Category Archives: General

Staff Recommendation Corner: “Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies”

Guns-Germs-and-SteelTitle: Guns, Germs, and Steel : The Fates of Human Societies

Author: Jared Diamond

HM206 .D48 1997  (General Collection, 5th floor)

Reviewed by: Hadas Livnat

Review: In this Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Jared Diamond provides a fascinating insight into the geographical and environmental factors that influence information-sharing between societies, and consequently the development of technologies such as agriculture, writing and tools of war; ultimately leading, as Diamond illustrates, to the conquest of an entire Inca army by a few horse-mounted European soldiers.

5/5 stars

Farewell, Study Break & Parting Gifts

Farewell

Hi All, this will be my final post. I know that you will all be sad to see me go, as I am sad to leave my TJSL community, this beautiful building that I have been lucky enough to work in, and the learning centers that I have had so much fun teaching at. Tomorrow, Wednesday November 21st will be my last day here.

Study Break

If you need a study break this evening and you haven’t already left the area for Thanksgiving, please stop by the Sushi and Sake Lounge, Infuzon  at 550 Park Blvd. The owner and manager is hosting a farewell party for me starting at 7:30pm and I would love to say goodbye to whomever is able to drop by.

Parting Gifts

I have had a wonderful time here teaching you how to do legal research and now as I move on, I leave you in the capable hands of full-time Reference Librarian Marie Templo, and the rest of the Public Services Librarians.

We have been working hard on creating some more tutorials for you.

Our newest tutorials are available on the Legal Research Videos LibGuide and include:

Main image courtesy Dan Awesome’s Ragemaker ragemaker.net

New Legal Research Tutorials on how to Avoid Plagiarism

image courtesy http://ragemaker.net/

2012 Presidential Election Information

As the November 6th election date draws near, you may wish to look more closely at the articles written by serious investigative journalists. Below are some sources of election information beyond the usual suspects of Fox, NBC etc., which are in the business of entertainment rather than serious journalism.

For progressive or conservative alternative press, see this list of U.S. independent media sources from Ithaca College.

Library Highlights: Law & Politics

Race, Reform, and Regulation of the Electoral Process: Recurring Puzzles in American Democracy

Guy-Uriel E. Charles (Editor), Heather K. Gerken (Editor), Michael S. Kang

KF4891 .R33 2011

From the Publisher: This book offers a critical re-evaluation of three fundamental and interlocking themes in American democracy: the relationship between race and politics, the performance and reform of election systems, and the role of courts in regulating the political process. This edited volume features contributions from some of the leading voices in election law and social science.

Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election That Changed Everything for American Women

Rebecca Traister

JK276 2008 .T73 2010

From the Publisher: RebeccaTraister, whose coverage of the 2008 presidential election for Salon confirmed her to be a gifted cultural observer, offers a startling appraisal of what the campaign meant for all of us. Though the election didn’t give us our first woman president or vice president, the exhilarating campaign was nonetheless transformative for American women and for the nation. In Big Girls Don’t Cry, her electrifying, incisive and highly entertaining first book, Traister tells a terrific story and makes sense of a moment in American history that changed the country’s narrative in ways that no one anticipated.

America Votes!: A Guide to Modern Election Law and Voting Rights

Editor-Benjamin E. Griffith

KF4886 .A86 2008

From the Publisher: Provides a snapshot of America’s voting and electoral practices, problems, and most current issues. The book was edited and written by widely knowledgeable practitioners who explore a variety of fundamental areas concerning election law from a federal perspective such as:Lessons learned from the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, Meeting the demand of a growing language-minority voting populate, How the government, poll workers, political parties, and nonpartisan advocates can work together to ensure smooth election administration, Felon disenfranchisement, Voting technology and the law, etc..

The Battle Over Bilingual Ballots: Election Law, Politics, and Theory

James Thomas Tucker

KF4896.L56 T83 2009

From the Publisher: This book describes the evolution of the provisions, examining the evidence of educational and voting discrimination against language minorities covered by the Act. Additional chapters discuss the debate over the 2006 amendments to the Voting Rights Act, analysis of objections raised by opponents of bilingual ballots and some of the most controversial components of these requirements, including their constitutionality, cost and effectiveness. Featuring revealing case studies as well as analysis of key data, this volume makes a persuasive and much-needed case for bilingual ballots, presenting a thorough investigation of this significant and understudied area of election law and American political life.

The Supreme Court and Elections: The Supreme Court’s Power in American Politics

Charles Zelden

KF4886 .Z45 2010

From the Publisher: Taking a chronological approach to the topic, The Supreme Court and Elections explores the ways that the Court has struggled with these questions. From the earliest days of the Union when the Supreme Court refused to address the topic, to the early struggles with the Fourteenth Amendment’s impact on the question of who can vote, to the rise and fall of race-based disenfranchisement, to our recent issues of proper districting, campaign finance reform and the struggle to find a workable voting technology, the essay and documents in this reference illuminate the multifaceted nature of voting and election laws.

Showdown: The Inside Story of How Obama Fought Back Against Boehner, Cantor, and the Tea Party

David Corn

E908.3 .C67 2012

From the Publisher: Veteran journalist David CornWashington Bureau Chief for Mother Jones magazine and New York Times bestselling author of Hubris (with Michael Isikoff) and The Lies of George W. Bush now brings us, “Showdown”, the dramatic inside story of Barack Obamas fight to save his presidency.

October is LGBT History Month.

We have a new LGBT History Month Library Video Display on the 4th Floor Learning Center monitor, showcasing LGBT Legal Books available in the TJSL Library.

Here are some other valuable LGBT related legal resources:

Other  Resources

Welcome and Welcome Back!

Hello from the library. We would like to welcome the new 1Ls and welcome back our 2Ls and 3Ls. Click the image above to see a larger version.

Please view this presentation as a reminder of what is available to you in the library and whom to contact about research, jobs and general inquiries (Leigh Inman, Interim Director).

To help you along your path to success, this semester, we have new mini-classes for you. The schedule is shown below. Please sign-up for mini-classes on the Legal Research Training TWEN page. Click on the schedule below to see a larger version.

Image

Please be aware of our new noise policy. The noise map will show you where you can expect to find quiet study space (Tip: It’s towards the rear of the library on the 5th floor). Click on the noise map below to see a larger version.

Library Noise Level Map. 5th floor quiet, 4th floor noisy

Library Highlights: Law & Technology

I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did: Social Networks and the Death of Privacy
Lori Andrews
HM851 .A66 2011
From the Publisher: Social networks are the defining cultural movement of our time, empowering us in constantly evolving ways. We can all now be reporters, alerting the world to breaking news, participating in crowd-sourced scientific research, and helping the police solve crimes. Social networks have even helped to bring down governments, but they have also greatly accelerated the erosion of our personal privacy rights. As leading expert on social networks and privacy Lori Andrews shows through ground- breaking in-depth research and a host of stunning stories of abuses, as we work and chat and shop and date (and even sometimes have sex) over the Web, we are opening ourselves up to increasingly intrusive, relentless, and anonymous surveillance—by employers, schools, lawyers, the police, and aggressive data aggregator services that compile an astonishing amount of information about us and sell it to any and all takers. But the legal system cannot be counted on to protect us—in the thousands of cases brought to trial by those whose rights have been violated, judges have most often ruled against them. That is why in addition to providing the best expert advice about protecting ourselves, Andrews pro- poses that we must all become supporters of a Constitution for the Web, which she has drafted and introduces in this book. Now is the time to join her and take action—the very future of privacy is at stake.

Legal Aspects of Managing Technology
Lee B. Burgunder
KF1890.H53 B87 2011
From the Publisher: This book is designed for businesspersons working with technological innovations in any field, including business, management, computer science, engineering, architecture, biology, or law. It focuses on integral technology law topics with substantial attention paid to the wide range of controversial issues regarding intellectual property rights, and coverage of all other key topics such as e-commerce, privacy, antitrust, and biotechnology. Its goal is not to make readers legal experts; rather it is too allow managers to understand the fundamental legal issues pertinent to technology management so that they can competently create strategic plans in consultation with their attorneys.

That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back
Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum
BF408 .F747 2011
From the Publisher: In That Used to Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman, one of our most influential columnists, and Michael Mandelbaum, one of our leading foreign policy thinkers, offer both a wake-up call and a call to collective action. They analyze the four challenges we face—globalization, the revolution in in- formation technology, the nation’s chronic deficits, and our pattern of excessive energy consumption— and spell out what we need to do now to sustain the American dream and preserve American power in the world. They explain how the end of the Cold War blinded the nation to the need to address these issues seriously, and how China’s educational successes, industrial might, and technological prowess remind us of the ways in which “that used to be us.” They explain how the paralysis of our political sys- tem and the erosion of key American values have made it impossible for us to carry out the policies the country urgently needs.

The Real ID Act: Privacy and Government Surveillance
William Eyre
KF4791 .E97 2011
From the Publisher: Civil society in the United States in the 21st century has seen the abandonment of American concepts of individual freedom, privacy, expression and autonomy. Eyre ex- amines the Real ID Act in this context, as an example of laws passed since September 2001 restricting civil liberties. The Real ID Act facilitates the current and future surveillance regime. Real IDs and the database(s) to which they are linked represent a de facto national ID system facilitating monitoring citizens’ movements, speech and political activities when fully operational. The Real ID Act is examined as an unfunded mandate and vehicle for unconstitutional abridgement of First Amendment guarantees including political expression.

Computer Games and Virtual Worlds: a New Frontier in Intellectual Property Law
Ross A. Dannenberg … [et al.], editors.
KF3024.C6 C625 2010
From the Publisher: As the uses and ubiquity of video games and virtual worlds expand, the legal issues they raise grow more complex and commonplace. These issues include the traditional areas of intellectual property law, namely, copyright, trademark, patent and trade secrets, as affected by contractual issues arising from the end user licensing agreements (EULA) and terms of service (ToS) promulgated by each video game and virtual world proprietor. This book explores and discusses how to obtain these traditional rights in the non-traditional settings of video game and virtual world environments, and serves as a primer for legal practitioners researching these emerging legal issues. Each chapter addresses, in order, end user license agreements, copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets, as addressed by U.S. law. The book also includes a commentary on international legal issues stemming from the multi-national user-base and foreign operation of many virtual worlds.

Principles of Cybercrime
Jonathan Clough, Monash University, Victoria
K5215 .C58 2010
From the Publisher: We live in a digital age. The proliferation of digital technology, and the convergence of computing and communication devices, has transformed the way in which we socialize and do business. While overwhelmingly positive, there has also been a dark side to these developments. Proving the maxim that crime follows opportunity, virtually every advance has been accompanied by a corresponding niche to be exploited for criminal purposes; so-called ‘cybercrimes’. Whether it be fraud, child pornography, stalking, criminal copyright infringement or attacks on computers themselves, criminals will find ways to exploit new technology. The challenge for all countries is to ensure their criminal laws keep pace. The challenge is a global one, and much can be learned from the experience of other jurisdictions. Focusing on Australia, Canada, the UK and the US, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the legal principles that apply to the prosecution of cybercrimes.

Study Break: Law Student Humor

image under Creative Commons License Courtesy gruntzooki on Flikr

By now, you’ve probably heard more than your share of lawyer jokes. One famous one is “What do you call 1000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?”

“A good start.”

This summer you will probably be doing a lot of networking and it would be great if you had a few jokes of your own.

More than that, I know many of you are studying for finals, and sometimes you just need a break. So in the interest of helping you destress, I have created for you a research guide to legal humor.

If you know of something that you think should be added to the guide let me know, I’ll be happy to add it.

Also, you can rate the links, let me know what you think is funny.

Enjoy!

Shhhhh……


Photo Courtesy fiverlocker. Creative Commons License

As we draw closer to finals, it becomes more important to be considerate of your fellow students in the library.
Please remember to take your cell phone into the copy room and shut the door if you would like to have a phone conversation.

Although the LLM Taxation Program Staff will sometimes be talking loudly on phones in their work area outside of the LLM office on the 4th floor, this does not mean that students should use this area to speak on their phones. It means only that students studying in this area may occasionally hear staff talking loudly in order to accomplish their work duties.

Students in this area should not exacerbate this occasional interruption of the quiet atmosphere by speaking on their cell phones.

Please be aware that for the next few weeks in particular, your participation in creating as quiet an atmosphere as possible is essential.

Your fellow students will appreciate your considerate behavior.

 

Good Luck with finals!.