E-Resources •

App of the Month: HeinOnline

By: Carli Spina - April 8th, 2013  
Filed under: Cool, E-Resources, Faculty Channel, Legal Research & Research Skills, Libraries, Student Channel 1 Comment

Do you use HeinOnline all the time? Do you find yourself wishing that you could even access it on your commute? Have you ever been out and about and had a burning question that could only be answered by turning to the Pentagon Papers?

Ok, maybe not, but if you have ever wished you could turn your bus ride to school into productive time or if you ever wanted to look up one last thing as you rushed to class, you may be interested to know that HeinOnline has a mobile app! With their app, users can access all the same materials that they access through the full database on their iPhone or iPad (currently the app is only available for iOS devices). From the app, you can review the same full text PDF of the item that you would find on HeinOnline itself and you can download the document for later review.

Once you download the app, all you need to do is login for the first time while on the Harvard University IP range. After that, you will have access anywhere for 30 days before you will have to re-authenticate while on campus. HeinOnline offers a complete User Guide to help you get started with the app and if you run into any troubles, you can also always ask a librarian. Looking for more mobile app recommendations? Check out our guide to mobile apps!

This screenshot shows the app in action.

Check Out Our New Guide to the Law of the People’s Republic of China

By: Carli Spina - April 3rd, 2013  
Filed under: Announcements, E-Resources, Faculty Channel, Foreign Jurisdictions, Legal Research & Research Skills, Student Channel

If you are interested in the law of the People’s Republic of China, you are in luck! The library recently published our latest research guide, which covers many aspects of the law of the People’s Republic of China. This guide offers access to materials in both Chinese and in translation. It includes primary law and secondary resources and we plan to continue to update it with additional materials in the future. Whether you are already familiar with this area of research or if you are new to it, you will be sure to find helpful resources for your work.

Love Animals? Check out our new research guide on Animal Law!

By: tsaintam - March 25th, 2013  
Filed under: Announcements, E-Resources, Legal Research & Research Skills, Student Channel 2 Comments

 

Tookie - currently available for adoption through the ARL of Boston, and being fostered by Terri Saint-Amour, ARL Volunteer and Law Librarian

Tookie is available for adoption through the Animal Rescue League of Boston. He is being fostered by Terri Saint-Amour.

Just take a look at the sweet, adorable face to the left and fall in love. That’s what Terri Saint-Amour, law librarian at Harvard Law Library has done, by agreeing to foster him on behalf of the Animal Rescue League of Boston.  Being an avid animal lover and a volunteer with the Animal Rescue League, she decided to put together a legal research guide on Animal Law. Included in the guide are links to state and national organizations dedicated to advancing the law as it pertains to animals, as well as state and federal laws, international agreements, GAO reports and more! There are even a few cute videos in case you are a law student reading this post, and need some stress relief.

By the way, in case you have also fallen in love with the gorgeous cat known as Tookie, here’s more information about him, written by another volunteer from the Animal Rescue League.  If you ask any of her fellow reference colleagues, they’ll tell you how happy she is to talk about him, or any of the other animals she works with on a weekly basis. For more information on adopting an animal from the Animal Rescue League, please see their website, and Like them on Facebook! They have additional locations in Dedham, MA, and Brewster, MA.

 

 

 

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852 RARE : Just Launched: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Digital Suite!

By: Margaret Peachy - December 13th, 2012  
Filed under: Announcements, Cool, E-Resources, Faculty Channel, Harvard Law School Library News, Historical & Special Collections, History, Open Access, Student Channel 1 Comment

The Harvard Law School Library is pleased to announce the release of the Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Digital Suite.  The Suite is comprised of five manuscript collections as well as three image groups. Every attempt was made to digitize as much of each collection as possible and only a small percentage of the Library’s Holmes primary material that was not digitized. The manuscript collections included in the Suite are:

A forty year old Holmes as the newly minted Lecturer on Common law at the Lowell Institute. olvwork385804.

1)    The John G. Palfrey Collection of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Papers,  1715-1938

2)     Mark DeWolfe Howe Research Materials Related to the Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1858-1968

3)    The Edward J. Holmes Collection of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Materials, 1853-1944

4)     Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Addenda, 1818-1978

5)    Letters from Holmes to Lady Castletown Small Manuscript Collection

The key component of the OWH, Jr. Suite is the discovery environment developed by the Library’s Digital Lab and called 3D (Discovery and Delivery of Digital collections). 3D enables a person to search and browse across all eight collections in the Suite from one access point. A search of the over 100,000 digitized documents and over 1,000 images can also be easily refined by the site’s faceted search functions.

The Suite also supports active involvement from users who are offered the opportunity to add tags to items as well as participate in discussions. Visitors to the site are encouraged to increase the accessibility to the collections by adding tags designating topics, names, dates, and locations to items they view.  Researchers can also participate in forum discussions about the collections themselves or topics they introduce.  By becoming active members of the OWH community, users increase the utility and discoverability of the site.

The Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Digital Suite was made possible by the work of many individuals. The Library’s Digital Lab team of Steve Chapman, Andy Silva, Lindsay Dumas and Craig Smith all developed the 3D software as well as did quality assurance checks on material returning from imaging services. Ed Moloy and Margaret Peachy of the Library’s Historical & Special Collections unit provided the finding aids with the additional metadata necessary for 3D’s optimal functionality.

Post contributed by Edwin Moloy, Curator of Modern Manuscripts

Introducing the Beta Version of Congress.gov

By: Carli Spina - September 19th, 2012  
Filed under: Cool, E-Resources, Government Information, Legal Research & Research Skills, Student Channel

Today the Library of Congress, the Government Printing Office, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives came together to announce the launch of the beta version of Congress.gov. This new site, which will eventually replace THOMAS, already offers access to information on the status and language of bills, video of the House and Senate floors, biographical information about individual members of Congress and videos explaining the legislative process, and more features from THOMAS will be added to the site over time. It is designed to be user-friendly, with a focus on improved search functionality, including the ability to narrow results with facets. The site also works on mobile devices so that you can continue your search on the go without installing a separate app. Check it out and let us know what you think!
Introducing CongressDotGov

852 RARE: New Joseph Story Exhibit and Digital Suite

By: Karen Beck - August 30th, 2012  
Filed under: Announcements, Cool, E-Resources, Faculty Channel, Harvard Law School Library News, Historical & Special Collections, History, Student Channel 1 Comment

You are invited to the Harvard Law School Library’s Caspersen Room to view our fall exhibit, A Storied Legacy: Correspondence and Early Writings of Joseph Story, on view through December 7, 2012. Complementing and expanding upon the exhibit is our new Joseph Story Digital Suite.

Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (1779-1845) was uniquely important to American jurisprudence and to the Harvard Law School, where he taught as Dane Professor from 1829 until his death. With the Court (established in 1789) and the Law School (founded in 1817) still in their early years, Story was in the right place and time to exert a lasting influence on both institutions.

In the exhibit, selections of original documents from four HLS Library collections attest to Story’s scholarly and judicial abilities, and reveal glimpses of the close friendships he formed with the leaders of his day. Written when he was a young lawyer, his three-volume Digest of Various Court Decisions prefigured his approach to legal analysis which he used in his Commentaries decades later. Story’s Papers, 1796-1845 include correspondence with leading legal and social figures of Massachusetts and beyond, as well as a manuscript draft of his Commentaries on the Law of Promissory Notes. The Story-Pitman correspondence (from the John Pitman collection), spanning 1817 to 1845, sheds light on the close professional and personal association of Justice Story and judge Pitman of Rhode Island, who served together on the First Judicial Circuit. Complementing these components are images of Story from the Harvard Law Library’s Art and Visual Materials Collection.

All documents and visual images from these four collections have been fully digitized and are available in the Joseph Story Digital Suite, searchable by name, date, collection, and other criteria.

The exhibit was curated by Karen Beck and Margaret Peachy, Historical & Special Collections, Harvard Law School Library. The Suite was the product of many individuals’ talent and hard work, and we are grateful to them all. We hope you enjoy the exhibit!

Introducing a New E-Resource – Malaysia

By: Carli Spina - March 13th, 2012  
Filed under: Announcements, E-Resources, Faculty Channel, Foreign Jurisdictions, International Law, Student Channel

The Law Library now has access to a new database, CLJLaw. This database provides access to primary and secondary legal materials from Malaysia. The main focus of the database is the primary law of Malaysia, including full text of selected legislative materials, court rules and case law. The included citator also makes it easy to collect all of the cases that refer to a particular case with the click of a button. CLJLaw also offers access to selected treaties to which Malaysia is a signatory going back as far as 1910 and secondary sources, including journal articles, legal dictionaries and translators, and practice note materials. Patrons wishing to use this resource should stop by the reference desk during our normal hours.

Introducing Two New E-Resources – Bangladesh & Ghana

By: Carli Spina - January 24th, 2012  
Filed under: Announcements, E-Resources, Faculty Channel, Foreign Jurisdictions, Legal Research & Research Skills, Student Channel

The Law Library has purchased access to two new e-resources: Chancery Law Chronicles, which provides access to Bangladesh’s case law and Lexis Nexis South Africa, which provides access to legal materials from Ghana. Chancery Law Chronicles is the first online database to provide access to Bangladeshi case law. It currently offers access to Appellate and High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh since 1972. In addition to case law, it also includes several dictionaries related to legal practice and some statutes, though statutes are not yet searchable. The database remains under development with plans to offer access to additional legal documents in the future. Our other new e-resource, Lexis Nexis South Africa, is a valuable resource for students interested in researching the Ghana legal system. It provides access to law reports from Ghana as well as the constitution and laws of the country. To access either of these databases, ask a librarian at the reference desk for assistance during normal reference hours.

852 RARE: The Monthly Special – A favorite digital collection

By: Margaret Peachy - January 19th, 2012  
Filed under: E-Resources, Faculty Channel, Historical & Special Collections, History, International Law, Student Channel

Over the years, Historical & Special Collections has taken on many digitization projects – from early studies of Roman law, to our collection of legal portraits, to the papers of some of the Law School’s distinguished alumni.  One of my personal favorites is the Charles Claflin Davis Papers.  Davis attended both Harvard College and the Law School, graduating in 1910.  In the 1920s he became involved with the American Red Cross as Director of the Southwestern Base located in Constantinople.   There he worked with Russian refugee camps and spent time in the schools and orphanages.  His collection of papers, photographs and scrapbooks represents his time with the Red Cross in Constantinople and the gratitude expressed to him by the children in the camps.

A highlight of the collection is one scrapbook made by the Russian Towns Union Children’s Home No. 1.  The children created a beautiful scrapbook for Davis to thank him for his work.  Below is one of the pages:

A page from a scrapbook presented to Charles Claflin Davis by children in a Russian refugee camp. From The Charles Claflin Davis Papers, 1917-1923. Scrapbooks, box 6. Sequence number 711.

There are also some haunting photos of the refugee camps, such as this one that depicts a view of a Russian refugee camp showing men lying on the ground and lines of laundry hanging overhead. The camp sits outside the Dolma Bagtche palace in Constantinople, Turkey.

From the Charles Claflin Davis Papers, 1917-1923. Box 1. olvwork438394.

Introducing Two New E-Resources – Juta Law & Hukuk Türk

By: Carli Spina - January 17th, 2012  
Filed under: E-Resources, Faculty Channel, Foreign Jurisdictions, Harvard Law School Library News, Student Channel 1 Comment

The law school recently purchased access to two new foreign law e-resources, Juta Law and Hukuk Türk. Juta Law covers both South Africa and Zimbabwe. For South African legal research, it includes the country’s Law Reports from 1947 to the present and Appellate Division Reports from 1910 to the present and also offers access to statutes and regulations. For Zimbabwe, it includes access to both case law and statutes. Hukuk Türk is a Turkish legal database with a range of legal resources including annotated case law, statutes, regulations, and decrees. In addition to these primary resources, it also provides access to an extensive legal bibliography of both books and articles from 1930 to 2000 (with additional items published more recently being added all the time) as well as Turkish legal news and a legal dictionary. All resources are provided in the original Turkish. Both of these resources can be accessed both on and off campus by current law school affiliates.