Due Process: The Georgetown Law Library Blog - Georgetown News

Georgetown University Law Library Holds the Second Screening in the Law at the Movies Series

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:58:00 -0500

The Friends of the Georgetown Law Library invite you to the second screening in the Library's Law at the Movies series.

Film: Breaker Morant
Date: Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009
Time: 6:00 P.M.
Location: Hart Auditorium

Breaker Morant is an Australian film based upon a true story of a British court-martial of two Australian soldiers accused of a war-crime killing, authorized by their commanders. Join us for this examination of military and criminal law as well as the independence of the military legal system.

After the screening we will lead a discussion about the ethical and cultural issues in the film. The panel will include:

Michael Frisch, Georgetown Law's Ethics Counsel and Adjunct Faculty;
Naomi Mezey, Georgetown Law Faculty;
Kumar Jayasuriya, Associate Law Librarian for Patron Services;
Marylin Raisch, Associate Law Librarian for International and Foreign Law.

The next film in our series will be My Cousin Vinny on December 2 at 6:00.

To learn more about the Friends of the Georgetown Law Library and to consider becoming a member, please look at the Friends Website.

Law Library Sponsors Inaugural Law at the Movies Screening Thursday Oct. 1 at 6:00

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:11:00 -0500

Law at the Movies
Hart Auditorium
Thursday, October 1 @ 6:00 pm

The Friends of the Georgetown University Law Library invites you to join Georgetown Law Professors Naomi Mezey and Randy Barnett as they introduce and discuss The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

In this film classic Jimmy Stewart is the big-city lawyer determined to bring the rule of law to the untamed West. John Wayne, Lee Marvin, and Vera Miles also star.

This is the inaugural event in the Law Library’s series of popular feature films that illustrate legal themes. Each screening will start with a discussion led by members of the Georgetown Law Faculty. Future events will include movies like Anatomy of a Murder, A Few Good Men, and many more.

Library Training for Faculty Research Assistants

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:43:00 -0500

The Library will be holding three RA orientation training sessions. In the orientation, RAs will learn about library services and policies and will gain an introduction to our databases and to best research practices.

The sessions will be:

Friday September 25, 2009 from 11 am to noon
Friday September 25, 2009 from 4-5 pm
Friday October 2, 2009 from 11 am to noon

All sessions will be held in EB Williams Room 320

Please RSVP to Thanh Nguyen (nguyent2@law.georgetown.edu) with which session you plan to attend.

Research Assistant Training

Tue, 12 May 2009 14:23:00 -0500

The Library will be holding two RA orientation training sessions. In the orientation, RAs will learn about library services and policies and will gain an introduction to our databases and to best research practices.

The sessions will be:

Thursday May 28, 2009 from 11 am to noon; and
Thursday, June 4, 2009 from 4-5 pm.

Both sessions will be held in EB Williams Room 420.

Please RSVP to Thanh Nguyen (nguyent2@law.georgetown.edu) with which session you plan to attend.

The Library also encourages RAs to make individual appointments with Faculty Services to discuss resources and strategies relevant to their specific summer projects and assignments. Please email Thanh (nguyent2@law.georgetown.edu) if you would like to set up an appointment.

New Georgetown Law Journal Debuts

Wed, 06 May 2009 15:47:00 -0500

The first issue of the Georgetown Journal of Law and Modern Critical Race Perspectives is now available. The first issue includes articles about:

Philosophical Methodologies of Critical Race Theory
Hollywood & Race
The War on Terror & American Exceptionalism
Voting Rights Enforcement Under the Bush Administration
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the Continuing Need for Intersectional Discourse
Ex-Felon Disenfranchisement
Seattle's Open Housing Movement
FCC Regulation of Broadcast Hate Speech

There is also a reaction piece to each article.

Check out the table of contents and purchase individual articles online. Subscription information is also online.

Congratulations to all of the Georgetown Law alums and current students who have been involved in the creation of this journal!

Fourth-Year Evening Student Wins iPod Touch in Law Library Survey Drawing

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:46:00 -0500

The annual Georgetown Law Library survey has finished, and we got a great response from students. All students who completed the survey were eligible for a drawing to win an Apple iPod Touch. We're happy to announce that Lara Turner, a fourth-year evening student was selected at random for the prize. Congratulations Lara!

Thanks to everybody who completed the survey this year. We value all of the feedback, and we'll read every comment we received. Our annual survey is a great way for us to gauge student satisfaction and information needs. This year, we received 573 responses from students in all program years, including feedback from JD, LL.M., SJD and joint degree students. Following is a quick chart showing the responses received.

One question in the survey asked for feedback on content people are seeking on our website, allowing people to pick multiple options. The highest-ranked item is our collection of past exams. We're happy to see that people also turn to our website to search for books, get general research help, and check to see when the library is open. Here's a quick chart showing the results of this question.

You can view results of prior surveys on pages for the 2008 Survey and 2007 Survey. We will publish results of the 2009 law library survey when we can.

Mediate.com Opens Video Archive for Month of April

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:59:00 -0500

As noted by Diane Levin in her MediationChannel.com blog, Mediate.com has opened its video archive during the month of April 2009, and the video interviews include Georgetown Law's own Carrie Menkel-Meadow:

"Mediate.com, the world’s premier source for news, information, and articles about mediation, has opened its video archive to the public during the month of April. Available at no cost are over 100 fully searchable video interviews with leaders in the field of dispute resolution - notable names like Roger Fisher, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Len Riskin, Margaret Shaw, Chip Rose, Frank Sander, Kenneth Cloke, Jeff Krivis, and many more. Both full interviews and searachable video clips are available for viewing, so don't miss this extraordinary opportunity to listen in as ADR moves and shakers share insights with interviewer Robert Benjamin."

On Point @ Georgetown Law

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 11:40:00 -0500

On Point @ Georgetown Law is a new series of interviews by Law Center Dean Alex Aleinikoff with legal newsmakers.

The most recent interview is with Thomas Ricks about his recent book The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008. Ricks, a Pulitzer-prize winner, is the Washington Post senior Pentagon reporter and U.S. military correspondent. He is also the author of Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.

Other On Point interviewees include John Grisham, W. Gary Sharp, George Mitchell, Justices O'Connor and Breyer, and Anthony Fauci.

Take the Law Library's 2009 Survey

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:09:00 -0500

The Law Library is currently conducting a survey of all Georgetown law students to get feedback on our services and materials. We're also looking for feedback on our facilities and a few other library-related items. Take the 2009 Law Library Survey here.

One lucky student completing the survey will win a free Apple iPod touch (8 GB). We promise to read every comment submitted, and we'll do what we can to act on and respond to your feedback. We'll keep the survey open through April 5 and select the winner of the Apple iPod touch the following week. Don't put off taking the survey until the last minute. It should only take a few minutes to complete.

Here's a summary of last year's survey, together with our narrative responses.

Follow Recovery Money in Various States

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:27:38 -0500

By this point in time, we know that Recovery.gov was created to track how the money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (aka the Stimulus Plan). We even have a prior blog post about it. But how would we track the recovery money sent to individual states and parceled out? Now, Pro Publica has put together a website compiling state various websites and databases to track recovery money. Not every state has the same information publicly available nor in user-friendly formats. Some states haven't even created websites or databases to track Recovery funds sent to that state. However, this is a great first stop resource on the web to check out what individual states do offer. And as always, if state and local governments are not making available information to the public about how they use funds, you can always demand greater accountability from elected officials.

Lincoln's Bicentennial - Resources and Activities

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:32:00 -0500

On the 200th Bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, take a minute to check out our extensive collection on this lawyer President, who appears to be the inspiration of our current President. Here are some of the most recent publications we have acquired on Lincoln

E457.2 .P65 2009The Political Lincoln : An Encyclopedia, by Paul Finkelman, Martin J. Hershock, editors Washington, D.C. : CQPress, c2009

PS504 .L56 2009The Lincoln Anthology : Great Writers on his Life and Legacy from 1860 to Now , edited by Harold Holzer [New York] : Library of America, c2009

KF8742 .M32 2008 Lincoln and the Court, by Brian McGinty Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008

E457.2 .M645 2008, President Lincoln : The Duty of a Statesman, by William Lee Miller New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2008

E457.2 .D575 2007 Lincoln the Lawyer, by Brian Dirck Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c2007

E457.2 .S8 2006 An Honest Calling : The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln, by Mark E. Steiner DeKalb : Northern Illinois University Press, c2006

To locate our entire collection, conduct a Subject search on Gulliver for:

Lincoln, Abraham

Also, the Law Library of Congress has prepared a website on Lincoln and the Law, which links to historical documents in their digital collection focusing on the legal career of Lincoln, as well as transcripts of the trials of the conspirators in Lincoln’s assassination.

In addition to the Georgetown Law art exhibit on Lincoln, other Washington institutions are celebrating the Bicentennial this weekend. Here are just a few that we’re located:

Smithsonian Institution’s celebration of Lincoln’s Bicentennial

Ford’s Theater: Grand Reopening

Library of Congress

National Archives: Display of the Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln Memorial

September 17th is Constitution Day

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:48:36 -0500

According to 36 U.S.C. 106, "September 17 is designated as Constitution Day and Citizenship Day" to commemorate the signing of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787.

Check out the law library's Guide to Constitution Day which outlines resources available in commemoration of the day.

Also, Georgetown University is sponsoring a program to commemorate our founding document, entitled "Constitution Day: Constitution, Courts, Checks and Balance" This event, open to the public, features the following speakers:

Hon. Seth Waxman, Solicitor General of the United States (1997-2001)
Hon. Viet Dinh, Asst. Attorney General of the U.S. (2001-2003) & Georgetown Law Professor
Hon. Brett Kavanaugh, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
Hon. Patricia Wald, former Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
Moderated by: Joan Biskupic, Supreme Court reporter, USA Today

It's Never Too Early to Start Preparing for Law School!

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:02:00 -0500

The New York Times recently featured an article on the new web-based Civics lesson being prepared by the Law Center , in conjunction with former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Arizona State University.

The "Our Courts" Project was created to help those seeking to address the evident crisis in civics education. It will be an interactive, problem-based Civics curriculum designed for the middle school environment. While not completely interactive as yet, it currently contains numerous links offering key definitions, discussion on the branches of government and structure of the courts.

In the article, Justice O'Connor said that most citizens know very little about their government. "Two-thirds of Americans know at least one of the judges on the Fox TV show American Idol, but less than 1 in 10 can name the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, she said."

Preliminary Results from the 2008 Law Library Survey

Fri, 09 May 2008 10:25:00 -0500

During the Spring 2008 semester, the Law Library conducted a survey asking students to comment on various aspects of the library. 740 students responded, providing more than 1,500 separate responses. The Library is reviewing all feedback, and we plan to publish a detailed response during the summer. For now, we've posted several charts summarizing the results. View 2008 Survey Results on our website here.

One of the more interesting results from the survey is a list of reasons people come to our library. The top reason is to study in a queit environment, followed by conducting research. Beyond that, it's nice to know that people continue to use the library for more traditional uses, such as checking out books and getting reference assistance.

List of Law School Commencement Speakers

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:51:57 -0500

The TaxProf Blog has posted a list of law school commencement speakers for 2008.

Georgetown traditionally announces the speaker a few weeks before the ceremony. See the announcements for 2007 (Nina Totenberg), 2006 (John Roberts) and 2005 (Lee Hamilton).