Welcome to Digital Library! Click on the icon below and bookmark this link in your browser to access the site: The Library will have a LexisNexis Digital Library Demo next week in the lobby of the library. Come learn how to download eBooks and see innovative features utilized through this digital library. There are 100s of titles available for download on various legal topics (including study aids)! Here is the schedule for the demos next week: *light refreshments will be available.
Guides & Tutorials: Downloading an eBook from LexisNexis Digital Library—PDF A step-by-step walk-through of the eBook check out process. Downloading an eBook using OverDrive Read™ (in-browser reading)— Help page A step-by-step walk-through of the eBook check-out process of in-browser reading. Adobe Digital Editions View 30-second video clips on how to install, authorize, read, return, transfer and delete content. Adobe Digital Editions FAQ If you have any questions or need help, please email [email protected] or call 808-956-2599.
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By Brian HuffmanThere are presentations and resources during the annual Open Access Week (October 24-30, 2016). There will be a keynote address by President David Lassner. Come learn about various topics, including Open Access at the Intersection of Political Economy and Social Justice; Copyright, Intellectual Property, Creative Commons and Fair Use Panel; Wikipedia Editing: Hawaiian Mythology, and many more... A research guide provides more information and a complete schedule. Leggos anyone? According to a 2015 article in the Boston Globe, "[W]hile it’s intuitively obvious that stress doesn’t foster creativity, it may be surprising that the reverse seems to be true: Engaging in creative activity appears to help reduce stress." If you stop by the Reference Assistants' desk, you might find an RA building a boat or a moose or something. Everyone should get in the game. We would like you to think about building something and putting it in a fun place in the Law Library - then, take a picture of it and post it to the Law Library Facebook page. Someone already got us started. Here is a Leggo boat hiding among the Maritime Case Reporters! Looking forward to seeing you less stressed and more creative! Those who know me understand that I am not a fan of The Bluebook, a Uniform System of Citation. It never seems to definitively answer my citation needs nor is it consistent, which a good system of citation ought to be. Over the years The Bluebook’s illogical rules have left a hint of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in me. So, it’s no wonder why I now celebrate, heck I’m rejoicing at this new legal citation book called The Indigo Book. With a “CC0” Creative Commons designation, this book is in the public domain and it is F*R*E*E. One can “use it, copy it, distribute it, and—we hope—improve it.” It is available at https://law.resource.org/pub/us/code/blue/IndigoBook.pdf. From its Introduction, The Indigo Book was compiled by a team of students at the New York University School of Law, working under the direction of Professor Christopher Jon Sprigman. The Indigo Book isn’t the same as The Bluebook, but it does implement the same Uniform System of Citation that The Bluebook does. The scope of The Indigo Book’s coverage is roughly equivalent to The Bluebook’s “Bluepages”—that is, The Indigo Book covers legal citation for U.S. legal materials, as well as books, periodicals, and Internet and other electronic resources. In addition, The Indigo Book offers citation guidance that is deeper than The Bluebook’s Bluepages—for example, The Indigo Book has citation guidance for bills, and for legislative history, that the Bluepages lack. For the materials that it covers, anyone using The Indigo Book will produce briefs, memoranda, law review articles, and other legal documents with citations that are compatible with the Uniform System of Citation. Many of the “Indigo Inklings” speak to me on a very basic, almost primordial, level. Reading them is therapeutic. For example, I’ve always wondered why The Bluebook insists on using underlining rather than italicizing font since the underlines were a signal to the typesetter to put in italic font. The typewriter was invented around the 1860s. The first edition of The Bluebook is from 1926. Typewriters of that era did not support italics or boldface. If you wanted to emphasize text, your sole option was to underline. Throughout The Indigo Book, you'll see us italicizing text rather than underlining, because that’s how we do it in the 21st Century. The Bluebook 20th Ed. still gives you the option to do either, but you know where we stand. Citing legislative materials is much clearer in The Indigo Book: If unenacted, cite as follows: <name of bill, if helpful>,<abbreviation from the list below> <bill number>, <number of the Congress> <section, if not citing the entire bill> <year of publication>, with additional information when needed to distinguish between different versions of the bill in a given Congress, with names of subcommittees and committees abbreviated according to the form set out in Table T5, Table T11, and Table T12. See for yourself if The Indigo Book can help you maintain your sanity when citing legal authorities.
By Roberta WoodsThe blog, Citing Legally, offers an interesting entry about online case law validation, i.e. Shepard’s, KeyCite, etc., in its article, “The Complex Relationship between Citations and Citators.” (http://citeblog.access-to-law.com/?p=300) According to the blog, citations to as yet unpublished decisions pose particular problems in the online environment since the cases typically don’t get solid book citations immediately. As of April 23 five “precedential” decisions in cases appealing a denial of benefits by the Social Security Administration had been released by the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals since the beginning of 2015. . . . Four of the five were written by Judge Richard Posner. Three of his decisions and one by Judge Daniel Manion reversed trial court decisions that had affirmed the agency’s benefit denial. Westlaw gives the case a “WL” citation. Lexis gives it a “LEXIS” citation. Bloomberg Law gives it a “BL” citation. When it finally gets a citation to the Federal Reporter (book), the parallel citations to the WL, LEXIS, and BL cites are not carried through. Researchers have to know to look at the predecessor cites for the proprietary databases to get the full picture. The article illustrates the problem for researchers using the example of Curvin v. Colvin, No. 13-3622 (7th Cir. Feb. 11, 2015). The decision was handed down on February 11, 2015 but did not receive its “778 F.3d 645” designation until a month and a half later. During the intervening weeks it was cited at least eight times by district courts within the Seventh Circuit. Perforce those citations identified the Seventh Circuit opinion by docket number and exact date or a proprietary database citation (“WL”). Most, but not all, used both in parallel, yielding citations in the following form: Curvin v. Colvin, No. 13-3622, 2015 WL 542847 (7th Cir. Feb. 11, 2015). A straight database search on “778 F.3d 645” will not retrieve those cases. A database search on “2015 WL 542847” will retrieve those using the Westlaw cite (but not those employing the LEXIS equivalent “2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 2170” or the “F.3d” cite). A search on “13-3622” and “Curvin” will retrieve those including Curvin’s docket number but not those relying solely on a proprietary database cite or the ultimate “F.3d” cite. Reliance on the publication of print volumes of the National Reporter System, once a boon to the legal researcher, creates a cascade of issues when researching in a digital environment. The author recommends that jurisdictions “attach official citations to decisions at the time of release” as they do in Oklahoma. The purpose of Citing Legally is “to draw attention to important differences in practice among jurisdictions and distinctive approaches – from the commendable to the lamentable, the new and novel to the archaic. Like the reference from which it springs the focus here will be on how judges and lawyers cite legal authority rather than law journal norms.”
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