Cheney's course web-page added
to Jurist
Jurist, the Legal Education Network, recently added Kristin
Cheney's Advanced Legal Research course web-pages to their Internet-based
materials. Hosted by the University of Pittsburgh School of Law,
Jurist is designed for individuals learning, teaching or researching
law -- legal scholars, law students, law librarians, lawyers
and judges, journalists, and interested citizens. Jurist can
be accessed on the web at http://jurist.law.pitt.edu.
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Turning the tables
The tables have turned. March 25-28, Kristin Cheney will be
visiting the University of Dayton School of Law as an ABA site
inspection team member. When asked to comment on her upcoming
visit, Kristin remarked that it's nice for a change to be the
inspector, and not the inspectee.
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Cataloging staff attends OCLC
Workshops
Suzanne Harvey and Nancy Minton attended seminars put on by
the Online Computer
Library Center, a global library cooperative
whose systems help librarians locate, acquire, catalog, and lend
library materials. The heart of OCLC is WorldCat,
the most consulted database in higher education, which holds
over 45 million cataloging records created by libraries around
the world. Suzanne and Nancy participated in workshops on inputting
original records into WorldCat and on working with authority
control records. Authority control assures the uniformity of
indexing and provides cross-referencing to simplify searching
and minimize confusion.
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Newsletter compiled by Suzanne Harvey and Brendan Starkey.
Questions? Comments? Please contact Brendan
Starkey, editor. |
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What's
shaking in the Law Library . . . |
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March
2001 |
 Shaken,
but recovering
The law library appears to have pulled through the quake remarkably
well, and a BIG thank you from the entire library staff is extended
to the staff and students from other law school departments who
came over to help with the clean-up.
It looked pretty discouraging at first. After assuring ourselves
that no one was seriously injured, we turned our attention to
the physical damage. The building held up quite well, with only
a ceiling tile here and there falling to the ground in vacant
areas. In keeping with local regulations, the bookshelves are
bolted to the floors, so all remained standing and no one was
treated to a large-scale demonstration of the domino effect.
However, the laws of physics dictate that the upper portion
of these shelves will sway more than the lower, and the building
itself will behave similarly. While many books fell to the floor
on the second and third floors, nothing could compare to the
scene on the fourth, where more books were piled up in the center
of aisles than were left on the shelves. Almost immediately,
volunteers from other departments came over to join the library
staff in placing the books back on the shelves to clear the floor.
What might have taken days was finished in a matter of hours
due to all the help we received.
 Unfortunately,
since the priority was clearing the floors, we reshelved as fast
as possible, and were unable to give much regard to call number
order. So while the library looks nice again, it may be a little
difficult to find things for a while. We hope to have everything
reshelved in call number order soon.
More photos!
(Photos courtesy of Donna Turner, Bindery Specialist)
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Records for many microfiche titles
added to THEO
Over half of the law library's collection is on microform,
and while most of us prefer to use "macroform" whenever
possible, the use of film and fiche enables the library to collect
and store far more material than would otherwise be possible.
While digitized information is far easier to access, the media
on which it is stored decays or quickly becomes outdated (anyone
have a 5 1/4 floppy disk drive on his/her computer?), leaving
microform still the best media for archival purposes.
Finding what is needed on microform can be a challenge, but
the library has taken big steps toward making this easier for
our users with the addition of 15,000 catalog records to THEO which reference individual
titles in some of our larger microfiche collections. Sets include:
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Access to Internet Law
& Regulation improved
Access to the online version of Pike & Fischer's Internet
Law & Regulation has been made easier. Formerly accessible
only with a special password, it is now available to any user
on the Seattle University campus. Those who wish to use it from
off campus will be asked to enter their Seattle U. e-mail logon
and password.
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Library staff attends Education
Solutions seminar
Kristin Cheney, Jane Draney, Kelly Kunsch, Kara Phillips,
and Brendan Starkey attended a seminar on Macromedia's Education
Solutions package. They saw presentations on Macromedia products
such as Dreamweaver, an HTML editing application; Fireworks,
for designing and optimizing web graphics; and Macromedia Flash,
for creating animated, vector-based (as opposed to pixilated)
web sites. The new generation of web design tools made by this
company and its competitors makes sophisticated web design easier,
and everyone came away with ideas about how they might use such
products to improve site presentation.
For content, we must continue to rely on more prosaic sources,
such as the human brain.
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"New and Notable"
library materials
Check out the New and Notable page
to see new resources we think might be of particular interest
to our users. The page includes synopses, information on the
authors, and links to available reviews of the titles shown above.
For all of our recent acquisitions, see the New
Bookshelf page.
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Site checking
 Some web sites of interest:
The "Invisible Web" refers to databases on
the web that are not searchable by Google, Excite, Yahoo, Hotbot,
or any of the other web search engines that most of us rely on
to find materials. The engines will record the location of the
database, but not what it contains. To a searcher, that's a bit
like saying, "here's the library, but you can't know what's
in it." Since these databases contain vast amounts of information,
and are growing ever larger, it helps to know what is out there.
This
article from About.com explains the phenomenon and provides
a list of resources to consult. Some favorites:
MagPortal.com <http://www.magportal.com/>
This no-nonsense site helps you find individual magazine articles
on the web, from publications as diverse as Time, Education
Week, and Popular Mechanics. For law-related stories,
search under the "Society, Politics & Culture"
subheading.
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