Need to stay up-to-date with news and events in China? The Law Library has a new electronic subscription called Current Digest of the Chinese Press
. This is an excellent resource, especially for those who do not read Chinese, because it offers an unabridged and unfiltered English translation. The product is published by East View Press, and it offers a comprehensive view of China through relevant and timely stories. The Digest is a weekly that culls articles from a broad range of sources all aimed at a domestic audience. These articles are then carefully translated so as not to lose the actual sense and meaning of the original article. So, if you need reliable Chinese news, be sure to check out the Current Digest.
Dec 052011
CALI web lessons help you drill legal concepts from your courses, right down to the specific pages of your casebooks. It’s a great way to prepare for exams. Click here to go to the chart of CALI Lessons by Casebook to see if your casebook is included.
CALI is the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction, and Cornell Law School is a member, so you have access to over 800 interactive tutorials on narrow topics of law. So even if your casebook is not linked, there will be tutorials for your courses. Some sample lessons include:
- Federal Commerce Power & Other Restrictions on State Regulatory Power / Constitutional Law
- Summary Judgment / Civil Procedure
- Liquidated Damages / Contracts
- Capital Gain Mechanics / Federal Income Taxation
- Authority of Partners to Bind the Partnership / Business Organizations
- Execution and Revocation of Wills under the Uniform Probate Code / Trusts & Estates
If you don’t have the CALI password to access these lessons, stop by the Reference Desk or send an email to get the password so you can get online with CALI right away. Best of luck with your exams!
Are you researching something subject-specific? Do you need to find more sources? Check out “What We Have” in terms of both legal and non-legal online resources.
From the Cornell Law Library web site, select “What We Have,” and from the menu at the left, select “Online Legal Resources.”
On the left is a list of online resources arranged by subject. Each resource is accompanied by a symbol (see below) informing you of which sites, if any, require you to either be on campus or to log in. 
Occasionally, Cornell Law Library will review a law-related website and make that review available through InSITE. Where the law library has reviewed a website specific to that subject, those websites and their reviews can be found by selecting a source link ending with “from InSITE” (see below).
Each of these selections will yield another list of web resources relating to that subject that have been analyzed by Cornell law librarians. The analysis will provide you with information about the content and functionality of each resource.
Have you ever come across a great journal article or database for your research, but were denied access? And then you had to practically start your research all over to try to find that article or database through the University Library web site? … Passkey can relieve your frustrations!
Passkey will make you a more efficient researcher, both on and off campus. It allows you to connect to databases and journals licensed to Cornell University without having to go through the University Library web site. Install Passkey and gain access simply by signing in with your NetID!
How do you get Passkey on your computer? From the Cornell University Library homepage, under ‘Library Services,’ select ‘Cool Tools’. Follow the installation instructions from there.
HeinOnline has become indispensable for law review articles, as well as pdfs of the US Code, CFR, Federal Register, U.S. Reports, English Reports, and much more. They have recently announced a free app for your iPhone or iPad. Click here for more details, including how the app works with our IP authentication access. Features of the app include the citation navigator, browsing by volume, and the electronic table of contents.
The online resource Getting the Deal Through provides summaries of the laws of many countries on business-related topics (called “Practice Areas”) such as banking regulation, the environment, shipping, mergers & acquisitions, and product liability. The summaries, which are written by practicing attorneys throughout the world, are organized in a Q&A format. Getting the Deal Through has summaries for more than 40 practice areas and 100 jurisdictions, although not every jurisdiction is covered for each practice area. Material is up to date within the past year or so. Summaries for a practice area/jurisdiction (e.g. banking regulation in Argentina) can be downloaded in PDF. You can create a custom report by selecting only the countries and questions that interest you. To get to the database, do a title search in the Cornell Library catalog for “Getting the Deal Through” OR use the link on the Law Library’s Online Legal Resources page for Corporate & Securities.
Oct 032011
This week you received a Bloomberg Law password via email. What is Bloomberg Law? It is a database that allows you to search for primary law, as well as news and company information. One of the major benefits from using B-Law is that you can keep your password and continue to use it over the summer. Our Bloomberg Law rep is Pamela Haahr. She will be here on Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 5th and 6th, to distribute information and answer your questions about this service. She will be set up at the table outside the Reading Room (in the 3rd floor stacks area) from 10am to 5pm. Feel free to stop by and get a short demo of this alternative to Lexis and Westlaw.
Sep 122011
The Law library is hosting an open house for all students on Tuesday, September 20, 2011, 11:00am-1:00pm, in the Gould Reading Room. Library resources and services will be featured at stations throughout the room, including:
• An introduction to “hidden” online databases;
• Information regarding personalized research consultations;
• An overview of upper level research classes;
• Our open access repository of Cornell student and faculty scholarship;
• Demonstrations of our library catalog and interlibrary loan services;
• A rare book display;
• And more.
Students who visit every station will receive a library pen and be entered in a grand prize drawing to win their choice of two round trip Campus-to-Campus bus tickets to New York City, or a limousine wine tour for 2-4 people. Other prize drawings will feature $25 gift certificates to local businesses including Gimme! Coffee, Cinemapolis, and Purity Ice Cream. Drawings will occur at 1pm; students need not be present to win.
A book sale will be held simultaneously with the open house. All books will be available for $1 at the East end of the Reading Room.
Join us for some quick, informative fun and snag a seasonal snack from Cornell Orchards!
Competition is thriving in the online legal information market. And perhaps the most successful of the new players is Bloomberg Law, or B-law, outgrowth, of course, from the wildly successful Bloomberg financial news and data service. They describe their edge as “the first real-time legal research system that integrates innovative search technology, comprehensive legal content, company and client information, and proprietary news all in one place.”
Bloomberg Law has a new web interface to which Cornell Law School users will be introduced on Wednesday, July 13, at 10:30am, in room 273. This update session will be conducted by our Bloomberg Law representative, Pamela Haar. Please join us if you are interested in this up and coming competitor to Lexis and Westlaw.
Bloomberg Law passwords will be available on Monday, April 4 in alcove 43 of the Reading Room between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Stop by to meet our Bloomberg representative and get your password for access to up-to-date business, news and law reports.
