Faculty Channel •

852 RARE: Lounging with the Law Review: A Shoeless Celebration

This image shows the editorial board of Volume 51 of the Harvard Law Review celebrating another successful year outside of Austin Hall. In the center of the photograph, Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr., the Review’s President, is hoisted up by his colleagues and classmates. Sidney H. Willner, the note editor of Volume 51, stands with one fist raised and his other hand supporting one of Huddleson’s feet. To the left of Willner, hand jauntily perched on his hip, is Theodore R. Colborn, Volume 51’s case editor. Robert Amory, Jr., Volume 51’s treasurer, stands to the right of Huddleson.

Harvard Law Review Board of Editors, Vol. 51, 1937-38

Harvard Law Review Board of Editors, Vol. 51, 1937-38 (VIA record ID: olvwork401246)

Huddleson, like all Review presidents since the early 1930s, holds a staff in his hand. The staff was given to the Review in April 1931 by U.S. District Judge John Munro Woolsey. Woolsey, a founding member of Columbia’s Law Review, served at Harvard on the Advisory Commission on Research in International Law. He is better known, however, as the judge who delivered the decision in the case of United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, which allowed James Joyce’s infamous novel to be brought into the U.S. and to eventually be published here.

This advertisement for the yearbook was printed in Volume 51 of the Harvard Law Review.

This advertisement for the yearbook was printed in Volume 51 of the Harvard Law Review.

Historical & Special Collections (HSC) holds papers from three members of Volume 51’s editorial board. These include Robert Braucher, visiting professor at Harvard Law in the late 1940s and Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts from 1971 to 1981; Philip Elman, law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter from 1941 to 1943 and professor of law at Georgetown University in the 1970s; and David Schwartz, attorney and member of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Alien Property. HSC also holds Braucher’s 1937-1938 yearbook, the first yearbook ever published by the Law School.

 

Robert Braucher’s name and campus address—38 W. Hastings Hall—are written inside the front cover of HSC’s Special Collections Reference copy of the 1937-38 yearbook.

Robert Braucher’s name and campus address—38 W. Hastings Hall—are written inside the front cover of HSC’s Special Collections Reference copy of the 1937-38 yearbook.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images from the 1937-1938 yearbook and photos of the class of 1938 and 1939 can help uncover who’s who in the Board of Editors photo. The question remains, though, what happened to Huddleson’s shoe? Perhaps he purchased a replacement from The Coop, whose advertisement for Bostonian men’s shoes graced the pages of Volume 51.

Bostonian was the first footwear brand to introduce a flexible men’s dress shoe. The advertisement above highlights “the Flexmore Process.”

Bostonian was the first footwear brand to introduce a flexible men’s dress shoe. The advertisement above highlights “the Flexmore Process.” (Harvard Law Review, v. 51, no. 2, pg. xxix)

New Exhibit: Research Revealed

Research Revealed ImageVisit the HLS Library’s Caspersen Room to view our latest exhibit: Research Revealed: Six Scholars Explore Historical & Special Collections. This exhibit celebrates the relationship between the staff of Historical & Special Collections (HSC) and the scholars who visit us to use our collections.

Over the past five years, HSC staff has fielded an average of nearly 600 inquiries per year from around the world. Approximately a third of these yearly inquiries result in a visit to HSC’s reading room, the Root Room. While HSC staff rarely has the time to immerse ourselves deeply in any one item or collection, we are fortunate to work with and learn from our researchers. This exhibit features a variety of material used by six of our researchers over the past several years: Rowan Dorin, Moira Gillis, Andrew Porwancher, Geoff Shaw, Julia Stephens, and the Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation.

This exhibit was curated by the staff of HSC: Karen Beck, Jane Kelly, Edwin Moloy, Margaret Peachy, Mary Person, and Lesley Schoenfeld. It will be on view through August 9, 2013. The Caspersen Room is open Monday – Friday 9 to 5.

852 RARE : Learning at Litchfield Law School

The Harvard Law School Library is pleased to announce the digitization of its collection of student notebooks from the Litchfield Law School.

The Litchfield Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut is generally considered to have been the first formal law school in the United States. Established in 1784 by Tapping Reeve (1744-1823) the school was in operation for almost 50 years, closing in 1833.  Reeve was the sole lecturer until he hired former student James Gould (1770-1838) in 1798, which was the same year that he became a judge on Connecticut’s Superior Court. The Harvard Law School Library’s Historical & Special Collections has 64 volumes of Litchfield student notebooks recorded by 17 students between 1803 and 1825. An example is this page from the notebook of Elisha Whittlesey:

First page of Elisha Whittlesey’s notes on James Gould’s Contracts course in 1813. From HLS MS 4106, vol. 2, Hollis 2143582.

Approximately 1000 men attended Litchfield Law School and many of them went on to significant careers in law, business or education.  Notable students include: Aaron Burr, Levi Woodbury, John Pierce Brace and John C. Calhoun.  (The Litchfield Historical Society has a complete database of students). In addition to the contributions made by many students of the school to the development of the United States, the notebooks provide valuable insight into the development of American common law.  The notebooks can be accessed through the Litchfield Law School Student Notebooks finding aid.

Post contributed by Edwin Moloy, Curator of Modern Manuscripts.

Got a Group Project? Find the Best Tools for Collaboration on Our New Guide

Image by johnny goldstein. CC BY 2.0

Effective collaboration is a key part of many classes, student groups and work teams, but it can be difficult to manage a process that involves a large group of people. Getting organized, keeping on target, and tracking versions of documents are all more complicated with more people. But, many tools exist to help groups navigate through these hurdles. Whether you need to schedule a meeting, simultaneously edit a document or share research materials, there is a tool out there to simplify the process. Our new guide to collaboration tools will help you to find the right resources for your group, from a space to meet on campus to a track all of your group’s deadlines and activities. Check it out and let us know if you think we have missed any great collaboration tools.

 

App of the Month: Haiku Deck

Creating visually engaging presentations can be a difficult process. Haiku Deck is one app aimed at simplifying this process. Available for iOS devices, this app helps users to create visually interesting slides that focus on interesting images and a limited amount of text. The app offers five free themes and eleven additional paid themes, but all of the available themes make images and graphics the focal point of the slides. With Haiku Deck, users are encouraged to have images fill their entire slide with bands of text appearing on top of the images. And, to make this process as simple as possible, Haiku Deck offers an integrated image search feature that will help you to find the perfect Creative Commons licensed images for your presentation. If you opt to use images found this way, Haiku Deck will automatically include the appropriate attribution for the image in your presentation file. If you prefer to use your own images, Haiku Deck can directly connect to your device’s camera or stored photos or it can pull images from your Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, Flickr, Picasa or Google Drive accounts. For those who will be referring to data in their presentations, the app also allows you to create simple bar and pie graphs to illustrate your point. Once you have completed your presentation, you can publish it as either a public, private or restricted file, which makes it easy to make sure that only your intended audience will see your slides. Published slide decks can be shared via URL, on social media or by embedding the slides in a blog or on a website. If you are an iPad or iPhone user, this is a great option for creating and delivering presentations right from your device.

Not an iPad/iPhone user? Just want to see what other presentation tools are out there? Check out our guide to Presentation Tools. Interested in finding more mobile apps instead? Check out our guide to Mobile Apps for Legal Research and More.

Meet Haiku Deck from adam tratt on Vimeo.

Honoring Justice Ruth Ginsburg

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg visited Harvard Law School on February 6, 2013 and reflected on her twenty years of service on the United States Supreme Court during a public conversation with HLS Dean Martha Minow.  In honor of Justice Ginsburg’s visit, twelve HLS faculty wrote essays that discuss some of her outstanding legal opinions.  The essays are available in print, on Reserve at the Harvard Law School Library and are available for reading and for download on a newly created web site courtesy of the HLSL staff.

Honoring Justice Ruth Ginsburg

852 RARE: You Can (Sometimes) Judge a Book by Its Cover

Anarchy and Anarchists

Michael Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists (Chicago, 1889)

When we think of beautiful books, illuminated manuscripts or vellum-bound volumes usually come to mind. But 19th-century English and American book publishers produced some amazing decorative cloth book bindings as well. The HLS Library’s Historical & Special Collections has a number of these attractive, and occasionally amusing, law books. The examples shown here were published in the United States and London between 1873 and 1889.

As you can see, the works tended to be popular rather than scholarly. The ornate illustrations, bright colors, and extensive gold tooling were intended to attract the buyer’s eye.

 

Two decorative book covers

Two decorative book covers

 

 

While most books from earlier centuries were individually bound and illustrated according to the taste and pocketbook of each customer, 19th-century publishers were able to mass-produce beautiful books that recalled earlier bookbinding traditions – particularly the use of color and gilding – while being very much of their time.

Haunted London

Walter Thornbury, Haunted London (London, 1880)

 

 

 

 

App of the Month: HeinOnline

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

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.

Improve Your Presentation Skills with Our New Presentation Tools LibGuide

Whether you are creating a presentation for an assignment, to teach a class or to speak at a conference, it can be difficult to design slides that will keep your audience engaged. As with so many things, a lot of this comes down to finding the right tool for the job, but frequently people fall back on the same basic techniques for every presentation. If you’re interested in trying a new tool, learning a new technique or improving your skills with your go-to presentation tool, our new Presentation Tools guide has resources for you!

In the guide, you’ll learn about PowerPoint alternatives, find apps that allow you to present from (or even create slides on) your tablet, or find the latest tools for sharing your slides with your audience. The guide even includes resources for finding Creative Commons-licensed content to include in your presentation and tips on how to make your presentation more dynamic, engaging and fun! To learn more about any of the tools included in the guide, click on it in the word cloud below.

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