Libraries are great whether you’re an anorak, or not! I love the smell and feel of real books, as well as my tablet – there’s a fantastic bookshop on Fleet Street where you can browse through books across a diverse range of legal subjects (even those which are not directly relevant to your course). Maybe you’ve encountered the author or their Chambers on Twitter, for example? Anyway, the remainder of this post is about the library facilities at BPP Holborn Law School Holborn, though will probably equally apply to the other excellent law schools in the UK.
The Legal Practice Course is a bit of a whirlwind – every week there’s for me a small group session in each of the core subject areas, which are civil and criminal litigation, property law practice and business law practice (including business accounts and revenue law). Drafting and writing have been pervasive skills in all three of these. We also have had teaching and assessments/mocks in advocacy, wills and administration of estates, practical legal research (PLR), solicitors accounts, and interviewing and assessing.
I have all my course materials on my #ipad3, and I must say I rarely use this. I was in conversation with a LPC student on Twitter yesterday, and my fundamental issue is that I prefer navigating big lever arch A4 files as it helps me visualise all the material and I much prefer annotating text by hand (rather than making electronic annotations on my tablet). Who knows where the future is heading on this.
I am doing the Full-Time programme (non-accelerated) at BPPLawSchool Holborn, though I suspect my experiences are similar to those of friends or colleagues at the College of Law (and elsewhere). It’s really has dawned on me how brilliant the teaching has been at both these institutions, although my LLM at the College of Law (entirely supervised online S mode) was a very different course. There’s a big notice on both entrances for non-members of BPP to report to Reception to show ID (this is essential even if you’re visiting a friend at BPP, as we’re in the heart of London). This is a picture when it’s not busy with students; bliss!
Whilst many people will be packing their bucket and spade to go down the A23 to the beach in Brighton, I quite fancy spending some days going to Red Lion Street in the BPP Law School library at Holborn. Here is a picture of their opening hours – as well as a bit of the noticeboard beneath it offering useful news for students.
The Library is on Twitter (@BPPHolbornLib), run by Mark Haines and wonderful colleagues. They give me a huge amount of support daily with various learning support issues; the printing account is easy to operate, and it’s actually quite nice working in the computer zone of the library when you’re a bit fed up of sitting at a book for hours! That said, books are very important, and I’ve really warmed to them while doing the ‘practical legal research’ part of the LPC.
I am of course a huge fan of electronic resources, having completed my LLM and my MBA at BPP Business School entirely using electronic book or journal references, but on the PLR of the LPC it’s clear that they don’t mind you using electronic and/or traditional references. I have enjoyed looking up Harvey’s, Halsbury’s Laws, Tolleys’ etc. in printed form, and apparently on the PLR it’s essential to use up-to-date references in producing your assessed work (which has to observe other criteria obviously, such as conciseness of advice, relevance of advice, writing etiquette, citations presented correctly, and the such like). I think in fact I have understood the relevance of a library even much more than my 3 year doctoral thesis at the University of Cambridge.
So please do join @BPPHolbornLib on Twitter! You may be a student at BPP, a member of staff at BPP, a law librarian, but please note that the tweet timeline also covers topics which you may also find interesting. It’s a very young Twitter account, so I don’t think many of my pals on the GDL/LPC/LLM at BPP have heard of it yet, so please it would be great if you could bring it to their attention (if relevant)!
And if you get bored – don’t forget to have a wonder downstairs to join Jill in the BPP Student Common Room café (which also has brilliant Wifi reception for reading the learning materials haha!)
Have a lovely Easter break.
