DSCN2221Join us for our Law Library Open on Tuesday, August 26, 1:15-4:15pm.

Library resources and services will be featured, including:

  • The Reference Desk and Research Assistance in the Library
  • Research Taught in Lawyering
  • Lexis, Westlaw and Bloomberg Passwords
  • Cool Stuff to Borrow at the Circulation Desk
  • Borrow Direct and Interlibrary Loan Services
  • After Hours Access
  • A Rare Book  Display
  • And More!

 

With retired Justice John Paul Stevens stevensin the news recently it seemed to appropriate to highlight his Green Bag Bobblehead, currently on display in the Gould Reading Room.

Stevens was the second justice to be bestowed with a bobblehead in 2004. As with all of the representations, the figurine features several unique traits commemorating his personality and jurisprudence. A detailed explanation of all of the features for Justice Stevens can be found here. 

Two of the more notable features include Stevens holding a golf club to represent his majority opinion in PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin, 532 U.S. 661 (2001) and he also stands on a Betamax video player to represent his opinion in Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417 (1984), which included a detailed discussion of the famed children’s television program Mister Rogers Neighborhood.

Check back over the next few weeks as we’ll be taking a closer look at some of the other bobbleheads on display in the Reading Room.

DSCN2465If you’re wondering why we have a bunch of bobbleheads displayed in the Reading Room take a closer look.

These aren’t just random figurines collected from minor league baseball games, they’re unique (and rare) representations of Supreme Court Justices.

The creation of Professor Ross Davies of George Mason Law and Editor in Chief of The Green Bag: An Entertaining Journal of Law, the bobbleheads have become well known for their light-hearted representations of the personalities and passions of the members of the Supreme Court.

Featured by CBS News, CNN, The New York Times and Politico among others, Law Library owns one of the largest collections of the bobbleheads and is currently exhibiting them this semester.

Whether its Justice John Paul Stevens sporting a golf club to represent his majority opinion in PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin, 532 U.S. 661 (2001) or Justice Souter wearing a gold chain to symbolize his role in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994) (a.k.a the 2 Live Crew fair use case) all the bobbleheads and the unique stories behind them are currently on display in the Gould Reading Room.

Check back over the next few weeks as we’ll be taking a closer look at some at some of the unique and entertaining features of some of the individual justices.

Many people have their version of the White Whale, that thing they chase but can’t quite acquire or overcome.

For 3L Peter Cavallaro it came in form of Pope Benedict XVI. Well, not the man so much as his signature and the acquisition of it.

“It was very difficult” he said. “I wasn’t able to get it until about a month-and-a-half ago.”

It’s no surprise that Cavallaro would eventually track it down as he is an avid collector of autographs with over 300 hundred signatures from a variety of famous people. Replicas of a portion of his collection are currently on display in the Reading Room featuring figures from the last 50 years of American political and civil rights history. The autographed photos range from civil rights activist James Meredith to astronaut John Glenn and from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush.

Cavallaro said he’s been collecting over the last decade, some in person and some by mail. Regardless of method, he said the process is not unlike law school in that it requires research, planning and persistence in order to achieve success.

“The challenge is doing the research and looking for the right contact,” he said.”Ninety percent of the battle is just getting it in front of them.”

We have a new exhibit in the Reading Room about the Second Amendment, with books and articles about the interpretation and history of gun control in the United States.  If you’re in the area, stop by and see it!

A few months ago we told you about our collection of U.S. Supreme Court bobblehead dolls on display in the Reading Room.  They’ll be on view for another couple of weeks, so come on in and check them out.

 

The Law Library is pleased to announce its new exhibit of recently acquired Supreme Court bobbleheads. Created and distributed by The Green Bag, each wobbly Justice is fashioned in the interest of “scholarly artistry,” simply for the fun of it. The bobbleheads, together with explanatory notes, are available for viewing in the Law Library’s Reading Room display cases throughout the spring semester.

The Green Bag is a self-described “quarterly journal of short, readable, useful, and sometimes entertaining legal scholarship.” The Law Library thanks Ross E. Davies, Editor in Chief of The Green Bag, for his assistance in building the collection.

The Law Library invites you to look at our main display case inside the Reading Room. The case shows off, in photos, some of the many Rare Treasures of the Cornell Law Library. The display is presented in anticipation of three open houses at which you can view the actual materials. The Law Library will open the Dawson Rare Book Room at the East end of the Reading Room on February 10th, March 9th, and April 20th from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. Note that some of these materials may be accessed in digital form here.

The Law Library has rich collections of rare materials. The Trials Collection is one of the most popular. It contains pamphlets that report trials involving murder, domestic disputes, and love triangles! The most famous of these trials are those of Lizzie Borden and Edward Rulloff. The Donovan Nuremberg Trial transcripts have attracted scholars from the United States and Europe.

A collection unique to the Cornell Law Library is the Laws of Liberia. The library has had requests from law firms, the United Nations, and the Liberian government for this material. Another treasure is The Charter of the Province of Pennsylvania and City of Philadelphia printed and sold by Benjamin Franklin in 1742. Additional materials of importance in Anglo-American law include Coke’s Institutes and Blackstone’s Commentaries.

On display in the Rare Book Room is the Scottsboro Train Replica used as an exhibit in the historic 1930’s trial of the “Scottsboro Boys”. It, among other materials, was a gift of the defendants’ attorney, Cornell Law alum Samuel S. Leibowitz, ’15. You can see a portion of this famous model train, an eighteenth-century Blackstone, and a seventeenth-century Littleton in our display case. We invite you to join us at one of our open houses this spring to see more of our riches.

If you dare, check out our new display case in the Reading Room featuring Case Law from the Crypt, a compilation of the best cases generated by Halloween. Haunted houses, chainsaw-wielding maniacs, sexy costumes, and tombstones abound. For more details, read the article that inspired the display case. Authored by Buffalo attorney Daniel Moar, the full article is available in the October, 2011, issue of the New York State Bar Association Journal, accessible through our catalog.

Incoming and returning students may wish to check out the new display in the Law Library Reading Room, Cornell Law School Programs & Projects.  Cornell Law School is known not only for its strong instruction in traditional and newly-emerging fields of law, but also for its diverse projects, institutes, programs, and research centers.  Among the many initiatives located here at the Law School and directed by our talented professors are:

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