To supplement this spring's successful Equal Justice Film Festival and encourage further research and exploration, the Georgetown Law Library has compiled a brief bibliography of resources, including books, scholarly articles, and other films on related topics.

You can view or download it in PDF: Georgetown Law Library Equal Justice Film Festival - A Concise Bibliography.

For more information about the films and speakers that were part of the series, see the Film Festival website at www.law.georgetown.edu/library/about/125/filmfestival.cfm.

The CQ Electronic Library, a product of Congressional Quarterly publishing, has added three new resources to their already rich collection.

• World at Risk is a sourcebook of global issues which features indepth reports on topics such as human trafficking, international criminal justice and climate change. The reports can be searched by keyword or browsed in full-text.
• CQ Press State Stats is a data resource of state statistics on topcis such as crime rates, employment and environmental health. Researchers can browse by state or topic and search by keyword.
• The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biography 1789-2012 includes detailed biographical information on all justices of the U.S. Supreme Court since its inception.

We have now concluded the 2013 Annual Student Survey for the Georgetown Law Library.  This year, 595 students responded.  Here's a quick overview chart showing the respresentation of student responses:

Thanks to everybody who responded.  

Congratulations to Jack Lescroart (L '14), who won an Amazon Kindle Paperwhite as part of the drawing for this year's survey.  He was chosen at random from all student responders who entered.  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've already started to review all comments.  Over the coming weeks, we'll discuss all of this input and use it as a guide in helping us focus our efforts to provide useful services and resources.

This past Sunday, we wrapped up the law library's annual student survey.  More than 90% of our students answer that access to the Exam Archive is a reason for visiting the library's website. Hopefully 100% of our students know about this collection.  In case that's not true, here's what the system provides, as well as a technical note for Firefox users.

The library manages the Exam Archive to provide access to documents from our Registrar's Office. The system is available to all Georgetown Law students, where you can download past exams from 1998 to the present.  Using the system, you can download exam files in batches (as a zip archive) or individually by semester.

In the survey, one person commented about problems with the Firefox browser that's useful to know. If you are using the Firefox browser, a bug in Firefox’s built-in PDF viewer may cause the Georgetown Law watermark to obscure the text in exam files.

If you encounter this problem, please try viewing exam files in another browser (Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, etc.) or a standalone PDF viewer such as Adobe Reader. This page has more information about Firefox’s PDF Viewer, including how to turn it off or use a different PDF plugin.

Please join the Friends of the Law Library, National Equal Justice Library, The Innocence Project, Georgetown Criminal Law Association, the Georgetown chapter of the National Lawyers’ Guild, and Law Docs at the latest co-sponsored Law at the Movies event, part of the ongoing Georgetown Law Library Equal Justice Film Festival:

Movie: West of Memphis (2013)
Date: Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Time: 6:00pm (refreshments & seating), showtime 6:30pm
Location: Hart Auditorium, Georgetown University Law Center

This screening is free and open to the public - map and directions.

A 2012 Sundance selection, West of Memphis tells the infuriating, inspiring story behind an extraordinary and desperate fight to stop the State of Arkansas from killing an innocent man. The film lays bare the flawed police examination into the 1993 murders of three 8-year-old boys, and goes on to uncover new evidence surrounding the arrest and conviction of the three teenagers who spent 18 years in prison for the crimes, one facing execution and two life-imprisonment, until released in 2011.

After the screening, stay for a discussion of the film and the real cases it portrays with Stephen Braga, Georgetown Law alumnus, adjunct professor, and lead attorney in representing the "West Memphis Three."

For information on other upcoming events in the Georgetown Law Library Equal Justice Film Festival, visit www.law.georgetown.edu/library/about/125/filmfestival.cfm.

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

Special Collection now has PDFs of select Manuscript Collection Finding Aids available online through our database Eloquent.

 To Access Eloquent:   http://gencat.eloquent-systems.com/georgetown_public.html

To Retrieve a Finding Aid:
1) Go to the above link for Eloquent
2) Search for a Collection in the Main Search Box (Example:  “Adkins”)
3) Click on the paper icon next to the Collection Level record to download the PDF or
4) Click on the Collection Level record to view more about the Collection (this record is highlighted in red) then
5) Scroll down to Documents and click on the paper icon labeled “Finding Aid”

If you have any questions or need further assistance please feel free to contact Special Collections at specl@law.georgetown.edu .

Please join the Friends of the Law Library, National Equal Justice Library, The Innocence Project, Georgetown Criminal Law Association, the Georgetown chapter of the National Lawyers’ Guild, and Law Docs at the latest co-sponsored Law at the Movies event, part of the ongoing Georgetown Law Library Equal Justice Film Festival:

Movie: Gideon's Army (2013)
Date: Friday, April 19, 2013
Time: 6:00pm (refreshments & seating), showtime 6:30pm
Location: Hart Auditorium, Georgetown University Law Center

This screening is free and open to the public – map and directions.

A 2013 Sundance award winning documentary by Georgetown Law alumna Dawn Porter, Gideon's Army follows the personal stories of three young public defenders in the Deep South challenging the assumptions that drive a criminal justice system strained to the breaking point. 50 years since the landmark Supreme Court ruling Gideon v. Wainwright that established the right to counsel, can these courageous lawyers and their colleagues revolutionize the way America thinks about indigent defense and make “justice for all” a reality?

After the screening, stay for a discussion of the film and its context, led by:

• Jo-Ann Wallace, President and CEO, National Legal Aid & Defender Association
• Abbe Smith, Director, Criminal Defense & Prisoner Advocacy Clinic; Co-Director, E. Barrett Prettyman Fellowship Program; Professor of Law
• Alec Karakatsanis, Attorney, Special Litigation Division, Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia

For information on other upcoming events in the Georgetown Law Library Equal Justice Film Festival, visit www.law.georgetown.edu/library/about/125/filmfestival.cfm.

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

The FY2014 Budget of the United States was released yesterday and is available through FDSys.gov, but did you know that you can actually review the federal budget back to 1923 through the Federal Reserve archive, known as FRASER? This resource provides a PDF version for each year and is already updated to include the 2014 release.

With summer just around the corner, the Library wants to be sure you’re aware of the options and requirements for continuing to use your student accounts with Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg Law. A summary of the relevant policies and procedures is below and can also be found at www.law.georgetown.edu/library/about/services-policies/lexis-westlaw.cfm.

Of course, you’ll also want to check with your supervisor or librarian at your place of employment to understand any institutional policies or preferences they may have for using these platforms for your research over the summer.

Westlaw:

Westlaw passwords will automatically remain active over the summer for a limited number of hours of research each month. Students can get full access over the summer if they have a valid educational need under one of the following provisions:

• Summer School
• School-Related Research Assignment
• Moot Court Research
• Law Review or Journal Research
• Working as a Professor's Research Assistant
• Non-Profit Externship (receiving academic credit AND unpaid)
• Unpaid Internship/Externship (receiving academic credit AND unpaid)

If one of the above describes your summer activities, please apply to extend your full access at Westlaw's Password Extension page. If you take no action, your account will remain active but limited in the number of hours for June and July. Live Chat support on WestlawNext will remain active throughout the summer.

Graduating students can extend access while studying for the bar by registering for Westlaw’s Grad Program. Once registered, May graduates will retain access to Westlaw through November 2013. Please note that this extension will be limited in the number of hours allowed. All graduates will automatically retain access to a number of career-related databases for 18 months.

Questions can be directed to our Westlaw account representative, Pedro de Lencastre, at pedro.delencastre@thomsonreuters.com.

Lexis:

For summer 2013, Lexis offers students unlimited use of Lexis Advance for any research purpose, educational or commercial/job related. No additional steps are necessary for access besides registering your Lexis Advance ID (please contact the Reference Desk if you need an ID).

Lexis.com will also remain active over the summer, and may be used to access materials (e.g., international legal materials) that are unavailable on Lexis Advance. To use Lexis.com over the summer, you may log in the same as during the school year at www.lexisnexis.com/lawschool using your Lexis.com ID, until the consolidation of IDs into a single Lexis Advance ID/password and portal in late June or early July. After this, Lexis.com will be accessible by logging onto Lexis Advance and selecting the Lexis.com link in the system.

Questions can be directed to our Lexis account representative, Lori Sorenson, at lori.sorenson@lexisnexis.com.

Bloomberg Law:

Bloomberg Law accounts remain fully active over the summer for registered law students, including access for research conducted during summer employment. For additional information, contact Georgetown's Bloomberg Law representative, Beth Goldfinger, at egoldfinger@bloomberg.net.

“Dear Felix,
About a month ago I wrote Mrs. Florence Kelly giving the reasons for my opposition to the Women’s Party amendment to the Constitution.  I agree with you that it is a dangerous amendment, particularly at this time when the swing of the pendulum is away from legislation like the Minimum Wage Law. 
With Kindest regards and best wishes for the holiday, I am Sincerely yours,
Jesse Adkins ” 

The above is a letter to Felix Frankfurter by Jesse Corcoran Adkins (pictured), on December 19, 1921.  The letter is from the Judge Jesse Corcoran Adkins Papers in Special Collections.  In 1921 Felix Frankfurter was a professor at Harvard Law School and Jesse Adkins was a Georgetown Law faculty member and a member of the DC Minimum Wage Board.  It is unclear from the letter if Jesse Adkins is talking about the 19th Amendment to the Constitution or the Equal Rights Amendment, but what is clear is that both men saw it as taking the focus away from more important matters.   The Equal Rights Amendment was drafted by Alice Paul in or around 1923 and had been tested on the state level early in 1921, but would never make it to Congress until 1972. 

Both Alice Paul and Florence Kelley were very active in the women’s suffrage movement. In 1920 the 19th Amendment to the U.S Constitution passed.  The women’s suffrage movement had finally won women the right to vote.  Following the victory of the 19th Amendment, the National American Woman Suffrage Association transforms into the League of Women Voters and the National Woman’s Party established by Alice Paul.  Paul was able to garner substantial financial support for the National Woman’s Party and established their headquarters in Washington, DC.  She was a graduate of American University, receiving her JD in 1922 and her LLM in 1928.  She was the driving force in the continuation of women’s rights through the ongoing work of the National Woman’s Party and the Equal Rights Amendment. 

Select correspondence from Alice Paul and material on the National Woman’s Party can be found in the George Finch Collection, also available in Special Collections or more information can be found at the Library of Congress in the National Woman's Party Records.  For more information on Felix Frankfurter, Jesse Adkins and Minimum Wage, see this great blog post by Dan Ernst on the Legal History Blog. Or for a closer look at either the George Finch Collection or the Judge Jesse Corcoran Adkins Papers, please contact Special Collections at specl@law.georgetown.edu .