Tribute to Prof. Monroe Freedman

My favorite Monroe story:

In addition to his legion of accomplishments and contributions to the legal community, Monroe had a delightful sense of humor.  He provided what is still my all-time favorite Reference question.  He wanted to know the speed of the Earth’s rotation and how fast the Earth traveled around the sun.  He was to participate in a debate as part of a benefit event.  As a card-carrying member of the Flat Earth Society (or so he told me), he planned to argue that if the Earth moved at the speeds indicated, everyone would have motion sickness.

Monroe, for your humanity writ large and small, you will be missed.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Congress.gov Legislative Email Alerts

Congress.gov now offers email alerts!

Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. It is presented by the Library of Congress (LOC) using data from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, the Government Publishing Office, Congressional Budget Office, and the LOC's Congressional Research Service.

Hat tip to Andrew Weber (LOC)!


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

W. E. B. Dubois: A Digital Archive

African American History Month, and especially the last week in February, are especially appropriate times to celebrate the wonderful digital archive capturing the works of W. E. B. Dubois--author, scholar, educator, magazine editor, activist, international spokesman and founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Dubois was born in western Massachusetts on February 23, 1868.

The Papers of W. E. B. Dubois was the first archive collection digitized for Credo, the online repository at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries' Department of Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA).  In fact, Credo, the repository, is named in recognition of Dubois's Credo, a statement of his philosophy of pride, peace, liberty, education, and patience in achieving equality. The over 100,000 items in the Papers, from letters and speeches to novels, plays, and photographs, are available for browsing, searching, and exploring the life of this Renaissance man and prominent civil rights pioneer.   

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Lincoln and the Law

Lincoln himself admitted his ambition lay in politics and not in the law, stating “my forte is as a Statesman, rather than a Prosecutor.”  Even if the law was Lincoln’s “secondary” avocation, it was indelibly linked to him in life and death.  The Law Library of Congress's historical collection vividly illustrates three periods in which the law played a prominent part of the Lincoln era.

The first part focuses on his work as a prominent Illinois layer.
The second part covers contemporary literature on Lincoln’s controversial balancing of civil liberties against the demands of war aims.
The third part  contains period transcripts and reports of the trial of the surviving conspirators in the murder of the President and attempted murder of other public officials.

A thank you to the Library of Congress for creating this collection.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Lexis Advance Tips: How to search Dockets on Lexis

This is another question that we often get at the Reference desk since dockets are popular sources for faculty, students and attorneys.  If you are trying to locate dockets in Lexis Advance, try the following tip:

Search for docket information by a specific judge using the Litigation Profile Suite.  Here, you can select either Expert Witness, Judge or Attorney.  For example, select Judge from the left drag down, type in Posner and select Richard Posner, Search and then select Dockets from the left navigation panel.  You’ll then see his docket information, including graphs and charts.  You can also use this with an Attorney search.The other way to search for docket information is through Lexis Advance Directly.  You can select Dockets as its own filter by Category.  In Research, choose Filters, then Category, then Docket.  You can also search all content, then narrow by Category after you do a search.  Further refine your search with post filters on the left, by Jurisdiction, Cause, Case Status, etc.

(Hat tip: Antoinette Stafilas, Esq., Lexis Law school Executive)
To access Lexis Advance, click here. 

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat