Library Highlights: Entertainment & the Law

Dealmaking in the Film & Television Industry: From Negotiations to Final Contracts
Mark Litwak
KF4290 .L58 2009
From the Publisher: Dealmaking—the popular, award-winning “self-defense” book for everyone working in the film and television industry—is now updated to include the latest legal rulings and entertainment technology developments. Addressing a general, non-attorney readership, it is a fascinating, highly accessible guide to current entertainment law’s peculiarities, “creative” practices, and practical applications.

The Miracle Case: Film Censorship and the Supreme Court
Laura Wittern-Keller and Raymond J. Haberski Jr.
KF4300 .W58 2008
From the Publisher: It was only a forty-minute foreign film, but it sparked a legal confrontation that has left its mark on America for more than half a century. Roberto Rossellini’s Il Miracolo (The Miracle) is deceptively simple: a demented peasant woman is seduced by a stranger she believes to be Saint Joseph, is socially ostracized for becoming pregnant out of wedlock, but is finally redeemed through motherhood. Although initially approved by state censors for screening in New York, the film was attacked as sacrilegious by the Catholic establishment, which convinced state officials to revoke distributor Joseph Burstyn’s license. In response, Burstyn fought back through the courts and won.

Laura Wittern-Keller and Raymond Haberski show how the Supreme Court’s unanimous 1952 ruling in Burstyn’s favor sparked a chain of litigation that eventually brought filmmaking under the protective umbrella of the First Amendment, overturning its long-outdated decision in Mutual v. Ohio (1915).

. . . More than the inside story of one case, this book explores the unique place that the movies occupy in American culture and the way that culture continues to be shaped by anxiety over the social power of movies. The Burstyn decision weakened the ability of state censorship boards and the Catholic Church to influence the types of films Americans were allowed to see. Consequently, the case signaled the rise of a new era in which films would be more mature and more controversial than ever before. Focusing on this single most important case in the jurisprudence surrounding motion picture expression, Wittern-Keller and Haberski add a significant new dimension to the story of cinema, censorship, and the history of First Amendment protections.

Music and Copyright
Ronald S. Rosen
KF3035 .R67 2008
From the Publisher: The highly topical area of copyright law, as applied to music, is widely misunderstood by lawyers, business people, and – perhaps most seriously – the federal judiciary. More than ever, there is a need to understand music infringement issues within the context of copyright litigation. In Music and Copyright, Ron Rosen provides readers with a practical and strategic roadmap to the music infringement litigation process, beginning with the client’s claim or defense and continuing through the selection and use of trial experts, discovery, motion practice, and trial.

Renowned for his expertise and career-long commitment to entertainment, intellectual property, and commercial litigation, Ron Rosen has condensed his experience into an essential guide for anyone involved in music-infringement litigation. Packed with elucidating examples from the author’s own practice, Music and Copyright navigates the often thorny terrain between notions of the legal and the musical providing practical advice, case studies, forms, and commentary along the way.

Entertainment Law & Business: A Guide to the Law and Business Practices of the Entertainment Industry
Jay Shanker, David E. Guinn, and Harold Orenstein
KF4290 .S53 2008
From the Publisher: Entertainment Law and Business is a handy resource for both the experienced and novice practitioner. It provides a broad survey of the entire industry and creative rights laws. It includes incisive summaries of all of the important areas of creative rights law: copyrights, the protection of ideas, trademark, publicity and privacy, and the major international treaties. It also provides an overview of all the major fields of entertainment (and related fields of interest for entertainment practitioners) along with illustrative agreements.

This is not an esoteric academic treatise. The book aims to aid the practitioner in the practical aspects of entertainment. Hence, the authors have attempted to highlight the key features of the major agreements in each field. They provide insights not only into what the individual provisions of the agreement attempts to regulate, but also the concerns that lie behind those provisions. They point to the types of negotiating strategies important in each agreement, passing on their experience to the practitioner.

Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to State Film Censorship, 1915-1981
Laura Wittern-Keller
PN1995.62 .W58 2008
From the Publisher: At the turn of the twentieth century, the proliferation of movies attracted not only the attention of audiences across America but also the apprehensive eyes of government officials and special interest groups concerned about the messages disseminated by the silver screen. Between 1907 and 1926, seven states-New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Kansas, Maryland, and Massachusetts-and more than one hundred cities authorized censors to suppress all images and messages considered inappropriate for American audiences […].

[S]ome industry outsiders, independent distributors who believed that movies deserved the free speech protections of the First Amendment, brought legal challenges to censorship at the state and local levels. Freedom of the Screen chronicles both the evolution of judicial attitudes toward film restriction and the plight of the individuals who fought for the right to deliver provocative and relevant movies to American audiences. As the fight against censorship progressed case by case through state courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, legal authorities and the public responded, growing increasingly sympathetic toward artistic freedom. Because a small, unorganized group of independent film distributors and exhibitors in midtwentieth-century America fought back against what they believed was the unconstitutional prior restraint of motion pictures, film after 1965 was able to follow a new path, maturing into an artistic medium for the communication of ideas, however controversial. Government censors would no longer control the content of America’s movie screens.

Music, Money, and Success: The Insider’s Guide to Making Money in the Music Business
Jeffrey Brabec & Todd Brabec
R673 ML3790 .B72 2008
From the Publisher: Songwriting, licensing, contracts, film & tv, composing, the internet, Broadway, recording and music publishing is a business. This book tells you how the business works… What you must know to succeed… and how much money you can make. The Brabecs, are former recording artists, entertainment lawyers, and legal services attorneys.

Library Highlights: Law & Economics

The Economic Approach to Law
Thomas J. Miceli
K487.E3 M528 2009
From the Publisher: [This book] provides an introductory treatment of law and economics, revealing how economic principles explain the structure of the law, and how they can help make the law more efficient. To that end, the author focuses on unifying themes in the field—rather than exhaustively covering legal topics—and thus provides a more analytical treatment of the subject. The second edition includes current research into the economics of common law areas, such as torts, contracts, and property law. The revised text also offers a new chapter that explores how economics can be applied to anti-trust law, as well as added material on intellectual property. This edition features an expanded suite of exercises and problems at the end of each chapter to encourage students to “do” law and economics.

Theoretical Foundations of Law and Economics
edited by Mark D. White
K487.E3 T48 2009
From the Publisher: The economic approach to law, or ‘law and economics’, is by far the most successful application of basic economic principles to another scholarly field, but most of the critical appraisal of the field has been scattered among law reviews and economics journals. Theoretical Foundations of Law and Economics is the first original, book-length examination of the methodology and philosophy of law and economics, featuring new essays written by leading legal scholars, philosophers, and economists. The contributors take issue with many of the key tenets of the economic approach to law, such as its assumption of rational behavior, its reliance on market analogies, and its adoption of efficiency as the primary goal of legal decision-making. They discuss the relevance of economics to the law in general, as well as to substantive areas of the law, such as contracts, torts, and crime.

The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008
Paul Krugman
HB3716 .K77 2009
From the Publisher: Our newest Nobel Prize-winning economist shows how today’s crisis parallels the events that caused the Great Depression—and explains what it will take to avoid catastrophe. In 1999, in The Return of Depression Economics, Paul Krugman surveyed the economic crises that had swept across Asia and Latin America, and pointed out that those crises were a warning for all of us: like diseases that have become resistant to antibiotics, the economic maladies that caused the Great Depression were making a comeback. In the years that followed, as Wall Street boomed and financial wheeler-dealers made vast profits, the international crises of the 1990s faded from memory. But now depression economics has come to America: when the great housing bubble of the mid-2000s burst, the U.S. financial system proved as vulnerable as those of developing countries caught up in earlier crises and a replay of the 1930s seems all too possible.

In this new, greatly updated edition of [this book], Krugman shows how the failure of regulation to keep pace with an increasingly out-of-control financial system set the United States, and the world as a whole, up for the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s. He also lays out the steps that must be taken to contain the crisis, and turn around a world economy sliding into a deep recession. Brilliantly crafted in Krugman’s trademark style–lucid, lively, and supremely informed–this new edition of The Return of Depression Economics will become an instant cornerstone of the debate over how to respond to the crisis.

Capacitas: Contract Law and the Institutional Preconditions of a Market Economy
edited by Simon Deakin and Alain Supiot
K840 .C36 2009
From the Publisher: One of the principal tasks for legal research at the beginning of the 21st century is to reconstruct the understanding of the relationship between the legal system and the market order. After almost three decades of deregulation driven by a belief in the self-equilibrating properties of the market, the financial crisis of 2008 has reminded everyone of the fundamental truth that markets have legal and institutional foundations, without which they cannot effectively function. The chapters in the present volume are the result of work by a group of legal scholars which began in the mid-2000s, at a time when the shortcomings of deregulatory policies were becoming clear in a number of contexts. The chapters address the question of how the language of contract law describes or conceptualises the market order and the relationship of the law to it. The perspectives taken are, in turn, historical, comparative, and contextspecific.

The focus of the book is on a foundational idea, the concept of capacitas, which signifies a status conferred upon citizens for the purpose of enabling them to participate in the economic life of the polity. In modern legal systems, ‘capacity’ is the principal juridical mechanism by which individuals and entities are empowered to enter into legally binding agreements and, more generally, to arrange their affairs using the instruments of private law. Legal capacity is thereby the gateway to involvement in the operations of a market economy.

Meltdown: A Free-market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts will Make Things Worse
Thomas E. Woods Jr.
HB3722 .W66 2009
From the Publisher: The media tells us that “deregulation” and “unfettered free markets” have wrecked our economy and will continue to make things worse without a heavy dose of federal regulation. But the real blame lies elsewhere. In Meltdown, bestselling author Thomas E. Woods Jr. unearths the real causes behind the collapse of housing values and the stock market—and it turns out the culprits reside more in Washington than on Wall Street. And the trillions of dollars in federal bailouts? Our politicians’ ham-handed attempts to fix the problems they themselves created will only make things much worse. Woods, a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and winner of the 2006 Templeton Enterprise Award, busts the media myths and government spin. He explains how government intervention in the economy—from the Democratic hobby horse called Fannie Mae to affirmative action programs like the Community Redevelopment Act—actually caused the housing bubble. Most important, Woods, author of the New York Times bestseller The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to American History, traces this most recent boom-and-bust—and all such booms and busts of the past century—back to one of the most revered government institutions of all: the Federal Reserve System, which allows busy-body bureaucrats and ambitious politicians to pull the strings of our financial sector and manipulate the value of the very money we use. Meltdown also provides a timely history lesson to counter the current clamor for a new New Deal. The Great Depression, Woods demonstrates, was only as deep and as long as it was because of the government interventions by Herbert Hoover (no free-market capitalist, despite what your high school history teacher may have taught you) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (no savior of the American economy, in spite of what the mainstream media says). If you want to understand what caused the financial meltdown—and why none of the big-government solutions being tried today will work—Meltdown explains it all.

Global Legal Studies — Recent Acquisitions

Adjudicating Climate Change: State, National, and International Approaches
edited by William C.G. Burns, Hari M. Osofsky
K3593 .A93 2009 (New Book Shelf)
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The Confluence of Public and Private International Law: Justice, Pluralism and Subsidiarity in the International Constitutional Ordering of Private Law
Alex Mills
K7040 .M55 2009
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Evidence before the International Court of Justice
Anna Riddell and Brendan Plant
KZ6287 .R53 2009
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Frederick William Maitland and the History of English Law
James R. Cameron
KD626 .C35 1961
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Global Standards–Local Action: 15 Years Vienna World Conference on Human Rights: Conference Proceedings of the International Expert Conference held in Vienna on 28 and 29 August 2008
edited by Wolfgang Bendek et al.
K3239.8 .G56 2009
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Human Rights as Indivisible Rights: The Protection of Socio-economic Demands under the European Convention on Human Rights
Ida Elisabeth Koch
KJC5132 .K63 2009
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International Children’s Rights
Sara Dillon
K639 .D555 2010
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Justifying International Acts
Lea Brilmayer
KZ3110.B75 A33 1989
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Means to an End: U.S. Interest in the International Criminal Court
Lee Feinstein, Tod Lindberg
KZ6311 .F45 2009
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The Protection of Ambient Air in International and European Law
edited by Harry Post
K3593 .P75 2009
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Public Law and Democracy in the United Kingdom and the United States of America
P.P. Craig
K3150 .C73 1990
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The Treatment of Prisoners under International Law
Nigel Rodley with Matt Pollard
K5519 .R63 2009
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U.S. Customs: A Practitioner’s Guide to Principles, Processes, and Procedures
editors, Michael D. Sherman, J. Steven Jarreau, John B. Brew
KF6694 .U15 2009 (New Book Shelf)
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Bill of Rights Day

Bill of Rights Day first became a federal day of observance on November 27th, 1941 when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt designated December 15th as a “day to be remembered and observed by those institutions of a democratic people which owe their very existence to the guarantees of the Bill of Rights.” On that day in 1791, the first Congress of the United States ratified the Bill of Rights, a document which spelled out some of the essential freedoms and rights of individual citizens of the United States as the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution.

Come by the Library lobby to check out our display of Library books and videos highlighting the importance of our Bill of Rights.

Library Highlights: Children and the Law

Confronting Cyber-bullying:What Schools Need to Know to Control Misconduct and Avoid Legal Consequences
Shaheen Shariff
K5210 .S53 2009
From the Publisher: This book is directed to academics, educators, and government policy-makers who are concerned about addressing emerging cyber-bullying and anti-authority student expressions through the use of cell phone and Internet technologies. There is a current policy vacuum relating to the extent of educators’ legal responsibilities to intervene when such expression takes place outside of school hours and school grounds on home computers and personal cell phones. Students, teachers, and school officials are often targets of such expression. The author analyzes government and school responses by reviewing positivist paradigms. Her review of a range of legal frameworks and judicial decisions from constitutional, human rights, child protection, and tort law perspectives redirects attention to legally substantive and pluralistic approaches that can help schools balance student free expression, supervision, safety, and learning.

The Law of Schools, Students, and Teachers in a Nutshell
Kern Alexander, M. David Alexander
KF4119.85 .A43 2009
From the Publisher: This text captures the key points of the precedents governing student rights and responsibilities relating to attendance, speech, expression, religion, discipline, grades, tests, drugs, search and seizure, and the range of procedural due process interests. It further addresses the range of constitutional rights and protections for teachers as well as employment terms and conditions, including contracts, tenure, and potential liabilities.

 

Children in the Courtroom: Challenges for Lawyers and Judges
Sherrie Bourg Carter
KF9673 .B68 2009
From the Publisher: In [this book], Sherrie Bourg Carter provides attorneys and judges with the critical information they need to properly review and handle cases involving child witnesses. Through a detailed discussion of the complicated legal, investigative, and developmental problems that are commonly encountered when children are involved in the legal system, Bourg Carter offers practical guidance to help legal professionals maneuver the often thorny landscape of using child witnesses in litigation. In an easy-to-read format, this book covers common legal arguments that arise with child witnesses, proper and improper child interview methods, legally relevant child developmental issues, and helpful procedures when children testify in the courtroom.

Chock full of new material, the second edition includes new sections on working with disabled child witnesses, taint, multiple incident cases, multiple victims cases, recantation, vertical prosecution, and child assessment centers. Bourg Carter delivers two new chapters—one devoted exclusively to improper interview techniques and the other outlining specific strategies for questioning a child witness. In addition, practitioners will find updated coverage of competence to testify; availability and hearsay; and reviews of case law related to Crawford v. Washington and Davis v. Washington.

What is Right for Children?: The Competing Paradigms of Religion and Human Rights
edited by Martha Albertson Fineman and Karen Worthington
KF4783 .W43 2009
From the Publisher: Combining feminist legal theory with international human rights concepts, this book examines the presence, participation and treatment of children in a variety of contexts. Specifically, through comparing legal developments in the US with legal developments in countries where the views that children are separate from their families and potentially in need of state protection are more widely accepted. The authors address the role of religion in shaping attitudes about parental rights in the US, with particular emphasis upon the fundamentalist belief in natural lines of familial authority. Such beliefs have provoked powerful resistance in the US to human rights approaches that view the child as an independent rights holder and the state as obligated to proved services and protections that are distinctly child-centred. Calling for a rebalancing of relationships within the US family, to become more consistent with emerging human rights norms, this collection contains both theoretical debates about and practical approaches to granting positive rights to children.

Understanding Juvenile Law
Martin R. Gardner
KF9780 .G37 2009
From the Publisher: This Understanding treatise discusses the various bodies of law in relation to a fundamental issue permeating the entire field of juvenile law: the extent to which the law should protect young people rather than recognize them as autonomous persons. While the law traditionally adopted a protectionist posture, recent legal developments appear to recognize autonomy rights of adolescents in certain contexts. These developments are praised by some commentators who advocate wholesale rejection of the paternalistic model in favor of a system that treats adolescents as full-fledged persons under the law. This book does not advocate any particular resolution of the current debate about the nature of the rights of young people; rather, it suggests that sensitivity to the issues and arguments entailed in that debate is essential to any true understanding of the present state of juvenile law [...].

Children in the Legal System: Cases and Materials
Samuel M. Davis … [et al.].
KF479 .C46 2009
From the Publisher: The new 4th edition has been thoroughly updated with the latest and best cases and statutory references. It includes references to the most recent scholarly articles, books and other publications. It also includes coverage of some recent Supreme Court decisions such as: Morse v. Frederick (the BONG HITS 4 JESUS student free expression case), Roper v. Simmons (the juvenile death penalty case). Davis v. Washington and Hammon v. Indiana (clarifying the meaning of “testimonial” in the Court’s earlier decision in Crawford v. Washington addressing Confrontation Clause issues with respect to statements made to police).

This book is distinguished by its breadth of coverage and degree of flexibility in teaching. It deals with every aspect of how the law relates to minors, from free expression in school and other school-related issues to child custody, to private law (e.g., torts and contracts), to the juvenile justice system (i.e., delinquency and the operation of criminal justice principles to juvenile justice), to abuse and neglect (including medical neglect), to termination of parental rights, to foster care, to adoption, to the status of children as children (i.e., children’s “rights”). For that reason, the book lends itself to use in any number of courses that might be styled “Juvenile Law,” or “Juvenile Justice,” or “Juvenile and Family Law,” or, indeed, “Children in the Legal System” or some other similar designation. As mentioned below, the flexibility of the book lends itself to varying numbers of credit hours [...].

Library Tries AskThom Virtual Reference

Have you ever wished you could ask a reference question in real time and from where you are studying? Maybe you just can’t find where to find the conversion table in the Federal Practice Digest or you can’t figure out what a treatise is. Or perhaps that draft of your course paper is coming due and you can’t find the relevant subject materials. Our new virtual reference/chat service, AskThom, should be helpful to everyone – from those of you currently in legal writing class to those who are taking upper level paper classes.

Until the link to AskThom is placed on the library homepage, you can access it by clicking on the following link. You may type your question at the very bottom of the screen, in the box below the heading “Type here to chat. Press ENTER to send.”

The URL to AskThom is: http://refchatter.net/chat/tjslref@chat.refchatter.net. AskThom will be available on Monday through Friday, from 9 am to 6 pm. At other times, feel free to e-mail Jane or Patrick.

Library Highlights — Legal Biography

“Whereas the law is passionless, passion must ever sway the heart of man.”

– Aristotle

Federal Judges Revealed
William Domnarski
KF372 .D66 2009
From the Publisher: The power and influence of the federal judiciary has been widely discussed and understood. And while there have been a fair number of institutional studies-studies of individual district courts or courts of appeal–there have been very few studies of the judiciary that emphasize the judges themselves. Federal Judges Revealed considers approximately one hundred oral histories of Article Three judges, extracting the most important information, and organizing it around a series of presented topics such as “How judges write their opinions” and “What judges believe make a good lawyer.”

Louis D. Brandeis: A Life
Melvin I. Urofsky
KF8745.B67 U749 2009
From the Publisher: Louis Dembitz Brandeis had at least four “careers.” As a lawyer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he pioneered how modern law is practiced. He, and others, developed the modern law firm, in which specialists manage different areas of the law. He was the author of the right to privacy; led the way in creating the role of the lawyer as counselor; and pioneered the idea of pro bono publico work by attorneys. As late as 1916, when Brandeis was nominated to the Supreme Court, the idea of pro bono service still struck many old-time attorneys as somewhat radical.

Between 1895 and 1916, when Woodrow Wilson named Brandeis to the Supreme Court, he ranked as one of the nation’s leading progressive reformers. Brandeis invented savings bank life insurance in Massachusetts (he considered it his most important contribution to the public weal) and was a driving force in the development of the Federal Reserve Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, and the law establishing the Federal Trade Commission.

[…] Brandeis as an economist and moralist warned in 1914 that banking and stock brokering must be separate, and twenty years later, during the New Deal, his recommendation was finally enacted into law (the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933) but was undone by Ronald Reagan, which led to the savings-and-loan crisis in the 1980s and the world financial collapse of 2008.
We see the brutal six-month confirmation battle after Wilson named the fifty-nine-year-old Brandeis to the court in 1916; the bitter fight between progressives and conservative leaders of the bar, finance, and manufacturing, who, while never directly attacking him as a Jew, described Brandeis as “a striver,” “selfadvertiser,” “a disturbing element in any gentleman’s club.” Even the president of Harvard, A. Lawrence Lowell, signed a petition accusing Brandeis of lacking “judicial temperament.” And we see, finally, how, during his twenty-three years on the court, this giant of a man and an intellect developed the modern jurisprudence of free speech, the doctrine of a constitutionally protected right to privacy, and suggested what became known as the doctrine of incorporation, by which the Bill of Rights came to apply to the states.

Brandeis took his seat when the old classical jurisprudence still held sway, and he tried to teach both his colleagues and the public– especially the law schools–that the law had to change to keep up with the economy and society. Brandeis often said, “My faith in time is great.” Eventually the Supreme Court adopted every one of his dissents as the correct constitutional interpretation. A huge and galvanizing biography, a revelation of one man’s effect on American society and jurisprudence, and the electrifying story of his time.

Harry A. Blackmun: The Outsider Justice
Tinsley E. Yarbrough
KF8745.B555 Y37 2008
From the Publisher: Harry A. Blackmun: The Outsider Justice is Tinsley E. Yarbrough’s penetrating account of one of the most outspoken and complicated figures on the Supreme Court. As a justice, Blackmun stood at the pinnacle of the American judiciary. Yet when he took his seat on the Court, Justice Blackmun felt “almost desperate,” overwhelmed with feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy over the immense responsibilities before him. Blackmun had overcome humble roots to achieve a Harvard education, success as a Minneapolis lawyer and resident counsel to the prestigious Mayo Clinic, as well as a distinguished record on the Eighth Circuit federal appeals court. But growing up in a financially unstable home with a frequently unemployed father and an emotionally fragile mother left a permanent mark on the future justice.

All his life, Harry Blackmun considered himself one of society’s outsiders, someone who did not “belong. Remarkably, though, that very self-image instilled in the justice, throughout his career, a deep empathy for society’s most vulnerable outsiders–women faced with unwanted pregnancies, homosexuals subjected to archaic laws, and ultimately, death-row inmates. To those who saw his career as the constitutional odyssey of a conservative jurist gradually transformed into a champion of the underdog, Blackmun had a ready answer: he had not changed; the Court and the issues before them changed. The justice’s identification with the marginalized members of society arguably provides the overarching key to that consistency.

Sonia Sotomayor:An Introduction to the Prospective Supreme Court Justice
Margarita Amador
KF8745.S68 A437 2009
From the Publisher: Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Bronx-born Puerto Rican is an embodiment of the American Dream, working hard since childhood to rise from poverty to wealth and influence. With a strong Democratic majority in the Senate, she should easily be confirmed. So, who is the woman well-positioned to become the next Supreme Court Justice? Where did she come from and how did she reach this point in her career? Most importantly, what does she believe, and what might Americans expect from her as a judge? Sonia Sotomayor: An Introduction to the Prospective Supreme Court Justice is an overview of her inspiring life story, a record of some of her major decisions as a judge, and a brief sample of the dramatic controversy which has accompanied her nomination.

Yes We Can: A Biography of Barack Obama
Garen Thomas
E901.1.O23 T46 2008
From the Publisher: In third grade, Barack Obama wrote an essay titled, “I Want to Become President”— and he is, to this day, determined to show the world that, yes, he can. Born in the U.S.A., the son of an African father and an American mother, a boy who spent his childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii, Barack Obama is truly a citizen of the world. His campaign for the presidency is powered by a fierce optimism, an exuberant sense of purpose and determination, and, above all, a belief that change can happen.
Garen Thomas takes us through the life of Barack Obama, from his struggle to fit in with his classmates and concern about not knowing his biological father, through his term as Illinois senator, to his historic and momentum-building run for president of the United States. Barack Obama is a man who uses his words to inspire us. We can have a better future. We can be whatever we want to be. Yes. We. Can.

Library Lines — Oct. 2009

Library Lines

Oct. 2009 – vol. 5, no. 2

Good Luck on Midterms!

This issue is dedicated to helping you succeed on your midterms. We hope that you find this issue to be of use. Good luck!

Prepare for Midterms: Study Aids and Course Reserve Materials

The Study Aids section is located just past the reference librarian office on the first floor. This section is comprised of what your fellow students feel are the most    useful study aid materials. Consult our study guide key to determine which series of materials includes multiple choice and essay questions, subject outlines and  topical narration. As a means keeping these materials available to our whole       student body, the check out period for all materials in this section is limited to 48 hours. So please be cognizant of the due date.

We purchase copies of your required and optional course books and place them behind the circulation desk in the course reserves section. This section  exists to benefit every class member, so the check out time is limited to three hours. Just ask at the circulation desk for the book by title and by course name.

Virtual Reference Coming Next Week!

Starting next week, look for AskThom, our virtual chat service, which will allow you to ask live reference questions from wherever you are. Look for the link on the library homepage. Throughout this trial period, we’ll assess the efficacy of this service in order to determine if it’ll be permanent.

Study Rooms in Demand: Steps To Secure Your Reservation

The group study rooms on the second floor are in particular demand during midterms and finals. In order for your reservation to go smoothly, please be sure that you check in at the circulation desk and leave your TJSL ID. Also please be sure to check out at the desk so the study room key will be available for the next student.

These popular rooms are available for same day use. You may reserve a room for two hours either in person at the circulation desk, or by phone at 619-297-9700 x1100. Only same day    reservations are available. Because these rooms are in high demand, we must adhere to the 10 minute rule. So please show up promptly or after 10 minutes we will release the reservation.

Sample Chairs for New Building Going Soon. Input Needed

The sample chairs under consideration for the new building will soon be  returned. Come by and try them out at the round tables on the first floor of the library, just outside the copier room. TJSL values your opinion, so take this opportunity to help make your new school a more pleasant and engaging learning environment. Please be sure to review the chair selection and then provide your feedback.

Writing a Paper? Find Updates On Your Topic

You may find updates on the library blog, ThomChat, which focuses on technology and legal developments. Recent posts have focused on the Americans with Disabilities Act, the practice of law, freedom of information, and law firm legal research requirements.

You’ll also find current news on a compilation of sundry legal topics at the  Current News/Recent Cases RSS page. Just click onto your topic from the left side table of contents and multiple subject-specific RSS feeds will populate the right side of the screen. It’s a great way to keep updated on your paper topic.

New Self Help Section

We’ve created a new section near the reference librarian offices for those who need to tackle real life legal situations. Perhaps you have an issue with your    landlord, or you’re not quite sure how to answer that legal question from your relative. Or maybe you want to know how to set up your side business. This      section, located along side the Study Aids section, is primarily comprised of the popular Nolo Press books.

October is LGBT  History Month

This annual observance celebrates lesbian, gay, bisexual and  transgender history as well as the history of the gay rights and related civil rights movements. LGBT History Month is intended to encourage    honesty and openness about being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Check out our display of library materials celebrating this history over the last 40 years.

October is LGBT History Month

LGBT History Month is a month-long annual observance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history, and the history of the gay rights and related civil rights movements. It is observed during October in the United States, to include National Coming Out Day on October 11.

LGBT History Month originated in the United States and was first celebrated in 1994. It was founded by Missouri high-school history teacher Rodney Wilson. Among early supporters and members of the first coordinating committee were Kevin Jennings of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN); Kevin Boyer of Gerber/Hart Gay and Lesbian Library and Archives in Chicago; Paul Varnell, writer for the Windy City Times; Torey Wilson, Chicago area teacher; Johnda Boyce, women’s studies major at Columbus State University and Jessea Greenman of UC-Berkeley. Many gay and lesbian organizations supported the concept early on.

October also commemorates the first march on Washington by LGBT people in 1979. LGBT History Month is intended to encourage honesty and openness about being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

Come by the Library Lobby and check out our display of library materials celebrating the history of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community over the last 40 years.

Research As Conducted in Law Firms

The popular show The Law Librarian, which plays on Internet radio station blogtalkradio, recently conducted an interview with several law firms on research techniques and sources commonly used on the job. Both small and larger firms were represented in the show. Firm representatives discuss the use of secondary sources, indexes, statutes and case law, as well as the benefits and deficiencies of various formats and sources. Conclusions drawn reflect recent published research on law firm research requirements, and correspond to my observations as well. If you want to hear how you’re expected to research in the law firm setting, I suggest listening to the show, titled What’s Real in the Real World, at:  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thelawlibrarian/blog/2009/09.