Public Libraries provide considerably more to their patrons than checking out books, music, and movies. Here are just a few of the other features of your local public libraries:

Wireless Internet
Most of the branches of our local libraries offer free wireless Internet connections. They also have plenty of quiet spaces, making them good places to study close to home.

Meeting Rooms
All of our public libraries also have meeting rooms at some of their branches. These rooms can be reserved by patrons for group projects, studying, or organizational meetings. See your home library’s Web page for details on reserving rooms.

Book Sales
All of our local libraries also hold periodic book sales. You can find used books, CDs, and DVDs, all at very low prices, sometimes just one dollar each. The proceeds go towards purchasing new materials for your library, so the whole community benefits from your purchase.

For more information about the all of these features and more, visit the Web sites of our local libraries:

DC Public Library  

Montgomery County Public Libraries  

Alexandria Library  

Arlington Public Library  
 

As part of the American Library Association's Library Week event, we would like to highlight the digital materials available at your local public libraries. All of the local public libraries subscribe to a service called Overdrive, which provides online access to digital content to that library's cardholders. This digital content includes electronic books and audiobooks, as well as music and video files, all of which are licensed from publishers and other content providers. Every library subscribes to slightly different content, so you should check your home library's Web site to find out what materials are available to you.

The DC Public Library, for example, provides access to thousands of classical, folk, blues, and pop music files, which are compatible with several portable music devices, including iPods. The DCPL audiobook and eBook collections are also available for a variety of devices, and include new releases and current bestsellers, as well as classics.

For more information about the collections available at specific libraries, visit their digital collection pages:

• DC Public Library
• Montgomery County Public Libraries
• Alexandria Library
• Arlington Public Library

This week (April 11-17) is National Library Week. Observed annually by the American Library Association, Library Week is an opportunity to learn about and celebrate all types of libraries. For most of the year, we try to keep our patrons informed about the services and resources that we provide. But we want to use Library Week to tell you about those provided by your local public libraries, so we will be posting information about area libraries all this week.

Did you know that all Georgetown Law students can get a library card from the DC Public Library? Even if you live in Maryland or Virginia, you have borrowing privileges at the DCPL, as well as your home library. For details on how to obtain a library card, visit the Web page of the DC Library, or those of Montgomery County, Alexandria, or Arlington.

You may also not be aware that all of the public libraries in the DC area have far more than books and magazines. They have extensive CD and DVD collections, and also provide access to online digital content, such as audiobooks, and streaming music and video. Even if they do not have an item you are looking for, they can request materials from other libraries for you. So be sure to take advantage of these resources that are available to you for free, and check this blog throughout the week for more information.

For those of you who are struggling with the rules of legal citation, the Law Library maintains a quick reference guide to the Bluebook. The guide includes an introduction to the Bluebook and its structure, as well as explanations of how to cite the most common legal materials, including cases, statutes and treatises. These explanations include references to the applicable Bluebook rules, to help you navigate this often confusing citation manual.

We've put together a new research guide that provides links to the Student Practice Rules adopted by both Federal and State courts. These rules authorize eligible law students to practice law under the supervision of a practicing attorney. All 50 states have such a rule. Some are codified in the state statutes. Others are included in local court rules, while others are state bar rules.

Some law review articles that analyze these rules and student practice, in general, are also included in the new guide.

As always, please let us know if you have any questions or suggestions regarding our new guide.

The law library has created a new guide to free and low-cost sources of legal materials on the Internet. While our law students and alumni are mostly familiar with Lexis/Nexis and Westlaw, they are usually not familiar with the alternatives to these expensive databases. This new guide is designed to introduce them to the services available, and assist them in determining whether the less expensive options meet their needs. Our goal with this guide is to help our students and alumni become better and more cost-effective researchers in the long run. Please take a look and feel free to suggest any other online sources.

If you're tracking the new administration's nominees, check out the law library's new Executive Nomination Process Research Guide. It will guide you through the nomination and confirmation process, highlight secondary sources on the process and link to sites for the Senate hearings which will be held in the new year.

The link to news sources allows you to survey the media's coverage of the executive transition.

The law library has created a new research guide for bankruptcy law. Like our other research guides, it lists major primary and secondary sources that are useful in researching bankruptcy issues. Both print and online sources are listed, and links are provides to databases and records in the GULLiver catalog, to make it easy to find the resources you need.

CiteGenie, a new extension for the Firefox browser, promises to make the Bluebooking process easier and faster, at least when using Westlaw. LLRX has a review of the product and its features, and you can download the extension at citegenie.com.

Remember that tools like this are not foolproof (we've already found some problems with CiteGenie) and that law students and lawyers still need to learn and understand how to use the Bluebook.