InfoBrief: Library Open House Thursday 11-1

You are invited to an Open House for the Rare Book Room hosted by the Cornell Law Library this Thursday, March 11 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

The Rare Book Room is located on the eastern end of the Reading Room (on the Law Library’s third floor). Please join us for an introduction to some of the most treasured items from our collection, including the Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection, the Scottsboro Trials Collection, and our collection of Liberian Law.

Light refreshments will be served.

Amy Emerson

Research Attorney

aae25@cornell.edu

InfoBrief: WestlawNext lunch program on Monday

Please join us this Monday, March 1, at noon for a preview of WestlawNext.  Our Westlaw account manager, Mike Winn, will be here to show us what is coming with the new Westlaw.  You will also receive a password so you can work in the new system, months before law students will have it (next fall, at the earliest).  Lunch will be served, so please RSVP to me by this Thursday, February 25.

 

Many blog posts, articles, etc. have been written about WestlawNext.  Here are a few that can give you the latest:

 

Greg Lambert writes “WestlawNext - A Study in Applying Knowledge Management & Crowdsourcing” on 3 Geeks and a Law Blog

 

Bob Ambrogi’s LawSites gives “A First Look at WestlawNext”

 

Video Discussion of WestlawNext

 

What happens to Boolean searching?  Do you still have to select a database to search in?  Exactly what is the structure and nature of the new search engine?  Please join us and find out!

 

Pat Court

InfoBrief: TradeLawGuide for WTO law

 

To Cornell Law Faculty:

The World Trade Organization (WTO) regulates trade between 153 member nations and provides a framework for the settlement of trade disputes between nations. The Cornell Law Library has recently acquired a subscription to TradeLawGuide, providing students and faculty with enhanced access to WTO law.

Use TradeLawGuide to search WTO agreements, instruments, jurisprudence, and Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) minutes. TradeLawGuide includes article and jurisprudence citators that allow you to update WTO law, and a Subject Navigator tool that indexes materials by subject. Training videos are available here.

Access TradeLawGuide from either the Trade Law or the International Law subject pages of our Online Legal Resources list, or search the library’s catalog for “TradeLawGuide.”

For more information on WTO law, check out this research guide or these articles by Jack Barceló.

Iantha Haight

Research Attorney

imh24@cornell.edu

InfoBrief: electronic library books

Cornell Library makes available thousands of electronic books on topics large and small.  Just search the online catalog for "NetLibrary" to browse; or add a title or keyword to search more specifically.  There are many electronic titles about law, such as:
 
Playing It Safe: How the Supreme Court Sidesteps Hard Cases
Facing the Limits of the Law
Preferences and Procedure: European Union Legislative Decision-Making
Constitutionalism & Legal Reasoning: A New Paradigm for the Concept of Law
Outsourcing to India: A Legal Handbook
 
The February eBook of the Month is The Procrastinator's Guide to Getting Things Done.  Author and cognitive-behavioral therapy expert Monica Ramirez Basco peppers the book with easy-to-relate-to examples from "recovering procrastinators"­including herself. Inviting quizzes, exercises, and practical suggestions help you (well, maybe not YOU, perhaps someone you know?):

• Understand why you procrastinate.
• Start with small changes that lead to big improvements.
• Outsmart your own delaying tactics.
• Counteract self-doubt and perfectionism.
• Build crucial skills for getting things done today.

The Procrastinator's Guide to Getting Things Done will be available to Cornell Law Library users February 1-28. If you have already established a NetLibrary account, visit http://www.netLibrary.org and log in.  If you do not have a NetLibrary account, you can create a free account from your office computer.  Please contact your librarian liaison or me for more information about NetLibrary and other full-text eBooks available to you.
 
Happy e-Reading!
 
Pat Court
Associate Law Librarian
pgc1@cornell.edu

InfoBrief: Statistical Workshops

If you or your students are doing empirical research this year, you will want to know about the free workshops that Cornell has to offer.  Schedules are now available on the web:

CISER , the Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research, offers hands-on workshops, designed for faculty, staff, and students doing social science research.  Topics include SPSS, SAS, R, Stata, and Atlas.ti.

CSCU, the Cornell Statistical Consulting Unit, conducts workshops that emphasize the application of statistical methods, rather than statistical theory. 

These workshops are offered free of charge to members of the Cornell community and most are held at the Stone Lab in Mann Library. 

Pat Court
Associate Law Librarian
pgc1@cornell.edu
 

InfoBrief: Westlaw's new COBALT

Online legal research steps up to the 21st century with the soon-to-be unveiled COBALT from Westlaw.  The Thomson-Reuter group has a new platform for the "new generation of users with higher expectations," which they say is the "next evolution in legal research." A recent posting on Law Librarian Blog has a lot of details on what is expected from COBALT.  It seems Boolean logic is out, and we can expect "confidence, productivity, and intuitive" in the new platform.  See their video teaser.
 
Will we have a choice of old or new platform?  Will we pay more?  How will results be presented?  All questions yet to be answered.  Your librarian liaison will be with you every step of the way as COBALT rolls out this semester.  We'll keep you posted.
 
Pat Court
Associate Law Librarian
pgc1@cornell.edu
 

InfoBrief: ChinaLawInfo

Now available to all law faculty and students is ChinaLawInfo, the major online legal database in English for Chinese law.  In fact, you can access the materials in both English (InfoLawChina) and Chinese (ChinaLawInfo).  The Chinese language database is more extensive than the English, but they continue to translate and add materials to InfoLawChina.  For a fee, ChinaLawInfo also offers translation services from Chinese into English for anything you may need.
 
Laws and regulations are the most important sources of law in China.  The database includes all laws adopted by the National People's Congress (NPC) and the NPC Standing Committee from 1949 to the present; administrative regulations promulgated by the State Council from 1949 to the present; and most of the important administrative rules or orders promulgated or approved by the agencies under the State Council and leading  independent agencies. 
 
Court decisions do not carry the same precedential value there as in the U.S. but many are included.  All cases in the database are translated from official sources. The great majority of them come from the Gazette of the Supreme People's Court, and all of them are translated by translators of ChinaLawInfo.
 
This database allows you to search or browse the table of contents of 44 leading Chinese law journals and also official gazettes in Chinese and in some cases in both English and Chinese.  Full text articles are available for only two journals, and generally include only abstracts in English.
 
We are glad to be able to bring this new web resource to researchers here at the Law School.  For assistance in using these materials, please contact your librarian liaison or me. 
 
Xie xie,
 
Pat Court
Associate Law Librarian
pgc1@cornell.edu
 

InfoBrief: Teacher's Manuals

As you prepare for Spring Semester courses, you may want to take a look at the Teacher's Manual that accompanies your casebook.  Here's a quick list of how you can find them:

Aspen
Call for complimentary copy at 800-950-5259

Carolina Academic Press
Find title at http://www.cap-press.com/books/subject/7  and click on Request Comp. Copy at end of book description
Or call for complimentary copy at 919 489-7486

Foundation
PressDownload from Law School Exchange (http://exchange.westlaw.com )

LexisNexis
Download Teacher�s Manual Updates and online supplements from http://www.lexisnexis.com/lawschool/class/publications/
Or call for complimentary copy at 800-533-1646

Oxford University Press
Request at http://www.oup.com/us/corporate/requestExamCopy/?view=usa
Or call for complimentary copy at 800-280-0280

West
Call for complimentary copy at 800-313-9378
Or download from Law School Exchange (http://exchange.westlaw.com )
 
Let us know how the Law Library can assist you with your classes this semester!

Pat Court
Associate Law Librarian
pgc1@cornell.edu

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

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