Cornell Law Library Annual Report 2004-2005

Annual Report June 2004 - June 2005 Highlights

Student Services 3rd Annual Student Legal Research Survey. Jean Callihan coordinated the third annual online survey.

134 second and third year students answered questions about their legal research experiences during their summer employment. The survey found that 46% of respondents worked for law firms, 10% for faculty, 10% for judges, and 28% in other areas. While most students used both print and online resources, a recurrent theme was using print resources for statutes and treatises and online resources for cases. 77% were interested in receiving additional legal research instruction; a suggested course called Advanced Online Research was of interest to 63% of these respondents.

LL.M. Orientation. Thomas Mills and Pat Court coordinated the LL.M. orientation program, which is taught by all of the law librarians. New this year were tours of the foreign collections at Olin Library, which are of special interest to these advanced students from other countries.

Library Open House for LL.M. and J.S.D. Students. In October, students and faculty enjoyed viewing some of the treasures of the law library, including select rare books, the Nuremberg trial transcripts, 19th century trials, the Rogers collection, and Scottsboro Trials materials.

Research Orientation for Summer Research Assistants. In June, Jean Callihan and Matt Morrison conducted an orientation for faculty research assistants. Since most summer research assistants have just completed the first year of law school, they are always eager to learn more about research tools and online legal resources. Information packets were provided to students who attended, as well as to others identified by their professors.

Sail Into Summer. This annual program offers a variety of sessions to help law students prepare for their summer jobs. In April, guest speaker Cindy Carlson, law librarian at Fried Frank in Washington, D.C., advised students on what research will be like in a law firm. Two sessions of “Legal Resources on the Web” were presented by Matt Morrison. Pat Court presented a research review entitled “Refresh Your Recollection.” Law librarians conducted over forty customized Research Appointments with individual law students, each receiving a packet of research strategies tailored to their summer jobs.

Faculty Services Faculty Book Celebration. At the first annual Celebration of Faculty Books in December, the law library honored ten faculty members who published monographs in 2004, including Cornell University President Jeffrey S. Lehman. Over fifty people attended the reception in the Gould Reading Room, which featured a brief commentary on each publication by a fellow faculty member, followed by conversation in the Rare Book Room, viewing of the publications, and enjoying wine, cheese, and Belgian chocolates.

Faculty Publications Database. Jean Callihan and Sasha Skenderija completed a major update to the web based faculty publications database, providing links to full-text online versions of faculty articles where available. Working closely with Dean Schwab and Professor Michael Heise, Jean and Sasha ensure the accuracy and currency of the information. The library web site now highlights Faculty Scholarship as a choice in the main tool bar and links to online scholarship repositories, “e-archives,” and the faculty publications database.

Cornell Legal Scholarship Repository. As yet another path for web discovery of law faculty scholarship, the Cornell Legal Scholarship Repository continues to build free access to articles, working papers, and workshop presentations through this NELLCO (New England Law Libraries Consortium) project with bepress. Jean Pajerek, as project manager, works closely with Professor Heise’s assistant to post papers to this repository.

Research Fellows. The law library now hires select law students as Research Fellows in a new service offered to law faculty, coordinated by Matt Morrison. These fellows help faculty who do not have their own Research Assistants or who need student assistance for a larger project. These law students, expertly trained by a law librarian, provided in-depth research on topics such as constitutional law, criminal procedure, and immigration.

Seminar Research Instruction. Research instruction for law school courses in which students research and write papers continues as an important service to the faculty.

Thomas Mills worked with Professor Bernadette Meyler to present volumes from the Rare Book collection to her Legal History course. Pat Court taught research resources and strategies in the Asylum and Convention against Torture Appellate Clinic, Ethical Issues in Criminal Practice seminar, and the Immigration and Refugee Law seminar. Matt Morrison presented a research session for Professor Emily Sherwin’s new course, Legal Narratives.

Faculty Liaison Program. Expert research assistance provided by the law librarians to faculty and visiting scholars consisted of analyzing, identifying, and selecting materials on a wide range of legal and non-legal topics in support of scholarship. Law librarians also provided faculty with individual Blackboard training, unearthing unusual quotations, locating alumni, and finding statistics to support faculty teaching and presentations. Regular research projects stem from many faculty members who have come to rely on this highly professional resource.

Collections Psychological Profile of Hitler. The law library's DonovanNuremberg Trials collection has added a physical and digital copy of the Analysis of the Personality of Adolf Hitler. The profile is actually a report by pioneering Harvard psychologist Dr. Murray, done for the Office of Strategic Services during the war, and is available online in PDF thanks to the work of Thomas Mills, Jean Callihan, and Sasha Skenderija. The Donovan collection copy is one of a few remaining copies of the report and the only copy available to the public online.

Historical Digital Collections. With help of Charlie Finger, the law library acquired several significant digital legal collections, for all campus access. Making of Modern Law contains over 10 million pages of American and British historical treatises and papers. It is full text searchable and produces PDF images. Index to Legal Periodicals – Retrospective provides historical legal searching of law reviews back to the early 1900’s. The Index allows access via a seamless link to full text articles on many of Cornell’s reference databases that are open URL. Liberia Collection. Thomas Mills is working with Lawyers Without Borders to send legal materials to Liberia, since everything was destroyed in the two civil wars, and to find donors to fund the digitization of the current code. He is also working with various UN missions in Liberia to meet their needs for current Liberian law.

Liberian Law Digitization Project. A Faculty Grant for Digital Library Collections was awarded in 2004 to the law library and Professor Muna B. Ndulo, Director, Institute for African Development. The project includes digitizing 1,500 pages of historic materials related to the constitutions and laws of Liberia. The collection is available at http://dlxs.library.cornell.edu/l/liberian/ Work on the law library Liberia website is progressing.

Chile Declassification Project. Cornell Law Library is one of only two libraries in the world that has acquired a print set of the Chile Declassification Project (CDP), the gift of a generous alumnus. Julie Jones wrote an online guide to the CDP, a set of nearly 23,000 recently declassified documents from the CIA, FBI, and Department of Justice, which evidence covert American involvement in the Pinochet coup, aid to the Chilean military, and other secret operations in Chile.

These documents are accessible both in print and online.

Japanese Law Database. This fall, the Cornell Law Library and the Kroch Asia Library acquired an online Japanese case law and statutory database, with the full text of cases dating back to 1947. Cornell University is the first law library in the United States to acquire online access to the full text of Japanese cases. Both libraries have one computer dedicated to database access.

Chinese Legal Databases. The library continues to build the collection to support the Clarke Asian Law Program. This spring, the law library and Kroch Asia collaborated to bring a Chinese legal database to campus.

The Policies and Laws of China database by Wanfang Data is the most comprehensive Chinese legal database with over 90,000 full-text records covering the policies, laws, and regulations from 1949 onwards. Cornell is the first library in the United States to have this database.

Teaching by Librarians New Titles. In the spring, the law faculty voted to bestow the title of Lecturer in Law on the J.D. librarians, Pat Court, Jean Callihan, Charlie Finger, Matt Morrison, Thomas Mills, and Julie Jones, in recognition of their teaching in the law school curriculum. Additionally, to foster increased communication between faculty, students, and librarians, the J.D. reference librarians amended their working titles to include Research Attorney. Most law students and some faculty remain unaware of the extensive legal education and expertise of our professionals. These two words instantly convey a commonality in educational background and intellectual capacity in an environment where the law degree reigns supreme. The title for the J.D. reference librarians is now Research Attorney & Lecturer in Law. Lawyering. The law librarians expanded their instruction to first year students in the Lawyering program, teaching basic legal research as an integral part of the curriculum throughout fall and spring semesters.

U.S. Legal Research for LL.M. Students. Pat Court taught this well-liked one credit course for the second time in the fall semester, with requests to extend it to all LL.M. students in the future.

Foreign and International Legal Research. For the first time, Thomas Mills taught this one credit course in the fall semester.

Advanced Legal Research in Business Law. With a newly revised curriculum, Jean Callihan taught this one credit course for the second time in the spring semester.

Advanced Legal Research. This popular three credit seminar was taught for the sixth time in the spring by Pat Court, Thomas Mills, and Julie Jones. The class received outstanding reviews from the students who applied lessons learned to a major research project of their choice.

Law Practice Technology. This spring, the faculty approved a new one credit research course, to be taught by Julie Jones. Law Practice Technology will address topics such as law practice management, the paperless law office, advanced online research, ediscovery, courthouse technologies, and ethical issues in the digital law office.

Charlie Finger taught electronic legal research for a joint registered Law and Psychology class. The psychology students were given in depth instruction in LexisNexis Academic and Westlaw Campus online legal services.

Library in the News Hitler Analysis Website. The website of the electronic version of the Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler received over 25,000 hits from all over the world within a month of its posting in January. It additionally generated considerable media attention, including television reports, an Associated Press article reprinted in numerous newspapers, and an article in the New York Times.

Journalists interviewed Professor Germain and Thomas Mills for these articles.

Special Collections. Scholars from all over the world come to Cornell Law Library to use our special collections. This year, author George Martin acknowledged the law library in his introduction for opening its collections to him for research on CCB: The Life and Century of Charles C. Burlingham, New York’s First Citizen, 1858-1959, published in 2005.

Claire Germain, the Edward Cornell Law Librarian and Professor of Law, started her term as Vice-President/President Elect of AALL (American Association of Law Libraries) at the annual meeting in Boston in July. She attended several board meetings in Chicago in the fall and spring.

Planning and Facilities Strategic Directions. The law library staff collectively developed strategic directions for the next three years. With an emphasis on optimizing use of space, maximizing access to the collection, and customizing services for faculty and students, library teams are now working to move the library forward to further build on these strengths.

Facilities. The law library collaborated with the Law School Facilities Department to resolve joint issues regarding lighting, security of the building, and signs. Janet Gillespie and Jane Drumheller prepared and implemented a plan for the expansion of the microforms area, where four new cabinets were added.

New Library Equipment. Users of the law library may now view microforms on the new Minolta Digital Microform Scanner, reading both microfilm and microfiche, and connect to a computer which allows users to download film or fiche images to a flash drive or to a CD-ROM, as well as print the documents. The microform collection includes heavily used items such as United Nations Documents, House and Senate Committee Hearings, and United States Supreme Court Records and Briefs.

Outreach French Law in Action Project. Professor Claire Germain presented “Technology Enhanced Instruction: The French Law in Action Project,” at the October CUL Academic Assembly and at a campus-wide Faculty Workshop in December, both held at the Law School. Her vision was to capture the essence of French law beyond textbooks, and to focus on the way the legal system works in practice. While in Paris, she interviewed and filmed a number of judges, lawyers, professors, and students in English. She created a multimedia web site of resources about French law, including a video archive of over 250 video clips on many difference aspects of French law, a timeline of important dates, a French law research guide, and virtual visits to courtrooms. In her presentation, she explained instructional challenges, technological solutions, and provided a first evaluation of the impact of the project on students learning during the course Introduction to French Law, taught in the fall semester.

Harry Bitner Research Stipend Fund. Cornell Law Library invited Dr. Ioannis Papadopoulos to visit Cornell Law School as a research fellow during the summer months. Sponsored by the law library, Dr. Papadopoulos’ stay at Cornell was made possible in part by the Harry Bitner Research Stipend Fund. He spent his time here actively researching the various aspects of affirmative action in the United States, and received help from the Cornell Law Library staff, particularly law librarian Matt Morrison. On July 29, he gave the lecture “Comparative Judicial Cultures” to some thirty law faculty and librarians using several topics from his award-winning book, Juger en Amérique et en France (Judging in America and in France), co-authored with Antoine Garapon (Odile Jacob, 2003). Dr. Papadopoulos’ presentation is available at http://lsr.nellco.org/cornell/clsops/papers/15.

Reading Room Exhibits. Exhibit topics included Recent Faculty Publications, Kafka’s The Trial for the Fall Reading Project, Cornell Law School’s Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, Influence of the French Civil Code, and the Scottsboro Trials Collection. The French Civil Code Joyeux Anniversaire exhibit celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Civil Code with two Reading Room display cases. The Civil Code of 1804 was a model of clarity and precision and was emulated in new legal systems established around the globe. As part of this bicentennial celebration, Professor Germain invited her friend and mentor, Professor Xavier Blanc-Jouvan, distinguished French scholar and expert on the Civil Code, to give a presentation on the worldwide influence of the French Civil Code.

Alumni Reunion. The law library had an active role in the annual Alumni Reunion in June. Pat Court, Charlie Finger, and Jean Pajerek presented a CLE program on legal ethics research on the web. Thomas Mills, Nancy Moore, Brian Eden, and Elizabeth Teskey gave a Library Open House with tours of the Rare Book Room, highlighting several special collections. The Public Relations Team updated an eye-catching brochure on the library for distribution at the Reunion. The Dean’s Reception for special alumni was held in the Rare Book Room and Reading Room, with Thomas Mills and Pat Court highlighting the rare book collection and the “paper to the web” projects, i.e., the Chile Declassification Project, the Hitler analysis, and the Liberia project.

Library Staff Service Awards. Several members of the law library staff were recognized in June for their long years of service to the University. At the University Dinner, Crystal Hackett (40 years) and Mae Leckey (25 years) were acknowledged for their dedication. At the CUL luncheon in June, Crystal and Mae were recognized, along with Jean Pajerek (20 years), David Elliott (5 years), and Sasha Skenderija (5 years).

Julie Jones, J.D., M.L.I.S., joined the professional staff of the law library in July 2004. She provides faculty research assistance and teaches legal research. She previously clerked for the Honorable Robert B. Propst, U.S. District Court Judge, and served as the Director of Legal Services at the Center for Disability and Elder Law in Chicago.

Julie recently received a highly competitive grant to attend the AALL Annual Meeting in San Antonio. She continues to serve on the AALL Academic SIS Faculty Services Committee and was appointed this spring to the AALL Public Relations Committee.

David Rosenthal is now the law school Information Technology staff member dedicated to the library. Due to a staff cut because of CUL budget restrictions, he reports through the IT Department and spends half of his time working on computer and technology issues with the library, including equipment, licensing, and security.

Pat Court was invited to participate in the Oxford Round Table on Freedom of Speech and the Press, held last summer at the University of Oxford in England. She continues to serve on the AALL Citations Format Committee and will serve as its chair in the upcoming year.

Sasha Skenderija was awarded a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant, which began in June in the Czech Republic where he delivered the keynote address at CASLIN (Czech and Slovak Library Information Network) 2005 International Seminar. He will continue to work over the next year as a consultant with the Czech State Technical Library as it is transformed into the National Technical Library, an academic network of scientific research libraries. In December, Sasha taught a course on “The Comparative Media Concept for Information Science,” at Charles University in Prague.

Thomas Mills has been appointed to AALL’s Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals Advisory Committee. He published an article on the impact of the Internet on foreign legal research in Trends. Thomas serves as book review editor of the International Journal of Legal Information, for which he has doubled the number of book reviews per issue. .Jean Pajerek was recently appointed to the AALL Annual Meeting Planning Committee.

Matt Morrison continued to serve on the AALL Placement Committee, for which he serves as cowebmaster.

Library Staff, cont.

Charlie Finger was recently appointed to the AALL CRIV Committee on Relations with Information Vendors, and he chairs the subcommittee on the New Product Award. He also served on the ALLUNY (Association of Law Libraries of Upstate New York) Board of Directors.

Jean Callihan was recently appointed to the AALL Research Committee, which tracks the research agenda and grant program of the national association. Jean serves as the Treasurer of ALLUNY. Nancy Moore has been elected to a two year term to the SHARES Executive Group, the RLG interlibrary loan group that does the vital planning for the future and functioning of SHARES activities.

Gifts and Endowments The Law Library continues to benefit from the generosity of alumni and friends. This year, contributions were made from the following funds: The Jack Clarke ’52 Comparative Law Book Fund for foreign, comparative, and international law materials The Sheppard A. Guryan ’67 Law Library Endowment for the acquisition of books and related materials on the history of jurisprudence and American legal thought.

The Judge Alfred J. Loew Memorial Fund, to which the Mervis family has made generous additional contributions.

The Earl J. Bennett (class of 1901) Collection of Statutory Material.

The Harry Bitner Research Program, to which Richard Gilden ’71 and Lorraine Bitner Gilden, have made generous additional contributions. The fund honors Mr. Bitner, Ms. Gilden’s father, who served as director of the Cornell Law Library from 1965-1976, and who is remembered as a giant in the field of law librarianship.

Edward Weiss ’53 generously donated $1,000 in response to the professional reference assistance provided to him by Julie Jones.

Several alumni also regularly donate books to the Rare Book collection.

Cooperation with Cornell University Library CUL Priorities and Objectives for 2005-2007. In November, the CUL administration hosted a day-long system-wide meeting on CUL’s priority objectives. Several law librarians attended. Pat Court and Jean Pajerek each facilitated one of a number of small group discussions. Following the meeting, law librarians were appointed to these implementation teams: Thomas Mills to Team #3, Library Instruction; and Julie Jones to Team #4, Marketing Library Services, for which Claire Germain serves as the LMT liaison.

The newly reconstituted Council of Librarians, which is a communications and advisory body of library managers, includes representation by three law librarians: Jean Pajerek (Steering Committee co-chair), Jean Callihan, and Pat Court.

The Mentoring Program for CUL librarians includes Pat Court as mentor for a new librarian at Kroch, and Julie Jones is mentored by a librarian at IRIS. Pat Court continues to serve on the Public Services Executive Committee and serves on the new Public Services / Public Computing Advisory Committee.

Jean Pajerek continues to serve on the Technical Services Executive Group, the Working Group on Cataloging, and the Voyager Security Committee. Jean represented CUL in Chicago in April at EndUser, the user group for Voyager.

Jean Callihan served on the IRPC Steering Committee and now is on the new Reference and Outreach Committee of PSEC. She participated in the formation of the Business Information Group, a new CUL group dedicated to sharing information and resources, with members from the Management, Hotel, ILR, Olin, and Mann libraries. Jean also serves as Chair of the Academic Personnel Policy Committee of the Academic Assembly.

Charlie Finger was asked to serve as Leader of the Social Sciences Selectors Team in an interim position earlier this year. That position will now continue for the upcoming year. He also serves on CD-EXEC, the executive committee for collection development. Charlie served on the interview committee for the hiring of the collection development librarian at ILR. Julie Jones served on the CUL CommonSpot Implementation Team.

Matt Morrison served on the CUL New Faculty Orientation Task Force.

Thomas Mills served on the Instructional Working Group, with special work on the Statistics Subcommittee. He assisted Linda Bryan of CUL HR in developing a series of instructional workshops for teaching librarians.

Janet Gillespie serves on the new PSEC Access Services Committee.

Nancy Moore was the major player in implementing two new CUL services to the law community: RAPID and MyDocumentDelivery.

Elizabeth Teskey serves as co-editor of the CUL newsletter, Kaleidoscope. She worked again as CUL coordinator for the United Way fund raising campaign.

Law Library Statistics

Public Services Activities

Reference questions answered 9,840 Materials checked out, renewed, or used in the building 26,825 Items retrieved from Rare Book Room and Cage

265 One hour instruction sessions provided to 2895 students

128 Tours given to 240 participants

9 Interlibrary loan items borrowed for law faculty and students 1,076 Interlibrary loan items lent to other libraries

1,438 Books and Copy Service materials provided to faculty 257 from other campus libraries

Acquisitions and Cataloging Activities

Titles Cataloged: Print titles

1,928 Microforms

126 Serials microforms 5 Audiovisual

12 Computer files

26 Serials titles added 97 ——————————————— Total 2,194

Total Serial Titles on June 30, 2005 6,791 Total Print Volumes on June 30, 2005 518,229 Total Volumes and Volume Equivalents 697,278

Library Service at its Best On March 29, 2005, Carl A. Kroch University Librarian Sarah Thomas visited the Cornell Law Library. Law librarians highlighted a few of our exceptional contributions to both the Law School and Cornell University Library, such as faculty and student services, teaching by law librarians, special collections, and international resources. Dean Schwab made a special appearance, emphasizing the value of the library in the Law School community. Professor Kevin Clermont attended to discuss the library’s invaluable assistance in producing Civil Procedure Stories: Briefs & Such, an online supplement to his text. Nancy Moore provided print copies of briefs from our U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs collection, and microfiche from our collection of U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments, all of which were digitized for the website with the help of Oya Rieger and CUL DLit. Pat Jones obtained audio recordings of oral arguments that were used. Jean Pajerek cataloged the site for easy access. And Matt Morrison wrote an annotation of the finished website for InSITE, featured below. Professor Emily Sherwin used Civil Procedure Stories as the text for her new class, Legal Narratives, this spring. Matt Morrison, her liaison librarian, taught a research session in that course, focusing on records and briefs, news, and journal sources, bringing the project full circle -- helping the professors and students, using research and information to teach and to learn.

Civil Procedure Stories: Briefs & Such From InSITE, Vol. 10, No. 17 "Civil Procedure Stories - Briefs and Such" is the web companion to the text, Civil Procedure Stories. Edited by Cornell Law School's Kevin Clermont and published by Foundation Press, Civil Procedure Stories offers a behind-the-scenes look at fourteen Supreme Court cases that are part of a basic course in civil procedure. Each case is addressed in a separate chapter. The website supplements each chapter of the text with PDF documents, audio files, and image files. Supreme Court records and briefs, transcripts, lower court opinions, correspondence, and other documents are made available in PDF. For several of the cases, the site offers audio files of the oral argument. Other items include maps, deeds, photographs, and even a political cartoon. Overall, the site, along with the book, brings each case to life and helps students understand the facts behind the law. URL: http://legal1.cit.cornell.edu/kevin/civprostories/.