Cornell Law Library Annual Report 2007-2008

Cornell University Law Library

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Annual Report

July 2007– June 2008

Global Services Tapping into the World of Electronic Knowledge was the subject of the Starr Foundation Workshop held at the Law Library October 7-11. Law librarians from Brazil, Botswana, China, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, and South Africa joined U.S. librarians from Cornell, Duke, NYU, and Campbell University to discuss modern practices and challenges in foreign and international legal research. Muna Ndulo, Cornell Professor of Law and Director of the Institute for African Development, delivered the keynote address on, “The Integration of Electronic Research into Teaching.” This fifth International Legal Information Conference was funded by the Starr Foundation and sponsored by Cornell Law Library and NewYork University Law Library.

Asian Law Research Workshop. In November, a special Law Library workshop on Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) legal research was held in conjunction with the American Society of Comparative Law (ASCL) annual conference held at Cornell Law School. Forty scholars attended presentations by Bill McCloy and Rob Britt, experts in East Asian Law at the University of Washington Law Library. The workshop was organized by Thomas Mills, Research Attorney & Lecturer in Law at the Law Library, and Beth Katzoff, Head of Public Services at Kroch Asia Library. It was sponsored by the Law Library Bitner Fund, the Clarke East Asia Program, and Cornell University Library.

“I wish I could stay longer - this library is paradise.” ~ Visiting scholar

“Thank you! You are a library research genius!”

Presenter Bill McCloy, Cornell Law Professor Annelise Riles, and organizer Beth Katzoff

ASCL participants enjoyed a special tour of the Law Library’s Dawson Rare Book Room

~ Intl. Human Rights Fellow

NELLCO Fellows. The New England Law Library Consortium initiated an International Fellows Program this year to sponsor exchange visits among law librarians. Jean Callihan was awarded one of the first grants and visited the University of Victoria Law Library, Canada, in March. In April, Michael Lines, the Faculty and Student Services Librarian at the University of Victoria, came to Cornell Law Library. There were many interesting points of comparison between the two libraries.

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Brazilian Interns. Brazil Supreme Court Head Librarian Lilian Januzzi Vilas Boas and Digital Librarian Monica Fischer spent three weeks as interns at Cornell Law Library, and participated in the general activities of the library. Jean Callihan and Janet Gillespie planned and coordinated their activities.

Student Services Where Students Worked

Law Firm, 250+ Law Firm, <250

Student Summer Research Survey. Matt Morrison coordinated the sixth annual survey on how students are conducting research during their summer jobs. Responses were posted to the web by 151 2L and 3L students, just over half of whom worked in law firms. A particularly interesting statistic is that half of the respondents spent more than 50% of their work time doing research.

Gov't Court Public Interest In-house Counsel Law School Other

LL.M. Legal Research Orientation. Sixtytwo attorneys from other countries who studied for the LL.M. degree this year received eight hours of an introduction to U.S. legal research in August. Our Research Attorneys conducted small group, hands-on research trainings in the Reading Room, and lectures were presented by Thomas Mills and Pat Court. Lexis and Westlaw training was also part of the LL.M. Research Orientation.

New Student Orientation Tours. It is always a delight to introduce new students to the Law Library, with the majestic Reading Room, many floors of treatises, and even a squash court tucked into the ground floor. Library staff led new 1Ls, transfer students, exchange students, and LL.M.s on tours that showed the many study areas and library services that are important to their legal studies.

Introduction to Computing and Legal Information Services. All new law students received an orientation to legal information services at the law school, along with information about university net-ids, computing policies, and course web pages. Pat Court joined Information Technology professionals to present four sessions to 250 students in August on using the library catalog and web pages, Computer Assisted Legal Instruction, Lexis and Westlaw, the Legal Information Institute, and the online exam archive.

Academic Orientation. A special presentation on using the Law Library was made by Pat Court during August Orientation to a group of fifty new first-year law students who took advantage of the opportunity to get a head start in learning the basics of 1L legal study.

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Napoléon’s April Fools’ Visit. 2Ls Austin Rainwater and Sahand Boorboor donated a large portrait of Napoléon Bonaparte to the Law Library and the law school community.

The gift arrived early on April Fools’ Day and graced the hallowed walls of the Law Library for but a few brief moments on April 1st. The painting made a brief detour to the Cornell Police while the story of the purchase, framing, and delivery of the mysterious April Fools’ Day gift was pieced together. This To Cornell Law School, generous gesture was May your conquests always inscribed on the back: be in the best sense.

Your loving students, A&S April 1, 2008

Open House for LL.M., J.S.D., and Exchange Students. The Law Library hosted a reception for new graduate and exchange students at our annual LL.M. Open House. Held at the east end of the Reading Room and in the Rare Book Room, our new friends enjoyed lunching on tasty goodies while taking in the treasures of the Rare and Special Collections. Items from the Donovan Collection were highlighted, and students viewed the Code Napoléon and a book printed by Benjamin Franklin.

Librarian Liaisons to Student-Edited Journals. To assist student editors and associates with a wide variety of research and original source collecting, librarians work closely with our studentedited journals. Matt Morrison is liaison to the Cornell Law Review; Thomas Mills is liaison to the Cornell International Law Journal; Julie Jones is liaison to the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy; Pat Court is liaison to the LII Supreme Court Oral Arguments Preview; and Jean Callihan serves as coordinator of the liaison program. Much of the student work involves source collecting, so Nancy Moore, Document Delivery Supervisor, is the face of the Law Library for these students who requested over five hundred interlibrary loans.

“I have found this part of my research trip the easiest by far in regards to finding documents that are highly relevant to my research. That is mainly because the online catalogue for the Donovan papers is so good. It has also been really useful to be able to access those documents that have been digitized already. In fact it was my initial perusal of the online documents (after a google search for 'Donovan papers') that led me to make my way to Cornell. And that was only really possible due to the fact that I was lucky enough to have received some funding for my U.S. research trip. So you and your team are already marked down for the acknowledgements page of my Ph.D. dissertation and - with a bit of luck - a future publication!” ~ Researcher from the UK

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Legal Research 2.0. New ways to prepare for research assignments in summer jobs were presented the first week of April. Two sessions of “Lawyering Goes to Work” were presented to all of the first year students, to place legal research in the context of law firm work. For all students involved in public interest lawyering, materials were distributed to help them with unique aspects of public interest research. Registration and training on the new Bloomberg Law was offered. And the always popular Research Consultations were marketed to all law students for customized research training in any field of their choice with an expert Research Attorney.

Faculty Services

“Thanks – I couldn’t get by without you.” ~ Faculty member

InfoBrief. The Law Library launched two exciting new services to support faculty scholarship and teaching. In January, we introduced InfoBrief, a current awareness service that informs faculty of relevant and timely issues affecting legal academia. InfoBrief is also used to educate faculty about the services and collections available at Cornell Law Library which they may not be aware of, and to solicit their feedback on matters of interest to them. A novel method of interaction with the faculty, delivered by email and archived by blog, it has expanded the lines of communication between faculty and librarians.

Summer Research Assistants Orientation. To prepare students for their work as Research Assistants for faculty during the summer, Matt Morrison presented a session to 25 students in the first week of June.

The session was both a legal research review and instruction on the best ways to use library services such as proxy borrowing, interlibrary loan, and faculty liaisons.

“The phone calls to you from airports and hotels are the stuff of legends.” ~ Faculty member

Professor Cynthia Farina

New Books. In February, we unveiled our New Books service on our web site. This efeature provides a semi-monthly list of new lawrelated books at the Law Library and all other Cornell University libraries, with book jacket images and links to both our catalog and Amazon.com for more information. Library liaisons review each updated list and make targeted reading recommendations to their faculty. This service has allowed us to bring new scholarship to the attention of faculty the moment it is available.

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Research Services. The research attorneys continue to provide a high level of research service to faculty members. Examples of projects we have assisted with include questions about the history of Cornell Law School, obtaining U.S. Supreme Court justices’ papers from the Library of Congress, researching the economics of large law firms, analyzing current issues in international environmental law, posting SEC resources to a course Blackboard page, measuring attainment of social human rights, and empirical research on tax laws.

Classroom Research Teaching.

Each semester, we provide tailored research training sessions in faculty courses that require a seminar paper.

This provides the students with specific resources in their subject area, to aid their efforts toward more substantive, better researched papers.

Courses in which we provided training this year include:

Feminist Jurisprudence with Professor Bowman Law and Social Change: International Experience with Professor Greenberg American Jury with Professor Hans International Human Rights Clinic with Professor Kalantry Principles of American Legal Writing with Professor Knight Federal Taxation with Professor Schnur Corporate Governance Seminar with Professor Siskind Immigration Law with Professor Yale-Loehr Refugee Law Clinic with Professors Yale-Loehr and Kalantry

“These are excellent. I always appreciate you looking out for me.” ~ Faculty member

Collections Cornell Legal Scholarship Repository 44 new papers added to the repository 202 total papers in the repository 4,743 downloads this year Series of Papers include: Legal Studies Research Paper Series LL.M. Papers Series J.S.D. Papers Series Berger International Speaker Series East Asian Law and Culture Conference Series Starr Workshop Series Working Papers Series http://lsr.nellco.org/cornell/

Digitizing Library Materials for Preservation and Online Access. The Library completed the indexing of the Donovan/Nuremberg Collection, which is now freely available on the web to scholars around the world. We regularly receive requests for documents and working visits by researchers who use this index, since it points them to documents not previously accessible online. The Lapkin Foundation, the initial sponsor of the index project, is very pleased with our progress and has provided funds for further digitization of the collection.

CUL Large Scale Digitization Initiative. The CUL LSDI with Microsoft successfully digitized thousands of books from the Law Library collection that will become available on the web.

Coordinated by Thomas Mills, our focus was on nineteenth-century American law and pre-1923 monographs in French, German, and Italian.

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Legal Research Engine. With over 88,000 visits in the first eighteen months, Cornell Law Library’s Legal Research Engine is a valuable new tool for legal researchers using the web. Julie Jones and Sasha Skenderija developed a google-based search engine that can search research guides, law professor blogs, or InSITE web sites—together or individually. It has earned its place as one of the best new legal research tools of the year!

Bloomberg Law. The big name in business and financial market information resources has developed a law component and is providing it to Cornell law faculty and students at no charge. Bloomberg intends to best Lexis and Westlaw at the legal information game by providing a comprehensive set of legal, regulatory, and compliance databases; news; rankings; company and biographical information; legal research tools; and all the rest of Bloomberg's financial news, data, and analytic applications.

This search engine was compared head-to-head with the new Westlaw legal search engine, WebPlus, and won! “A brief test using the broad and ambiguous term "aliens" for a legal search on both engines had interesting results. WebPlus returned thousands of results, but the first 10 were not very helpful: asides in entries on political figures or genealogical studies about foreigners, and lots of entries about invasive species. The first 10 entries in the Cornell Legal Research Engine were much more on point. All 10 were centrally focused on statutes, court decisions, or organizations dealing entirely with aliens as a legal concept -- immigration, alien tort claims act, illegal aliens.”

New Web Site. The Law Library announced its new web site in the summer of 2007, available at http://library.lawschool.cornell.edu/. The site highlights the wealth of resources and services available, as well as historical information about the library. Designed for maximum usability, the site can be navigated via two primary paths. First, the library has created pages dedicated to specific groups: students, faculty, alumni, and visitors, where all the resources relevant to that group are brought together for easy access. Second, one can browse by topic through the site which is organized into three broad categories: Who We Are (general information and history), What We Have (collections), and What We Do (services).

A Rare Gift. Harry P. Messina, Law ’57, donated a special book to the Law Library for the Edwin S. Dawson Rare Book Room. His gift, De Origine & Progressu Juris Civilis Romani, published in 1672, was presented to Professor Claire Germain as an important new addition to the rare collection on the history of Roman law. This late seventeenth-century title was an important textbook for those studying law.

Collection Review. Jean Pajerek created multiple complex sets of queries to assist comprehensive collection review of legal journals. Patricia Jones initiated a project to remove committed monies from cancelled purchase order line items to free up funds for new acquisitions. Extensive projects to enhance bibliographic records were conducted in preparation for the implementation of WorldCat Local, a new library catalog.

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Teaching Legal Research Administrative Law Research. Pat Court developed a new advanced legal research course designed for students concurrently enrolled in the three-credit Administrative Law course. Electronic rulemaking, judicial review, unified agenda, and negotiated rulemaking were examined in depth, in addition to finding and using regulations in all formats.

Introduction to Legal Research and Writing.

Thomas Mills created a new four-credit course for undergraduates interested in learning more about the U.S. legal system. Designed primarily for students interested in going to law school, the course has also attracted journalism and graduate students.

“I must say, my research skills have already been put to good use, from working at a firm this summer! I brought some of your helpful handouts along, and they’ve been a lifesaver – I even gave them to my fellow summer associates!” ~ 2L law student

Advanced Legal Research. Jean Callihan, Julie Jones, and Matt Morrison co-taught this threecredit seminar which gives law students expanded knowledge of business research, legislative history, international and foreign research, law office practice, and multidisciplinary materials.

“Great class I would highly recommend. Thank you!” ~ Advanced Legal Research evaluation comment

“This is probably the most useful class I’ve had in law school.”

~ Advanced Legal Research evaluation comment

Online Legal Research. This is a popular course taught

by Thomas Mills for upper level law students. The focus of the course is on the wide variety of research materials available on the web, along with strategies for costeffective research and learning new web applications.

“Thanks so much for your great teaching.” ~ 1L law student

U.S. Legal Research for LL.M. Students. This one-credit course, taught in the fall semester in two sections by Matt Morrison and Charles Finger, helps graduate law students with law degrees from other countries get up to speed quickly on the materials and strategies of U.S. legal research.

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International and Foreign Legal Research. This is an indispensable two-credit course for the many J.D. and LL.M. students who will be working in the global marketplace. It is taught every year by Thomas Mills.

Lawyering. First year law students learned the basics of researching case law, statutes, administrative law, and secondary sources through online and print resources, integrating various formats from the earliest classes. Jean Callihan, Pat Court, Charles Finger, Julie Jones, Thomas Mills, and Matt Morrison each taught one section of students and coordinated with writing faculty to provide a well-integrated experience in legal research, writing, and analysis.

“Thanks again. The meeting was very helpful and it is nice to know I have somewhere to go with further questions.” ~ Law student

Reunion 2008. A Continuing Legal Education session on “Ethical Lawyering in a Technical World” was presented by Charles Finger and Jean Callihan. Participants learned about ethical issues facing attorneys as technology continues to enhance, yet complicate, the practice of law.

Law Library Staff Jean Callihan was selected as one of six inaugural fellows in the NELLCO International Fellows Program, spending two weeks at the University of Victoria Law Library in Victoria, Canada. She was also one of only twenty participants invited to attend the LexisNexis Legal Research Round Table in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Pat Court was elected to be Secretary-Treasurer of the Board of Directors for the Indiana University Alumni Association for the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS), and was profiled in the spring issue of SLIS Network alumni magazine. Pat also received a scholarship from AALL in support of her fall trip to China with a delegation of law librarians.

Charles Finger provided Westlaw Campus training for the entire reference staffs at both Olin and Mann libraries.

He was also Vendor Liaison for the Libraries Without Borders II conference held in Toronto, Canada.

“The fabulous Cornell Law School librarians … know about their substantial contributions to this book and how indebted we are to them.” ~ Valerie Hans & Neil Vidmar, American Juries: The Verdict (2008), acknowledgment

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Claire Germain was elected Secretary of the newly established IFLA Law Libraries Section.

Her speaking engagements included the CUL Lafayette Exhibit inauguration on what it means to be a citizen of two worlds, and the AALS midyear workshop for law library directors on "Building Relationships." She was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Global Legal Information Network (GLIN). Finally, she continued her work with the French Constitutional Council and met with President Jean Louis Debré to establish the first Cornell Law Clerk at the Court.

Janet Gillespie was honored for 30 years of service to Cornell University and the Law Library.

Sue Hills was honored for 25 years of service to Cornell University and the Law Library.

Julie Jones received the AALL/LexisNexis Call for Papers Award for her article, “Not Just Key Numbers and Keywords Anymore: How User Interface Design Affects Legal Research,” which will be published in the Law Library Journal. She also completed her one year term as chair of the AALL Public Relations Committee.

“Thanks for sending these.

I don't know how you get these things. It seems like magic to me.” ~ Clinical faculty member

“You could not have been more helpful, both in terms of your assistance and the statutory text you provided. Thank you again.” ~ Cornell law alumnus

Thomas Mills co-chaired the CUL Information Competency Initiative which, after two years of research and planning, coordinated a weeklong campus-wide workshop on information fluency.

He also provided essential support to the Cornell Law School Jessup International Moot Court team, which made it to the top sixteen teams in the international round.

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Matt Morrison made a significant contribution to the empirical legal studies movement with his efforts in creating the ELS Bibliography, a freely accessible research database hosted on the UCLA Law web site. Additionally, he authored and e-published a working paper, “Where Web 2.0 and Legal Information Intersect: Adjusting Course without Getting Lost.” He also completed his two year terms on the AALL Law Library Journal/Spectrum Editorial Board and as the ALLUNY Treasurer, and one year term as chair of the CUL Academic Personnel Policy Committee.

"His assistance was essential, and he gave good advice, and I was very sensitive to his dedication." ~ French Court of Appeals judge

Jean Pajerek completed a two year term as chair of the AALL Technical Services Special Interest Section’s Cataloging and Classification Committee.

Laura Robert was honored for 20 years of service to Cornell University and the Law Library.

Undergraduate David Rosen, ’08, was one of six Cornell University student workers to receive the Fuerst Outstanding Library Student Employee Award. Nominated by his supervisor, Brian Eden, David consistently displayed an exemplary work ethic and dedication to the Law Library.

Sasha Skenderija was awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of State’s Office of International Programs (IIP) following an invitation by the U.S. Embassy in Slovakia to address CASLIN 2007. He delivered a paper entitled “Law Library 2.0: New Roles for Law Librarians in the Information Overload Era,” and led a workshop called “Librarians as Information Overload Healers.”

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Elizabeth Teskey chaired the United Way Campaign for Cornell University Library and continues to serve as editor of CUL’s online newsletter, Kaleidoscope.

Gifts & Endowments Jack Clarke ’52 Comparative Law Book Fund

Foreign, Comparative, & International Law

Sheppard A. Guryan ’67 Law Library Endowment

History of Jurisprudence & American Legal Thought

Arthur H. Rosenbloom ’59 Law Library Endowment

Israeli Law

Earl J. Bennett 1901 Collection

Statutory Material

Judge Alfred J. Loew Memorial Fund

Education & Other Acquisitions

Harry Bitner Research Fund

Research Fellows

Lapkin Foundation

Donovan Project

Sheppard A Guryan ’67 Law Librarian’s Endowment

Courses Taught by Research Attorneys

Research Workshops in Seminar Courses

Advanced Legal Research

Immigration Law

Lawyering, team taught with writing faculty

Environmental Law

U.S. Legal Research for LL.M. Students

Contemporary American Jury

International and Foreign Legal Research

Historic Preservation Law

Online Legal Research

Corporate Governance

Administrative Law Research

Law and Social Change

Introduction to Legal Research and Writing

Feminist Jurisprudence Refugee Law International Human Rights Principles of American Legal Writing

Public Services

Acquisitions & Cataloguing

Reference questions answered

8,058

Titles catalogued

2,313

Materials checked out

21,568

Volumes added

8,189

Rare Book and Special Collections items used 592

Total serial titles

6,509

1-hour instruction sessions

290

Total print volumes

554,571

Tours conducted

22

Total volumes & volume equivalents

748,889

Items borrowed for faculty and students

3,528

Items loaned to other libraries

2,826

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