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Due to reduced staffing over the holiday break, users of the Law Library's Interlibrary Loan service may experience some delays in request processing from December 22, 2007-January 1, 2008. During this period, users may still pick up and return interlibrary loan materials to the Circulation Desk during regular business hours . However, new requests may take a bit longer to arrive than usual. You can check the status of your interlibrary loan requests at any time by logging in to the ILLiad system with your NetID and password. Regular processing of new interlibrary loan requests will resume on Wednesday, January 2, 2008. We appreciate your patience during the holiday season.

The Law Library will operate under reduced staffing hours for the winter 2007-2008 break: Sat-Sun, Dec. 15-16: CLOSED Mon. - Fri., Dec. 17-21: 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Sat. - Wed., Dec. 22-26: CLOSED Thu. - Fri., Dec. 27-28: 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Sat. - Tues., Dec. 29-Jan. 1: CLOSED Wed. - Fri., Jan. 2-4: 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Sat. Jan. 5: CLOSED Regular hours will resume Sunday, January 6. The Duke Law Community retains 24-hour access to the Law School and Law Library with a current DukeCard.

During the month of December, the Law Library Reference Desk will be staffed from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday . Night and weekend reference will resume at the start of spring 2008 classes, on Sunday, January 6. The Circulation Desk will maintain regular hours during the examination period, and will begin operating under winter break hours (Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.) on Saturday, December 15. As always, current members of the Duke Law community will retain 24-hour access to the Law School and Law Library with a valid DukeCard. For more information, see the Library's Hours & Directions page.

Users of the D.U.L.L. Facebook page may have noticed the new Duke Library Catalog application , which allows you to search the Duke Libraries catalog, database listing, and available full-text e-journals-- all without leaving your Facebook profile. But did you know that there is a similar tool for web browsers? The Duke Libraries LibX browser extension installs a toolbar on your web browser which allows you to "search Duke's online catalog, e-journals, articles, databases, Google Scholar, WorldCat, or library web pages directly from your browser window"! Simply highlight and drag text from a web page (such as a book title or article citation) to locate it in the Duke Libraries or in a database. If you are searching from off-campus, the toolbar works with EZproxy to enable access to restricted databases via your NetID and password. LibX was originally developed for Firefox, but is also available in a beta version for Internet Explorer. To download, visit http://library.d...

The Law Library is pleased to announce the arrival of Westlaw Patron Access. Westlaw Patron Access offers the Duke University community, as well as the general public, much of the same content as the Law School's version of Westlaw (which is available only by individual password to current members of the Law School community). The public-access version includes U.S. and Canadian primary and secondary legal materials. Westlaw Patron Access is now available on a dedicated workstation (Public Terminal 2) in the Law Library Annex reading room. Please note that library users who wish to access Westlaw Patron Access and/or LexisNexis Academic ( http://library.duke.edu/metasearch/db/id/DUK00840 ) will be given priority on this computer terminal.

The Law Library is seeking applicants for the Faculty Research Assistants Program. This program gives you the chance to build relationships with a variety of Law School faculty members while you polish your legal research skills and provide valuable assistance to the faculty on short-term research projects. Past Library RA projects have included: updating an AIDS Law textbook and other course materials, developing biographical sketches of significant figures in legal history, and helping the Law School clinics prepare for planned litigation. Library RA applicants must have successfully completed LARW, and be willing to commit 8-10 hours per week during the spring 2008 semester (January 9-April 16). If hired, your schedule would consist of 4-6 regularly established “office hours”, with the remainder as flexible “research time”. Starting Faculty RAs are paid $10.50/hour. If you are interested in becoming a Library RA, please forward a resume and cover letter to Lauren Coll...

Although current members of the Law School community will retain 24-hour building access with a DukeCard, the Law Library will operate under reduced staffing hours for the Thanksgiving holiday. Wednesday, Nov. 21 Library closes at 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 22 Closed for holiday Friday, Nov. 23 Closed for holiday Saturday, Nov. 24 Closed for holiday Sunday, Nov. 25 Regular hours resume

[Note: In addition to the Recent Titles featured in the right-hand column courtesy of LibraryThing , D.U.L.L. News will periodically feature a new title of interest in the blog.] Cass R. Sunstein, Worst-Case Scenarios (2007). Available in Law Library Annex at the call number HM1101 .S864 2007 . From the publisher : “ Nuclear bombs in suitcases, anthrax bacilli in ventilators, tsunamis and meteors, avian flu, scorchingly hot temperatures: nightmares that were once the plot of Hollywood movies are now frighteningly real possibilities. How can we steer a path between willful inaction and reckless overreaction? Cass Sunstein explores these and other worst-case scenarios and how we might best prevent them in this vivid, illuminating, and highly original analysis. ” Visit the Harvard University Press web site for a PDF excerpt of the introduction and Chapter 1: “Of Terrorism and Climate Change”.

Tuesday, November 13 marks the sixth annual Herbert L. Bernstein Memorial Lecture in International and Comparative Law, “Desperately Seeking Subsidiarity: Danish Private Law in Scandinavian, European & Global Context” , presented by Professor Joseph Lookofsky of Copenhagen University. But who was the scholar who inspired this important lecture series? Herbert L. Bernstein was a member of the Duke Law faculty from 1984 until his death in 2001. Professor Bernstein’s instruction and scholarship concentrated upon contracts, conflict of laws and comparative law, as well as international economic integration. He taught the European Union Law class at Duke, a subject particularly close to his heart: during the early years of the European Community/European Union, he was involved in the litigation of major cases in the European Court of Justice. For several years, he also served as the Faculty Director of the Law School’s Summer Institute of Transnational Law in Brussels. Pro...

[Note: In addition to the Recent Titles featured in the right-hand column courtesy of LibraryThing , D.U.L.L. News will periodically feature a new title of interest in the blog.] Philip Slayton, Lawyers Gone Bad: Money, Sex and Madness in Canada’s Legal Profession (2007). Available at Law Library Annex KE415 .S53 2007. From the publisher: “Philip Slayton spent 35 years as a lawyer. In Lawyers Gone Bad , he exposes the motivations and the stories of senior partners in influential Canadian firms who have illegally sustained expensive lifestyles, engaged in drug trafficking, been convicted of immigration fraud, laundered money, and been disbarred for having sex with clients. These are colourful, personal dramas that give insight into lawyers, legal practice, and how the law itself can fail or be twisted .” Visit the publisher’s site, http://www.penguin.ca/lawyersgonebad , to download a brief excerpt of the first chapter, read an interview with author Philip Slayton, and p...

Calling the Class of 2009! The Law Library would like to hear about the types of research you conducted in your summer employment, and whether the research portion of LARW adequately prepared you for the experience. You will receive the online survey link in an e-mail from your former research instructors within the next few days. The survey should take no more than 5-10 minutes of your time, but your responses are extremely valuable to us. By participating in the survey, you will assist the reference librarians in planning our annual spring “Research Refresher” workshops. You may also have an impact on what is covered in future research portions of LARW. Please respond by Friday, November 9th. Thanks for your valuable input!

During our renovation year, the Law Library is relying heavily on the delivery of materials from other libraries on the Duke campus (through the online catalog request form ) as well as off-campus libraries (through interlibrary loan ). With both services, you receive e-mail notification when your items are available for pickup at the Law Library Annex. However, you may have noted that arrival times vary. Items available (i.e., on the shelf) at other campus libraries should arrive within the next 1-2 business days, depending upon at what time of day the request is received. If a requested item from a campus library is checked out to another borrower, that borrower is given a grace period to return the requested item. Items “On Order” and “In Process” similarly require additional time to arrive, because they must be added to the online catalog before they can be delivered. Fortunately, you can check the status of your pending requests through the online catalog , by clickin...

Do you know when the Law School was located on East Campus? Have you ever wondered who inspired the annual Justin Miller Award? A new feature on the Law School web site has the answers to these and many more questions. “The Quest of Knowledge of the Law”: A History of Duke Law School is now available at http://www.law.duke.edu/history/index . The site features an illustrated timeline of the Law School’s founding and growth, a biographical history of the Law School deans, and references for further reading. Foreign & International Law Librarian Katherine Topulos (who also coordinates the Law Library’s Rare Book collection) compiled the site content from the Law School archives, the University Archives, and other historical resources on campus. The site was brought to life through the efforts of the Law School’s Web Services Team.

October 3rd, 2007 The Law Library will operate under reduced staff hours during the Law School Fall Break: Friday Oct 5 7:30am - 5:30pm Sat/Sun Oct 6 -7 CLOSED Mon-Fri Oct 8 - 12 8am - 5pm Saturday Oct 13 CLOSED Sunday Oct. 14 Resume regular hours Reference services will be available Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. The Reference Desk will resume regular hours on Sunday, October 14. Duke Law students, faculty and staff retain 24-hour access to the building and the Library during Fall Break with a current DukeCard.

Monday, October 1st marks the opening day of the United States Supreme Court ’s 2007-2008 term. “First Monday” usually generates a flurry of discussion in academia as well as the press, and this year is no exception. A sample for your reading pleasure: The American Bar Association’s Supreme Court Preview offers copies of all merit and amicus briefs for the Court’s upcoming term, and a “Supreme Court Primer” of procedures. SCOTUSblog also offers commentary and analysis on the upcoming October Term, from the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer Feld LLP. “ The Dissenter “, a profile of Justice John Paul Stevens from the New York Times Magazine. “ Meet the Supremes “, a lengthy New York Times review of the recent Jeffrey Toobin book The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court . Toobin’s book is currently being processed by the Law Library staff, and will be available for borrowing soon. In the meantime, anyone with a TimesSelect username and password may read ...

The Judicial Conference of the United States recently announced plans to make transcripts of federal district and bankruptcy court proceedings available online through the Judiciary's Public Access to Court Electronic Records ( PACER ) system. Under the new policy, transcripts created by court reporters or transcribers will be available for inspection and copying in a clerk of court’s office and for download from PACER 90 days after they are delivered to the clerk. (During the initial 90-day period, transcripts will be available at the clerk’s office for inspection only, or may be purchased from the court reporter or transcriber.) Duke Law students, faculty and staff can request access to PACER from the Reference Desk . Because PACER charges under a pay-per-view system, library staff may require you to visit the library in person for an orientation to the service.

Has the Law Library renovation left you missing the microfiche? HeinOnline ( http://library.duke.edu/metasearch/db/id/DUK00693 ) is here to help. The Law Library recently subscribed to a new library within the growing database, U.S. Congressional Documents . This new feature already includes searchable PDFs of the earliest sources of congressional debates: Annals of Congress (1789-1824), Register of Debates (1824-1837) and Congressional Globe (1833-1873). However, the most exciting feature by far is Hein’s plan to digitize the complete series of the bound Congressional Record , which began publication in 1873. As law review students can unhappily attest, Bluebook rules require citation to the bound (permanent) version of the Congressional Record , which has different pagination from the daily edition available on Lexis, Westlaw, and GPO Access. Currently, the new Hein database contains PDFs of the Congressional Record from volumes 1-10 (1873-1880) and volumes 142-149 (1996-2003...

In an entry last month , D.U.L.L. News reported on two blogs devoted to linking legal scholars with upcoming conferences and calls for papers: Legal Conference Watch from the University of Washington School of Law (http://depts.washington.edu/lawref/confblog), and the Legal Scholarship Blog from University of Pittsburgh (http://legalscholarship.wordpress.com/). However, it’s time to update your bookmarks! Both schools have now joined forces to form the Legal Scholarship Blog ( http://legalscholarshipblog.com ). This new, collaborative blog will replace both of the separate sites.

The Law Library Annex will be open during Labor Day weekend at normal academic semester hours. Saturday : 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Sunday : 2:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. Monday : 7:30 a.m. - midnight The Reference Desk will be staffed on Sunday, 2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. and Monday, 9:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m. Duke Law students have 24-hour access to the Law School and Law Library with a valid DukeCard.

The Law Library Reference Desk has always been just a telephone call or e-mail away. But did you know that you can also reach us by instant message, at any time the reference desk is staffed ? Add “ DukeLawReference ” to your buddy list for your AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, or Yahoo! Messenger account. Stuck on a computer with no IM software? Try Meebo ( http://www.meebo.com/ ), a free service which allows you to send messages straight from the Web, with no software installation required.

The Law Library is seeking applicants for the Faculty Research Assistants Program . The program provides participating students with opportunities to work on short-term research projects assigned by various members of the faculty, with supervision and training by the reference librarians. The program will give students the chance to work closely and build relationships with a variety of faculty members and polish their legal research skills, while providing valuable research assistance to the faculty. Applicants must have successfully completed LARW and have good interpersonal and communication skills. Prior research experience is a plus. Some faculty projects require particular substantive or language skills, so please identify in your cover letter any such skills not readily identifiable from your resume. Applicants must be willing to commit 8-10 hours per week for the fall semester, August 27 through December 4. Starting Faculty RAs are paid $ 10.50/hour. To apply, forward a resu...

This semester, the Duke Law Library will be implementing a new system for interlibrary loan (ILL) service. Items which are not available at any Duke campus libraries will be requested through ILLiad. (ILLiad may be familiar to any law students who attended Duke for undergrad, as it is the same system used by the Perkins Library.) Join the “early adopters” by visiting the new ILLiad site at https://illiad.lib.duke.edu/illiad/NDL . ILLiad offers several advantages over the previous web request form , including the ability to save personal information and preferences, track the status of pending requests, view your request history, download electronically-received documents, and submit renewal requests online. However, the first time you access ILLiad with your NetID and password, you will be asked to register with the system. Please report any problems with the service to the Reference Desk .

Law School faculty and ambitious student researchers: have you written a paper that’s still in need of a loving home? Two relatively new blogs may help you locate an appropriate conference at which to present your work. The Gallagher Law Library at the University of Washington School of Law has recently announced the relaunch of Legal Conference Watch ( http://depts.washington.edu/lawref/confblog ), a blog announcing law-related conferences around the world. The blog is searchable by keyword, and browseable by date and/or topic. In addition, the Legal Scholarship Blog ( http://legalscholarship.wordpress.com/ ) from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law provides similar access to conference announcements by subject, in addition to calls for papers.

Students : Have you had trouble with your Law School-issued Lexis and Westlaw IDs recently? You may have forgotten to extend your access for the summer, which can result in error messages at the login screen, or severely limited access to databases within the services.Lexis and Westlaw do offer full access to law student accounts over the summer for certain educational and non-profit purposes (such as a research assistantship or law review work), but this is not automatically authorized. If you’re experiencing access problems, try logging in to Lexis and Westlaw and look for links from the home page about summer access. You will need to select an educational or non-profit exception and agree to the terms of use. Remember that use of your Law School account for commercial purposes (e.g., in a summer job at a for-profit firm) is not allowed under the terms of the Law School’s contract with the vendors. If you continue to experience problems with your Lexis or Westlaw account over the s...

The Law Library now has electronic access to Constitutions of the Countries & Territories of the World , available to the Duke University community via the Legal Databases & Links page. This database provides the text of current and historical versions for the constitutions of countries, dependencies, and territories.

If you missed the annual “DLSIS Day” celebration last November, take heart. “Law Library Olympics” , the “mockumentary” which was filmed for the Law Library portion of the multimedia event, is now available for viewing as part of the iTunesU initiative ( http://www.itunes.duke.edu/ ). This nine-minute video takes you behind the scenes of the Library as three departmental representatives prepare for a rigorous national competition. Will their new coach motivate them to win after a humiliating defeat by their archrivals at UNC? Coach Dunshee says it best (”Probably not”), but these intrepid staffers prove that the real prize comes from striving to create the best law library that they can. To download the video, you will need to have iTunes installed on your computer. Visit http://www.itunes.duke.edu/ and select “Browse” to enter “Duke on iTunesU”. Select “Law” from the box of available schools in the right-hand side. The Law Library Olympics video is available under “Other Offering...

If you missed any of the Law Library’s “Research Refresher” workshops last month, visit the new Library Workshops & Instruction archive ( http://www.law.duke.edu/lib/workshops/ ). Slides are available in PPT and PDF; most classes also include a link to listen in MP3 format. Available classes include Cases (which also features a downloadable, narrated version), Free & Low-Cost Alternatives to Lexis and Westlaw, and Putting It All Together: Taking a Research Assignment from Start to Finish.

The 2007-2008 renovation project will require the majority of the Law Library’s print collection to be placed into storage. To help law review cite-checkers and other legal researchers obtain original pagination in electronic sources, the reference staff has prepared a new Research Guide to Finding Legal Materials in PDF ( http://www.law.duke.edu/lib/researchguides/legal_materials ). The guide includes tips and tricks for locating books, articles, cases, court documents, legislative history materials, and international law documents in PDF.