Friday, December 18, 2009

InfoBrief: Holding Your Copyright in Articles

The librarians talked about open access and the importance of holding on to copyright for your articles, at the faculty workshop earlier this month.  Placing your articles in the Scholarship@Cornell Law repository relies on your holding the copyright.  An article has just appeared in SSRN on "Examining Law Journal Publication Agreements for Copyright Transfers and Self-Archiving Rights," at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1508044.

The study examines 78 law journal publication agreements and finds that a minority of journals ask authors to transfer copyright. Most journals also permit author to self-archive articles with some conditions. The study recommends journals make their agreements publicly available and use licenses instead of copyright transfers.  [from the abstract]

The article is to be published May 2010 in Law Library Journal.  Contact your liaison or me if you would like a copy of the paper.

Happy Holidays,

Pat Court
Associate Law Librarian
pgc1@cornell.edu

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

InfoBrief: Books by Upcoming Speakers

The Law Library has just added two new books that correlate with upcoming lectures at the Law School.  

This Friday, November 6, Martha Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at University of Chicago Law School, will present the Stevens Lecture at 12:15 pm in Room G90 on the topic "Same-Sex Marriage and Constitutional Law: Beyond the Politics of Disgust."  Just added to the library collection is Moral Argument, Religion, and Same-Sex Marriage: Advancing the Public Good, edited by Gordon A. Babst, Emily R. Gill, and Jason Pierceson, KF 3133 .C65 P47.  A 1999 book by Nussbaum that touches on some of those same themes is Sex & Social Justice, HQ 1150 .N87, also available as an electronic book through the online catalog.

Marshall Phelps, JD '69, will present a talk on "Strategic Innovation and the Role of Intellectual Property Rights" on Wednesday, November 11, at 12:20 pm in the MacDonald Moot Court Room. His recent book is Burning the Ships: Intellectual Property and the Transformation of Microsoft, now on reserve in the library, available for 3-day checkout through November. Phelps is currently Corporate Vice President for Intellectual Policy and Strategy at Microsoft and will be signing copies of his book in the Foyer after the lecture.

If you would like to see any of these books, please contact me or your liaison.  See you at the lectures!

Best,

Pat Court
Associate Law Librarian
pgc1@cornell.edu

Monday, September 21, 2009

InfoBrief: Research Beyond Lexis, Westlaw, and Google

One of the special services offered by your librarian liaison is research instruction for your students in the classroom.  If your students are writing major papers in your course, now is a good time to introduce them to the legal resources they need in order to research and write that paper. We regularly teach research in courses on immigration, human rights, legal narratives, corporate governance, feminist jurisprudence, and many more.
 
Contact your liaison today and set up a time to talk about what materials your students need to learn more about.  The librarian will have some new ideas for you, too, with the many electronic resources to which we subscribe. The research instruction can be supplemented with links made on your course Blackboard site.
 
We are eager to help your students at the point of need and to make sure they can research beyond Lexis, Westlaw, and Google.
 
Best,
 
Pat Court
Associate Law Librarian
pgc1@cornell.edu

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

InfoBrief: Library Liaisons

The Law Library has as its highest priority the support of your scholarship and classroom teaching.  A Research Attorney, with a J.D. and an advanced degree in information science, is assigned to be your liaison for any information questions and projects you have.  This is a special library service for tenured and tenure-track faculty at Cornell Law School. Click here for the list, to see who your liaison is.
 
Your liaison will work with you on any of your information needs for your research and scholarship.  For courses where students write major papers, your liaison will offer to present a workshop for the class on the resources and strategies needed to do the research.  We can train your research assistants and your administrative assistant, helping them to retrieve information for you.  We will also help you keep up-to-date with a variety of current awareness tools that can automatically bring you the latest news, blogs, articles, books, and more in your field.
 
Other faculty, clinics, projects, and offices in the Law School work with specific Research Attorneys who provide Outreach Services.  That list for this fall will be distributed soon.
 
Look for your liaison to be in contact with you soon.  Let us know how we can help you.  Best wishes for a productive academic year!
 
Pat Court
Associate Law Librarian
pgc1@cornell.edu

Monday, July 13, 2009

InfoBrief: Demon to Darling new book

To Cornell Law Faculty --

For the oenophiles on the faculty, a new book from the University of California Press –
From Demon to Darling: A Legal History of Wine in America

By Richard Mendelson, Director of the Program on Wine Law and Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, and wine specialist at Dickensen, Peatman & Fogarty in Napa, California
With foreword by Margrit Biever Mondavi

From his conclusion: "In the end, wine – demon or darling – represents a battle for the hearts and minds of American consumers."
This book is currently on the New Book Truck in the Faculty Lounge.  If someone else borrows it before you get there, drop me a note and we will put you on the list to get it next.

Salut!

Pat Court
Associate Law Librarian
pgc1@cornell.edu

Monday, July 6, 2009

InfoBrief: Chinese Law Databases

With China as an ever-growing force in the world, the Law Library wants to enable Cornell researchers to find the text of Chinese laws and regulations in English.  You are encouraged to try out the two services we are previewing this month.

        Westlaw China at http://en.westlawchina.com/

         LawInfoChina  at http://www.lawinfochina.com/   in English

        And its counterpart:  ChinaLawInfo at http://vip.chinalawinfo.com/    in Chinese
 

As a civil law country, China relies heavily on laws and regulations, and that is what is available on these services in English.  Because most users around the world are looking at China through a business lens, these services have a strong focus on corporate law, finance, arbitration, patent law, and the like.  If you can read Mandarin, you will be glad to know that both services have caselaw and journal articles, as well as laws and regulations, in Chinese.

Please contact me or your library liaison with your thoughts about the China databases, how they will be beneficial to you and your students, and which one you would prefer to use.  The Law Library would like to subscribe to one of the databases by the time school begins in August.  Let me know if I can provide a closer look or further information on the China law databases.

Xie xie,

Pat Court
Associate Law Librarian
pgc1@cornell.edu

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

InfoBrief: Document Delivery to You

Document delivery of legal information, articles, books, and more has been brought to you for many years through the service of Nancy Moore in the Law Library. With recent retirements, we have bid a fond farewell to Nancy. But the document delivery service will not stop with her departure.

I am happy to introduce to you Kathy Hartman (keh7, 5-5750) who is stepping in to provide the services you have come to rely on. Kathy has been on the Law Library staff for 24 years and has been working with document delivery for 8 years. She is assisted by library staff members Jane Drumheller and Carol Clune, to bring you Interlibrary Loan from libraries around the world, Library-to-Library delivery of books on campus, Borrow Direct rapid service from seven major eastern U.S. universities, and specialized deliveries when you've all but given up.

You can contact Kathy and the rest of the Document Delivery staff at law-ils@cornell.edu with your document requests, or contact your librarian liaison with any questions.

Pat Court
Associate Law Librarian

pgc1@cornell.edu

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

InfoBrief: New Westlaw Sign-on

Westlaw will soon require you to sign on with their OnePass system – they will no longer allow sign-ons with the password you may have had for decades! Your old Westlaw password with 6-7 numerals followed by 4 letters will no longer work, as of September 30, 2009. Starting now, when you access Westlaw through the law school version, you will begin to see reminders that you need to have a OnePass Username and Password that you select for yourself. Updated security requirements are the reason for the change to the OnePass system.

When you sign on to Westlaw, click on the link to LEARN MORE and create or update your OnePass account. And if you have already set up your OnePass account and just need a reminder of the username and/or password, click on "Forgot your password?" at sign-on. If you regularly access Westlaw through the attorneys' web site at westlaw.com, you can find the law school page with information on how to set up your OnePass account at http://lawschool.westlaw.com.

For assistance in determining your current Westlaw password or to set up your OnePass account, please contact me or your own library liaison.

Best,

Pat Court

Associate Law Librarian
pgc1@cornell.edu

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

InfoBrief: Legislative and Regulatory Impact Reports

Tracking the amendments and proposed changes to laws and regulations is made easier on Lexis with their Legislative Impact and Regulatory Impact reports. In association with Potomac Publishing, Lexis offers real-time analysis of how proposed legislation and rulemaking impact existing law, and supplies data in a logical tabular form.

Impacts on the law are listed in three parts: amendments your law made to existing legislation; subsequent amendments to your law since enactment; and amendments to your law in bills from the current Congress. You can search by number or name for impact reports in the Lexis database: Legislative Impact and Regulatory Impact, which is listed under federal and state jurisdiction sources. Or from the initial Lexis search screen, select the Tab: Find a Source, and enter in Option 1 box: legislative impact.

This can pull together your ongoing research in federal or state issues, and can be valuable to your students who are writing papers based on a statute or regulatory scheme. You can even set up an Impact Alert to notify you when there are any changes to the report. For assistance in using Legislative Impact and Regulatory Impact reports, you are welcome to contact me or your own library liaison.

Best,

Pat Court
Associate Law Librarian
pgc1@cornell.edu

Monday, June 8, 2009

InfoBrief: Sotomayor web site from Law Library of Congress

The Law Library of Congress has launched a new resource on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor http://www.loc.gov/law/find/sotomayor.php. The site contains information on articles and books by Sotomayor, Congressional documents, cases, and web resources. This is an excellent resource, which is updated as more information becomes available.

And InfoBrief is now produced by a different law librarian. Julie Jones, who inaugurated this service, has left Cornell for the University of Connecticut. I am now coordinating Faculty Services in the Law Library. I will be sending you regular, concise InfoBriefs and welcome your feedback.

Best,

Pat Court
Associate Law Librarian
pgc1@cornell.edu

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

InfoBrief: Coalition of Law Reviews Launch Legal Web Magazine for Public

From today's press release:
A consortium of America's most influential law reviews today launched The Legal Workshop ( www.legalworkshop.org), a free, online magazine featuring articles based on legal scholarship published in the print editions of seven participating law reviews: Stanford Law Review, New York University Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, Northwestern Law Review, and University of Chicago Law Review.
The Legal Workshop features short, plain-English articles about legal issues and ideas, written by an author whose related, full-length work of scholarship is forthcoming in one of the participating law reviews. But The Legal Workshop does not house a collection of abstracts. Instead, it offers an engaging alternative to traditional academic articles that run 30,000 words with footnotes, enabling scholars to present their well-formulated opinions and their research to a wider audience. In addition to making legal ideas understandable, The Legal Workshop seeks to house the best of legal scholarship in one place­making it easier for readers to find the best writing about all areas of law. ...
Read the entire announcement here.

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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Book Truck in Faculty Lounge

Dear Colleagues,

A new truck is coming to the Faculty Lounge this morning, with a NEW POLICY.  If you would like to borrow books from the "New Books" truck in the Faculty Lounge, please kindly sign out the book from the Print List (alphabetical order).  Many thanks for your cooperation, so that we can keep track of the books in our collection.

Also, you may also want to peruse the list of new legal and law-related books, which comes out every other week, and which shows legal and law-related books in ALL campus libraries. http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/newbooks/ Please feel free to contact us if you want a particular book checked out to you.
[Read on if you want more info:  Book titles link to their catalog record where you can determine if the book is available on the shelf or already checked out, or click on �long view� to see the subject headings and table of contents.  Book cover images link to Amazon.com where you can get more information about the book and read professional and user reviews.]

Thanks,

--Claire

Claire M. Germain
Edward Cornell Law Librarian & Professor of Law
Director, Dual Degree Programs, Paris & Berlin
Cornell Law School
365 Myron Taylor Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853
Tel. (607) 255 5857
Fax (607) 255 1357