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 Adventures of a New Law Librarian
Greetings! I am the new Outreach Services librarian, and I wanted to introduce myself and share some first impressions about IU. I’m fresh from library school at the University of Washington, which I went to straight out of law school (University of New Mexico), so I’m right at home in the academic setting, but still getting used to a role other than student. Aside from the prerequisite long walks on the beach, I like movies, karaoke, WWE, ponies, card games, Gilbert & Sullivan, and rap music.
This is a wonderful place to be. Whether you are new like me, or have lots of experience like most of my colleagues, IU is a really wonderful environment. Students are hard-working, but not over-competitive. They want to learn everything they can, and are respectful of the people who teach them. Faculty are dedicated, interested, and have a great sense of humor, as I discovered when I accidentally sent an invitation meant for the library to the entire school (apparently in the minute and a half between sending the invitation and my red-faced retraction Prof. Geyh had already rented a tux). The library is filled with people who make sure that things get done, but make sure that everyone is relaxed and having a good time doing those things. We throw parties for everything. The library has a good collection, and people who know that collection inside and out.
I am honored to be starting my career in such a place, surrounded by so many great people. I hope to see more people though, so, as is familiar to the students I have been honored to teach so far, I’m going to end this blurb with an advertisement. Come see me! Come see everyone at the library! We have a truly terrific group of people working here, and we are working for you. I love nothing more than to help a patron figure out where to look for that tough torts problem, and I very much hope that you will give me the chance to help. You don’t need to suffer alone—we know how to use these databases. We know how to read these books. And if we don’t, we know how to find out. And if a plea doesn’t get you in, how about a bribe—I have a candy bowl.
Cindy Dabney
Outreach Services Librarian |
Subscription to CCH Content Greatly Expands Libray’s Online Offerings
This Fall, the Law Library subscribed to two extensive online databases from the legal content provider, CCH (Commerce Clearing House). The first database is the CCH Business Internet Library. It includes 80 unique titles such as the Blue Sky Law Reporter, the Blue Sky Law Desk Reference, the Federal Securities Law Reporter, and several databases relating to the New York Stock Exchange. The second database is the CCH Health and Human Resources (HR) Internet Library. It includes 56 unique titles such as the HIPAA Privacy Guide, the Medical Devices Reporter, Wages & Hours Reports, and the Healthcare Compliance Portfolio. Both of these CCH mega-databases are good sources for primary and editorial content in the areas they cover. Furthermore, the editorial content from these databases is not available on Lexis and Westlaw.
These databases are available to law students and faculty via the link on the Law Library’s Online Resources page (‘Legal Databases’). These links will also work from off campus. However, you will be prompted to enter your UITS username and password to authenticate yourself with our proxy server. (This is the same one you use to logon to any University computer.) Additionally, you will be prompted to enter your email address. This is unavoidable. CCH uses your email address to identify you as a unique user and to allow you to customize your preferences. You will not be spammed unless you actively sign up for one of the email updates. If you have any questions, please contact Peter Hook, Electronic Services Librarian (pahook@indiana.edu). I look forward to hearing how these materials are being used by the Law School community.
Peter Hook
Electronic Services Librarian |
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 New & Noteworthy: Most Popular Theatrical Videos
For years the library has annually purchased a small number of films that loosely pertain to the law. We do this for two reasons – to have examples of how the law is portrayed in popular culture, and to provide our patrons with some materials which will help them escape from the daily rigors of law school.
Our collection was begun in the 1980s when VHS tapes were the cutting edge technology for home film distribution. In recent years we’ve moved to the DVD format and who knows what format we will collect in the future. But every time we switch to a new format, we must face the question – what about the films we own in the old format? We’ve purchased a few DVD versions of films we already own in VHS, but we’ve never really made an effort to go back and duplicate the collection. But this year we decided to make an effort to purchase some of the most circulated VHS films in DVD format. We’ll still keep the VHS versions, but now DVD versions will also be available for checkout.
In order to do this, we needed to know which were the most circulated VHS films. Working with Rebecca Bertoloni Meli, our Head of Circulation & Patron Services, I produced a list of the films ranked by the number of times they have been checked out in the recent past. I’ll use the list to start purchasing DVD versions of the top circulated films.
So, what is the most circulated theatrical film in the library? Here is a list of the top ten –
10) Class Action
9) Silkwood
8) To Kill a Mockingbird
7) Thin Blue Line
6) A Few Good Men
5) Anatomy of a Murder
4) Presumed Innocent
3) All the President’s Men
2) Paper Chase
1) And the most circulated film in the collection: 12 Angry Men
A complete list of the films in the collection can be found at the circulation desk, as well as online at: http://www.law.indiana.edu/library/collections/pdf/movies_descriptions.pdf (Note: the list is currently being updated)
Dick Vaughan
Acquisitions and Serials Librarian
 The Law Student and the Google
It is my first time teaching here at IU, but one of the first things that I noticed is that, given the option of searching any database for a legal document, many students choose Google. This is a fairly common trend today, for obvious reasons. Google is really easy—it has one catch-all search box, and the user does not have to know what he is searching for. A couple of keywords thrown into the database almost invariably bring back something relevant. However, there are a few pitfalls, especially when it comes to legal research, and the savvy student should be aware of them.
1. Google does not search everything. It does not have the rights to search pay databases, so most of the content on the bigger databases like Westlaw and Lexis is not available to Google. Google indexes a huge amount of information, leading to the idea that you are searching everything available. But while large, much-discussed cases will be available because someone has posted them for discussion, you will not find some of the smaller, more obscure cases. Google is a great catch-all, but it is not meant as a legal research tool, and you can miss out on a lot of materials and specialized features in databases that are meant for legal research.
2. Google search algorithms are subject to interpretation. Remember how, for a long time, googling “miserable failure” would take you to the bio page for President Bush? That’s not because Google has a particular political leaning. It’s because, in its searches, Google reads the blue text in links. It pays attention to how many times a page gets linked to, and what kind of links those are. So when there are several pages of links to the Bush bio, all with the text “miserable failure” in the link, Google reads that. You can find out what movies are hottest by googling “Official Website” because a lot of people say “official website” in the link when talking about what movies they are excited about. This is a brilliant tool—but remember, when you google ‘child custody’ the blogs of irate parents who have lost their kids are ‘voting’ on what you see.
3. It makes you a sloppy searcher. Really, one of the strength of Google is the ease of use, but have you ever run a few Google searches and then tried to go search Westlaw? A lot of the time you really need a specialized legal database to get what you want, and they don’t always respond well to a mish-mash of keywords. Make sure your search skills stay sharp! Google itself has a lot more search features than you know—try some Boolean searching on Google—you may get better results, and you will remember what ‘Boolean’ searching is the next time you have to turn to Lexis.
Google really is a fantastic search tool, but, like any tool you use, make sure that you know how to use it. Every database has strengths and limitations, and the smart user (as well as the user who worries about malpractice suits) will make sure that he knows what he is looking at.
Cindy Dabney
Outreach Services Librarian
 American Law Institute Collection Added to HeinOnline
In recent months, HeinOnline has begun to add archival materials from the American Law Institute. Already available are full runs of the Institute’s annual reports, proceedings, annual meeting speeches, and the Institute’s newsletter, The ALI Reporter. These series can help greatly in conducting research into Institute projects and publications going back to the organization’s founding. The ALI Collection will eventually contain the complete Restatement of the Law series including all the preliminary documents leading up to their publication. Currently available are the Restatement of the Law of Torts 2nd and the Restatement of the Law of Contracts 2nd. Restatement of the Law of Trusts 2nd will be released shortly.
In addition, the very important Uniform Commercial Code was recently added to the ALI Collection. For more than half a century the Institute has collaborated with the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in developing and monitoring the Uniform Commercial Code, or UCC. The UCC is a comprehensive code addressing most aspects of commercial law, and is generally viewed as one of the most important developments in American Law. Other ALI publications already available on HeinOnline include the Model Penal Code and the Statement of Essential Human Rights (a pioneering ALI project of the mid-1940's).
This is an exciting addition to the already enormously valuable resources provided by HeinOnline and the will undoubtedly prove quite useful to legal scholars and researchers.
Nonie Watt
Head of Technical Services
 LLRX.com and GlobaLex: Research Guides on the Internet
Over the past five years, the Internet has become a tremendous source of both primary and secondary source material for foreign and international legal research. There is now a wealth of material available in electronic format, often quite authoritative, and in many cases free for the asking. Unfortunately, the Internet is a disorganized, even chaotic medium, so success in using it to locate source material requires efficient search strategies.
One of the best strategies is to begin a research project by locating an online research guide that summarizes the relevant resources and provides links, when possible, to web sites where the applicable resources can be found. Research guides provide useful background information and function like an index to web-based resources.
Of course, research guides are scattered across the Internet, much like the sources they index and describe. But there are two web sites devoted to research guides alone, which are probably the first virtual places a researcher should visit. These two web sites are LLRX.com and GlobaLex.
LLRX.com is available at http://www.llrx.com/. This web site is devoted to all areas of law and legal technology, and is aimed at librarians and attorneys. Research guides are gathered under the heading “Legal Research,” and those for foreign and international legal topics under the subheading “Foreign & Comparative Law.” Selection of this subheading retrieves yet another list of even more detailed subheadings, e.g. “Human Rights,” “Islamic Law,” and “Treaties & Agreements.” Perhaps a bit confusingly, the heading for “International Law” links to a long list of research guides that includes entries for individual country jurisdictions. For example, here you will find a 2006 research guide on the law of Australia. Many of the guides are topical and narrowly focused. Guides on the intellectual property law of the Russian Federation and the Mexican Civil Code are examples of this type. Useful features of LLRX.com include the fact that many of the guides are frequently updated, and include many links. The guides are listed in reverse chronological order, but access to a Google Co-op search utility makes it relatively easy to determine if there is a guide on the subject of interest, especially if the subject is the law of a particular jurisdiction. (For example, try searching for ‘Croatia or Croatian’.)
GlobaLex is available at http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/index.html. It is an electronic library of research guides organized into three categories: international law, comparative law, and foreign law. Within each category, guides are listed alphabetically. GlobaLex is produced at New York University, and one of its strengths is that it draws upon LLM students from around the world to write the guides.
What will you find out from a good, recent guide? First and foremost, you will find out what relevant primary sources are available on the Internet, with hot links that place those resources just a click away. However, sometimes you will discover something about the law itself that is quite useful. For example, while researching Zimbabwe law, I discovered by reading a research guide that there is a new Criminal Code, in force since 2005, which is not available (or even mentioned) at the official web site of the Parliament of Zimbabwe, which purports to provide access to all the acts currently in force. This demonstrates the value of using good, up-to-date research guides early in the Internet research process.
Ralph Gaebler
International & Foreign Law Librarian
 Suggestion Box
Suggestion: I think we should have video game systems in the Library for those hour long breaks between class. My preference would be a Nintendo Wii, but I will settle for a Playstation (3).
Response: Have you ever considered studying during those hour long breaks between class? Although we do go to great lengths to make the Library a comfortable place for law students, I doubt that we will be purchasing any game systems in the near future! I know this is really low tech, but have you ever thought about the game boards that are in the Student Lounge (at least there used to be several stored in the cabinets down there)? If you really get desperate for entertainment, we do have movies available for check-out at the circulation desk.
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Professor Jerome Hall's Bust Gets A Disguise
Trick or Treating in the Library
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