Due Process: The Georgetown Law Library Blog - News for Faculty

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.

An Online Review of Legal Scholarship

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:33:41 -0500

Feeling overwhelmed by the plethora of legal articles and treatises to read, take a look at Jotwell.com (The Journal of Things We Like (Lots)). This brand new electronic publication, sponsored by the University of Miami School of Law, provides brief reviews of recent legal scholarship that the academic and practicing attorney-reviewers find worthy of greater dissemination. The site hopes to "celebrate works that make an original contribution" to legal scholarship.

The major areas of law currently featured include:

Administrative Law
Constitutional Law
Corporate Law
Criminal Law
Cyberlaw
Intellectual Property Law
Legal Profession
Tax Law

New Maroonbook (Chicago Manual of Legal Citation) now available

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:18:00 -0500

The 20th anniversary edition of the University of Chicago Manual of Legal Citation, a competitor to the Bluebook, is now available for free online.

SPARC Issues Report on "Income Models for Supporting Open Access" for Scholarly Journals

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:43:00 -0500

In order to help scholarly journals provide open, free, immediate, and online access to scholarly research, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, know as SPARC, has issued a new guide, “Income models for Open Access: An overview of current practice, by Raym Crow. The guide provides information about both supply-side and demand-side income models and identifies publishers that use each.

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.

Georgetown Law Library Prepares to Celebrate Constitution Day on September 17th

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:17:00 -0500

This Thursday, September 17th is Constitution Day, a day to commemorate the 1787 signing of the U.S. Constitution. Georgetown Law Library has compiled a Research Guide featuring resources available on the Web for the study of the Constitution. One such resource is the Interactive Constitution, available from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Both the Williams and Wolff libraries have put up displays to observe this significant day for the legal community. You can stop by the Robert Oakley Reading Room of the Williams library and pick up a handout detailing the legislative history of Constitution Day, as well as fun facts on the Constitutional Convention. While you're there, help yourself to a pocket copy of the Constitution too!

In the Wolff library, check out the display which supports the Law Center’s Constitution Day Panel discussion on “Defining Human Rights: What Role Does International Law Play in Our Constitutional System?” Included are relevant cases, such as the Supreme Court’s Paquette Habana decision (175 U.S. 677 (1900)), as well as books by law professors, David Cole, of Georgetown Law and Jordan Paust, of University of Houston Law Center.

Westlaw password changes

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:47:00 -0500

Westlaw is moving away from the use of lengthy, alphanumeric passwords that don't require user names, to the new "OnePass" system of custom user names and passwords. A timeline for this transition is available at http://lawschool.westlaw.com/shared/marketinfodisplay.asp?code=MI&id=327.
Alphanumeric Westlaw passwords will no longer be active after September 29, 2009. If you now log in to Westlaw with your Westlaw password, please create a OnePass username and password or update your exisiting OnePass accounts prior to September 29.

Sotomayor's Background included on Updated Supreme Court Nominations Research Guide

Tue, 26 May 2009 13:44:30 -0500

Our Supreme Court Nominations Research Guide has been undated to provide links to background material on Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who was nominated to the Supreme Court today by President Obama.We link to previous key decisions of Sotomayor on SCOTUSBlog, as well as many biographical resources and her previous confirmation hearings when nominated to the Circuit Court and District Court.

Additionally, we link to the Supreme Court records and briefs for her recent opinion, Ricci v. DeStefano, which is currently being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court. As her confirmation process proceeds, we will continue to update this guide on a regular basis.

Guantanamo Bay Legal Records to be Archived

Thu, 07 May 2009 11:14:24 -0500

Legal records from the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp are being collected by New York University's Tamiment Library and Seton Hall University's Center for Policy and Research with the expectation that public access will be available in the fall of this year. The institutions are making plans to provide remote access to oral histories and other digitized materials they acquire.

Read the full release from NYU and the American Libraries Online article.

Free webinar with Richard Posner about new book: A Failure of Capitalism

Wed, 06 May 2009 15:26:00 -0500

On May 14, at 2:00 P.M. E.T., Judge Richard Posner will speak for 20 minutes about his new book, A Failure of Capitalism. After his presentation, he will spend 10 minutes answering questions posed by webinar participants in real time. For more information and to register for the webinar, go to http://tinyurl.com/curyh8.

Pandemic Flu Research Guide Updated

Fri, 01 May 2009 13:33:49 -0500

In response to the current influenza outbreak, the library has updated the Pandemic Flu Research Guide to provide access to the sources of both International and U.S. legal authority, Federal and State emergency preparedness and response plans, as well as Secondary Sources and web sites of interest.

We've referenced the most current government reports available on the topic and provide a link to the World Health Organization's H1N1's update page with RSS feed. You can also check out the Top 10 Epidemiology and Flu Blogs from our guide.

MIT adopts a campus-wide open access policy

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 14:17:00 -0500

On Friday, MIT announced that its faculty has unanimously voted to make their scholarship available for free to the public. Authors will give MIT nonexclusive permission to make their articles available through DSpace@MIT, an open access platform developed by MIT Libraries and HP. Under the policy, MIT and its faculty authors may use their articles in any way other than to make a profit. They may also authorize others to use the works under the same terms. Authors may opt out of the policy on a paper-by-paper basis.

Read more about the policy:

MIT Press Release.

Blog entry from Open Access News, reprinting the resolution.

District of Columbia Voting Rights Act - A Research Guide

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:28:17 -0500

A voting representative in Congress for the District of Columbia has been proposed and debated throughout the course of this country's history. We've put together a Research Guide with links to the current legislation and Congressional documents available on the District of Columbia Voting Rights Act of 2009. The guide also links to current news coverage, law review articles on the topic and several historical Congressional hearing documents.

New Web Interface to Skim the New York Times

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:26:46 -0500

In an attempt to mimic reading the Sunday newspaper at your kitchen table, the New York Times has released a new interface for reading the paper on the web.

Take a look at the new prototype here.

CALI Launches Legal Education Commons

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:12:51 -0500

Yesterday, in conjunction with Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) launched a Legal Education Commons at www.cali.org/lec. It is designed to be a single searchable & taggable space for teachers of law to share materials and notes they use in teaching. The initial launch includes access to over 700,000 federal court decisions (from public.resource.org) and 300 original illustrations from its CALI Lessons online tutorials. All materials uploaded to the Legal Education Commons by faculty and staff at CALI member schools will be done under a Creative Commons Share Alike license, which allows the author to retain the original copyright in the material, but others will be allowed to use it, share it, and make derivative works from it as long as the users make proper attribution and license the derivative under the same (or a compatible) license. Click here to read the full press release.