Et Seq.

Book Event: Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems

Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems
by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser

Wednesday, May 30, 6:00PM

Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein West AB (2nd Floor, Map)

Free and Open to the Public; RSVP required for those attending in person via this form

Co-sponsored by the Harvard Law School Library and the Harvard Book Store

Reception to follow

For more information about the book, authors and this event, check out the Berkman website.

852 RARE: The Monthly Special – The Law Will Be Saved!

Ut Lex Servetur

John Y. Pashgian, Ut Lex Servetur

Historical & Special Collections recently received a gift of a terrific caricature drawn by John Y. Pashgian, HLS 1932. Titled “Ut Lex Servetur” (“ut lex servitur” = “the law will be saved”), it features cartoon drawings and autographs of well-known HLS faculty from the 1930s, including Samuel Williston, Felix Frankfurter, and Roscoe Pound. See if you can pick them out! In a wonderful bit of synergy, it turns out we also have the talented Mr. Pashgian’s HLS class notes. You can find details about the drawing on VIA, Harvard’s Visual Image Access database. We are most grateful to Barry S. Kramer for this addition to our collections.

Have Feedback? Tell Us!

Do you have a great idea for a change to the Harvard Libraries? Is there a service you wish we’d offer? Do you have feedback on our website? Other comments? Now there is an easy way to submit your feedback, the new Tell Us service.

The Harvard Library is testing this new service as a way to listen and respond to student ideas, suggestions, and feedback and welcomes your participation in the pilot from May 2 to July 30. If you provide feedback by May 15th, you could win a Starbucks Card!

You can use the link to the service above or you can find the new Tell Us link on the For Students page of our website (see the picture to the right). You can also find cards about the service at our reference desk.

Please send any questions about this pilot program to George Taoultsides and Meg Kribble, and thanks for participating!

Who needs Blockbuster when you’ve got the HLS Library?

Ahhh, Blockbuster. Driving to a video store. Hoping the new releases weren’t all checked out. Hanging out by the check out in hopes that someone would drop off one of those hot new releases. The good old days.

Yes, we know, that’s all changed. Everything streams through Netflix or Amazon or Hulu…but if it doesn’t, then you’re stuck waiting at the mailbox.

Wait no more! If you need a movie for the weekend or a study break, check out a movie from the HLS Library movie collection. Though small, it covers classics old and new (Citizen Kane! The Big Lebowski!), legal titles both fiction and non- (Inherit the Wind, The Nuremberg Trials), The West Wing, and plenty of comedies to take your mind off studying (Better Off Dead, Knocked Up, Zoolander…)

Not sure what you’re in the mood for? We now have a site on GuruLib where you can visually browse our collection before heading to the Lemann Lounge. And good news: coming soon to a library near you are 100 more titles, including many recent award winners and a strong selection of foreign titles! We’ll let you know when they arrive.

Thanks to ILL Coordinator And Borrowing Assistant Jess Rios for putting the GuruLib together!

Lexis, Westlaw, and Bloomberg Summer Access

Want to use your Lexis, Westlaw, or Bloomberg password over the summer? Here are the details on how it works:

LEXIS
Sharpen your research skills this summer with access to Lexis Advance for academic purposes. If you’re already registered for Lexis Advance, you don’t need to do anything else to get Summer Access. If you haven’t registered yet, click here to register. If you’ve already registered your Lexis Advance ID, you don’t need to do anything else for Summer Access.

  • Educational Purposes includes:
  • Summer course preparation and assignments
  • Research associated with Moot Court, Law Review, or Law Journal
  • Research associated with pursuing a grant or scholarship
  • Services as a research assistant to a professor, whether paid or unpaid
  • An internship, externship, or clinic position for school credit or graduation requirement
  • Study for the bar exam
  • Research skill improvement for educational purposes

You will also have access to 24/7 customer support for help at 800-45-LEXIS. If you need access to international materials that are not yet available on Lexis Advance, you can request access to regular Lexis.

Students working in 501(c)(3) public interest organizations this summer are eligible for free access to LexisNexis with the ASPIRE program. You can apply for ASPIRE access now, or anytime throughout the summer. For eligible spring 2012 graduates, ASPIRE access may extend until September 2013. Get the details and apply for ASPIRE access.

If you have any questions about summer access to Lexis, please contact Karen Gray.

WESTLAW
Current students (rising 1Ls and 2Ls) may extend the access on their student Westlaw passwords for the summer if they are:

  • working on a paper or project for a law school course
  • current members of a law review or journal and working on projects for that publication
  • working for a law school professor
  • working on a project for a moot court, or
  • working in an unpaid, nonprofit public interest internship/externship.

Law school student passwords may not be used for government offices or agencies, law firms, corporations or other purposes unrelated to law school academic work.

To extend your password for summer access, click on the “Need Your Westlaw Password This Summer?” link on the lawschool.westlaw.com home page.  If you have any questions on the summer access extension, please contact Kimberly Kenneally.

BLOOMBERG LAW
If your workplace has a Bloomberg Law account, you are expected to use that, but there are no restrictions on your Bloomberg accounts over the summer. Need an account? Just sign up with your law school email address.

Wanted! Summer Research Assistants

The Harvard Law School Library is hiring part-time Research Assistants for summer 2012 to assist with short-term faculty research assignments.   Off-site student researchers are welcome to apply.

Interested candidates may submit resumes and letters of interest to June Casey, Faculty Services Librarian, jucasey@law.harvard.edu.  Qualifications include successful completion of First Year Legal Research and Writing.  Candidates must be currently enrolled at HLS.

New Guide to Free Legal Research Resources

Free! by klabusta

Creative Commons Photo by klabusta

While many legal researchers spend much of their time using expensive subscription databases, an ever increasing amount of legal research information is freely available online. This is particularly true for government documents as many governments around the world, including the U.S. government begin to place a higher priority on making legislative documents freely available to citizens. But, it is also true of secondary sources, local government documents, international law materials and data sets.

The Library has prepared a new research guide that highlights some of the best and most useful freely available resources in each of these areas. Whether you are a graduating student who is looking for free resources to continue your research at your new job or are just looking for government information from any source, this guide will show you where to find information without using an expensive database. Check back frequently, because we will add more resources on an ongoing basis to keep the guide up-to-date on the best free legal resources on the internet.

852 Rare: Provenance Detectives – A New Exhibit

Magna carta cum statutis, ca. 1350. HLS MS 54, Hollis no. 3990350 Historical & Special Collections, Harvard Law School Library

Historical & Special Collections is pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibit, Provenance Detectives: Revealing the History of Six Library Artifacts.

This exhibit highlights six artifacts chosen for their fascinating and sometimes mysterious provenance, as well as their ability to illustrate the different paths provenance research takes.  Artifacts featured in the exhibit include: a fourteenth century Magna Carta; furniture used by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.; and a painting of Justice John Marshall by eminent portrait artist Chester Harding.

The centerpiece of the exhibit is an early printed volume of English statutes once owned by early photography pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877). Included with the volume, on display for the first time since its provenance was discovered, is a leaf from the same volume that Talbot used to make a “photogenic drawing” of the text. Long thought to be lost, we are delighted to exhibit this exciting piece of photographic history.

Come learn more about the frustrating, fascinating hunt for artifact ownership. You never know what you might find!

This exhibit was curated by Mary Person, Lesley Schoenfeld, and Carli Spina and will be on view through August 12, 2012, in the Caspersen Room.  The Caspersen Room is located on the fourth floor of the Harvard Law School Library, Langdell Hall and is open seven days a week from 9 to 5.

Visit the exhibit online too!

852 Rare: The Monthly Special – The “Unusual” Supreme Court Clerk Nominee

“My second nominee is somewhat unusual.”  This was the first line written by New York University School of Law Dean, Russell Niles, in support of Rita E. Hauser’s candidacy for a clerkship with Chief Justice Earl Warren. The letter was written in October of 1958 and what was “unusual” about the recommendation was that the candidate was a woman.

Dean Niles’ recommendation was indeed unusual; up until 1958 only one woman had served as a clerk to a Supreme Court Justice.  Her name was Lucille Lomen and she clerked for William O. Douglas during the 1944-45 term.

Ms. Hauser did have an interview with the Chief Justice, but was not hired. As she mentions in a note accompanying the recommendation letter she recalls Warren saying that he was not ready to hire a female clerk. He was on the court for eleven more years and never did hire a woman.  The next woman selected by any Justice did not happen until 1966.

Note accompanying letter of recommendation. Hollis 13105554.

 

A copy of the letter and Ms. Hauser’s note were recently given to the Library by Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow.  For such a short document it reveals much about a time in this country when sexism and gender discrimination were powerful adversaries for women.

The documents have been digitized and are available via the Hollis record.

 

Post contributed by Edwin Moloy, Curator of Modern Manuscripts and Archives.

Old Man Taxes, Here I Am

Did you file with a smile?

Irving Berlin did, and wrote a song about it for the IRS seventy years ago.  Berlin, a Russian immigrant, said, “This country has been wonderful to me. I love my country. I love to pay taxes.”

Listen to the Smart Set sing “I Paid My Income Tax Today,” by Irving Berlin, and try feeling patriotic and penniless instead of just penniless.

Find the official record, lyrics, and music from Treasury Department files here.