Legal Research

Thanks for making NLW book drive a success!

Posted on April 21, 2008
The National Library Week Book/Media Drive was a success! The law library collected over 15 boxes of books, magazines, CDs, videos and other media for area hospitals, nursing homes and community organizations. Missed the donation? You can still drop off items for a few more days...

What's It Like to Be A Law Librarian?

Posted on April 18, 2008
In preparation for the Women's Law Student Association (WLSA) Careers in Academia and in the Law School panel on Monday April 21 at 12:20 in Room 45, the law library provides the following resources for exploring law librarianship as a career. American Association of Law Libraries (AALL): The Recruitment Committee has a number of resources on its website, including several profiles that highlight "a day in the life" of a law librarian (the above photo was the winning entry in a photo contest for "Day in the Life of the Law Library Community" in 2005, but keep in mind that most law librarians do not shelve books in stilettos!)...

GovEngine--Web Portal for Government Research

Posted on April 17, 2008
GovEngine is a Web portal for uncovering information about federal, state, and local government. Links on the sidebar of the website lead to pages on each of these subjects. There is also a map of the U.S.A., where one can click a state and then go to a page that contains links to the state's home page and constitution...

Westlaw News & Notes

Posted on April 15, 2008
Recent news and notes from Westlaw: Browser Blocking Starting in March, westlaw.com platforms do not support Web browser versions earlier than the following: Internet Explorer 6.0, Netscape 7.0, Firefox 1.0, and Safari 1.1. The browsers that are blocked are no longer supported by the companies that created them, and this lack of support can generate problems during development and with issue resolution...

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Reminder: It's National Library Week!

Posted on April 14, 2008
From the ALA: "First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April. It is a time to celebrate the contributions of our nation's libraries and librarians and to promote library use and support...

Legal Aid for Music Downloaders

Posted on April 11, 2008
A new intellectual-property law clinic at the University of San Francisco School of Law will assist students accused by the record or film industries of violating copyright law by swapping multi-media files online. The clinic will give advice on how to respond to pre-litigation letters and walk students through the steps of bringing an effective defense should suit commence...

Celebrate National Library Week at the Law Library!

Posted on April 09, 2008
To celebrate National Library Week, the law library will be hosting a book/media drive April 14-18. Bring your used books, magazines, CDs, videos, or other media to the circ desk drop-off bin. All items will be donated to local hospitals, nursing homes, and community organizations...

Two quick tips from HeinOnline

Posted on April 08, 2008
Via the HeinOnline Blog, here are two useful research tips: Do you have the name and author of an article from a Law Journal, but do not know the journal name or citation and need to find it in HeinOnline? This tip outlines how to conduct a search for the article in 4 easy steps, starting at the log in screen...

OMB Watch Launches Regulatory Resource Center

Posted on April 07, 2008
From the AALL's Washington Blog comes news of this new resource center: OMB Watch, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting open government, accountability and citizen participation, recently launched its Regulatory Resource Center. The goals of the Resource Center are to educate citizens on how they can become involved in the regulatory process through its Advocacy Center and to inform the public about the workings of the regulatory process through its Policy Library...

Video Contest to Award $10,000 Law School Scholarship

Posted on April 04, 2008
Student lender Access Group has announced a contest entitled ?One Less Worry.? The contest will award $10,000 to the most deserving video posted on YouTube describing ?what law students worry about.? Access Group will select the ten finalists based on ?creativity, humor, quality, realism and overall appeal? and and then open up public voting on July 1...

Distinguished Lecture Event Monday April 7

Posted on April 04, 2008
The Law Library Distinguished Lecture: Lecture by Senator Patrick Leahy in honor of Walter F. Mondale will be held Monday April 7 at 12:15 pm, with reception following. For more information, contact lawlib@umn.edu or view the brochure. Attendees were to RSVP by March 26...

JSTOR to launch new platform!

Posted on April 02, 2008
JSTOR notified users of a new platform upgrade planned for this Friday April 4 with this letter: We are excited to announce that the new JSTOR platform will be launched on Friday, April 4. The behind-the-scenes process for switching from the existing JSTOR to the new platform will begin around 7:00 a...

New Acquisitions in March 2008

Posted on April 01, 2008
Here is the list of new titles the law library acquired in March 2008. The list is also on the library's home page. March Acquisitions

GPO Authenticates Online Content

Posted on March 31, 2008
Beginning with the 110th Congress, the Public and Private Laws on GPO Access have been digitally signed and certified. GPO has signed and certified the PDF files to assure users that the online documents are official and authentic. "To help meet the challenge of the digital age, GPO has begun implementing digital signatures to certain electronic documents on GPO Access that not only establish GPO as the trusted information disseminator, but also provide the assurance that an electronic document has not been altered since GPO disseminated it...

Legal Research Brownbags April 2-4

Posted on March 29, 2008
You are invited to attend three Legal Research Brownbag sessions on April 2-4. All sessions are 12:15-1 pm in Room 1. No RSVP is necessary. You can attend 1, 2, or all 3 sessions. Wednesday April 2: Mary Rumsey: "Street-Smart Research" --Avoid scary Westlaw/LexisNexis bills; 4 keys to good online searching; Toolkit for efficient searching Thursday April 3: George Jackson: "Administrative Law Research" --What's the CFR? What's the FR? How to find regulations Friday April 4: Vic Garces: "Jump Start Your Research with Treatises & Legal Encyclopedias" --Learn how to research smarter with secondary sources; Legal encyclopedias; Treatises

Variety of New E-Resources

Posted on March 28, 2008
These e-resources are now available to all U of M students, faculty, and staff! CIS Congressional Hearings Digital Collection Retrospective A (added to LexisNexis Congressional) Gale - newspaper archives 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection 19th Century British Library Newspapers British Newspapers 1600-1900 19th Century US Newspapers The Times The Economist Also, Women's History Month resources, free from Gale Waterloo Directory of of English Newspapers and Periodicals Sources: News from the Libraries and Reference Services blogs

HeinOnline Tip: Advance Search Guide

Posted on March 27, 2008
An Advanced Search Syntax Help Guide is available in HeinOnline under the Search tab in any HeinOnline library. This help guides provides detailed instructions and examples for building searches using field names and Boolean operators, as well as details about range, proximity, wildcard and fuzzy searches...

2007 Human Rights Report

Posted on March 26, 2008
Photo: A woman voting in Ecuador. International Foundation of Election Systems Photo. The U.S. State Department has released the 2007 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. From the Overview: Universal human rights seek to incorporate respect for human dignity into the processes of government and law...

New Legal Writing Nutshell Published

Posted on March 25, 2008
Legal Writing Citation in a Nutshell by Larry L. Teply The law library has multiple copies at call number KF245 .T47x 2008 in the Reserve collection or Reference Office. Book Description: This book is designed to ease the process of learning legal citation, one of the difficult tasks that students new to the law face...

New Westlaw Tax Resources

Posted on March 24, 2008
The Thomson Corporation is now a sponsor of the ABA Section of Taxation. This means that Westlaw® is now a primary provider of ABA Section of Taxation. On the Westlaw Tax Tab ? which already offered easy access to world-class tax content (including The Tax Lawyer) from a single screen ? you will now find links to complete ABA Section of Taxation content: A Comprehensive Analysis of Current Consumption Tax Proposals (ABA-CONSTAX) ABA Tax Section Continuing Legal Education (ABATAX-CLE) ABA Section of Taxation Comments to U...

Government report on ... coffee cans?

Posted on March 20, 2008
Why does the Bureau of Land Management care about what coffee cans looked like in the 1910s? For a very good reason. According to the document's introduction, Hill's Brothers Coffee cans are a great way to date digs dating back to the late 1800s because of the tendency of Hills Brothers to change their can designs every so often...

Five Legal Resources from Deane Law Library

Posted on March 19, 2008
Recently, the Deane Law Library blog (Hofstra School of Law) has featured five resources or news that may be useful for legal research needs: Immigration Policy Center: The Immigration Policy Center is the research arm of the American Immigration Law Foundation...

Great Women in the Legal Profession

Posted on March 18, 2008
March is Women's History month. In honor of the women who have made their way in the profession and achieved great things, here are just a few tidbits about inspiring women lawyers and their accomplishments in the profession: Alice Paul (1885-1977): Lawyer Alice Paul was the founder of the World Woman's Party in 1913 and the author of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment...

E-VotingBooth.com Launch

Posted on March 17, 2008
"A private and nonpartisan initiative, E-VotingBooth.com gives voters a greater voice in the democratic process by inviting them to vote online on any piece of legislation being considered by Congress. Results of these virtual polls are sent to Congress and the president...

Law Library Spring Break Hours

Posted on March 10, 2008
Please take note that the law library service hours will change over spring break (March 15-23). The law library will be closed Sat-Sun March 15-16 and Friday March 21-Sunday March 23. Law students will still have 24/7 access to the library through their UCard, but the circ desk and reference office will not be staffed on those days...

Congressional Proceedings Indexed on C-SPAN

Posted on March 07, 2008
C-SPAN Indexes Public Domain Videos of Congressional Proceedings C-SPAN Congressional Chronicle (beta) is an index of the C-SPAN video recordings of the House and Senate floor proceedings. The video recordings are matched with the text of the Congressional Record as soon as the Record is available and the video and text are placed side-by-side for users to watch, read, and compare...

New eReference Collection

Posted on March 06, 2008
A new eReference Collection has been acquired from Sage Publications. Among the many titles, the following may be of particular interest to legal researchers: Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment Encyclopedia of Juvenile Justice Encyclopedia of Law & Society Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement Encyclopedia of Murder and Violent Crime Encyclopedia of Prisons and Correctional Facilities Encyclopedia of White-Collar & Corporate Crime Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice Encyclopedia of Law and Society Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law You can access all titles currently available at: http://www...

Three New Collections at the Law Library

Posted on March 05, 2008
The law library has added three small collections. All three are "donated" collections made up entirely of user and staff donations. For more information on any of the collections, or to make a donation of items, please email lawlib@umn.edu. MLF Collection The MLF Collection was created at the request of the law student organization Minnesota Law Families...

New English Medieval Legal Documents Wiki

Posted on March 04, 2008
From the University of Southern California Gould School of Law comes a new resource on English Medieval Law: ENGLISH MEDIEVAL LEGAL DOCUMENTS AD 600 - AD 1535: A COMPILATION OF PUBLISHED SOURCES. From the site: The goal of this project is to create a collaborative database on the published sources of English medieval legal documents, and to provide links to the growing number of online sources currently being developed...

New Acquisitions in February 2008

Posted on March 03, 2008
Here is the list of new titles the law library acquired in February 2008. The list is also on the library's home page. February Acquisitions

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