinions
or briefs, he is incited to familiarize himself not only with the leading
cases to which his attention is called, but especially with the bibliography
of the law and the use of the books. To the latter subject, in addition to
the instruction incidentally given, several lectures are specially devoted.
The student is taught that books are the working tools of the lawyer, and
that facility in handling them, in the office and in the court room, is an
indispensable professional acquirement. He is instructed how to consult
authorities and run down cases; to distinguish doctrine from dicta; to
analyze, criticise, and compare cases; to distinguish imperative authority
from that which is persuasive only; to prepare briefs; and, generally, so
to accustom himself to law books and their use as to enable him to investigate,
with intelligence and skill, any question that may come within the
scope of his duty at the bar.