The Goodson Blogson

Has a library book ever fallen apart in your hands? Or have you ever found an unpleasant surprise stuck between some pages? Recently, the Goodson Law Library was visited by Beth Doyle of the Preservation Department at Perkins Library, which repairs damaged library materials and helps to prevent future damage by educating staff and users about the proper handling of materials. Beth’s presentation to our staff was a valuable reminder of three simple things everyone can do to help maintain the Law Library’s excellent collection for many years to come. First, food and drink should stay far away from library materials. Of course, the Goodson Law Library’s official policy prohibits any food as well as drinks in uncovered containers, but ou r trash cans tell a different story. For a cautionary tale on why food and books don’t mix, check out the Preservation Department’s infamous “ Banana Book ” (click to enlarge). The unexpected enclosure is now permanently fused into the pages of this the...

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that more than 10,000 Hotmail email accounts had been compromised, and their passwords posted to underground hacking websites. An analysis of the posted account information revealed that the majority of the affected accounts used weak passwords which could be easily guessed. The most popular password was 123456 (with 123456789 a close second). As we reported in the spring , weak passwords are commonplace in cyberspace. A 2007 list of the most frequently-used online passwords included 123456 as well as perennial favorites password , qwerty , and abc123 . But the Hotmail story underscores the dangers of ignoring online security. As a result, many websites are getting tough on wimpy passwords, and requiring users to create strong passwords (a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols) which are harder for hackers to decipher. One such site is Westlaw , which will begin encouraging the creation of OnePass usernames and passwords in November 20...

Hollywood has always had a strange relationship with the law. Throughout history, the film industry has used self-regulation as a way to avoid excessive government interference. This summer marked the seventy-fifth anniversary of the notorious Hays Code , a set of internal moral guidelines for the film industry whose brevity belied its nearly four-decade impact. The Hays Code was inspired by public outrage over several sex- and drug-related scandals involving 1920s film stars, the most famous being the death of actress Virginia Rappe at the hands of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. In response, Congress entertained the idea of creating a Federal Motion Picture Commission , whose members would have reviewed and banned films which were “obscene, indecent, immoral, inhuman, or […] of such a character that [their] exhibition would tend to corrupt morals and incite to crime.” (Source: Proposed Federal Motion Picture Commission: Hearings before the Committee on Education, House of Representatives , ...

When researching the law of other countries, yearbooks are frequently helpful. The articles in law yearbooks provide an annual survey of a particular country or region’s activities in the last year, and often reprint cases, legislation or other important documents. International law researchers often consult yearbooks to gain an understanding of state practice. Duke’s International Legal Research Tutorial contains a section on the major international law yearbook titles and strategies for locating them in a library. In the Duke Libraries catalog , the best approach is to perform a title keyword search for [country name] and yearbook ; e.g. new zealand and yearbook . Most law yearbooks will be available in the Periodicals collection on Level 4 of the library. Electronic versions of yearbooks, where available, will be linked in the catalog search results. For example, HeinOnline offers a variety of yearbooks in its Foreign & International Law Resources library. Although most ar...

Last year, the Goodson Law Library celebrated Open Access Day , the first-ever international celebration of the Open Access (OA) movement, which encourages the use of the Internet to freely distribute scholarship which is normally locked behind online subscription databases or published in costly print resources. Although the Open Access movement is rooted in the hard sciences, as a reaction to publicly-funded scientific research results being published in prohibitively expensive journals, the principles of Open Access have spread to other disciplines, including the social sciences. This year, the success of 2008’s Open Access Day has resulted in 2009’s Open Access Week (October 19-23) . Duke University will celebrate with several events, including a panel on Friday, October 23 about open access to health information around the world. For a complete listing of Duke events, see Open Access Week at Duke . For a fuller listing of events beyond Duke, check out http://www.openaccessweek.org...

The Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE) is a multiple-choice test of legal ethics, which is required for admission to the bars of most U.S. jurisdictions. (Feel like skipping it? You’ll be limited to practicing law in Maryland, Washington, Wisconsin, or Puerto Rico. See 2009 Comprehensive Guide to Bar Admission Requirements for more information.) The good news is that the MPRE can be taken at any time during law school, giving students a chance to get it out of the way long before the rest of the bar exam. The test is offered three times per year (March, August, and November). Judging by the increasing amount of questions at the Goodson Law Library about resources to study for the MPRE, we could tell that the next test is quickly approaching. A search of the libraries’ online catalog for mpre reveals only one title, Kimm Walton’s Strategies and Tactics for the MPRE 2009 edition . The catalog record notes that the title is still “On Order”, and not yet publishe...

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting. Or at least they will be at 10:00 a.m. today, which marks the official beginning of the Supreme Court’s October Term 2009-2010 ("OT2009"). Of course, Court-watchers will be most eager to analyze the new dynamic that new Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who replaced retiring Justice David Souter over the summer, might bring to oral arguments and to voting. (They had a head start last month, when the Court heard re-arguments in an OT2008 case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission : transcript .) The first case on today’s calendar involves a dispute between South Carolina and North Carolina over the equitable use of the Catawba River (briefs at ABA Merits Briefs page). This “water war” has dragged on for several years; today the High Court will consider whether the city of Charlotte, D...