Vincent G. Rinn Law Library

DePaul Law Librarian Speaks At Wayne State Seminar

A previous posting on this blog reported that one of our reference Librarians and legal research instructors, Mark Giangrande, was invited to participate in a seminar at Wayne State University Law School, entitled “Getting Started – Switching Gears: Practical Advice for Attorneys in Transition.”

The seminar was well received and was a front page story In the Detroit Legal News,  "Switching gears - Seminar coaches lawyers on how to find jobs in tight economy"  by Cynthia Price . The focus of the program on providing advice for  finding employment in the very tough legal market , brought out over 50 attendees. In addition to the informative presentations by several speakers  and responses to questions,  each participant left with a CD with tips for establishing  an effective Web site quickly and a multi-page handout, “Career Transition Strategies and Resources,” which included 19 pages of internet resources.

Mark said he enjoyed being part of the seminar and would be willing to participate in future programs of this type. Given the depth of the economic crisis out there, they probably will be needed.

Library Catalog System Upgrade

DePaul's library catalog and the statewide I-Share catalog will be undergoing a system upgrade beginning 3AM on Sunday, 6/14, scheduled to be completed on or before Wednesday, 6/17.

During the upgrade:

Renewals/My Account: It will not be possible to access the My Account section of the catalog. Patrons needing to renew a book should call the circulation desk at 312.362.8121.

Book Requests: It will not be possible to place requests for books from Lincoln Park or from other I-Share libraries via the catalog. To request a book or article from another library during the upgrade period, please use the forms on the Interlibrary Loan page.

Book Status: Catalog records will be "frozen", and may not accurately reflect whether a book has been checked out or returned.

Staff Member Mark Giangrande on Panel at Wayne State Law School

Mark Giangrande, one of our reference librarians and legal research instructors, has been invited to the Wayne State University Law School, to be part of a panel on "Practical Advice for Attorneys in Transition", on June 20, 2009.

The presenters will address such issues as the significant changes in the legal job market, needed skills in applying for jobs, using search engine marketing for one's legal practice, research at the Wayne State Law Library. Mark will be addressing the use of technology for firm management and litigation support. These are applications that usually do not get much attention in the law school curriculum where the emphasis is on Lexis & Westlaw  for legal research and writing.

The importance of trying to provide law students and graduates with an awareness of these non-academic technological applications, is addressed in a 2008 article from the Albany Law Review     ( 71 Alb. L. Rev. 201 ). It is entitled, "Teaching law office management: why law students need to know the business of being a lawyer", by Debra Moss Curtis, an Associate Professor of Law at Shepard Broad Law Center, Nova Southeastern University. Professor Curtis makes the point that the practice of law is a business and not just the application of academic skills learned in school. In the introduction to her article she says:

"The practice of law is a business. But while focusing on teaching law students to "think like a lawyer," law schools often omit to tell students about the economic realities of surviving in practice. Lawyers are not necessarily interested in or trained as business people and thus comes the harsh reality--if most lawyers had wanted to be business people, they might have gone to business school instead. So for many law students, the realization that to earn a living as a lawyer, they also have to learn a business, can be very challenging."

Given the difficult economic environment that new law school  graduates are encountering, familiarity with such technologies should provide a competetive advantage in this tough market.

GPO Launches Federal Digital System ( FDsys)

A previous posting on this blog, New GPO "Future Digital System" Now In Beta, alerted users of online US government information about the testing of the new system intended to replace the previous online information service, GPO Access. Yesterday, GPO ( Government Printing Office) announced the official launch of the new knowledge management system, FDsys. Migration of content from GPO Access is still underway. See below for what is available now :

What's Available?

FDsys provides free online access to official Federal government publications. Through FDsys, you are able to

• Search for documents and publications
• Access metadata about documents and publications
• Download documents and publications in multiple renditions or file formats.

In many ways, using FDsys is similar to conducting a typical web search. When you enter a search query  FDsys will locate relevant information for you, just as if you were using any other search tool. After inputting your search terms, you will be provided with a list of relevant results, which can be narrowed down and filtered.

Currently, there are eight collections available in FDsys. Additional collections will be made available as they are migrated from GPO Access. The collections currently available are listed below.

• Compilation of Presidential Documents    • Congressional Bills
• Congressional Documents     • Congressional Hearings
• Congressional Record     • Congressional Reports
• Federal Register    • Public and Private Laws

More Online JSTOR Titles Available to DePaul Users

Alert from Bart Davis, Collection Development Assistant, DePaul University Libraries :

The DePaul University Libraries now subscribes to even more collections from JSTOR.  We now have access to all of the Arts & Sciences Collections (I-VI and the Complement), the Ireland Collection, the Biological Sciences Collection, and the Health & General Sciences Collection.  All in all, the JSTOR collections we now subscribe to have approximately three dozen Law journals that we thought you might be interested in knowing about.

[ most of these law journals are also available on HEINONLINE ]

You can browse these titles here.

Law Library Commemorates Lincoln

Associate Director Mary Lu Linnane has created a fascinating new display commemorating the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. The display centers on Lincoln's relationship with the Supreme Court and highlights several documents from our collection signed by a number of Lincoln's Supreme Court appointees including, Chief Justice Salmon Chase (1864-1873); Samuel Miller (1861-1890) and Noah Swayne (1862-1881). 

We also have signed documents from some famous members of the court who were not necessarily  supporters of Lincoln or the Union cause during the Civil War. Among them, Chief Justice Roger Taney (1836-1864) (noted for the infamous decision, Dred Scott v. Sandford) and John Archibald Campbell (1853-1861) who resigned from the Supreme Court to join the Confederacy. The display is on the 5th floor near the circulation desk.

 

 

 

 

College of Law Students: the Law Library wants to hear from you!

The 2009 Annual Survey on Library and Computing Services is now posted. DePaul Law students, please take a few moments to complete it.  The staff and administration of the Rinn Law Library is very interested in your opinion and feedback on library services.

Holiday Closing of DePaul Libraries

The DePaul Rinn Law Library & the DePaul University libraries will be closed from Dec. 23, 2008 through  January 01,2009. This is part of a university-wide closing policy. During this time facility repair & maintenance are  carried out. Mail is accepted & held for distribution, for when we reopen on January 2, 2009.

During this period, depository patrons can go to these nearby  federal depository libraries

Chicago Public Library Harold Washington Library Center, Chicago Illinois 400 South State Street,  Chicago, 312-747-4500

Illinois Institute of Technology - Chicago-Kent College, Downtown Campus Library Chicago Illinois 565 West Adams Street, Chicago, 312- 906-5600

Links to  selected government information web sites are provided as part of our "Internet Reference Project" under the heading "Federal Resources". These can be accessed from any computer connected to the internet.

Rinn Law Librarian Mark Giangrande a Contributing Author to New Elsevier Book On Explosives Detection

A new book from Elsevier entitled, "Aspects of Explosives Detection", edited by Maurice Marshall and Jimmie Oxley, is mostly a detailed and sophisticated technical text aimed at law enforcement and homeland security professionals. Most of the chapter contributors are  academic researchers, private company reps, along with input of staff from a couple government labs.

So one may wonder what the last chapter co-authored by Mark Giangrande and Gil Sapir, entitled,"Constitutional Aspects of Search and Seizure", is doing in this very technical collection. It is the longest chapter in the book. So one may assume that its presence is meant to provide the legal and constitutional context that the users of all this technology should be aware of, as they go about applying it in various real-life situations.

As the preface mentions, after several major terrorist attacks that highlighted the dangers of concealed explosives. New detection techniques and surveillance methodologies have been developed to confront these threats. But as one of the  basic principles of DePaul's own International Weapons Control Center , states "...lawyers have a crucial role to clarify and strengthen the legal rules pertaining to preventing catastrophic terrorism and proliferation, and, if prevention fails, responding to an attack. By joining the planning process, lawyers can help harmonize the pursuit of security with the preservation of civil liberties." It is in this spirit that we in the law school can especially appreciate, Mr. Giangrande's and Mr. Sapir's contribution to this collection.

Video Podcasts of Bar Skills Workshops,Now Available!

If you plan to take the Illinois bar exam this February and missed any of the recent Bar Skills Workshops conducted by Professor Alba, you can now view them at your convenience by clicking on the following link: https://itunes.depaul.edu/login.aspx. Log in with your CampusConnect username and password, then click on College of Law > Rinn Law Library > tab marked “Video.”

Watch Workshop 1 first to get an overview of the exam. Workshop 2 covers the essay portion of the exam, and Workshop 3 covers the multiple-choice portion. The podcast for Workshop 4 (which will be conducted this week – see below) will be posted next week. Each workshop video is divided into multiple segments. Handouts for all workshops are available for copying at the reserve desk in the Rinn Library.

( Source: College of Law Student Newsletter Oct. 31, 2008 )

Current Listing Law Library I-Tunes Videos