The Goodson Blogson

We don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer this holiday season, but thefts of artwork and cultural property are part of a billion-dollar black market. Collectors of art and antiques should protect their own treasures from theft, as well as educate themselves to prevent unknowingly acquiring stolen pieces from unscrupulous dealers. The FBI makes it easy with a searchable National Stolen Art File , launched in late November as part of the Bureau’s website redesign. The database includes information on stolen artwork and cultural property which is valued at more than $2,000. Also worth a look is the FBI’s general Art Theft page, which includes resources to report thefts, advice for protecting against losses, and the Bureau’s fascinating list of “Top Ten Art Crimes.” The FBI is not the only organization which is concerned with stolen art. INTERPOL also maintains a resource page about art theft , although their database requires approved registration in order to perform advanced searches (acces...

It's been hard to ignore the last few weeks of debate about the massive tax legislation working its way through Congress. A controversial “compromise” plan, engineered in part by the White House, passed the U.S. House of Representatives close to midnight on Thursday, December 16 . Just a few hours later, the major tax research databases were announcing the publication of updated commentary and analysis of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act (H.R. 4853 – THOMAS bill summary and text ). Researchers at Duke Law have access to three premium tax resources: BNA’s Tax and Accounting Center, CCH IntelliConnect, and RIA Checkpoint. Since research in these services can be overwhelming to novice users, here are detailed roadmaps to their expert commentaries on the new tax law. BNA Tax and Accounting Center : Follow the path Federal Tax > Tax Legislation > BNA Analysis of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Ac...

Earlier this year, we rounded up some Duke databases which can help identify Congressional staff members , and asked the question: “Do any free Internet sources stack up to CQ and the Yellow Book ?” Last week, a new online resource entered the fray when the Sunlight Foundation, a government transparency organization, released a beta directory of all employees from the U.S. House of Representatives. Sunlight's House Staff Directory contains data from the third quarter of 2009 to present. The data can be searched by staff title, political party, quarter and/or state, and results can be downloaded to a spreadsheet. The Sunlight Foundation explains the development of the directory in its blog post . The staff information is drawn from the House Clerk’s office and the Statement of Disbursements (a quarterly breakdown of House expenditures). The makers caution that some data may be up to six months out of date, due to the distribution schedules of their source material. The new direct...

On this day in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights . The anniversary of this influential document has been observed around the world in subsequent years as Human Rights Day , including since 1949 in the United States by presidential proclamation . The UN’s Human Rights Day 2010 page profiles “human rights defenders” who are working to end discrimination from Mongolia, to Lesotho, to Chile. There is also a short quiz to test your historical human rights acumen. More than 60 years after the declaration’s adoption, human rights violations remain a major international concern. Non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch publish reports on a variety of topical issues, and also provide access to news and commentary for particular countries and/or regions. Additional human rights NGOs around the world can be located through resources listed in the Perkins Library’s NGO research guide , including A...

Some numbers just seem destined to remain constant: 24 hours in a day; 212 degrees to boil water; and a 3.5 median in Law School seminar classes. For a long time, it seemed like the 50 titles to the U.S. Code was one of those dependable numbers too. The U.S.C. has had 50 titles since its first edition in 1926 (although their corresponding subjects have changed over time, and Title 34, Navy, has sat empty since its 1956 repeal). But over the weekend, the Senate unanimously passed H.R. 3237, The Charles 'Pete' Conrad Astronomy Awards Act , which would create Title 51 of the U.S. Code, as a single place for laws on the subject of ‘National and Commercial Space Programs.’ The newly-enacted title would transfer existing code sections related to space from Title 15 (Commerce and Trade), Title 42 (Public Health and Welfare), and Title 49 (Transportation). The bill had passed the U.S. House of Representatives in January 2010, but languished without action in the Senate for months. H....

Parliamentary procedure tends not to be a very hot topic of discussion-- unless your organization follows Robert's Rules of Order , or there’s yet another fistfight on a legislative chamber floor. But without even a single punch thrown, the finer points of parliamentary procedure are currently making headlines in the U.S. Last week, the Senate passed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act , hailed as a landmark achievement by a lame-duck Congress. The bill would provide greater authority to the Food & Drug Administration to recall contaminated food, in addition to requiring more frequent inspections of production sources. Unfortunately for the bill’s sponsors, and much to the amusement of Jon Stewart at the tail end of this Daily Show clip , the bill hit a constitutional snag almost immediately after its passage. As Roll Call reported , any revenue-raising legislative provision is required to originate in the U.S. House of Representatives, not the Senate. (To avoid the issu...

It's reading & examination period at the Law School, and that means our students are busily preparing outlines and reviewing class notes. As stress levels rise and preparation time grows short, the Goodson Blogson wants to review some of the most common questions at the service desk lately. Library Access As previously reported (both here and in certain other legal blogs of note), exam time brings a temporary change to the library’s access policy, most notably in the evening hours. From now until the end of exams (Saturday, December 18), access to the Goodson Law Library for study purposes will be limited to current Duke Law students, faculty and staff. Card-swipe access to the library entrance will be required after 5:00 p.m. on weekdays and all day on weekends. Members of the Duke University community who require access to the library for research purposes should contact the library service desk for assistance. Additional study space is available to all throughout the bui...

Today, CNN and the Consumerist blog reported the story of a Pennsylvania couple, Jenn Friberg and Ron Quigley, who were dismayed to discover that their new home had previously been a meth lab. Lingering drug residue made the new owners physically ill just days after moving in, and professional cleaning will cost the couple an additional $25,000 over their purchase price. Friberg and Quigley have started a blog, Our Meth House , to solicit donations for the cleanup, as well as to help raise awareness of the warning signs for other potential home-buyers. Goodson Blogson readers who have survived the labor-intensive process of purchasing a home may be shocked to hear that no laws were broken by the inspectors or sellers who failed to disclose the property’s colorful history. Disclosure laws vary widely by state, and in Pennsylvania the burden is on the homeowner to request a “meth lab test” by the inspector and/or to conduct independent research on the property. Friberg and Quigley lea...

Last year, the Goodson Blogson rounded up some recommendations for law-themed holiday gifts . But our Dec. 11 post came a little late for many shoppers-- and besides, who wants to brave the mall when you need to study for final exams? This year, we’re beating the Black Friday crowds with our 2010 legally-minded gift guide. The links from last year’s post still remain great sources for legal-themed holiday gifts. What budding constitutional law scholar could resist the wares at the Supreme Court Historical Society Gift Shop ? This gift shop still boasts perennial favorites like the “Lawsuit!” board game and guest room soap with the Court’s seal (although the Goodson Blogson still wishes for a revival of the shop’s book-and-gavel salt & pepper shaker set, which hasn’t appeared on the site since 2008). Another site highlighted in our 2009 list, The Billable Hour , offers a similar mix of lighthearted games, “survival kit” care packages (including one just for law students), and pra...

The end of fall semester classes will bring some changes to the Goodson Law Library’s access and service hours. To ensure that adequate study space is available for law students during the reading and examination period, the library will implement a new access and use policy from December 2-18. During the reading and examination period, use of the Goodson Law Library will be restricted to the Duke Law community at all times (including when the entrance doors are unlocked). Exceptions will be made for other students who are currently enrolled in Law School classes, or researchers with a demonstrated need for use of the law collections. All others may be asked to leave. (Please contact the Reference Desk during normal business hours about access under the above exceptions, or assistance with researching legal materials.) The Law School and library entrance doors will be locked (with card swipe access restricted to the law community) after 5:00 p.m. on weekdays, and on weekends from D...

With the busiest travel days of the year fast approaching, the news media has been focused on the latest developments at the Transportation Security Administration , which has overseen airport security since its creation in November 2001. After an attempted airplane bombing on Christmas Day 2009, TSA stepped up its deployment of Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) machines , which are expected to eventually replace the traditional metal detectors at most airports. (A list of airports which are currently using the new screening technology is available on the TSA’s website. ) The new machines, which produce X-ray-like scans of passengers that are monitored by an officer at a remote location within the airport, stirred immediate controversy among civil-liberties groups for their detailed imagery (revealing everything from artificial joints and other medical devices to the outline of genitalia) and potential for misuse by staff. (Although TSA promises that travelers’ faces are obscured by t...

In September and October, the library tested new reservation calendar software for its eight private study rooms. After making some improvements to the system based on user feedback, we are ready to relaunch the online reservation calendar . (For example, no longer will you need to puzzle over making a 210- or a 240-minute reservation – we’ve adjusted the time display based on the #1 complaint about the software.) Law students may log in at http://www.law.duke.edu/lib/studyrooms with a NetID and password to reserve one of our study rooms up to 72 hours in advance . The link is accessible on the Law Library home page as well as the Library & Technology page. If you experience access problems where the system does not recognize you as a law student, please submit a feedback form and include your NetID so that we can resolve the error. We welcome other comments and suggestions about improving the calendar software, as well. Although not every suggested change will be possible in...

Last night, the Duke Law Bowling League Fall 2010 tournament entered its semifinal round. GV903 , a team comprised of staff members from the Goodson Law Library & Academic Technologies, was knocked out of contention for the BarBri Cup after an exciting Elite 8 match with defending champions Strike a Posner . The competition has been strong all season, and GV903 has enjoyed rolling against so many Duke Law students. But we were a bit concerned to hear the same question from virtually all of our opponents this season: “What does your team name mean?” The answer, of course, can be found in the library! You may have noticed that most materials in the library are organized by the Library of Congress Classification Outline , where books are arranged not by their title or author name but by an alphanumeric code (known as a “ call number ”). These call numbers correspond to the subject matter of the book; as a result, books on similar topics are grouped together. In this classification s...

The web buzzed this morning with talk of Blekko , a new search engine which has just launched to the public after several months in private beta-testing. As The New York Times reported , Blekko aims to filter out spam-like sites which push unhelpful results to the top of other search engines. In some areas which Blekko editors consider especially vulnerable to spam results (health and medical information, recipes, cars, travel, song lyrics, finance and college searching), the results are automatically filtered. In other areas, Blekko’s “ slashtag ” search option allows users to quickly filter irrelevant results. (See a demonstration and comparison at Search Engine Land .) Blekko is just the latest search engine competitor to debut in a Google-dominated market. So how will they fare? It’s hard to tell. Last year’s “new kid” Bing is still holding strong, thanks to aggressive advertising and financial support from its heavyweight parent company Microsoft. But for every Bing which captur...

Witches always make the news in October, and 2010 is no exception. Recent market research indicates that pointy hats and brooms remain a top pick for Halloween costumes, for adults, kids and even pets. Witches have also infiltrated the mid-year elections, with Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell’s campaign commercial , designed to ensure nervous voters that her past admission of “dabbling in witchcraft” had been overhyped by the media. (See an alternate take on the campaign spot from Saturday Night Live .) But witches (and/or suspected witches) have long been accustomed to notoriety. Researching witchcraft and the law is an intimidating prospect, with historical accounts of witch-hunting and witchcraft trials spanning several centuries in a number of different countries. But if you’re inspired to try some Halloween-themed research this month, check out these tricks. Materials on witchcraft may be found in several locations at the Duke University Libraries . For example, a s...

As law study becomes increasingly global in nature, we are sometimes asked whether the Goodson Law Library offers any CDs, DVDs or other resources for learning a foreign language. While the Ford Library at the Fuqua School of Business contains a Language Instruction section with books and CDs, the Duke University Libraries are also investigating some online subscription-based language tools and could use your help in evaluating a possible purchase. There are four databases under consideration, which will be evaluated in groups of two. Right now, trials of Byki and Mango are accessible to the Duke University community (with a NetID and password) until October 31. Take advantage of these free trials to brush up on your skills, and share your impressions with the library staff via the online comment form. Byki offers more than 80 language modules, using an interactive flash-card style to teach vocabulary and pronunciation. English speakers can choose from a long list of languages, fro...

This summer, the Goodson Blogson wrote about municipal codes , the county- and city-level laws which impact much of our daily lives. But even the valuable resources listed in that entry do not include some critical local legal materials: building codes and other industry standards . Property owners know the importance of keeping a home or business “up to code”: whether it’s electric wiring, plumbing, construction materials, or fire safety, there is a maze of administrative regulations and commercial industry publications which must be navigated. "No problem," thinks the seasoned legal researcher, grabbing the North Carolina Administrative Code from the library shelf (or from the virtual shelf ). But a search for the 'building code' returns only entries like this one: All applicable volumes of The North Carolina State Building Code , which is incorporated by reference , including all subsequent amendments, may be purchased from the Department of Insurance Engineering...

Monday, October 4 marks the start of the U.S. Supreme Court ’s 2010 term. It’s been nearly a century since the Judicial Code of 1911 designated the “ first Monday in October ” as the official commencement of the annual SCOTUS term (Pub. L. No. 61-475, § 230, 36 Stat. 1087, 1156); previously, the Court met for two terms each year. Although oral arguments begin on the first Monday, the Court has actually been hard at work behind the scenes in the last few weeks, selecting petitions for review. The OT2010 argument calendars provide a preview of upcoming cases, including Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Ass’n (challenging, on First Amendment grounds, a California state ban on the sale of violent video games to minors) and Snyder v. Phelps (an appeal from the Fourth Circuit’s reversal of punitive damages awarded to a father whose son’s funeral was picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church). Some cases for this term have been granted review, but are not yet scheduled on the oral ar...

During the Goodson Law Library’s Dedication Week in November 2008, a meeting of prominent law library directors resulted in the Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship , which urges law schools to cease print publication of law reviews in favor of free, permanent, online publication archives. On Friday, October 22, an all-day event at the Law School will discuss best practices for implementing this policy. The workshop is co-sponsored by the Goodson Law Library , Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain , and the Harvard Law School Library . Panels will address the traditional versus open access business model for law journals, how a move to open access affects copyright and author agreements, and technological concerns such as publishing platforms and archiving processes. The agenda, registration form, and housing information can be found at http://bit.ly/durhamOA . Duke Law and our co-sponsors at Harvard Law have long been leaders in the Open Access movement fo...

Tired of checking the study room clipboard at the library service desk, only to find every room booked solid for the rest of the night? Well, now you can stake a claim to one of our eight private study rooms up to 72 hours ahead of time from your own computer. From Monday, September 27 until Friday, October 8 , the Goodson Law Library will pilot-test an online reservation system. To reserve a study room, visit the reservation link and log in with your NetID and password ( note: study rooms are available only to Duke Law students). The reservation page displays the current availability of our eight room keys, and links to the calendar where rooms can be reserved (in four hour time blocks) up to three days in advance. Be sure to claim your room key promptly; your reservation may be forfeited if the key is not picked up within 15 minutes of the reservation start time. Because this is a pilot program, please be sure to let us know what you think of the online sign-up experience. The res...

After years of maintaining nearly 400 different Tax Management Portfolio titles in print , the Goodson Law Library now has electronic access to the full text of the Tax Management Portfolios through BNA’s Tax and Accounting Libraries . These slim spiral-bound Portfolios are heavily used by tax professionals, who rely on the news, commentary and analysis within to keep current with changes in tax law. A list on BNA’s site describes the various titles available in the five portfolio series (Accounting; U.S. income tax; Estates, Gifts, and Trusts, Foreign Income and State tax). To browse or search the portfolios online, visit the BNA Publications database , which is available on the library’s Legal Databases & Links page . Our research guide to Federal Tax has been updated to add the new database, and the remainder of the guide will be updated in the weeks to come. The print portfolios, currently housed in the library’s Gann Tax Alcove, will shortly be moved to reflect the fact that...

As 1Ls make progress on their open memo assignment and 2Ls/3Ls slog through cite-checking journal assignments, it seems like everyone could use a helping hand with The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation these days. The Goodson Law Library has some spare copies on Reserve for when you just need to confirm an abbreviation or a rule, and there is also an online version (paid subscription required) which offers full-text searching of the new 19th edition and the ability to save personal annotations for future tricky cites. But what people really seem to want is a tool to convert citations automatically into proper Bluebook format. We’re often asked for advice on shortcuts to perfect legal citation: everything from “Can’t I just copy what it says on Lexis and Westlaw?” to “Is there a citation management software that will put footnotes together for me?” We’ve previously written about citation management tools such as EndNote and Zotero , which offer some support for Bluebook styl...

They’re a little too early for International Talk Like a Pirate Day (Sunday, September 19), but last week the Library of Congress announced its new digitized collection of pre-1923 piracy trials . Spanning two centuries, this collection provides transcripts of historical pirate trials from around the world, from Captain Kidd to lesser-known buccaneers. This site joins HeinOnline’s Legal Classics Library and The Making of Modern Law: Trials on the list of good sources for historic trial transcripts (see library research guide to Court Records and Briefs for more info). While it’s usually 18th-century pirates who capture our pop culture imagination in books like Treasure Island and films like the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, piracy remains a very real threat on today’s seas, especially in international waters off the Horn of Africa. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) reported on August 2 that 18 vessels are currently being held by Somal...

This summer, the Academic Technologies department made some major improvements to printing and computing in the Goodson Law Library and the Law School. Here are the most important things to know: ePRINT UPGRADE Returning students should install the new ePrint software in order to print to the new system from laptops. It’s critical to uninstall the old software first. You can access the new ePrint drivers at http://www.law.duke.edu/computing/download/downloadlist with your NetID and password. TWO TYPES OF PRINTERS Have the printers been procreating? You may think so after seeing the Document Production Room on Level 3, where the library’s old black and white photocopiers have been replaced by two color multifunction devices. In addition to the dedicated LexisNexis and Westlaw printers, there are two ePrint printers and release stations (for black & white printing) and two Sharp multifunction devices (for color printing and photocopying). It’s important to know the difference,...

The new academic year brings some changes to the Goodson Law Library. Effective Sunday, August 22, evening and weekend services return to the library. During the fall semester, the library entrance will be unlocked (and the service desk will be staffed) at the following hours : Sunday 2:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m. Monday-Thursday 7:30 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. Friday 7:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Saturday 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Duke Law students, faculty and staff continue to enjoy 24-hour access to the Law School and library. Keep in mind that the outer doors of the Law School lock down automatically at 5:00 p.m. and over the weekends, so be sure to bring your DukeCard if you plan to visit after-hours. Returning students will notice some new faces at the service desk. Over the summer, the Reference Services department welcomed Foreign & International Law Librarian Kristina Alayan and Reference Librarian Jane Bahnson . You may also see more of Kelly Leong , who joined the library in the spring as a referen...

Returning law students should now have fully restored access to their LexisNexis and Westlaw accounts, which may have gone dormant over the summer (if you did not fit the criteria for a summer extension). Over the coming months, everyone will notice a few changes to both research systems: some dramatic and some gradual. Here are the highlights of each. Westlaw launched its new WestlawNext interface in the spring, offering access to law firm subscribers and selected law school faculty. Effective August 16, Duke Law students are also able to access this new version of Westlaw—just log in to http://lawschool.westlaw.com and look for the link to “WestlawNext” at the top of the screen. (Don’t panic – a link to “classic” Westlaw is still available, too, and both systems will remain available to subscribers indefinitely.) WestlawNext is a radical departure from the typical Westlaw search, where users must first select the appropriate database of content and then devise appropriate search...

The start of the fall semester brings a flurry of activity to the Goodson Law Library, and one frequently-asked question deserves some particular attention from the Goodson Blogson: “Can’t I just borrow all my textbooks from the library?” We admire the enterprising spirit of our law students, and we understand your dilemma: textbook costs have been rising steadily for years, and the average law school casebook can cost anywhere from $125 to $160. However, as a matter of policy , the library does not attempt to buy every single textbook which is used at Duke Law, for a few reasons: sure, we’re cost-conscious too about keeping up with hundreds of new titles and new editions every year. But more importantly, we’re concerned about equity of access . Providing one or two copies of a text to be used by 40-100 students causes some obvious problems with supply and demand; even for copies on reserve (which may be borrowed for 4 hours at one time, and overnight if borrowed less than 4 hours bef...