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Annual Report 2008-2009
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Cornell University
Law Library
Annual Report
July 2008-June 2009
2
“Thanks for flagging this. I had heard about
[it] but had not seen it.”
~ Dean Stewart Schwab
"This is wonderful news! Thank you so much for
bringing this to fruition. I really am grateful.
Thank you, thank you."
~ Prof. Annelise Riles
“Thanks. I couldn‟t get by without you.”
~ Prof. John Blume
Joe Doherty, UCLA; Valerie Hans, Cornell; Matt Morrison, Cornell; and
Mirya Holman, Duke, at Empirical Legal Studies conference.
3
FACULTY SERVICES
Liaisons
Faculty service is a top priority of the Law Library and is provided by each member of the staff.
Focused work with faculty comes from the library liaisons who work with tenured, tenure-track,
and visiting faculty on their information and research needs for scholarship and teaching.
Research Attorneys Jean Callihan, Amy Emerson, Charlie Finger, Julie Jones, Thomas Mills,
Matt Morrison, and Pat Court are the liaisons who work directly with faculty members. This
year they trained numerous research assistants, presented research workshops for classes,
located hard-to-find resources, provided current awareness updates, and conducted in-depth
research for faculty. The liaison librarians serve a role at Cornell Law School as an information
hub, bringing together the faculty member, research assistants, administrative assistants, and
library resources to collaborate toward the successful completion of faculty research projects.
Faculty Services Report
To document the wide variety of work that librarians do with faculty, Julie Jones and Pat Court
prepared a Faculty Services Report that detailed the assistance offered for scholarship, teaching,
and current awareness. Case studies of several faculty showed specific services provided by
liaison librarians, and a cost analysis showed the true benefits of these services. Increasingly
complex research projects are handled each year.
Faculty Services Brochure
To market the array of liaison services available to faculty, Julie Jones created an informative
brochure on Resources for Faculty Scholarship and Training, which was distributed at the start
of the academic year. With the tag line Resources for Your Success, the brochure
communicates succinctly the array of services offered by the library including liaisons, journal
routing, student research fellows, and the scholarship repository.
Empirical Legal Studies
Empirical Legal Studies (ELS) is a major field of inquiry at Cornell Law School. Matt
Morrison is the librarian who works most closely with faculty researching in that field. Law
librarians attended the ELS conference here in the fall, and Matt coordinated an exhibit on
faculty ELS publications for the conference.
Research Assistance The research attorneys continue to provide a high level of research service to faculty
members. Examples of projects we assisted with this year include gathering scores of cases to
help find a specific fact pattern; retrieving cases, articles, and books on corruption; retrieving
extensive court documents to develop a class project; training research assistants to update
several casebooks; tracking down difficult-to-find articles and facts from Chicago in the 1970s
for a book; consulting on research about small law firms; providing materials on lay jury
systems in East Asia; preparing documentation for Senate testimony; and creating a valid
methodology for finding jokes about juries for a scholarly paper.
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INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS
Rwanda Genocide Archive
Claire Germain, the Edward Cornell Law Librarian and Professor of Law, Research Attorney
Thomas Mills, and Reference Librarian at ILR Stuart Basefsky were invited as consultants to
the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (UNICTR), Arusha, Tanzania, in June
2009, to provide advice on how to archive and preserve fourteen years of material from the
genocide trials. They also discussed ways to promote the legacy of the UNICTR. The Tribunal
had requested assistance based on the Law Library's experience with the Donovan Nuremberg
Trials archive. The Donovan collection itself was donated by Henry and Ellen Korn in 1998. It
is currently being digitized thanks to generous funding provided by the Lapkin Foundation. As
a result of this visit, judges and prosecutors from UNICTR will be invited to speak to Cornell
alumni, students, and faculty.
China
Professor Germain spoke at the China-U.S. Conference on Legal Information and Law
Libraries held in Beijing on May 28-30. Her topic was "Digitizing the World's Laws," and
included collaborative projects on worldwide access to law through the Internet, such as the
World Legal Information Institute, the Global Legal Information Network, and digitization of
print materials at Cornell. She also examined digital law issues such as long term access,
preservation, and authenticity of official sources.
Pat Court spoke at the forum on University Law Library and Legal Education Reform in the
Age of Globalization in Shanghai on June 3. Her topics were "Teaching Legal Research in U.S.
Law Schools" and "Traditional Services and Challenges in the Digital Age." She addressed
authentication of legal sources on the web and the wide array of courses and workshops taught
by Cornell law librarians. Deans and librarians from the top thirteen law schools in China came
together to discuss legal education reform. An important outcome of the meetings was the
signing of an agreement to institute sharing of legal materials between their law libraries for
enhanced scholarship and study by law faculty and law students.
Mongolia In December, the Law Library hosted visitors from the National University of Mongolia.
Professor Chimed Ganzorig, Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Sodnomtseren
Altantsetseg, Head of the Office for International Affairs, toured the library and learned about
the many resources and services provided to faculty and students. Pat Court led the impromptu
tour of the Law Library, and Claire Germain guided them through the Law School.
Caribbean International visitor Michael Theodore, Executive Secretariat of the Council of Legal Education
for the Caribbean, came to the library in November to see how Cornell has adapted its
information resources to the new dynamics of the information technology age. Claire Germain
and Julie Jones shared with him how they foresee library and information services changing in
the future, and he toured our facilities for an overview of the technology and services provided
to faculty and students.
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Summer Research Survey
“Jean Callihan was one of three nominees for
the Anne Lukingbeal Award. All our
congratulations to Jean for this honor which
shows great appreciation by the students and
recognizes her work for the law school in a
meaningful way. We are very proud of you.”
~ Prof. Claire Germain
7
STUDENT SERVICES
Student Summer Research Survey The annual Student Summer Research Survey, and how it compares with previous years,
enables the librarians to see trends for planning curricula for classes and building the collection
with needed sources. Legal topics researched in summer jobs this year ran the gamut from
antitrust to workers’ compensation, with significant numbers of respondents working in
criminal law, employment, and securities. Only three respondents said that they did no research
for their job, while 40% spent more than half of their time researching. The numbers also show
that both online and print materials were used, with print materials being used to a larger extent
this summer. Interestingly, a very significant use of print sources was for primary law.
Research Consultations
Research Attorneys conducted over thirty Research Consultations this spring with law students
preparing for research in their summer jobs. These consultations are an important way for
students to receive personal instruction from a librarian on any topic they need. In customized
sessions of one hour, law students learn specifically what will help them succeed in their
summer positions. Sessions may focus on learning more about securities or immigration, areas
in which they will be working; or in-depth review of Lexis or Westlaw searching; or the special
resources and strategies for a certain state, federal circuit, or specialized court. This spring,
topics included Jordanian law, patent law, First Circuit, international sustainable development,
and New York criminal appeals.
LL.M. Orientation and Open House
The library presented seven and a half hours of research instruction to an enthusiastic group of
sixty-three LL.M. students during their first week on campus. Through lectures by Thomas
Mills and Pat Court, hands-on Reading Room sessions with librarians, and Lexis and Westlaw
trainings, students who had already earned a law degree in another country were introduced to
the basics of U.S. legal research sources and strategies. On August 25, the Library Open House
and Tour of the Rare Book Room drew a large crowd of curious graduate law students to see
our rare treasures and be welcomed by the library staff.
Current Awareness
The Library offers numerous ways for law students to keep current on our services and
information resources. Through The Primary Source, our monthly newsletter available on our
home page and targeted to students, they learn about research training sessions, new electronic
resources, new books in our collection, global outreach activities at the library, and more. We
invite them to subscribe to InSITE, our current awareness service and searchable database of
annotated law-related web sites. Research Consultations are available to law students year
round. Students may get an hour of a customized, one-on-one research training session with a
Research Attorney on any topic of their choice, often in preparation for a summer job or a
major seminar paper. And they can stay up-to-date on the latest books added to the collection
by subscribing to an RSS feed of our New Books list, posted twice each month with links to the
catalog and to amazon.com.
8
“I really think legal research is one of the most
important courses at law school. As an LL.M. student,
there are a lot of subjects that we are not able to learn
at law school. I have to learn it myself in the near
future. With this legal-research weapon, it will be much
easier for me to get everything under control.”
~LL.M. Student Oct. 2008
In the event that you have not received any desperate
emails from alumni reinforcing the significance of your
advanced research class, I'll say that it has proven
absolutely invaluable. Israeli law openly incorporates all
kinds of foreign law into its jurisprudence, so I regularly
access the resources you presented to us in the volunteer
work I've been doing for the human rights association here.
~Law Alumna
“„How come the librarians are lawyers?‟ This was my initial thought when I was introduced to
the librarians at Cornell Law School during the LL.M. orientation; however, after taking U.S.
Legal Research for LL.M. Students, I learned that legal research in the U.S. is much more
complicated and substantial…jurisdiction… authority… research techniques… interpretive
skills…. Yes, I understand now why librarians need to have substantial background in law. I
hope I can use research and interpretive skills when I take a seminar course which requires
writing a 30 page paper next semester. Thank you so much for your lovely instruction!”
~LL.M Student
A great teacher with a helpful and
friendly attitude (and good sense of
humor to boot).
--1L Student
The professor is great at taking us
through the research process and
explaining carefully so we
understand. I feel very prepared to
research in the future.
--1L Student
9
TEACHING LEGAL RESEARCH
Lawyering
The centerpiece of legal research instruction continues to be the required Lawyering course, a
two-semester class for all first year law students. Each of the Research Attorneys partners with
a Lawyering Program Faculty to teach the research portion of the course, which covers case
law, statutes, secondary sources, regulations, web research, Lexis, and Westlaw. In conjunction
with writing assignments, students learn research sources and strategies through lectures,
readings, computer labs, and hands-on exercises in the Reading Room with a Research
Attorney.
Advanced Legal Research Seminar
Upper level law students who select the Advanced Legal Research Seminar have the
opportunity to learn in-depth research in a legal field of their choice. This year, the instructors
were Matt Morrison, Julie Jones, and Charlie Finger. Topics ranged from advanced internet
searching and federal legislative history, to foreign law research and business research.
Specialty Research Courses With major programs at the law school focused on global legal studies, the course in
International and Foreign Law Research has been very popular. Students learn materials and
techniques that are often new and invaluable to them through the creative teaching of Thomas
Mills. The course in Advanced Legal Research in Business Law was taught by Jean Callihan,
experienced attorney and librarian on our professional staff, who guides students through the
many web resources of the business world. U.S. Legal Research for LL.M. Students was taught
in two sections by Pat Court and Matt Morrison. This one-credit course in the fall brings
students who need to do research in U.S. legal materials up to speed quickly.
Information Competency CUL continues its focus on information competency with special training for Cornell faculty
who incorporate its concepts into redesigned courses. Thomas Mills serves as co-chair of the
campus initiative. This year, he co-taught the course Culture, Law and Politics of the Internet
for undergraduates, a course designed on the information competency principles.
Reunion CLE Amy Emerson and Charlie Finger taught a well-received program for Continuing Legal
Education credit during Cornell Reunion in June. The very timely program was on “Weathering
the Stormy Economic Climate: Strategies for Conducting Online Legal Research Using Free
and Low Cost Sources.” Alumni attorneys had many probing questions on this invaluable topic.
“Great! Learned things I never knew.”
“Loved being back in the classroom and delighted I wasn‟t called on in class.”
“Gave me just what I was hoping for.”
“Very informative.”
“Marvelous.” ~ Alumni CLE Participants
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COLLECTIONS
Stewardship of the Collection From 2007 to 2009, annual print expenditures decreased by 5%. During the same time period,
however, digital expenditures increased by almost 50%. In 2009, digital expenditures were
close to 20% of acquisitions expenditures. The library now collects digital equivalents
whenever available. For critical areas, we continue to get both print and electronic, until the
issue of digital law authentication is resolved. This past year saw the cancellation of $115,000
of print materials after a thorough review of expensive serials. The library cancelled duplicate
copies of materials and switched subscriptions to their digital equivalent, as was done for
extensive materials from BNA. The library has been using duplicate collections to the
advantage of the law school. For example, in 2009 American law duplicate copies were
shipped to the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.
Durham Statement: Open Access for Law Reviews
We worked closely with law library directors at Harvard, Yale, and Duke, among others, on a
statement calling for all law schools to stop publishing their journals in print format and to rely
instead on electronic publication coupled with a commitment to keep the electronic versions
available in open, stable, digital formats. This would result in major cost savings at both the
publishing and storage ends, while providing improved access to these journals.
Preservation of Trial Pamphlets One of our special print collections is 18th and 19th century trial materials. This year, three
bound volumes composed of 56 pamphlets underwent preservation treatment by the experts at
CUL, funded by the generous gift of Sidney Meisel. The pamphlets, which were torn, dog-
eared, dirty, and brittle, were disbound and resewn into individual pamphlets, then placed in
custom-built, archival-quality boxes.
Donovan Collection
One of the premier collections at Cornell Law
Library is the Donovan Collection of
Nuremberg trial transcripts and documents,
from the personal archives of General William
J. Donovan. Detailed indexing and searching
are available on the web for 70 volumes of this
special collection on Nazi war trials.
Cornell Legal Scholarship Repository
Our Repository provides open, global
access to the scholarship of Cornell
Law School faculty, students, and
visiting scholars.
I need to express my admiration how this
[Donovan] collection is organized, described
and made accessible. The many digitized
documents are already a treasure trove.
–Professor of Modern German History,
Emory University
Number of new articles added 44
Total number of items in repository 246
Total number of downloads this year 28,561
Total number of downloads for all items 135,855
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13
STAFF ACTIVITIES
Gary Bogart was honored for forty years of service to Cornell University.
Jean Callihan was elected to the Board of Directors for the Association of Law Libraries of Upstate New
York (ALLUNY) and was co-editor and columnist for the ALLUNY newsletter. She is also a member of the
CUL Business Information Group. Jean received a one-month leave to write her article on “Judicial Opinions
Citing the Web: Eroding the Common Law One URL at a Time?”
Carol Clune joined the staff as the new Evening Supervisor. She also provides technical and creative support
for print and online publications of the library.
Pat Court served as a People to People Citizen Ambassador on a two-week trip to China in the fall with the
legal research/law librarian delegation of ten U.S. librarians, for which she received a $500 continuing
education grant from AALL. She was named as consulting librarian at Shanghai Jiao Tong University Koguan
Law School by its law library director, Professor Xu Xiaobing. She continues to serve on the CUL Public
Services Executive Committee and is the PSEC liaison to the Instruction Committee.
Brian Eden retired from his position of Collections Manager after fifteen years at the Law Library. Faculty,
students, staff, and researchers will miss the expertise and dedicated support that Brian brought to his work
with the Bennett statute collection, rare books, digital projects, and at the Circulation Desk.
Amy Emerson joined the Law Library staff in November in a new Research Attorney position to extend the
research, liaison, and teaching work of the library. Amy is a local attorney specializing in real estate law, with
a graduate degree from Syracuse University School of Information Studies. She was elected to the CUL
Academic Assembly Steering Committee for 2009-10.
Charles Finger was elected Treasurer of the Association of Law Libraries of Upstate New York. He is also a
member of the CUL Collection Development Executive Committee.
Claire Germain co-taught the Introduction to French Law course with Professor Xavier Blanc Jouvan during
the Paris Summer Institute in July. In August, she spoke on digital preservation in Québec City at the meeting
of the International Federation of Library Associations, for which she serves as Secretary of the Section on
Law Libraries. Professor Germain attended a meeting of experts on worldwide access to foreign law at The
Hague in October, at the invitation of The Hague Conference on Private International Law, where the topic
was working toward free access to law worldwide. She taught a short course on U.S. and transnational legal
research at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris in March 2009.
Kathy Hartman was honored for thirty years of service to Cornell University.
Gail Howser is the new law school Information Technology staff member dedicated to the library. She reports
through the IT Department and works on computer and technology issues with the library.
Julie Jones was promoted to Associate Librarian through the CUL peer-review process. She presented her
paper on “Librarian as Author,” winner of the LexisNexis Call for Papers, at the AALL Annual Meeting in
July, and published an article entitled “What Did You Say? Planning for Tomorrow’s PR with a
Communications Audit Today,” in AALL Spectrum. She is a contributing editor to the Law Librarian Blog and
has two articles ready for publication in legal information journals this year. Julie left Cornell in May for the
position of Associate Director for Public Services at the University of Connecticut Law Library.
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Patricia Jones retired from her position as Senior Accounts Assistant after twenty-seven years. Although her
work is behind the scenes, she was known for providing stellar service to faculty, acquiring books that were
needed instantly or virtually impossible to find. For the eighth consecutive year, she led the Law Library’s
annual Salvation Army “Adopt-a-Family” project.
Thomas Mills was promoted to Associate Librarian through the CUL peer-review process. He was a
presenter in November 2008 at the special conference on “The Law Librarian's Role in the Scholarly
Enterprise” at the University of South Carolina, where he spoke on the perspective of newer librarians. He
was on the PSEC Instruction Committee panel on teaching for-credit courses and made a presentation at the
Research and Outreach Committee forum on “Outreach beyond Cornell.” He continued to co-chair the Cornell
Undergraduate Information Competency Initiative, which hosted their second week-long workshop on
information literacy for Cornell faculty. Thomas also serves as the book reviews editor for International
Journal of Legal Information, for which he has tripled the number of reviews in each issue.
Nancy Moore retired from her position as Document Delivery Coordinator after twenty-five years at Cornell.
She has long been the face of the Law Library to many users because she could locate materials they needed at
the law school, across campus, and around the world. Most recently, she served on the CUL Access Services
Committee.
Matt Morrison was promoted to Associate Librarian through the CUL peer-review process. He served on the
AALL Awards Committee and completed his term as ALLUNY Treasurer. He also served on the CUL
Reference & Outreach Committee.
Jean Pajerek completed a two-year term as chair of the AALL Technical Services Special Interest Section’s
Cataloging and Classification Standing Committee, which includes service on the TS-SIS Education
Committee and the TS-SIS Executive Board, and taught in the AALL legal cataloging workshop in Portland.
She served on the CUL Technical Services WorldCat Local Implementation Team and on the CUL Promotion
to Librarian Review Committee.
Sasha Skenderija spoke on the “Authentication of Digital Law in the United States and Europe” at the
International Federation of Library Associations in Québec City in August 2008. He was cited in Stuart
Basefsky’s article “The End of Institutional Repositories and the Beginning of Social Academic Research
Service: An Enhanced Role For Libraries.” Sasha was invited to join the prestigious Bosnian-Herzegovinian
American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a full member and was appointed as the Chief Editor’s Advisor
and the Production and Methodology Coordinator for the emerging Bosnian-American Scientific
Bibliographical Lexicon. He also gave two readings of his newly translated book of poetry, Why the Dwarf
Had To Be Shot, which was translated into English by Cornell Linguistics Professor Wayles Browne.
Elizabeth Teskey chaired the CUL campaign for the United Way for the ninth year. She also continued to
serve as editor of the CUL staff newsletter, Kaleidoscope.
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Gifts & Endowments
Jack Clarke ’52 Comparative Law Book Fund Foreign, Comparative, & International Law
Sheppard A. Guryan ’67 Law Library Endowment History of Jurisprudence & American Legal Thought
Arthur H. Rosenbloom ’59 Law Library Endowment Israeli Law
Earl J. Bennett 1901 Collection Statutory Material
Judge Alfred J. Loew Memorial Fund Education & Other Acquisitions
Harry Bitner Research Fund Research Fellows
Lapkin Foundation Donovan Project
Sheppard A. Guryan ’67 Law Librarian’s Endowment
Courses Taught by Research Attorneys
Advanced Legal Research 3 credits
Lawyering, team taught with writing faculty 4 credits
U.S. Legal Research for LL.M. Students 1 credit
International and Foreign Legal Research 2 credits
Business Law Research 1 credit
Introduction to Legal Research and Writing 4 credits
Culture, Law, and Politics of the Internet 3 credits
Research Workshops in Seminar Courses
Immigration and Refugee Law
Legal Narratives
Contemporary American Jury
Corporate Governance
Feminist Jurisprudence
Researching Indian Law for Human Rights Clinic
Principles of American Legal Writing
Law and Social Change
Public Services
Reference questions answered 8,680
Materials checked out 21,791
1-hour instruction sessions 231
Tours conducted 13
Items borrowed for faculty & students 1,328
Items loaned to other libraries 1,782
Acquisitions & Cataloging
Titles cataloged 6,677
Volumes added 8,164
Total print serial titles 6,191
Total print volumes 562,266
Total volumes & volume equivalents 762,606
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