For those who have ever wondered how we make decisions about what to buy for our Library’s collection - help has arrived!  We have just published our Collection Development Policy along with a graphical representation of our collection development practices, the Collection Development Matrix.  These documents should be seen as general guides to our thinking and will be modified as our collecting practices expand, contract, or change.  We hope that by sharing these documents those who rely on our collection will come to a greater understanding of its scope and get a better sense of how we make decisions in the ever changing information landscape.  Comments and questions are always welcome.

The Harvard Law School Library is pleased to announce the digitization of the Maurice Ettinghausen collection of Ruhleben civilian internment camp papers, 1914-1937. This unique collection, commonly referred to as “Ruhleben,” provides a fascinating insight into the daily life of prisoners at a German World War I camp.

Internees around a small building named “La Bohéme.” Grohs, A., 1914-1918. VIA record number olvwork426167.

The Ruhleben civilian internment camp was established by the German government at a horse racetrack outside of Berlin to incarcerate male foreign civilians, thereby preventing them from entering the armed forces of its adversaries. Most of the nearly 4,500 internees were British, but there were also a few dozen French and Italians, as well as Indians, Jamaicans, and West Africans.

The internees were not idle, and during the course of the war they developed a distinct society that included the establishment of their own camp mail system, social and sports clubs, cultural and education programs, and religious and medical services. All of these activities are well documented by the collection’s assorted photographs, publications, drawings, receipts, stamps and tickets, and various other documents. Most of the material in the collection was produced by the internees, but it also includes newspaper clippings and publications from outside the camp.

Ruhleben Camp News, February 15, 1915. PDS Sequence number 6718.

The collection was created by an internee, Maurice Ettinghausen, who served as the camp’s librarian. It was purchased by the library in 1932. The collection should be useful to researchers interested in history, the social sciences and political science.

The entire collection has been digitized: the printed material can be accessed through Harvard’s Page Delivery Service, and the visual materials Harvard’s VIA catalog by searching the keyword “Ruhleben."

The digital collection is now open to use and an online exhibit is planned for the near future.

Ruhleben Coat of Arms, 191401818. VIA record number olvwork418594.

Post by:
Ed Moloy
Curator of Modern Manuscripts and Archives

The Greatest Legal Movie of All Time

In August 2008, the ABA Journal published a list of “The 25 Best Legal Movies,” placing To Kill a Mockingbird in the No. 1 spot. Grant H. Morris, LL.M. ’71, begs to differ.

Take an advance peek at his article, “The Greatest Legal Movie of All Time: Proclaiming the Real Winner,” forthcoming this spring in the San Diego Law Review, to learn his surprising choice for the top movie.

Harvard now has Getting the Deal Through:
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:getdealt

Getting the Deal Through provides international comparative guides to law and regulation in 43 practice areas and more than 100 jurisdictions containing concise explanations to the most important legal and regulatory matters that arise in business deals and disputes worldwide. 

This librarian’s personal favorites of the day: 

• Banking Regulation
• Corporate Governance
• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Private Equity Fund Formation
• Securities Finance

There is so much to know.  For example, I just learned that in India shareholders have the power to propose a resolution for the appointment or removal of a director. Shareholders (at least 100 of them or any number of shareholders holding at least 10 per cent of the paid-up share capital) can require a company to convene an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) in which the necessary resolutions could be adopted.

Do you Google?  Try LibX!

If you Google, you will absolutely want to download and install LibX. 

LibX allows you to get fee-based articles found on the open web.  That is, once you find an article (i.e., on Google), you need merely right-click your mouse and choose “Reload [page] via Harvard Access.” This will refresh your page and allow you to access Harvard’s licensed e-resources (e.g., SSRN, HeinOnline, JSTOR). 

It’s magical.

The students asked, and we have listened.  The ground floor of the library will be accessible as a study space 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for Harvard Law School students.  The computer lab, Fishman Room, and Lemann Lounge will all be available.

In our recent survey many of you asked if the library could have longer hours. To better accommodate your study needs, we have made the ground floor (also known as the 2nd floor or entrance level) accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week until the end of the academic year.  All other floors of Langdell and Lewis will continue to close at normal hours. 

To enter the ground floor after midnight you will need your Law HUID. Swipe access is available from the two outside doors in the back of Langdell, where the building connects to Areeda Hall.  After entering through either of these doors, you must swipe your card once more to enter the library.  The outside entrance on the Holmes Field side of Langdell will not be available.

After midnight, there will be security guards but no staff or services.  For safety, please do not swipe anyone else into the library with your HUID.  Report any and all suspicious activity immediately to HUPD 617-495-1212.  Do not leave your belongings unattended.

Please remember, if you arrive early in the morning you still need to use your HUID at the Langdell/Areeda entrance.  The entrance on the Holmes Field side will open with Circulation services. Services begin at 8 a.m. Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m. on Saturdays, and 9 a.m. on Sundays. The other floors of Langdell and Lewis (International Legal Studies) open at those times.

The new hours went into effect Sunday, January 17th and end on May 14th.  Thank you for filling out our survey, and all your suggestions since then.  Good luck with the spring semester!

In 1948 the Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, formed a committee to review the military justice system of the US – a system that, in many ways, had not changed for nearly 200 years. Called the Committee on a Uniform Code of Military Justice (CUCMJ), its foremost objective was the creation of a single uniform code to replace the separate codes that existed for the Army and Navy. The new code would also apply to the recently created Air Force, as well as the Coast Guard and Marine Corps. Harvard Law School Professor Edmund Morgan was named to chair the committee.

Digital image sequence number 4062.

Professor Morgan began teaching at the Law School in 1925. A respected scholar of the law of Evidence, he served as Royall Professor of Law until 1950 when he “retired” in accordance with the University’s retirement plan. He was 72 at the time. Before leaving the Law School he donated some of his papers to the library. Included in this donation were seven bound volumes of documents that Professor Morgan collected while serving as chairman of the CUCMJ. The volumes are a rich source of material reflecting the work of the committee and include correspondence, notes, drafts, reports, agendas, hearings and research material – much of which is unpublished. This material should be of great interest to researchers studying military law.

This project was done in collaboration with The Judge Advocate General’s School Library and the Library of Congress. All material in the volumes – both published and unpublished – was digitized in order to provide a complete record of the CUCMJ collection. The collection is also available at the Military Legal Resources site hosted by the Library of Congress. Researchers will find additional online resources related to military law at this site.

Digital image sequence number 6001.

Entry to the Law School’s digital images can be found here.

Posted by
Ed Moloy
Curator of Modern Manuscripts and Archives

Restricted Access - January 17 - January 23, 2010. 

During the fall/winter terms, Restricted Access is November 29 - December 18, 2009, and January 17 - January 23, 2010.

The library extends hours but restricts access during the reading and exam periods.  During Restricted Access only Harvard Law School students, faculty and staff are allowed regular ID access to the library.  Others with a specific need to borrow or use materials in the collection must check in at the circulation desk for access. 

During the upcoming winter break, the library will be open three days: Monday-Wednesday, December 28-30, from 9am-5pm.  We will resume normal hours Sunday, January 3rd.

Also, please note, the library will be closed early on the 24th as winter break begins at noon that day.

Additional Harvard Law School Library Research Assistants are needed during all or part of January 2010 Winter Term to assist faculty and library staff with short term research projects.  Work may continue into Spring Semester.

Interested candidates may submit their resumes to June Casey, Librarian for Curriculum & Publication Initiatives,

Qualifications include basic legal research experience. Advanced legal research training will be provided. Candidates must be currently enrolled at HLS.

We couldn’t let 2009 slip by without noting the 100th anniversary of the publication of the Catalogue of the Library of the Law School of Harvard University, otherwise known as the “1909 Catalogue,” a stout, succinct, two volume set that proved so useful a facsimile reprint was published in 1967—and is still in use. The preface to that reprint, by Dennis & Co. Inc. of Buffalo, N.Y., explains that “this catalogue … out of print for many years … has been considered one of the indispensable tools for use in a Law library.” The company reproduced it “at the many requests from Law librarians …”

The Library’s first printed catalog came out in 1826, nine years after the School was founded, when the collection numbered about 12,000 books. By 1908, that number had grown to 111,000 —most dramatically in the years after Christopher Columbus Langdell became Dean. Despite this growth the Library had not published a catalog since 1846.

By 1909, the Harvard Law School Library had a growing collection of foreign law and legal works, but the scope of the 1909 catalog is limited to American law and English common law.

For all its limitations—especially in this day of electronic searching—the 1909 catalog is clear and easy to use, and is especially helpful for finding primary materials such as state session laws and court reports, editions of which are displayed in an immediately comprehensible form.

A few archaic library conventions may confuse modern patrons; book size is given as “8vo” (octavo) or “4to” (quarto), for example.

Preparations for the 1909 catalog began in 1902, headed up by Assistant Librarian Charles F. D. Belden (1870-1931). Correspondence between Belden and various local printers competing for the Library’s contract give an indication of the enormity and complexity of the task, and offer a fascinating glimpse into the nuts and bolts of producing a printed catalog over 100 years ago. In the end, the Library chose H.O. Houghton & Company’s Riverside Press over at least three other Boston presses and John Wilson & Son’s University Press in Cambridge. Many galley proofs later, it was published.

The final line of the catalog’s preface is somewhat enigmatic and may reveal weariness on the part of the Assistant Librarian: “The progress of the work has been much delayed, owing to various changes in the catalogue staff, and a long illness of an important assistant.” A planned third volume—a subject index—was in the works but never reached fruition. 

Post contributed by:
Mary Person
Rare Books Cataloguer

On Saturday, December 5, four HLS Research Librarians competed in the Jolly Jaunt 5K to raise money for Special Olympic athletes. 

The course was a 3.1 mile loop around Boston’s Back Bay.  The day was gray but the thermostat remained above freezing.  Spirits were high with several Jolly Jaunt participants dressed for the occasion, i.e., as Snowmen and Elves.

The HLS Library team had an average race time of 29:27, with Terri Gallego-O’Rourke taking top honors at 25:40. 

More exciting is the fact that the HLS Library raised $960 to support Special Olympics.

To learn more about the Special Olympics, visit:
http://www.specialolympics.org/

Special thanks to the team’s colleagues for their immense generosity.

I’ve been asked to remind all of you that the library has many tangible resources, not the least of which is a box of ear plugs at the Circulation Desk.

Students asked, and we listened.  Stop by Circulation and get a wrapped package of silence, soft foam ear plugs, to help you achieve what Percy Bysshe Shelley called a smooth spot Of glassy quiet ‘mid those battling tides.  At least I think he was referring to trying to find the quietest spot to study in the library while at Eton or Oxford.

On November 20, 2009, the HLS Library disseminated a ten-question survey to the HLS community.  Within days, more than 600 students had responded. 

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to share your thoughts. In addition to your many kind words about the library’s services, we heard that students want the library open longer hours, along with more access to the coffee and hot-water station.  The library is working on this (but can make no promises).

We also heard that students want additional research instruction in the following areas:

• Administrative Law & Regulatory Research
• Legislative History
• Public & Private International Law
• Law & Social Science Research
• Court and Other Government Documents
• Free (non-subscription) Legal Research Services

The library will use your feedback to plan upcoming research and training initiatives.  This spring, for example, the library in partnership with other HLS departments will host a legal research boot camp, where students will receive specialized research instruction on a variety of topics.

To find anything at all, visit the HLS Library Reference Desk, call at 617.495.4516, or email at .

To meet with a librarian, contact Suzanne Wones at .

To guide yourself, check out the following links.

Legal research guides:
http://law.harvard.libguides.com/

Legal treatise by subject:
http://law.harvard.libguides.com/legaltreatises

Video guides:
http://www.law.harvard.edu/library/research/tutorials/index.html

To provide additional feedback, contact Lisa Junghahn at .

We are grateful for any input, especially as we try to improve the HLS Library website.  Again, thank you to everyone for taking the time to share your thoughts.  We are impressed with your accomplishments and with your resourcefulness.

CALI, the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction, provides access to an extensive collection of interactive, computer-based lessons covering a number of subject areas. The lessons are written by law faculty and librarians and are designed to augment traditional law school classes.  The format of the individual lessons varies according to the educational objectives of the author.
Access to the CALI Lessons is limited to the Harvard Law School community.

In order to access the lessons, you must first register using an HLS CALI authorization code.

For more information, click here.

For assistance, contact the reference desk at 617-495-4516 or
.