Dear 2L & 3L students,

Welcome back to BC Law for another year of academic achievement, productivity, and camaraderie. Please read the articles in the fall Law Library Newsletter to help you make the most of academic year 2017-2018.

One article of note concerns a major upgrade that Bloomberg Law has just made to its platform. A new home page and modified user interface are just a couple of things that this article covers in an effort to ease your transition. Please peruse this newsletter to find out more; it is filled with information about our newest resources and programs. You might, for example, be interested in reading about West Academic study aids, and you will also find a law-themed diversion in the article about the Daniel R. Coquillette Rare Book Room’s exhibit on the history of case books.

Also, please keep in mind that the Law Library has a Contemplation/Meditation Room (Room 427) for individual meditation and contemplation breaks. If you would like, please consider joining the weekly meditation group. We sit, breathe, and meditate together from noon-12:30 p.m. every Monday in Room 427 in the Law Library.

Law school is intellectually stimulating and arduous. Please take care of yourself. Try to pace yourself as the semester progresses. In the meantime, best wishes for a successful academic year 2017-2018!
Peace,

Filippa Marullo Anzalone
Professor of Law
Associate Dean for Library & Technology Services

Say Hello to Cheetah (and Good-bye to IntelliConnect)

Check out the new Wolters Kluwer legal research platform, Cheetah. Boston College Law School students, faculty and staff have proxy access to this new platform via the Law Library's A - Z Database List.

Like its namesake, Cheetah is designed to be sleek, fast, agile and accurate. In comparison to the older Wolters Kluwer platform, CCH IntelliConnect, it does indeed have a more intuitive, user-friendly design and is faster and more efficient to use. This is largely because it organizes the platform’s content first into practice areas and then, within each practice area, groups materials by type. For example, the Banking & Consumer Finance practice area is divided into i) treatises, ii) federal banking and finance statutes, iii) federal banking and finance regulations, iv) federal banking practice guides and tools, v) relevant federal agency materials vi) state secured transaction laws and comparative charts and vii) the Uniform Commercial Code. Documents have handy links to proper citation format, and statutes and regulations have links to adoption and amending history.

Resources are both browsable and searchable. The platform works both with natural language, Google-type searches and with the more precise advanced Boolean searches and field restrictions. Search results may be filtered and can be sorted by relevance, date or document type. Search results are also color-coded by document type.

The Cheetah research platform is incredibly easy to use, and Wolters Kluwer has made it even easier by prominently displaying links to online help, a downloadable Quick Start Card, and training materials. You can access Cheetah training resources directly here.

Bloomberg Law’s Total Makeover

Bloomberg Law, the relatively newer competitor in the field of big comprehensive legal research platforms, is competing directly with Lexis and Westlaw. Bloomberg Law released a major upgrade recently.

Headlining the improvements is Bloomberg Law’s introduction of a natural language search option in addition to the existing terms and connectors search engine. Bloomberg also claims its recent enhancements provide a more intuitive user experience and simplified navigation, although there is always some period of adjustment to any new user interface. This article hopes to ease the transition to the new interface, whether or not you already were an experienced Bloomberg Law user.

Bloomberg Law now opens to a Home page designed for specific user groups, so we get a Law School Home, which includes quick links to resources for training and career development as well as practice tools like the BNA Law Reports. Above these resource links is a universal search bar. To retrieve a document by citation, type the citation but select “Go to this citation” when it appears, rather than the “Go” button, or you will run a search for the terms entered. Not a fatal flaw, since it will probably bring you to a case using the citation you entered, but how much simpler to go directly to the document you want. The default search is to search all Bloomberg Law, but you can use the pull down “select sources” menu on the search bar.

No matter where you are in Bloomberg Law you can browse the content by clicking the “Browse all Content” link in the upper left hand corner of the screen. If you mark as “Favorites” those pages you visit most frequently, they will be easily accessible when browsing as well.

Since Bloomberg Law regularly mines PACER for new dockets and provides access to documents from the docket, don’t forget to request General Information, which contains links to the docket and related documents for federal cases since 1989. Bloomberg Law has been building up its collection of electronic state court dockets as well.

Introducing Amy Bruce, New Law Librarian

Amy will be working as part of the Education and Reference team, providing research support to faculty and students, and teaching legal research courses. Previously, Amy was the senior manager of research services at Goodwin Procter LLP. She holds an M.S. in Library and Information Science from Simmons College, a J.D. from Vermont Law School and a B.A. from Bates College. Amy is excited to return to Boston College Law Library, where she held an internship during her master's degree program at Simmons.

Amy looks forward to meeting many members of the BC Law community this semester. Her office is Law Library Room 257, her telephone extension is 2-2896, and her e-mail address is amy.bruce@bc.edu.

Rare Book Room Exhibit and Study Space

Our new Rare Book Room exhibit, "Discovering Cases: Year Books, Reporters, and Beyond," is up and running! The exhibit moves through the history in Anglo-American legal literature of making case law accessible to lawyers and law students. One of the featured items is a 1534 Year Book with cases from the reign of Edward III which was given by Dan Coquillette. There are early reports and abridgments of James Dyer and Edward Plowden, as well as cabinets on Sir Edward Coke, the more modern English law reports, and then early American law reports.

Take a look at the exhibit webpage for some highlights. Please come visit in person when you get a chance! Keep in mind that the Rare Book Room is open to students as a quiet study space (no food and drink) from 9 am – 5 pm, Monday through Friday. Bring your laptop and a hoodie, and enjoy being in such a beautiful space as you study.

New Source for Comparative Legal Research: HeinOnline’s “Multinational Sources Compared” Library

The Law Library has just added a new tool for researchers interested in comparative legal research: the newly updated “Multinational Sources Compared” library in HeinOnline. This new online source is designed as a finding aid for researchers looking for sources that compare multiple jurisdictions by subject. In this database, researchers have the option to search by title, publisher, subject, or jurisdiction. Only bibliographic information for those sources are included in the database, not the full-text PDFs. With the bibliographic information in hand, researchers may look up the title of the source in the Law Library’s catalogue and decide how and where to get it.

Currently, the database includes 280 subject headings. New sources are added to those subject headings about three times a year. The newly updated subject headings include arbitration, contracts, corporate governance, environmental law, off shore finance, etc.

For researchers who prefer to read in print, HeinOnline also releases the same content in print editions. The 2017 edition of Multinational Sources Compared: A Subject and Jurisdiction Index is held in Law General Collection with call number K85 .W65 2017.

Online Study Aid Access

The BC Law community has access to West Academic study aids through the Library! Students and faculty can use all titles from popular series including Nutshells, the Acing series, Black Letter Outlines, Concise Hornbooks, Sum & Substance and more. If your professor has recommended a particular title to supplement your classes, check to see if it’s available online. Study aids are very popular during exam prep and the convenience of the online platform will let you access West Academic materials from any location at any time.

Point your mouse to the Law Library List of Databases to get started. Read more about access in this Legal Eagle blogpost!

Achieving Mindfulness Through A Regular Meditation Practice

Mindfulness is a hot topic lately; and there are good reasons to practice mindfulness in our daily lives. Mindfulness means being awake in the present moment, being aware, not judging, not ruminating about the past, or worrying about the future. When we are mindful we experience life as it happens.

Meditation is one way to become more mindful. It is like going to the gym to improve our physical capability and cardiovascular power. Meditation is a habit that helps one to become more mindful.

Regular meditation is known to ease stress levels, improve cognition, and encourage compassion. If you are intrigued with the idea of developing a meditation practice and becoming more mindful, please consider participating in the Law School’s weekly meditation session. We hold weekly group sits in the Contemplation & Meditation Room (Room 427) in the Law Library. We invite you to join us on Mondays during the common lunch hour. The group sit is open to complete beginners, veteran meditators, and anyone wishing to benefit from a meditation break at the beginning of the week.

We begin at noon and spend a few minutes on introductions, read a poem or other inspirational reading, do some breathing exercises, and then we normally meditate for about 15 minutes. There is no obligation to attend every week; but we welcome regular attendees.

The Contemplation & Meditation Room (Room 427) is open during Law Library hours for individual meditation and silent contemplation sessions. There are floor pillows and comfortable chairs in the room. Please maintain a respectful silence in the room; it is a cell-free and study-free zone.

Borrow a Bike through BikeBC

BikeBC is a Boston College registered student organization aimed at improving the bicycling infrastructure and community around campus. And now the BikeBC Bike Share program has come to the Newton Campus! The program allows certified members of BikeBC to participate in Boston College’s bike share and borrow a free bicycle through the O’Neill Library and Law Library for a period of three days. In order to borrow a bike, you must attend a training session sponsored by the organization and sign their liability form.

For more information, go to the BikeBC website: http://bc.orgsync.com/org/bikebc#bikeshare or drop by the Law Library’s Information Desk and pick up a brochure.

Welcome Jordan and Ben

Jordan Bradford was hired this summer as our new Law School Associate Technology Consultant. Jordan will be responsible for provide technology help to all members of the Law School community. Jordan is a recent graduate (May 2017) of the joint Master's in Philosophy and Theology (Concentration: Faith, Science, and Philosophy) here at Boston College. Jordan received his Bachelor's degree in Philosophy (summa cum laude) from Toccoa Falls College in Toccoa Falls, Georgia in the fall of 2013. For the past two years, Jordan has served as a Graduate Technology Consultant (GTC) for the Humanities Division of Boston College. Prior to coming to Boston College, Jordan worked for the J. M. Smith Corporation, a pharmaceutical distribution center, for a year. Jordan loves to read in science, philosophy, and theology; he confesses to enjoying fried food (especially Southern fried chicken) and heavy metal music.

Benjamin Hohman joins the Law Library staff as our Law School Graduate Technology Consultant (GTC), providing assistance in the Law Library's Student Computing Help Center. Ben is a third year Ph.D. student in the Department of Theology at Boston College. Ben's interest is in Systematic Theology. Ben received his first Bachelor's degree (Philosophy, magna cum laude) from the University of Alabama. Please be aware that Ben is a hard core Alabama football fan. Ben went on to earn a second Bachelor's degree (Theology, summa cum laude) from Marian University in Indianapolis. Before enrolling in the BC Theology Ph.D. program, Ben earned a Master of Theological Studies degree from the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. Prior to Ben's work here at the Law School, Ben worked as Graduate Assistant for the Boston College Church in the 21st Century program and was an Adult Learning Facilitator for the School of Theology and Ministry's online learning program.