The Cornell Law Library invites you to a Farewell Reception in honor of the Edwin S. Dawson Rare Book Room, Wednesday, October 24, 2012, 3:30pm-6:00pm

While we’re looking forward to the new classrooms and entrance that the law school’s construction project will bring, the project also will bring an end to the Edwin S. Dawson Rare Book Room at Cornell Law Library.  To celebrate the life of a wonderful room, we’re having a farewell reception next Wednesday, October 24.  Come see highlights from the collection, including the medals of Myron C. Taylor, the Scottsboro train, and some wonderful nineteenth-century trial pamphlets and other print special collections.

More information about our special collections and a future rare book room

Attention Cornell students:  Are you researching in the area of European communities or identities?  Would you like to qualify for a cash prize of up to $1,000?  If so, we have the contest for you.

Cornell University Library and the Cornell Institute for European Studies are sponsoring Europe in the World: Perspectives on Communities, a contest offering cash prizes for the best creative scholarship on the communities and identities of Europe.  Build on your research about Europe by preparing and submitting a project with data or information visualization, spatial analysis, mixed media illustration, time-lapse visualization,l or other creative work.

Cash prizes will be offered in both graduate and undergraduate categories:

  • First prize, $1,000
  • Second prize, $500
  • Third prize, $250

For details about the contest, visit olinuris.library.cornell.edu/europe2013.  Olin Library will have a workshop about the contest on Thursday, October 25, 4:30-5:30 pm in Olin Library 106G.  For more information about European statistics, see Cornell University Library’s research guide, which includes information about data visualization tools.  For more help with data visualization, e-mail CUL’s Visual Resources Help.

Fall break is coming soon to Cornell Law School.  If you’re traveling somewhere, have you thought about what you’ll read on the plane or listen to in the car?  Cornell Law Library offers downloadable e-books and audiobooks for check-out via OverDrive to its students, faculty, and staff.

Some of the currently available audiobooks include An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage, discussing food’s influence over the course of history, and  the comic novel Company, by Max Barry.  In e-books we have fiction, including the thrillers 12.21 by Dustin Thomason and Headhunters by Norwegian author Jo Nesbo, among others, as well as nonfiction such as Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo (“vital reading for anyone serious about confronting poverty”–Timothy Ogden, Stanford Social Innovation Review).

Don’t see the title you want? Make a suggestion!  Contact Nina Scholtz or Dan Blackaby with your suggestions, comments, and questions.

A local artist, Cheryl Chalmers, painted the beautiful watercolor of Cornell Law Library on the front cover of the September/October 2012 issue of Bookmarks.   Cheryl’s gallery is near Taughannock Falls (see Cheryl’s painting of the falls).

Enjoy!

Watercolor of Cornell Law Library by Cheryl Chalmers

The law library has launched a one year pilot of OverDrive, a service offering downloadable popular and classic e-audiobooks and e-books, for Cornell Law School students, faculty, and staff.

For instructions on getting started and to browse the collection, please go to http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library/WhatWeHave/Overdrive.cfm to sign in with your NetID and password.  E-books and e-audiobooks  can be downloaded to your PC, Mac®, and many mobile devices, including iPads, iPods, and Kindles. Since titles will automatically expire at the end of the lending period, there are no late fees.

Comments? Title suggestions? Please let us know what you think of this new service!

The Shareholder Value MythWe have posted our new books list for August 1-15.  Among the many new titles is The Shareholder Value Myth, by Lynn Stout, Cornell Law School’s Distinguished Professor of Corporate & Business Law.

 

Today only, the rulebook™ app is offering free downloads of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, Appellate Procedure and Bankruptcy Procedure and the U.S. Supreme Court Rules for your iPhone or iPad.  Each set of rules normally costs $1.99.  The app itself is free — just install the app and then download the rules.  The app allows searching, highlighting, annotating, and bookmarking, and you can also keep multiple rules open at the same time.

Rulebook™ is also be the only place you can download the Bluebook to your iOS device.  It’s $39.99 via the free app.

If you decide to use rulebook™, be sure to let the library know what you think of its interface and functionality.  Thanks!

To our new students, faculty, and staff–welcome!  And to those returning, welcome back!

We were pleased to meet the incoming LL.M. students at their orientation this week.  We’re now looking forward to meeting the new J.D. students at our Open House on Tuesday.

The library has seen some changes over the summer.  The blog’s name has changed: We’re now InfoBrief.  Two of our research librarians, Pat Court and Jean Callihan, retired at the beginning of the summer, and a new librarian, Dan Blackaby, joined us in mid-July as the Technology Services Librarian.  A new scanner in the Reading Room makes saving book and journal pages and other documents easier.  Soft seating will soon be installed in alcove 4 of the Reading Room, and the Eating Area has new furniture too.

The Reading Room windows offer a great view of the construction in progress in the courtyard.  And a new exhibit, also in the Reading Room, includes pictures of previous law school buildings and construction projects.  (Our website also has information about our building and its history.)

And finally, Cornell University has been named a top 5 outdoor university by the magazine Outside, a reminder to enjoy our beautiful setting in Ithaca and the Finger Lakes region.

The Cornell University pilot online participation initiative Regulation RoomRegulation Room announced this morning it has opened a space for public comment on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau‘s proposed rules (regulations) about new consumer mortgage protections.  These proposals are prompted by problems revealed during the mortgage crisis:

“The CFPB’s rules would help ensure that mortgage companies communicate effectively with borrowers, keep good account records, and avoid certain practices that harm consumers. The proposed rules focus on ensuring that all consumers receive accurate and timely information about the status of their home mortgages, and that borrowers who are in trouble are told about their options for receiving help.”

If you’re not yet familiar with Regulation Room, it’s designed and operated by the Cornell eRulemaking Initiative (CeRI) and hosted by the Legal Information Institute (LII).  CeRI experiments with how Web 2.0 outreach and participation technologies can expand the kinds of voices that take part in federal agency policy-making.  Regulation Room visitors will find the 800+ pages of CFPB explanation organized and condensed into 10 “issues posts,” written in plain language with links to a glossary and primary documents.  The unique targeted commenting function allows users to link their comments to specific topics, and to have threaded discussion with others.  Student moderators, trained in group facilitation techniques, mentor effective commenting and stimulate discussion.  Regulation Room will send a detailed summary of the comments to CFPB.  Particular target audiences for this discussion are individual consumers and small community banks and credit unions.

To learn more about Regulation Room and CeRI, read Cornell University Law School‘s Spotlight and Regulation Room’s About.

When the Winter Olympics started in 2010, the Law Library’s Pat Court wrote a helpful blog post on Olympics and the law, with many relevant links.  We realized that it was time for a few updates since the Summer 2012 Games start in London tonight.  The broken links in Pat’s post have been fixed.  For recent coverage of the Olympics, see the Quick Reference for London 2012, which examines trademarks for this year’s games; this update on drug testing; Slaw’s Guide to Sports and Olympic Games Law; the Peace Palace Library‘s research guide; and, just published today, The Laws Behind the London Olympics from the Law Library of Congress.

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