The Friends of the Law Library, in conjunction with the Contemplative Law Society and Lawyers in Balance invite you to a screening of The Dhamma Brothers, the latest event in the Library’s Law at the Movies series:

Movie: The Dhamma Brothers (2007)
Date: Monday, November 12, 2012
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Location: Hart Auditorium

The Dhamma Brothers (2007) documents the impact of eastern meditation as a means of rehabilitation at an Alabama state prison, illustrating meditation’s transformative power in even the most oppressive conditions and provoking thought about whether justice or society is duly served by our current correctional methods.

After the film, a discussion of the lessons and ideas it presents will be led by members of Georgetown Law’s faculty and organizations, including:

• Jane Aiken, Dean of Clinical Programs & Director of the Community Justice Project Clinic
• Gretchen Rohr, Project Director for the DC Jail Advocacy Project
• Andrew Christensen, Reference Librarian, Georgetown Law Library

To learn more about the Friends of the Georgetown Law Library program and the benefits of becoming a member, please visit www.law.georgetown.edu/library/visitors/friends.

Due to inclement weather, Big Data and Big Challenges for Law and Legal Information: Georgetown Law Library - A Symposium in Celebration of 125 Years will not take place on Monday, October 29. Please check the Georgetown Law Library blog and the symposium webpage in the days to come for any information on a rescheduled event.

Georgetown Law Library – A Symposium in Celebration of 125 Years

Monday, October 29, 2012 (8:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.)
Georgetown University Law Center - Gewirz 12th Floor

"Big data" is a term perhaps too narrow for the topic: the size of data sets is not the key to big data issues. Rather, society is changing because of our growing ability to discover meaning by connecting points of information electronically, across multiple, often unrelated, sources. When thinking of quantitative decision making, big data may include "small data," but lots of it.

This conference will examine the public good and collective harms that follow from the large-scale aggregation of information from public and private sources. During the course of the day, panelists will also examine how scholars, researchers, and information professionals manage very large or complex data sets to distill meaning and develop public policy.

If you'd like to attend the symposium, please register here to reserve a place as attendance is limited. You may also view the symposium agenda online.

Each spring, we conduct a survey of law students to get input on library services and resources. We published a summary of 2012 results soon after the survey closed. Now we're happy to share some information about what we did this summer, largely in response to comments. In brief: we added a water fountain to Wolff, installed after-hours book drops, overhauled the room reservation system, revamped our touch screen kiosks, and updated our entire website. 

We've been busy. We're excited to see students returning, and we're ready for another productive year. Check out a summary of comments in response to the 2012 survey.

Welcome back to campus, and drop us a note if you have any suggestions before the next annual survey comes around.

In early May 2012 Georgetown Law Library lost one of our longest serving librarians when the Head of Special Collections, Laura Bédard, passed away unexpectedly at age 55. Laura was the quintessential rare book librarian; she loved both old books and history. Her work gave her ample moments to pursue both these passions, and on one occasion this led her into her own family history. In 2005 we discovered an inscription by an Isadore Bedard in one of our 1829 volume of Les Statuts du Bas-Canada [Statutes of Lower-Canada]. As her family is of French-Canadian descent on her father’s side, Laura began researching her genealogy to see if there was any connection. She was delighted to discover that she and Isadore Bedard were indeed distant relations reunited by the ineffable tides of time.

One of the true joys of working with rare books and legal history is being able to, in a sense, time travel and experience still tangible parts of the past. Special Collections has created a small exhibit in our display case outside of Williams 210 celebrating Laura’s life at Georgetown Law that includes images from this volume of early Canadian statutes.

Recent changes to interface and sorting options make it easier to find and evaluate documents in Google Scholar’s ever-growing free database of court opinions and legal materials.

Earlier this month, Google Scholar added the option to sort legal search results by date, with the most recently published cases and articles appearing first. The new sorting option can be used in combination with jurisdiction and date restrictions, so you can view only results from specific time ranges or courts.

And in case you missed it, since March, Google Scholar has included graphical indicators in the “Cited by” list of subsequent opinions citing a case – from zero to three bars, depending on the depth of treatment – and like the general results list, the “Cited by” list can now be limited by date and jurisdiction. As before, the “How cited” feature also displays excerpts from the most relevant parts of the citing cases.

Longtime Google Scholar users may have also noticed enhancements since May to display and print options, including a cleaner, streamlined look and improved browser-based printing for legal opinions.

Not new but worth noting is the “Create email alert” link at the bottom of any Google Scholar search results page – click it to set up notifications for newly added documents citing any case or article, or corresponding to a specific search you’ve run.

You can access Google Scholar through the Law Library catalog. To get the most out of your searches, remember to log in to your Library Account before using Google Scholar off campus – this allows direct access to article results from Georgetown’s subscription databases.

The screenshot below highlights useful features on the “Cited by” page for Ferguson v. Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, 69 P. 3d 965.

Matthew Hale’s annotated 1640 imprint of Matthew Paris’ Monachi Albanensis Angli Historia Major 

Georgetown Law Library recently acquired Sir Matthew Hale’s annotated copy of the 1640 imprint of one of the most significant medieval chronicle histories of England, Monachi Albanensis Angli Historia Major by the 13^th century scholar, polymath, and member of the court of Henry III – Matthew Paris. Hale’s copy is copiously annotated throughout the sections covering the reign of Henry III with marginal references to significant Year Book cases and Parliamentary Acts.

Hale is one of the great jurists in the history of English law, serving as Chief Baron of the Exchequer from 1660 to 1671, and then as Chief Justice of King’s Bench from 1671 until his death in 1676. He had earlier served as a justice of the Common Bench from 1653 to 1659 under the Cromwellian Commonwealth

In all likelihood, Hale used his copy of the Historia Major as a reference work in preparing his major works on English legal history - the Historia placitorum coronae [History of the Pleas of the Crown] and the History and Analysis of the Common Laws of England – two of the most respected works on the practice of English criminal law and on the history of English law well into the 19^th century.  

To view these and other recent rare and historical acquisitions, contact Erin Kidwell kidwelle@law.georgetown.edu in Special Collections specl@law.georgetown.edu, or visit us in Williams 210 M-F from 9am to 5pm. 

We have now concluded the 2012 Annual Student Survey for the Georgetown Law Library.  This year, 485 students responded.  Here's a quick overview chart showing the respresentation of student responses:

Thanks to all the students who responded.  We've published a summary of responses on our site: 2012 Law Library Student Survey Responses.

Congratulations to 1L student William D. Reiter, who won an Amazon Kindle Fire as part of the drawing for this year's survey.  He was chosen at random from all student responders.  He is shown here with Associate Law Librarian Kumar Jayasuriya along with his new device.

Thanks again to our students for providing valuable feedback on library services, online content and resources.  We're starting now to review all comments.  Over the coming weeks, we'll review all comments.

Special Collections’ recent acquisitions include a unique 18th century annotated compilation of European treaties, an 1760 collection of Portuguese and Papal laws for the colony of Brazil, a first edition of the first official Tennessee law reports, and an early 19th century American legal apprentice’s notebook.

The eight volumes of the Corps Universel Diplomatique du Droit des Gens; ou Recueil des Traitez d’Alliance, de Paix, de Treve, etc. faits en Europe, depuis Charlemagne, jusqu’a Present; avec les Capitulations, Imperiales et Royales, et autres Actes Publics and the five volumes of the Supplement au Corps Universel Diplomatique du Droit des Gens were bound into twenty-four multi-part volumes. Begun by Jean Dumont, Baron de Carlscoon (1667-1727), this compilation of European treaties in their original languages from 315 to 1730 CE was then completed by Jean Rousset de Missy (1686-1762) and Jean Barbeyrac (1674-1744), and published from 1726 to 1739. In addition to being worthy of inclusion and notice a century later in the 1847 American Marvin’s Legal Bibliography as “still hold[ing] the first rank among all collections of this description,” (quoting James Reddie, Inquiries in International Law (Edinburgh 1842)), this particular set is a fine example of 18th century speckled calf binding with gilt-stamped spines and speckled text-block edges.

The 1760 second imprint of the Colleccao dos Breves Pontificios, e Leys Regias, que Forao Expedidos, e Publicadas desde o Anno de 1741, sobre a Liberdade das Pessoas, Bens, e Commercio dos Indios do Brasil is bound together with the 1760 Supplemento a Colleccao dos Breves Pontificios, Leys Regias, e Officios que Sepassaram Entre as Cortes de Roma e Lisboa. These are collections of laws affecting the rights of persons, property and commercial activities in Brazil, many of which were promulgated to limit the activities of the Jesuit Order within the colony. The last set of laws in the Supplemento are concerned with the expulsion of the Jesuits from Brazil, which was part of a more extensive effort to expel the Jesuits from Portugal and all its colonies. Our newly acquired copy is a beautiful example of 18th century "cats-paw" decorated sheep binding with a gilt-stamped spine.

Tennessee Reports, Cases Ruled and Adjudged in the Superior Courts of Law and Equity, and Federal Courts for the State of Tennessee, edited by John Overton, and Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Court of Errors and Appeals of the State of Tennessee, from the year 1816 to 1817, edited by John Haywood, report territorial, state, and federal decisions from 1791 to 1817. Overton and Haywood were early Tennessee judges during the period covered by their reports. They were also both natives of North Carolina, where Judge Overton had served as a delegate to the 1789 convention that ratified the U.S. Constitution and Judge Haywood had compiled two volumes of North Carolina’s first court reports. After settling in Tennessee, Judge Overton became a friend and business colleague of Andrew Jackson and leading supporter and organizer of Jackson’s presidential campaigns in the 1820s. Judge Haywood subsequently authored two of the leading early works of Tennessee history – The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee and The Civil and Political History of Tennessee. Our copies of these five volumes have been recently rebound in period-style calf.

The manuscript notebook of Robert Frame (1800-1847) contains outlines of legal subjects written while Frame read the law as an apprentice in the law office of a John M. Clayton (1796-1856), who would subsequently become a U.S. Senator, Chief Justice of Delaware, and later a U.S Secretary of State in the 1830s, 40s and 50s. Frame himself would later be appointed Attorney General of Delaware when he was 30 years old, and went on to serve in the General Assembly. His apprentice’s notebook was compiled at some point between 1820 and 1823 (his index is dated 1823), with some entries likely being added after that period. He was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1824. Frame’s Notebook is an example of how many early American lawyers taught themselves the law by ‘reading the law’ in an established attorney’s office. The blank notebook was purchased for $3 by Robert Frame circa 1820, and is in its original faux tree-calf sheep binding .

Special Collections is located in Williams 210, and may be contacted at specl@law.georgetown.edu.

It's that special time of year again! Yes, once again we hear the seasonal sounds of complaints about a 'War on Christmas' wafting through the blogosphere and cable news channels. Whatever one may think of this alleged suppression of all things Christmas, the current 'conflict' pales in contrast to the genuine banning of Christmas celebrations that took place in 16th and 17th century Britain and New England. The Real 'War on Christmas': 1581-1690 exhibit in the Williams Library Atrium displays facsimiles of several laws enacted during this period that outlawed the singing of carols, the holding of feasts and festivals, and other aspects of what we today cluster together under the seasonal rubric of holiday joy. These materials illuminate an easily overlooked chapter in the history of religious liberty, and give some valuable perspective to the current debate over the 'War on Christmas'.