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Study Aids
Meeting of October 27, 2026, 1 pm · polls close at 1 pm · six partsThis proposal sets how the library buys and weeds study aids: which practice books to replace, which series to stop collecting, and how long an unused copy stays on the shelf. Mark what you support; the tally at the bottom shows what your choices would cost and weed.
Instructions
- To support a change, fill in the oval next to it . Leave it empty if you don't.
- Open Details under any change to mark its titles one by one.
- In Part 3, rank as many of the overview series as you like. In Part 4, start from Option A or B and adjust titles. In Part 5, vote for one. Parts 2 and 3 can be left as they are. Add a note anywhere you want to say why.
- Polls close at 1 pm on Tuesday, October 27, when the meeting starts. Nobody sees the results until then; they come up at the meeting. When you're done, press I voted at the end. Until you do, an empty oval counts as not yet answered; after, it counts as a no.
- Your marks save as you go, privately, in the browser you start in, so finish on the same device. If your page says they aren't saving, use Copy my answers and email them to Rob.
Practice-question books are what students borrow, so they come first. Each of the 78 Greenslip subjects has a study-aid level from 1 to 4, set by student demand rather than faculty research: JD enrollment in its courses, 2020–21 to 2026–27, recent years counted double. Bar subjects are 4, and a title takes the highest level among its subjects. The levels inform these choices; they don't make them.
Two kinds of study aid. Practice books teach through questions and answers: CrunchTime, Q&A, Examples & Explanations (E&E) and the Glannon Guides. Overview books explain a subject in prose: Nutshells, Understanding, Short & Happy and hornbooks. A copy is stale when the newest edition we hold is 2019 or older, and superseded when we hold a newer edition of the same book.
| Level | Students a year | What it buys | Subjects |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 200+, or a bar subject | Every practice-book series and one overview book, each new edition | 21 |
| 3 | 65 to 199 | One practice book and one overview book | 9 |
| 2 | 13 to 64 | The best single study aid, replaced only if borrowed | 24 |
| 1 | Under 13 | Nothing new; keep what circulates | 24 |
These follow from the collecting rules already in place: practice books first, overview books only where no practice book covers the subject, hornbooks only where no other study aid does. Prices marked ≈ are estimates.
The formula weeds only what changes 6, 7, 8 and 9 and Part 5 send to it, so moving it changes the tally once those are marked; the line below shows what it would catch either way. It starts at the Texas State Library's CREW formula for law books: consider a book once it is 5 years past its copyright or has gone 2 years without use, in-house use included. CREW expects each library to adjust the numbers to its mission, and a book always gets a look before it goes. Time without use runs from a copy’s last use or its arrival, whichever is later. Alma has recorded in-house use only since fall 2023, so past about three years “without use” means without a checkout.
Change 8 keeps one overview book per topic. Where no book there has 3 or more loans, the higher-ranked series stays: on your ballot that is your ranking, and at the meeting the committee’s average decides. Rank as many as you like; an unranked series counts as last, and each rank holds one series. The ranking also says which overview book to buy where a subject’s level calls for one. For reference, loans a copy in elective subjects over the past two school years: Short & Happy 0.59, Nutshell 0.29, Understanding 0.28, Concise Hornbook 0.05, Hornbook 0.03.
| Series | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
|---|
203 elective topics have no practice-question book; an overview book is the right study aid there, but not every subject needs a current one. Option B buys 39 titles. Option A buys the same 39 plus 11 more. Start from either, then mark or clear titles. About $60 a title.
Option B · 39 titles · about $2,340
Buys where the subject's level is 4, or the title was borrowed in the past two years.
Option A · 50 titles · about $3,000
Buys where the level is 3 or 4, or the title was borrowed.
Tags: Greenslip a new edition on this year’s Greenslips; New a title we don’t hold yet, on this year’s Greenslips; 2 loans past two school years.
In the 1L, bar and other level-4 subjects a practice book already covers the subject, so change 7 would stop renewing their overview books (Nutshells, Understanding, hornbooks). This asks what happens to the copies already on the shelf: your weeding formula would take of them.
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Notes and sources
- Holdings are from Alma Analytics on October 23, 2026: the Law Study Aids and Restatements and Hornbooks locations, one row per copy, with Restatements, O’Connor’s and other practitioner titles set aside. That leaves 868 copies on the shelf. Another 96 copies are suppressed from discovery and left out as already on their way out (52 Nutshells, 31 hornbooks, 13 others, among them Friedman’s and Bogert’s two trusts hornbooks). “Used” counts in-house use as well as checkouts, from each copy’s last loan date; loan counts are Alma’s loans over the past two school years, September 2024 to August 2026, in-house use included.
- How levels are counted: simulations and writing courses at half; clinics, externships and journals left out; LL.M. enrollment counted in the five LL.M. specialties; a course counts toward every subject it covers. No second copies are bought at any level without a reason.
- "Buy" assumes a newer edition is in print; that hasn't been checked title by title yet.
- Prices are estimates: electives about $60, the usual Nutshell price on the 2026 Greenslips; CrunchTime about $62 and E&E about $65 at Aspen list price; Q&A about $33 and Short & Happy about $28 on the Greenslips; Glannon Guides $70.95 from Aspen, checked October 21, 2026.
- Superseded editions are matched by series and call number as well as by title, since a new edition sometimes changes its title: 256 copies on the shelf are older editions of a book we hold newer.
- Weeding adapts the Texas State Library’s CREW method (2012), which judges a book on its age, its time without use (in-house use counts), and its condition and relevance, and never keeps superseded editions. Its formula for law, 5 years from copyright or 2 without use, is written for public libraries, and CREW says to adjust the numbers to each library’s mission. That is what Part 2 lets you do.
- Neither elective option buys Tribal Law in a Nutshell (2026 Greenslips): no course here covers the subject. American Indian Law in a Nutshell, 8th ed., is in both on its 2 loans; its subject alone would not qualify it.
- Texas residents can read West Academic's Nutshells and hornbooks online with a free Texas State Law Library account; which titles that covers is not yet confirmed.
Everyone's ballots · only you see this
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