CMLawLibraryBlog

In observance of Labor Day, Monday, September 1st, The Law Library will be closed. We'll resume our regular semester hours on Tuesday.

The Ohio Supreme Court Library recently scanned in the Proceedings and Debates of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Ohio: Convened January 9, 1912. Kudos to the Ohio Supreme Court for undertaking this huge scanning project of 2,000 plus pages. There are individual pdf documents for each week of the convention. These documents are searchable, as is a searchable topical index.

The 1912 Constitutional Convention proposed 42 constitutional amendments and the voters approved 34 of them. Courts today often rely on the 1912 Constitutional Convention Proceedings in deciding controversies involving the amendments added in 1912. For a recent example, see State ex rel. Ohio Gen. Assembly v. Brunner (2007), 114 Ohio St.3d 386, paragraphs 156-171.

Thanks to Prof. Steven Steinglass for the tip, and for his help with this post.

For more information on the Ohio Constitution, see the Ohio Constitutional Law and History Web Page.

Got 3 minutes? That's all it takes to learn where important links are on the law library web page and how to navigate around the site. Just click on this button on our homepage:

to take a screencast tour of the library website.

Become a fan...of the C-M Law Library Facebook page. On our page you can find our hours, Scholar, blog posts, up coming events and recent additons to our collection. We also have our Del.icio.us bookmarks, tagging our research guides and more. If you have your own Del.icio.us account, add us and view our tags and any that we add. While we added the Chat option on our webpage, we will be adding it soon to our Facebook page, making it convenient to contact us. Look forward to seeing you there.

The Law Library resumes its Research Certificate Seminars on Tuesdays, 4:50pm-5:50pm, in Room LB66, this Fall Semester 2008.

Seminar Dates and Topics are:
September 9th - Ohio Legal Research (register by Sept 5th)
September 23rd - Scholarly Writing (register by Sept 19th)
October 7th - Research Strategies & Comparative Research Features of LexisNexis & Westlaw (register by Oct 3rd)
October 21st - Criminal Law Research (register by Oct 17th)
November 11th - Federal Legislative History Research (register by Nov 7th)
November 18th - International Law Research (register by Nov 14th)

Seminars attendance is limited to 20 students, and light refreshments will be provided. Attendees of each Seminar will earn 25 points toward a Law Library Research Certificate. Certificates will be awarded to students with 100 Seminar points. In the 2007-2008 academic year, 22 students earned Certificates, and another 38 students are working toward a Certificate.

Certificate Seminars discuss research materials and resources critical to successful legal practice and scholarly writing, as well as focus on research skills law firms and courts are seeking when hiring associates and clerks. Presented by our team of research librarians, the Seminars offer a unique forum for students to learn more about specific research topics.

To register for a Law Library Research Certificate Seminar, please contact Laura Ray, Educational Programming Librarian, at 216-687-6880 or laura.ray@law.csuohio.edu.

If you would like a Quick Tour of the Law Library, we are scheduling several this week -

Wed 8/27 at 1pm & 5 pm
Thurs 8/28 at 5 pm
Fri 8/29 at 12:15 pmSat 8/30 at Noon & 1 pm

Please sign up in advance at the Law Library Information Services Desk.

Tours will begin at the Research Services Desk.

As we start a new semester I, and all the library staff, want to welcome you and share some of the new things you'll see in the library.

I am starting the school year as a new member of the C-M community. I'd like to thank everyone for the warm welcome I've received. I look forward to working with you.

Some new things from the library you'll want to look for:

• New design for the library homepage - you can take a quick, online tour by clicking the "Visual Tour" button on the homepage.
• Meebo chat reference services - click the link on the homepage and look for more information in this blog post.
• Become a fan of the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Library on Facebook - look for an upcoming post with more information.
• We've added CCH databases - click on Electronic Resources from the homepage and look for an upcoming post with more information.
• C-M Law Faculty Mini Sessions - C-M Law Faculty can schedule personalized assistance from a Law Librarian. See the announcement here.
• Similarly, C-M Law Students can schedule small group classes on a variety of research topics through MyClasses. Watch the blog for more information.

Continuing this year are the popular Research Certificate Seminars. A schedule of this semesters seminars will be posted soon.

Finally, as you enter the library take time to peruse the New Book Shelf. Here you can see some of the library's recent acquisitions.

I look forward to seeing you in the library. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to be of assistance.

you can chat with a library staff person via Meebo chat. Chat will be staffed whenever the library is open. See Library Hours. Meebo chat will be monitored by a research librarian during Research Librarian Hours, and will otherwise be monitored by the circulation staff.

The Securities Exchange Commission announced that a new database called Idea will be online by the end of the year. Instead of just containing forms filed with the SEC, the new database will have tagged fields of information, enabling the public to search for the precise information they want and generate reports. Idea stands for Interactive Data Electronic Applications. The Edgar database will still be available during a transition period. See the SEC's Press Release.

Thanks to Wisblawg.

By way of MSNBC.com...A woman from Grafton, Wisconsin was arrested for not paying her $30 library fine. While she admitted she had ignored overdue notices and calls from the library, she did not expect a warrant to be issued. She was served with the warrant at her home, handcuffed and taken to the police station where she was booked and fingerprinted. According to the Library Director, a couple dozen people are cited a year for overdue items. When all was said and done, it cost approximately 5 times more to get her out of jail than to pay the fine. YIKES!

Here at C-M Law Library, we are a bit more reserved when it comes to overdue items. To help you avoid fines, we send courtesy notices via email 3 days in advance of a book being due. Take a minute to familiarize yourself with our loan/renewal policies.

Have you ever noticed the listing of political party for a judicial candidate in the primary election ballot, and then not seen that information on campaign literature before the general election? Proposed changes to the Ohio Code of Judicial Conduct would allow party designation on campaign literature before the general election. See Gongwer Ohio Report, Vol. 77, No.155, Art. 2 (Aug. 12, 2008) The announcement on the Ohio Supreme Court website mentioned that the Proposed Code has already gone through a draft and public comment, and is now ready a second time, with comments due October 17, 2008. See the Proposed Ohio Code of Judicial Conduct (in both Word and pdf formats) with Appendix A correlating the Proposed Code to the Existing Code, and Appendix B, the Existing Code to the Proposed.

You may want to compare the current and proposed codes to the ABA February 2007 Model Code of Judicial Conduct. Also see the ABA Joint Commission to Evaluate the Model Rules of Judicial Conduct webpage; the current Ohio Code of Judicial Conduct and the ABA Judicial Ethics Resources page.

For additional ethics and professional responsibility information, see our Law Library’s Legal Ethics, Professionalism and Professional Responsibility Resources page.

Need some additional advice on how to brief cases and prepare for class? Try the following:

• How to Brief a Case: Cali Tutorial
• Learning Legal Analysis - IRAC (Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion) - Cali Tutorial
• LawSchool.Westlaw.com>Law School Life>Getting Ready: Includes Class Preparation and Briefing Cases

For more information on finding study aids in the library, see the Law Students-Study Aids page.

Okay, so you need some serious help landing your dream job? Then now’s the time to check out the 2^nd edition of “Guerrilla Tactics for Getting the Legal Job of Your Dreams” from AO66 [KF297 .W34 2008]. There’s also a copy in the Placement Office. Even if it’s too early in your law school career for guerrilla-style job searching (is it ever too early?), then this book is still good for figuring out just what it is that you’d call your dream job.

Each year Beloit College compiles a Mindset List to give faculty a sense of the “rapidly changing frame of reference” of incoming freshmen. Check out the new List or link from it to a few earlier ones. Check out the list for the class of 2008, our incoming law school class, assuming they came to law school directly from college.

In Jacobsen v. Katzer (No. 2008-1001, Aug 13, 2008) the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that open source or free ware licenses are entitled to copyright protection, recognizing economic rights in the granting of a public license regardless of the absence of money exchanged. See O'Reilly Radar's Roberta Caimey, Landmark Case Upholds Open Source Licenses for an analysis on the import of this decision for the open source and collaborative contributor movements. Thanks to the Law Librarian Blog.

The latest buzz in legal scholarship is empirical legal studies, which is the topic of this informative blog written by a group of numbers-oriented law profs and this research guide from librarians at Georgetown.

Empirical legal studies wouldn’t exist as a discipline, of course, without its foundation in statistical research. Over 100 federal government agencies compile staggering amounts of statistical data, all of which is neatly organized and readily accessible through FedStats. While far from glitzy, FedStats is nonetheless an excellent portal to federal agency statistics on hundreds of topics, organized by subjects and agencies. There’s even a section for kids.

So if statistics make you queasy, as they do me, FedStats might just ease you gently into numbers research.

As part of a summer seminar on Law Librarians in Virtual Worlds sponsored by the American Association of Law Libraries, Sue and I have been exploring the educational uses of Second Life, the 3D online virtual world. Besides having fun dressing up our avatars, flying from island to island, shopping for freebies, and rezing objects in our virtual office space, we’ve completed a project on the new international Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Our SL project on the Disabilities Convention is an art gallery where visitors can get information on the treaty and specific topics addressed by the treaty, like mobility, health, education, and sports participation. Visitors can also find links to further materials on these topics. Sue, of course, was the technological brains behind the project, and I just handled the content.

If you’d like to check out the project in world, here’s the SLurl which will take you right to the spot; http://slurl.com/secondlife/depo%206/211/211/454 (you’ll need to be a Second Life user or register for free).

Here are a couple snapshots from the gallery (with my avatar standing in the way):

What do Web 2.0 concepts like “folksonomies” and “collabulary” and the consensual classification of tagging imply for how we recognize and define legal authority? Matthew Morrison explores the impact of community created content, widening perspectives on what constitutes knowledge and the participatory nature of Web 2.0 applications on the legal information structure in Where Web 2.0 and Legal Information Intersect: Adjusting Course Without Getting Lost. ( Cornell Law School. Cornell Law School Working Papers Series. Paper 35. [July 25, 2008]; http://lsr.nellco.org/cornell/clsops/papers/35 )

Fasten your seatbelts, legal researchers: it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

JobProfiles has just posted a comprehensive list of 100 tips and resources for happy and successful lawyers. The list is broken down into topics like

• Lawyer associations
• Lawyer blogs
• Social media and networking
• Continuing education
• Avoiding burn out
• Articles on work-life balance
• Job boards
• Law references and research tools
• Lawyer humor
• Resources for new lawyers and law students
• Fighting discrimination
• Getting out of debt

My favorite category is avoiding burn out, where you can read about the importance of such fundamentals as fresh air, sleep, family and friends, and personal ambition.

Savor the last few weeks of summer with a good read!

If you'll be new to law school this fall, these books can be particularly helpful (and inspiring). If you're old law school hat, take a break from clerking and pick up a "fun" book.

• Law School Confidential KF283 .M55 2004
  
• Getting to Maybe KF283 .F57 1999
• One L KF373 .T88 A33b
• Broken Contract KF373 .K34 A3 1992
• Law School Without Fear KF386 .S44 2002

A bill introduced July 30 in the Ohio General Assembly would provide decorated veterans with some major support for completing their college education. HB603 would “require state institutions of higher education to waive undergraduate instructional and student fees and room and board and provide book vouchers for Ohio residents awarded the Purple Heart or other combat decorations superior in precedence.” The bill was introduced by Representative Dan Dodd (D).

Journal literature available for free on the web certainly leads to wider distribution of one’s scholarship, but does it leader to wider use, as far as citations are concerned? Not according to a recent study reported in the British Medical Journal and summarized in the Cornell Chronicle. While open access articles are downloaded more than subscription access works, they are not more likely to be cited by subsequent researchers. It’s the quality of the scholarship that leads to citations, say the authors, and the highest quality articles are also likely to be widely and freely available. The study involved articles from scientific journals.

First of all, in getting ready for fall, there are RTA schedule changes effective Aug. 24^th.

Second, it's not a surprise that RTA is experiencing fuel cost increases, and is projecting less revenue than needed. See the RTA 2009 Tax Budget with projected scenarios. (The Euclid Corridor Project is from different funds and is projected to be more cost efficient operationally when completed this fall.) Ridership is growing, however RTA has indicated that fares only cover about 20% of the cost of service. For costs not exceed its revenue, a legal requirement, RTA is looking at imposing a fuel surcharge (increasing the fares), and making service reductions. The Community Circulators, a service improvement on which many in our community depend, may all have to be cut, along with cuts on numerous other routes. See the list.

RTA is holding public hearings to gather testimony concerning impact of specific cuts. There was a very upset, overflow crowd at the downtown Cleveland Public Library Auditorium on Tuesday, Aug. 5^th , with many speaking after the PowerPoint presentation. RTA reserved the Auditorium at CPL for Wed. Aug. 5^th at 12 noon for additional testimony. If a cut will impact you but you cannot attend a hearing, submit your comments to RTA by Aug. 18^th.

RTA is created under the authority of Ohio Revised Code Chapter 306. For more information on documents establishing the parameters for the governance of RTA, as well as the powers, responsibilities and duties of RTA see RTA's website.

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