FEATURED LINK ARCHIVES
NEWS ARCHIVES
LIBRARY NEWS AND EVENTS ARCHIVES
MAY 2008
Handgun Ban: What stand has your state A.G. taken? (check the map here.) The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on March 18 in D.C. v. Heller, Dkt. 07-290, a case in which the district’s ban on personal handguns is at stake. Thirty-one attorneys general have filed amicus briefs supporting an individual’s right to own a handgun, and five have filed amicus briefs supporting the district’s ban.
Law Library of Congress: In April 1800 President John Adams approved a then-hefty $5,000 appropriation to establish the Library of Congress, 20 percent of which went for law books (mainly on British and international subjects). In 1832 Congress established its Law Library. With over 2.5 million volumes, the Law Library’s collection is the largest legal collection in the world.
APRIL 2008
March is Women's History Month. Here are some interesting historical sites:
Did you know that Worcester, Massachusetts was the site of the first National Woman's Rights Convention in 1850? This event began the organized movement for women's rights. Go here for materials about the 1850 and 1851 conventions, and other resources.
Read here about Massachusetts' early role in the Woman Suffrage Movement.
Visit the Library of Congress Memory Project to read about early women lawyers and their admission to state bar associations and appearances before the Supreme Court.
MARCH 2008
February is Black History Month. Here are some interesting law school sites:
The Amistad Case: "Outright Plagiarism" or "Who Owns History?" This site (Cornell Law School) examines the Amistad case and the Spielberg film, Amistad. Included are court briefs, biographies of Supreme Court justices involved in the case, John Quincy Adams’ arguments before the Supreme Court, and discussions of legal issues in the original case and the plagiarism case brought by author Barbara Chase-Riboud.
Historical Publications of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. From the Thurgood Marshall Law Library, University of Maryland in partnership with the U.S. Government Printing Office and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Avalon Project Documents on Slavery. Collected by Yale Law School, this site has links to the full text of federal and state statutes, treaties and agreements, and other government documents relating to slavery from 1795 to 1865.
FEBRUARY 2008
The State of the Union address delivered by President Bush on January 28, 2008 is available here. According to Article II, Sec. 3, U.S. Constitution, "The President shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."
JANUARY 2008
The Red Lodge Clearinghouse, hosted by the Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado School of Law provides resources and contacts for collaborative natural resource groups. The NRLC focuses on the management of water and land resources in the western US.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and other non-profits provide the GovernmentDocs.org website. The site provides “... access to government documents ... acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)” and other disclosure laws. Categories include global warming, Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Homeland Security, and others.
DECEMBER 2007
Historians on America from the Department of State "is a series of individual essays that selects specific moments, decisions, and intellectual or legislative or legal developments and explains how they altered the course of U.S. history."
NOVEMBER 2007
Salem Witchcraft Trials, 1692
The Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project consists of a collection of primary source materials relating to the 1692 Salem witch trials and a new transcription of the court records. Professor Benjamin C. Ray, University of Virginia, supervises this project.
Visit the Famous American Trials web page maintained by UMKC Law Professor Douglas Linder, for commentary by Professor Linder, as well as links to essays, images, maps and primary documents. To read about a modern-day trial with many parallels to the Salem Trials, see Professor Linder's website for the McMartin Preschool Abuse Trial.
OCTOBER 2007
Microsoft v. Commission of the European Communities: the text of the judgment issued by the Court of First Instance on 9/17/07 is available here. An accompanying press release is available here.
SEPTEMBER 2007
Iraq Hearings before the House of Representatives on Sept. 10, 2007: The prepared statement of General Petraeus (including his slides) is now available, as is Ambassador Crocker's statement. To view the full testimony and transcripts of these hearings, click here.
Here's an interesting link: Working Mother Magazine has put together a list of the Top 50 Law Firms for Female Lawyers.
Introducing the AudioCaseFiles database. Here's a case: "A group of guys went sailing. They got caught in a storm and pushed out to sea. After days without food, two of the men decided to eat the cabin boy." The case is Regina v. Dudley and Stephens, Queen's Bench Division, 14 Q.B.D. 273, 1884. An audiofile of the edited opinion can be downloaded to your computer or iPod from the Library's newest database. Try it today.
The Dag Hammarskjöld Library has set up a web page to mark the 2007 International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples on 9 August 2007. Check it out here.
AUGUST 2007
President Bush released the Initial Benchmark Assessment Report to Congress on July 12, 2007. This report analyzes 18 benchmarks in stabilizing Iraq and offers detailed status as to progress in meeting military, security and economic stability goals.
Refworld: The UN Refugee Agency has launched Refworld, which is a leading source of information on refugee status.
"A Crisis of Confidence: Americans' Doubts About the Death Penalty" - this report from the Death Penalty Information Center was issued June 9, 2007.
JUNE 2007
Women Lawyers and Obstacles to Leadership. This report, prepared for the Equality Commission of Massachusetts by the MIT Workplace Center and released on May 2, 2007, tracks the career paths of nearly 1,000 women and men in Massachusetts law firms. The report shows that inadequate law firm responses to family factors have resulted in a large scale exodus of women from the practice of law, and into career paths with organizations and companies that are more family-friendly.
International religious freedom report [USCIRF] - Annual Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, May 3, 2007 [finding for the first time since the ouster of Saddam Hussein that freedom of religious worship in Iraq is under severe threat]. Read the full text of the report [PDF].
MAY 2007
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the State Department’s annual report, was released on March 6, 2007. The report, which is submitted to Congress, examines the status of human rights in 196 countries and entities, and describes the performance of governments in putting into practice their international commitments on human rights.
APRIL 2007
March is Women's History Month
"Generations of Women Moving History Forward” is the 2007 theme announced by the National Women’s History Project. Honorees for 2007 include civil rights activists, a federal judge, and a Congresswoman.
The Women's Legal History Website is a project of the Robert Crown Law Library and Stanford Law School. The site includes a women lawyers index and a guide to other websites, articles and books that provide information on women lawyers.
The Massachusetts Association of Women Lawyers (MAWL) is committed to promoting activities directed toward the advancement of women in the profession of law and in society.
MARCH 2007
February is Black History Month
This year’s theme from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History is “From Slavery to Freedom: Africans in the Americas”. Below is a short list of resources:
- African American Odyssey - Online access to the Library of Congress's African American collections.
- "North American Slave Narratives" - Focus on individual and collective stories of African Americans' struggle for freedom and human rights in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. From the Documenting the American South collection of the University of North Carolina.
- Samuel J. May Anti- Slavery Collection – Collection of materials documenting the anti-slavery struggle at the local, regional and national levels. From the Cornell University Library, Rare and Manuscript Collections.
FEBRUARY 2007
Native American Law Project
The Native American Constitution and Law Digitization Project is sponsored by the University of Oklahoma Law Center and the National Indian Law Library. The Center works with tribes whose government documents appear on the site; these documents include Constitutions, Tribal Codes, treaties and more, as well as several research guides.
Law Librarians of New England Fall Meeting
This year, the Boston College Law Library hosted the Law Librarians of New England Fall Meeting, on November 3. The theme of this meeting was: Celebrating 60 years of LLNE: Instruction and Training: Reaching Out with New Technology.
NOVEMBER 2006
Same Sex Marriage Decision
The New Jersey Supreme Court's October 25, 2006 decision in the same-sex marriage case of Lewis v. Harris is available on the Rutgers University Camden Law Library's website. You can also view a webcast of the oral arguments before the Court from the New Jersey Digital Legal Library hosted by the Rutgers University Library for the Center for Law & Justice.
Salem Witchcraft Trials
The Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive from the University of Virginia provides links to court documents and transcripts, historical maps, and the text of several books written around the time of the trials.
The Salem Witch Craft Trials web site on the Famous American Trials webpage of Professor Douglas O. Linder, UMKC School of Law, provides additional materials about the trials including Professor Linder's account of the events that occurred in 1692, an outline of the procedure used in the trials, and his history of witchcraft persecutions before Salem.
In 1953, Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" ran on Broadway. The film version of the play is available in the BC Law Library's Feature Film collection. Like the play, the movie is a fictionalized version of the events of Salem in 1692.
OCTOBER 2006
U.S. Supreme Court databases: The S. Sidney Ulmer Project from the University of Kentucky. The Spaeth Supreme Court databases cover the Court's decision-making from the 1946 term to the most recent term. Datasets are also available by various terms, and by individual justices for certain terms. A guide to using the databases is available.
The U.S. Courts of Appeals database: The S. Sidney Ulmer Project from the University of Kentucky. The Appeals Court Database Project was designed to create a dataset to facilitate the empirical analysis of the votes of judges and the decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals and was compiled from a random sample of cases since 1925.
Robert Drinan, SJ, '42, former dean of the Boston College Law School, recently presented "God and Morality in the Public Sphere,” a lecture on religion and its place in politics and law. His February 20, 2006 lecture is available on Boston College's "Front Row" web magazine.
Reference Question of the Week Blog. Joan Shear, a member of the law library's reference staff, will post a challenging reference question and answer to the question in this blog. Test your legal research skills against Joan and other members of the reference staff. Post your comments and suggestions for how we could have answered it differently.
Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights: this decision, as seen on the official Supreme Court website, was issued March 6, 2006. A thorough analysis and preview of this case can be seen via streaming video of a symposium at Boston College Law School on Nov. 11, 2005. Additional analysis and background information can be seen on the Duke Law School website.
APRIL 2006
Unpublished Opinions: On April 12, 2006 the U.S. Supreme Court voted to allow citation to unpublished opinions in all federal courts. The rule, which is an amendment to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1, will take effect on Jan. 1, 2007, unless Congress disapproves the amendment before Dec. 1. Here is
background information on the rule change.
MARCH 2006
The Trial of Saddam Hussein website is maintained by the Law Library of Congress and includes information about the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (Tribunal or SICT), a special court established outside the normal Iraqi judicial system for the specific purpose of bringing Saddam Hussein and members of his former regime to justice; information about the legal process of the SICT; information about the present prosecution and possible future prosecutions; and links to related resources such as UN Security Council Resolution 1483.
FEBRUARY 2006
The Civil Rights Documentation Project. This project from the Dirksen Congressional Center includes links to historical materials and other resources about civil rights legislation. The project focuses on the legislative process and uses the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to demonstrate law-making. The collection includes materials of then-Senate Minority Leader Everett McKinley Dirksen (R-IL), who is widely credited with securing passage of the bills.
JANUARY 2006
Samuel A. Alito Jr. is President Bush's nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Connor as Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court. Alito has served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit since 1990. More information, including links to opinions and articles by Judge Alito, is available at the University of Michigan Law Library web site.
The U.S. Supreme Court's major decisions in the Fall 2005 term are summarized on a website created by the American Law Reports (ALR) staff. Arranged by topic, each summary includes a full citation to the opinion as well as a link to a corresponding ALR article.
DECEMBER 2005
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. Intelligent design opinion of Judge John E. Jones III of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, filed 12/20/05.
OCTOBER 2005
John Glover Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: This web page from the Library of Congress includes information on the confirmation of Justice Roberts, as well as links to his writings and case involvements. It also provides some useful web resources.
On Halloween Eve, October 1938, Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast “The War of the Worlds,” causing a nationwide panic. Thousands believed that Martians were invading the Earth. After the incident, the Federal Communications Commission investigated the program but found that no laws had been violated. Today there are FCC rules prohibiting the broadcast of false information concerning crimes and catastrophes.
SEPTEMBER 2005
Supreme Court Nomination: Judge John G. Roberts of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court. View his career timeline, his judicial profile and opinions, and review the cases he argued before the Supreme Court (includes oral arguments). Also, read Judge Roberts' responses to questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee in parts one and two of his completed questionnaire.
Constitution Day is September 17. Check out these websites to learn more.
Charters of Freedom (National Archives): Text, history & images of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution & Bill of Rights.
Constitution of the United States: Analysis and Interpretation (GPO Access): Proposed, unratified amendments; acts held unconstitutional; state & municipal provisions held unconstitutional; Supreme Court decisions overruled by subsequent decision.
The American Constitution: A Documentary Record (Avalon Project/Yale Law School): Major documents leading up to the Constitution.
The Founders' Constitution: The thoughts, opinions, and arguments of the Founders arranged by the authors of this e-book according to themes or problems to which the Constitution of 1787 has made a significant contribution.
Election Law @ Moritz is an election law project from the Moritz College of Law of the Ohio State University. The site offers information on laws governing federal, state and local elections, includes an e-book on election law published by the school's faculty and librarians, links to election law blogs and news services, and is updated regularly.
Labor Day. On September 5, 1882, some 10,000 workers assembled in New York City to participate in America's first Labor Day parade. Read more about this unique holiday from the Library of Congress's American Memory project. For more information about today's labor force, check out the Department of Labor's website, which includes the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
JULY 2005
CQ Press in Context: The current topic at Congressional Weekly’s free website is Sandra Day O'Connor’s retirement and the future of the US Supreme Court.
Lexis/Nexis State Capital provides access to bills, laws, constitutions, proposed and enacted regulations; legislature membership, and newspapers of record for one state, any combination of states or all 50 states. Full-text; coverage from 1990/1991. (BC Access)
JUNE 2005
New Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005: President Bush signed this new act (BAPCPA, P.L. 109-8) on April 20, 2005. The Act will affect debtors, attorneys, and credit companies. While some provisions of the BAPCPA are effective now, the bulk of the amendments will become effective in 180 days; a chart of these new provisions and their effective dates can be found at the Commercial Law League site. Bankruptcy Judge Eugene Wedoff has prepared a summary of the Act's changes to consumer bankruptcy practice. Skadden Arps has posted a redline version of the Bankruptcy Code referencing the provisions of the new act.
MARCH 2005
Every Day's a Holiday: Looking for a reason to celebrate? Check out the new exhibit at the library entrance.
Civil Procedure Stories: Briefs and Such is the web companion to the text, Civil Procedure Stories. Edited by Cornell Law School’s Kevin Clermont and published by Foundation Press, Civil Procedure Stories offers a behind-the-scenes look at fourteen Supreme Court cases that are part of a basic course in civil procedure. Each case is addressed in a separate chapter. The website supplements each chapter of the text with PDF documents, audio files, and image files. Supreme Court records and briefs, transcripts, lower court opinions, correspondence and other documents are made available in PDF. For several of the cases, the site offers audio files of the oral argument. Other items include maps, deeds, photographs, and even a political cartoon. Overall, the site, along with the book, brings each case to life and helps users understand the facts behind the law.
JULY 2004
9/11 Commission Report. The Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States is available online from GPO Access.
JUNE 2004
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Turkey's ban on overtly religious garb at public universities did not violate the student's rights. The case of Leyla Sahin v. Turkey, June 29, 2004, can be accessed on the Court's website.
MAY 2004
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the Association of Research Libraries has prepared an annotated bibliography which will form part of a national commemorative toolkit to be launched by the NAACP and Amnesty International on May 17, 2004. More...
APRIL 2004
Celebrate Earth Day by taking the Ecological Footprint Quiz 2004! Ever wondered how much "nature" your lifestyle requires? Click here to find out.
MARCH 2004
We Value Your Opinion. From March 15 to April 23 the BC Law Library will be conducting a web-based survey. Every current BC Law School student, faculty and staff member is invited to participate in the survey to help us identify how well the library is meeting its users' needs. We want to understand your perceptions and expectations of library services. It is critical that we incorporate your ideas and needs as we plan for the future. More...
Summer Panic Sessions.The law library is offering a variety of legal research sessions to help prepare BC Law students for summer associate or new attorney jobs. These sessions may be just what you need if you have forgotten what you have learned, or you would like to learn new research skills. Session descriptions.
JANUARY 2004
The United States Conference of Catholics Bishops has issued: Report on the Implementation of the "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People."
DECEMBER 2003
Law Library Current Accessions List. A monthly list of new additions to the Law Library collection is now available on our Web site. Law School faculty can sign up to receive monthly email notification of new titles in their area(s) of interest.
SEPTEMBER 2003
LLMC Digital (Law Library Microform Consortium Digital Online). Boston College Law Library has a charter membership in this new electronic resource, which will eventually provide access to many unique legal materials, including a canon law collection, the Yale Blackstone collection, and many older legal treatises. Currently it provides access to early federal court decisions and statutes and to federal agency decisions.
SUMMER 2003
Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (Senate Report 107-351) is available online via GPO Access.
JUNE/JULY 2003
Amnesty International's Report 2003 has just been released. Amnesty International is the best known nongovernmental organization concerned with global human rights issues. The annual report for 2003 examines the worldwide status of human rights and provides information on national and regional human rights conditions. More...
MAY 2003
The previously closed transcripts of executive sessions of the Executive Sessions of the Senate Committee on Government Operations' Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, held during the chairmanship of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wisc., from 1953 to 1954, have just been released. These investigative records, which have been sealed for the past 50 years, contain testimony by such prominent witnesses as Aaron Copland, Langston Hughes, and the historian Herbert Aptheker.
GPO Access has a new look. The new site promises to make it easier to find government documents ranging from the Agency Publication Index to the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents.
May 1 is Law Day. This year's theme is "Independent Courts Protect Our Liberties." Learn the history behind this annual celebration.
Read an analysis from the American Bar Association of Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court decision that established the judiciary as an independent, co-equal branch of the federal government.
MARCH 2003
 Semblances of Sovereignty: The Constitution, The State, and American Citizenship is the most recent book by T. Alexander Aleinikoff. The Georgetown University Law Center professor delivered the Owen M. Kupferschmid Holocaust/Human Rights Project memorial lecture at the Boston College Law School on March 24. More… |
 March is Women's History Month. Visit Women's Legal History Biography Project and Women in the Legal Profession, both projects originating at Stanford Law School. |
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Dr. Mirfendereski was born in Tehran, Iran, and his early childhood was spent in Holland, India, and Turkey. He spent his adolescence in Iran, the Soviet Union, and Switzerland. Dr. Mirfendereski holds a Ph.D., M.A.L.D. and M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and an undergraduate degree in Government from Georgetown University's College of Arts and Sciences.
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Law Library Speakers Series |
The Boston Massacre - March 5, 1770. An account of the trials and more from the Famous American Trials web site. |
2005
Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises 1800-1926 provides digital images of treatises on nineteenth and early-twentieth century American and British Commonwealth law.
2004
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that only full and equal marriage rights for gay couples -- rather than civil unions -- would meet the edict of its November decision.
Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act. This report, issued January 27, 2004 by the Department of Justice, summarizes Section 1001-related activities by the Office of the Inspector General for the last six months of 2003. Section 1001 requires the OIG to review and receive complaints alleging abuses of civil rights and civil liberties by employees and officials of the Department of Justice.
2003
Homeland Security and the Gilmore Commission. The Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, chaired by former Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III, has released its fifth and final annual report: Forging America's New Normalcy: Securing Our Homeland, Protecting Our Liberty. The report, released on December 15, 2003, is available as a full-text pdf file.
Trying Saddam: The Iraqi Special Tribunal For Crimes Against Humanity. In the latest op-ed in JURIST's Forum series, Northwestern University law professor and former war crimes defense counsel Anthony D'Amato looks ahead to the possible trial of captured Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein before the newly-established Iraqi Special Tribunal for Crimes Against Humanity. Read: Trying Saddam.
SJC Rules on Gay Marriage. The highest court in Massachusetts has ruled that the state cannot deny gays and lesbians the right to marry, a ruling that could make the state the first to recognize gay marriage.
A new Supreme Court term began the first Monday in October. To follow the issues and status of cases pending in the Court try these resources:
United States Supreme Court (official web site)
Supreme Court Online (from the Duke Law School Program in Public Law)
Supreme Court Preview (from the American Bar Association)
BNA's United States Law Week ( Law School campus access only)
University of Michigan Affirmative Action Cases. Essays on the decisions and their implications by law school faculty and others from a Jurist online symposium.
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act cases. Jurisdictional statements, briefs, etc. are available online at the Supreme Court's web site.
The American Bar Association's Commission on Loan Repayment and Forgiveness has just issued its final report entitled Lifting the Burden: Law Student Debt as a Barrier to Public Service.
Recent U.S. Supreme Court opinions uphold race in admissions (Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger) and the Children's Internet Protection Act (United States v. American Library Association.) Visit the Supreme Court's web site to view other recent decisions.
Reducing Prescription Drug Costs
The Supreme Court in a 6-to-3 decision gives Maine qualified approval of an innovative effort to reduce prescription drug costs for uninsured state residents. Read the opinion, and locate transcript of the oral argument and briefs at FindLaw.
University of Michigan Law School Admission Lawsuit
The Supreme Court heard arguments in the University of Michigan Law School Admissions Lawsuits on April 1, 2003. Listen to the oral arguments in Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger. University of Michigan Law School's News and Information webpage includes links to lower court opinions, briefs in support of the school's admissions policies and other information about the lawsuits. Office of the Solicitor General provides access to amicus briefs filed on behalf of the United States government:
Grutter v. Bollinger
Gratz and Hamacher v. Bollinger
For more information see the National Association of Scholars' webpage "Briefs and Materials Pertaining to the U of Michigan Race Preference Cases."
Commission on Capital Punishment
Illinois governor George Ryan commuted the sentences of 167 death row inmates before leaving office this month. His announcement, which he made on his last full business day in office, came over two years after he imposed a historic moratorium on executions in Illinois, and appointed a Commission on Capital Punishment "to study the system from top to bottom." Governor Ryan's announcement, made on his last full day in office, came over two years after he imposed a historic moratorium on executions in Illinois, and appointed a Commission on Capital Punishment "to study the system from top to bottom." Related links:
Speech at Northwestern University Law School, Jan. 11, 2003
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/depts/communicate/newspages/spring03/ryanspeech.htm
Speech at DePaul University College of Law, Jan. 10, 2003
http://sherman.depaul.edu/media/webapp/mrNews2.asp?NID=930
Speech at the University of Illinois College of Law, Dec. 19, 2002, "The Role of the Executive in Administering the Death Penalty"
http://www.law.uiuc.edu/i-auditorium/
Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment
http://www.idoc.state.il.us/ccp/ccp/reports/index.html
Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty
http://www.icadp.org/
LIBRARY NEWS AND EVENTS ARCHIVES
SPRING 2008
"Reality Legal Research": Getting ready for your summer job or your first professional position? Come to lunchtime reality legal research sessions to boost your skills.
Just in Time Training - For in-depth research assistance, BC Law students can now request Just in Time Training with one of the Library's Legal Information Librarians. To request a session, see the link under Research Starting Points.
BC Law's Bloomberg representative will train registered users on Thursday, April 10th, at 11 am and 12:30 pm in law Library Room 155. You must bring your B-unit in order to join the class. Questions?
Bloomberg Law (BLAW) is a new free database geared to law faculty and students. Bloomberg is adding legal source material - cases, news analysis, unannotated statutory codes and area of law newsletters - to its signature product of major financial information. To learn more, click here.
WINTER 2008
Reality Legal Research Seminar: Preparing for Real-World Practice. Register here by March 13 for this March 15 event.
Want to sharpen your research skills, delve into a specialized research area or know more about law practice technology? BC Law and the law librarians have a variety of course offerings to answer these needs and more. A list of research and technology classes offered in Spring 2008 and next academic year is available now.
Some past BC Law exams are now available online as study aids. To see them, click on "Exams" under "Using the Law Library" on the Library's home page.
FALL 2007
Dec. 13, 2007: Due to the snowstorm, the Law Library will close this evening at 10 pm.
New in the Law Library: The Great Domesday Book. The Law Library recently purchased a magnificent facsimile edition of the Domesday Book, published in 1986 to celebrate the 900th anniversary of its completion in A.D. 1086. Domesday was a comprehensive census and survey of medieval English landowners and their property. Read more here.
Legal Research Workshops for 2L and 3L students. Register here.
New Campus-Wide Print Management Program. On August 6, the University introduced a new campus-wide print management program. Students will receive 500 pages free per semester. After that, your Eagle Bucks account will be charged 3 cents for each page printed. If you print it, it counts.
Law School Students: Free printing from LexisNexis and Westlaw!
SUMMER 2007
Check out our new Food and Drink Policy.
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Rare Book Dedicated to Dean Garvey. The library recently purchased a first edition of Joseph Story’s 3-volume Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States in honor of Dean John Garvey. |  |
Summer Research Assistants - Training Sessions
Students' Summer Access to Lexis/Nexis, Loislaw and Westlaw
Fall 2006
Change in Library Hours. Beginning August 28, 2006, the law library will open at 7:45 a.m. Monday through Friday and close at 11:45 p.m. Sunday through Thursday. See a detailed listing of 2006-2007 library hours including holidays and other exceptions.
Fall 2005
ILL Account Information Available on Your Desktop 
The interlibrary loan request system is now fully integrated into many online databases, including WorldCat. Click on the 
icon in a database citation to open the Find it option page. From there you can choose the Interlibrary Loan option. You will be directed to sign into your interlibrary loan account. After signing in, the form will appear with all the bibliographic information completed for the book or journal article citation that you chose from the database.
You can also place requests if you have citations in hand by going directly to your ILL account and completing the forms but even more importantly you can monitor the progress of your borrowing requests. All users have an interlibrary loan account, whether they have placed an ILL request in the past or not. You can go directly to your interlibrary loan account by choosing Your BC Interlibrary Loan Account from the Libraries home page.
For more information about the new interlibrary loan options or help using the new options, contact Katie Sosnoff, the Law Library's Interlibrary Loan assistant at 617-552-8604 or 617-552-4066 or via email.
Summer 2005
Quest Library Catalog Available
A new version of Quest, the Libraries' online catalog, is now available for use. The new version provides several improved user functions as well as upgraded supporting technology. Based on user input, the default search is now Keyword(s) Anywhere in Record. The drop-down menu lists many additional ways to search the catalog, including browse searches such as Titles beginning with…
Another improvement is the integration of the interlibrary loan request system into the catalog for the BC community. Choose Interlibrary Loan from the top of the screen and go directly into the new system where you can place a request and monitor the progress of your request.
We are interested in hearing your feedback on the newest version of the catalog, please feel free to submit your comments.
Summer Access: Please read to learn the Boston College Law Schools' policies about student access to LexisNexis, Westlaw, and Loislaw during the summer.
May 2005
Memorial Day Weekend – Hours and Services Update
All libraries will be closed three days for Memorial Day weekend, May 28-30. There will be a Chestnut Hill campus power shutdown on Saturday, May 28 which will affect remote access to some library services on that day only, from 5. a.m. until 7 p.m. You will have access to Quest, but CrossSearch (MetaQuest), online databases, and Find It will not be available at that time. To access online databases during the shutdown, use our online databases backup web page.
Feature Films Collection. The law library has added a selection of feature films with law-related themes to its collection. Members of the law school community are invited to borrow these videos and DVDs for home viewing for a period of up to 4 days.
LibQual+ Survey. The law library thanks the students, faculty and staff who participated in our recent LibQual+ survey. We are pleased to announce the winners of the Amazon.com gift certificate incentive prizes.
Rare Book Room Closed December 16 – January 19. The Daniel R. Coquillette Rare Book Room will be closed from December 16 through January 19, 2004, for cleaning and exhibit work. It will reopen on January 20, featuring a new exhibit of early American legal and land use documents. Please plan on visiting the new exhibit when the room reopens in January.
Electronic Publishing Symposium 11 December, 9:00am-2:00pm
Boston College Libraries, Academic Technology Services, and Information Technology Services are sponsoring an Electronic Publishing Symposium on Thursday, 11 December. The goal of the Symposium is to bring options and opportunities in electronic scholarly publishing to a faculty and graduate student audience. More...
Last Chance to Visit the International Law Exhibit in the Daniel R. Coquillette Rare Book Room. If you have not yet had the chance to visit the law library's Daniel R. Coquillette Rare Book Room to view our current exhibit, "Recent Additions to the Collection," the time is now! The exhibition features books dating from the 17th through 19th centuries, including a strong collection of early international and comparative law books by Hugo Grotius and other important authors. Many of the works were donated by our own Professor Dan Coquillette. The exhibit will run through Monday December 15 and may be viewed any time the room is open: generally Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
FALL 2003
New Exhibit in the Daniel R. Coquillette Rare Book Room
You are invited to visit the Daniel R. Coquillette Rare Book Room in the law library to view our new exhibit, "Recent Additions to the Collection." The exhibition features books dating from the 17th through 19th centuries, including a strong collection of early international and comparative law books by Hugo Grotius and other important authors.
Also on display are books inspired by Sir William Blackstone's landmark Commentaries on the Laws of England, an early play, Ignoramus, that ridiculed common lawyers in the time of King James, beautiful miniature books printed by the famous Elzevir family, and an 1848 will handwritten on parchment. Many of the works in this exhibit feature original leather and vellum bindings, as well as autographs and bookplates of previous owners.
The books are on display in the Daniel R. Coquillette Rare Book Room and may be viewed anytime the room is open: generally Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The exhibit will remain on view through mid-December 2003.
To see highlights of the exhibit, visit http://www.bc.edu/schools/law/library/about/rarebook/exhibitions/newacq03/.
NOVEMBER 2003
Law Library Speakers Series: Diane Danielson, BC Law '93, author of Table Talk: The Savvy Girl's Alternative to Networking, spoke at Barat House on Tuesday November 18 at 8:15 a.m. Continental breakfast will be available from 7:30-8:15 a.m.
SEPTEMBER 2003
Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly was at BC Law School on Tuesday Sept. 30 to discuss The Sexual Abuse of Children in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, a report issued by his office in July 2003. More...
SUMMER 2003
The Long Road to Justice: The African American Experience in the Massachusetts Courts, a traveling exhibit showing how Massachusetts courts shaped and were shaped by the African American experience, is on display at the Boston College Law Library from June 1 through October 10, 2003.
Long Road to Justice, sponsored by the Justice George Lewis Ruffin Society, Inc., is a multimedia journey through historical artifacts, photographs, and court records, highlighting prominent cases and figures from the past three centuries. The exhibit panels, courtroom relics and 15-minute loop video focus on three areas: slavery in the courts, equal education in the courts, and African Americans in the courts as judges, lawyers, litigants and jurors.
The exhibition is accompanied by a free Teacher's Guide for middle and high school classes. The guide was developed according to state curriculum guidelines by Primary Source, Inc. of Watertown, MA. It includes exercises and projects for students before, during and after visits to the exhibition. Teachers have found the Guide's content and use of primary sources to be effective in their classrooms, even if their students do not have the opportunity to see the exhibit. Free copies of the Teacher's Guide are available from Joy Elbaum, Project Administrator, at lrtj@attbi.com.
The Justice George L. Ruffin Society, a non-profit organization founded in 1984 in affiliation with the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University, promotes the advancement of minorities in criminal justice professions. Primary institutional support raised by the Ruffin Society for the exhibit came from: an anonymous foundation; Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities; the Massachusetts Bar Foundation; the Gardiner Howland Shaw Foundation; the Boston Bar Foundation; The Boston Foundation; and the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts. In addition, numerous individual and corporate contributors helped to finance the exhibition and associated outreach.
While there is no admission fee for the exhibition, we request that groups contact us prior to planning a visit so that our staff will be notified and scheduling conflicts minimized. To arrange for a group to attend the exhibit or if you have any questions contact Joan Shear at 617-552-2895 or joan.shear@bc.edu.
JULY 2003
Quest Library Catalog to be Re-indexed for Better Functionality.The Quest catalog, including Course Reserves, will be available for searching only through Wednesday July 9 so that the indexing capabilities of the online system can be upgraded.
Functionality such as Your Account and Request will not be available during this time. To request recall of materials or delivery from remote shelving facilities, visit or contact a circulation desk for assistance.
MAY 2003
- The law library welcomes Mary Ann Neary as its newest Legal Information Librarian and Lecturer in Law.
- In April, Associate Dean for Library and Computing Services Filippa Marullo Anzalone led a pre-conference institute on project management at the SEALL annual meeting in Lexington, Kentucky.
APRIL 2003
- Associate Dean for Library and Computing Services Filippa Marullo Anzalone has published an article entitled: "Got Projects? Try Managing Them ..." in the February 2003 issue of the AALL Spectrum, the monthly news magazine of the American Association of Law Libraries.
- New exhibit in the Daniel R. Coquillette Rare Book Room: "Our Anglo-American Legal Heritage" is on view through June 2003.
- Law Library Speaker Series
David Hammer, BCLS '95, singer/songwriter and assistant Manhattan district attorney, spoke and performed at the Law School on Monday April 7. Hammer is an assistant district attorney at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and a singer/songwriter. He spoke about his job as an ADA and accompanied himself on guitar on several of his own compositions as well as songs by the Dave Matthews Band and the Eagles.
WINTER 2003
LLNE
- Associate Dean of Library and Computing Services Filippa Marullo Anzalone and Legal Information Librarian Joan Shear spoke at the Fall 2002 Meeting of the Law Librarians of New England. Anzalone co-presented a program called "Teaching and Learning with Style: The Role of Learning Styles in Designing Educational Activities." Shear participated on a panel of librarians who discussed how to teach library users and staff.
Shepards
- Because of the increased cost of print publications, the law library has cancelled several sets of Shepards in print. The library is currently maintaining print subscriptions to several Shepards citators, including: Massachusetts Citations, Federal Citations, and many topical Shepards citators. If you need to verify a citation that is not covered by a citator to which the law library currently subscribes, both Lexis and Westlaw offer reasonable pay-as-you-go access to Shepards and KeyCite. Without a subscription, you can Shepardize (http://web.lexis.com/xchange/forms/uas/catalog.asp) on Lexis.com or KeyCite (http://creditcard.westlaw.com/welcome/frameless/default.wl) on Westlaw for $4.25/per citation. Please note that in order to use these products, you will have to enter a credit card number.