Temperatures in the library and law school over the weekends

Some of you have asked about temperatures in the law school and library over the weekends. We have had our temperature controls rechecked, and thanks in large part to Gary Moore, Assistant Dean for Law School Information Systems extraordinaire, this problem should be fixed shortly. (Thanks, Dean Moore!) If you continue to notice problems, please let us know.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

NewsReaders and RSS/Atom Feeds

For those of you avid blog readers who follow your favorite blogs and news sites using news aggregators or newsreaders with RSS/Atom feeds, I have added an Site Feed link at the bottom of the Previous Posts box. Thanks for the suggestion. FYI, this is an Atom formatted site feed, which is the supported format for this blog. Copy and paste the following URL into your News aggregators - http://deanelawlibrary.blogspot.com/atom.xml

For those of you who are unfamiliar but would like to know about RSS/Atom feeds and news readers or aggregators, let me know in the comments and if I get a few requests, I will make sure the librarians set up a session. Check back here for details.


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Congratulations to the Winners of the Puzzle Raffle

Congratulations to Amber Meadors-Fouda, Ravi Krishnan, Doug Menikham, and Ryan Saraco, the winners of the puzzle raffle!! Please contact Dianne Kaplan to arrange a time to pick up your puzzle. Great puzzling, everyone! New unassembled puzzles will start appearing closer to the Spring 2005 reading and exam periods.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Friday Noise Level Check for the Library

We're on day three of the compact shelving project, and the noise level in the new study area and the lower level classified room will be fairly high today, approximately 7 (on a scale of 10, with 10 being the noisiest). The study rooms themselves and the states room should provide some protection from the noise.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

New Lexis Rep

Some of you may have discovered that we now have a new Lexis Representative as our previous rep, Christina DeVillacian, has left Lexis to return to practicing law. We wish her luck. Our new Rep is Lee Jones, and you may have seen him around already. Contact information and a photo can be found on the Lexis Law School page for Hofstra. Welcome to Hofstra, Lee.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Thursday noise report (compact shelving)

Today, the noise level in the new study area will be around a 7 (on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being noisiest). In other words, you probably want to avoid that area, unless you're in one of the study rooms. When in the study rooms, the noise is dulled somewhat, though it will not disappear completely.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Legal Internet Links

Have you found yourself looking around the Internet for legal websites that might be helpful? The librarians at Hofstra have done the work for you and compiled web pages of useful sites on a variety of legal topics. From the Deane Law Library home page you can click on "Legal Web Links". From there you can access pages that contain not only links to state, federal and international legal materials, but also to comprehensive, practice-oriented and historical sites. In addition to legal recommendations, there are also pages on search engines and news sites.

For something fun, go to the Historical Links page and click on Famous American Trials. You will find a wealth of information on famous trials beginning with The Trial of Socrates (399 B.C.) to the O.J. Simpson Trial (1995).

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

The Great Compact Shelving Project Begins

Our new shelving will be delivered to the lower level of the library today, and between 8:00 and 8:30 a.m., you'll start to see materials stacking up in the states room, the new study area, and the lower level classified areas. It will be only slightly noisy today (on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the noisiest, today will rank around a 3), since drilling should not start until tomorrow.

Again, if you're looking for a truly quiet area in which to study, try our other lower level (foreign/international and government documents). Keep your eye on this blog for updates.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Finding Full text Law Review articles

Need to find a law review article and can't find it on Lexis or Westlaw? The Library subscribes to a great online resource known as HeinOnline. To access HeinOnline, go to the Research Databases page of the Law Library's webpage. HeinOnline provides the exact page images in .pdf format - so tables and other graphical information are available and the footnotes are in the right spot! When you get there, click on the subscribers link, then on Law Journal Library. There are other great resources available on HeinOnline, as well.

Let us know what you think, and if you have any question about HeinOnline, let me know - or, if I am cat-napping, ask your favorite Reference Librarian.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

There's a cat in the basement...

Actually, aside from Ernster we do not currently have a Hofstra cat, bird, squirrel, etc. wandering the library. However, such events have occurred in the past and we have fun watching Public Safety trap the critter. OK, so what is the point of this post? Incidents or accidents or leaks or something occurs in the library that needs action. Yesterday a picture dropped off the wall shattering the glass and leaving a mess. A student took the correct action and stopped a librarian to report it. In this case, it was hard to miss since it fell in front of the doors leading to the restrooms, but we can't count on such things always happening in easily observable locations. Please if you observe something broken, a leak or whatever, report it to the library staff. Do not assume that someone else has already brought it to our attention. We prefer to deal with this sort of thing promptly and not let it develop into a real mess.

So, remember if you observe wild life in the library's lower levels, please report it to the library staff. The Hofstra cats do not belong indoors.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat