Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read runs September 26, 2009 - October 3, 2009. An annual event sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) since 1982. the event celebrates intellectual freedom, reading and the First Amendment. According to ALA figures, there were 581 challenges to books in US schools and libraries in 2008. The ALA website also provides charts detailing the number and types of challenges since 1990 ans a list of classics that have been challenged along with the reasons why.

Amnesty International USA participates in Banned Books Week by highlighting individuals world-wide who have been persecuted because of what they write, read, or publish. Information about these authors and their cases is available.

Additional First Amendment websites and books may be found via the Library's website.

Monday, September 28, 2009

New Titles

The Westminster Law Library added some new titles to our collection over the summer. You can see a list of all items or search by subject. Fill out our online form to be emailed a list of new titles on a regular basis. If you are interested in suggesting an item for purchase, let us know!

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Law in Spanish

Argentina, Chile, Colombia Civil Codes in English … Mexico

Are you planning to research civil codes for Argentina, Chile, or Colombia, but you don’t speak Spanish? The library has English translations of these codes available on the shelf and dated 2008. Also available in translation from Mexico are the Federal Civil Code of Mexico (2005) and the Mexican commercial code annotated (2005).

If you are just learning Spanish or need to know legal terms in Spanish, a simple keyword search (Spanish Dictionary) in the library catalog
will get you 38 results, including the Essential English/Spanish – Spanish/English Legal Dictionary, K52.S6 K37 2008 .

And don’t forget to check the Inter-Am Database from the National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade, available through the Databases/Indexes list from the library’s homepage. Focusing on Latin American countries, the database provides access to quite current laws in a number of specific areas of law. Under “User’s Tools” you can find “ENGLISH-SPANISH KEYWORD LISTS OF LEGAL TERMS & PHRASES” arranged by topic. This site also provides access to European materials and has a “Treaties” database. Check it out!

Stay tuned for more on our legal resources in Spanish.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Study Room Reservations

Need to reserve a study room? SCOL study rooms may be reserved by law school students, faculty & staff. See the complete guidelines and procedures on the Current Students webpage.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Congressional Directories

Interested in knowing "who's who" in the current Congress? Want to do some research before applying for a legislative staff job? Check out the photos in the Congressional Pictorial Directory for the 11th Congress.

For biographical data, see the official directory of Congress, Congressional Directory, which has been published since 1888 by the Joint Committee on Printing. Or use the Congressional Biographical Directory which has a simple search template which contains information on legislators back to 1774.

For more details about current legislative activities Congress.org website to track the committee assignments, bill sponsorships and other details of each Senator or Representative.

Westlaw includes a database for The Congressional Staff Directory (congstaff-dir). It has detailed profiles for U.S. Congressional committees, subcommittees, task forces, caucuses, etc. as compiled by the CQ Press staff.