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CMLawLibraryBlog

The CM Law Library Blog seeks to inform the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law community about key legal education, research, practice, and law library news, with a particular focus on Cuyahoga County and Ohio as well as faculty research interests.

From the Director

Michael Slinger | September 26, 2006 - 08:45

On behalf of the C-M Law Library staff welcome to our new communications tool the C-M Law Library Blog. The purpose of this Blog is to help keep you informed concerning the many items of interest we think you will benefit from seeing. Within our Blog you can expect to see Law Library news and tips, information about breaking legal developments, suggestions as to web sites that you will find interesting and helpful, and much more. We are moving to the Blog format to take advantage of its unique communication features including the ability to quickly bring you information in an organized, easy to find manner. You will be able to take advantage of archives of past items and will find that it is much easier to catch up with news or reread something that you want to see again. We expect our Blog to be a lively and up-to-date tool for all of us to use. It will cut down on the need for the Law Library staff to send email messages, so please look forward to further announcements about items of interest on the Blog because it will become our primary method of providing you with current awareness information. We hope you will check out the Blog frequently.

If you have questions or suggestions please feel free to send them to me at

michael.slinger@law.csuohio.edu or to our blog leaders laura.ray@law.csuohio.edu or leslie.pardo@law.csuohio.edu

Thank You.

Michael J. Slinger, Associate Dean, Law Library Director & Professor of Law


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Gongwer Ohio Report Now Available Via OhioLINK for Ohio Legislative Information

Marie Rehmar, Head of Reference Services, marie.rehmar@law.csuohio.edu | September 26, 2006 - 08:40

The CSU Community now has access via OhioLINK to Gongwer News Service, whose Ohio Report is an excellent current awareness resource for Ohio legislative information. For over 100 years this company has provided independent comprehensive coverage of developments at the State House.

You can check for legislative developments, but the value goes beyond just the listing of dates and actions -- the descriptive, detailed Ohio Report gives you a better sense of what is going on. And there are links to full text, or to reports that are mentioned, or to sponsors (and from sponsors), etc. Additional features include: an Agency Calendar, Political Planner, Links to Agency Press Releases, and Ohio News Links.

Get there either via a title search on Scholar, or via the alphabetical list of OhioLINK research databases.
http://www.gongwer-oh.com/ohiolink.html

Take a look at it - I think you'll find it useful!

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Add Fastcase and Casemaker to your Research Spectrum

Jan Novak, Associate Director jan.novak@law.csuohio.edu | September 26, 2006 - 08:39

In late May, the Cleveland Bar Association announced free access to the Fastcase legal research system as a membership benefit. This fall, the Ohio State Bar Association will debut extensive enhancements to its Casemaker legal research service, which is available free to all OSBA members. Fastcase and Casemaker contain some overlapping and some unique content, with concentration on primary state and federal cases and codes, Boolean and natural language search functions, as well as citatory utilities. Well, you might say to yourself, why should I care about these other services if I have full access to LexisNexis and Westlaw as a student? And further, you might ask yourself, what is the likelihood that I would use a less comprehensive service than LexisNexis or Westlaw when I get out into practice?

You should care, of course because, as a member of one of these associations, the difference is between free and for a fee. LexisNexis and Westlaw are powerful, gigantic, incredibly comprehensive, and no matter how you slice it, expensive. The Fastcase and Casemaker services as part of your professional membership benefit package give you an electronic research alternative at no cost, and at no sacrifice to efficiency. Say your research assignment starts with a list of cases to review. If your choices are between retrieving and copying them from the books or quickly pulling them from Lexis or Westlaw, you might need to make a cost benefit analysis and decide whether the time you spend retrieving the paper is worth more than the cost to download. Adding Fastcase or Casemaker to the mix, however, gives you the ability to avoid both the fee and the tax on your time.

Fastcase and Casemaker will not replace the two big guns in legal research systems: they lack the depth, editorial annotations, and sophisticated search and linking features that characterize both Lexis and Westlaw. However, employers are likely to require use of these alternatives, especially for non billable research projects. Students who take the time to learn the features and potential uses of each will find themselves better prepared for practice realities. Free student membership in the OSBA includes access to Casemaker. Fastcase provides a trial at its website: get acquainted!


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Cleveland-Marshall's Faculty Publications Database is Showcased at National Conference

Leslie A. Pardo, Circulation & Faculty Services Librarian | September 26, 2006 - 08:29

The American Association of Law Libraries recently held their annual conference in St. Louis. Over two thousand law librarians and legal professional attend the annual conference. This year the Cleveland-Marshall Law Library was asked to present their new C-M Faculty Publications database at the conference's Public Relations Showcase. Leslie A. Pardo and Jan Novak were able to attend the conference and spoke with their colleagues about the publications database.

Over one thousand C-M faculty publications are listed in the database. The database is designed to capture the scholarly output of the C-M faculty in a form that features excellent organization, permits subject and key word searching capability, offers full text access to the articles, and allows one to quickly conduct citation studies of individual articles to survey scholarly impact.

The Faculty Publications database may be viewed at the following link: http://www.law.csuohio.edu/faculty/publications/search.php

If you have any questions about the database, please contact Leslie A. Pardo or Jan Novak.


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Senate Bill post McCain, Warner, Graham & White House compromise

Schuyler M. Cook | September 26, 2006 - 08:06

S.3929

To authorize military commissions to bring terrorists to justice, to strengthen and modernize terrorist surveillance capabilities, and forother purposes. (Introduced in Senate, Friday, Sept. 22, 2006)

The above bill contains changes to present practice, procedure and rules. It was sponsored by Kentucky Republican Senator Mitch McConnell and cosponsored by Tennessee Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. (More)

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