Can you find love in the Library? Yes, you can! Click here to access our Valentine’s Day Info Hunt.

WIN study aids, Lexis points, NYLS swag, and other useful items, while having fun doing some easy legal research about some offbeat cases. Each question comes with step-by-step instructions to get you to the answer.

Print the PDF entry form (or pick up a copy at the Reference Desk) and drop it in our Reference Desk Raffle Drum by 5:00 pm on Thursday February 13. Then join us outside the library at 5:30 for some sweets and the prize drawing at 5:45pm.

Legislation signed in 1983 marked the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a federal holiday. It is celebrated on the third Monday of each January. In 1994, Congress designated the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday as a national day of service, now led by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

This year, the NYLS community is honoring Dr. King’s legacy through a service project for God’s Love We Deliver on January 24, 2020.  NYLS students and staff will be volunteering to assist in the preparation and delivery of nutritious, high-quality meals to people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other serious illnesses, who are unable to provide or prepare meals for themselves. The effort is being organized by NYLS’s Impact Center for Public Interest Law.

For the twelfth consecutive year, the Mendik Library surveyed 1Ls during First Week about some of their digital inclinations. For the complete survey and how they compare to results over the past five years, click here. For results back to 2007, click here.

Spoiler alert—pepperoni once again repeated as the most popular pizza topping, this time based on the preferences of 366 members of the classes of 2022/23. These students also responded to questions about:

• their preferred platforms for electronic communication;

• their usage of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Twitter, Blogs & Podcasts;

• the digital devices they owned and used, including Macs v. PCs, Smartphones, Tablets and E-Book Readers.

Some highlights:

Communication

• Text messaging remains the dominant preference at 77%, four points lower than the previous year. Email saw a slight uptick from 11% to 16%.

Social Media

• Instagram continues to dominate (56%) as the social networking platform of choice for these students. Only 11% labeled Facebook as the social networking platform they used most often.

Preferred Devices

• When it comes to the computer students use most often, Macs are favored over PCs 3:1.

E-Books

• Roughly 70% of students reported having used an e-textbook for undergraduate or graduate school classes, an increase from 62% in the previous year.

• Significantly, only 17% of students preferred using an e-textbook to a print textbook, which is consistent with data from prior years.

Pizza

• Pepperoni continues to reign supreme as students’ favorite pizza topping, pulling in 26% of the vote. Extra cheese was its closest competitor at 19%, followed by mushrooms at 11%.

Let us help polish off your research!  The Mendik Library has scheduled 30-minute research “open houses” at 1:00-1:30 p.m. on November 11-14 and November 18-21, all in room L203. If those times don’t work you can always get research help from the librarians at the reference desk, either in person, by email (reference@nyls.edu) or by phone (212.431.2332).

Does your phone or laptop need a charge? Stop by the Library’s Circulation Desk and the juice is on us; no charge to charge – it’s free! Charging is limited to 30 minutes if another student needs the charger too. Otherwise, you can fill ‘er up.

The Mendik Library will be closed on Labor Day, Monday September 2, 2019. It will be reopened for its regular hours on Tuesday September 3, 2019. Check the Library’s home page for all hours information.

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens died at the age of 99 on July 16, 2019, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  With over three decades on the Supreme Court bench, wearing his trademark bowtie, Stevens was the third-longest serving Justice of the high court before his June 2010 retirement.

Born and raised in Chicago, Stevens grew up in the heyday of the Roaring Twenties. After graduating from the University of Chicago, he served as a codebreaker in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and upon his discharge, enrolled at Northwestern University School of Law.  Shortly after his graduation, he secured a Supreme Court clerkship with Justice Wiley Rutledge, and when that ended, went into private practice specializing in antitrust law.  In 1970, President Richard Nixon nominated Stevens to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, where he made a name for himself as a moderate conservative judge.  Five years later, President Gerald Ford appointed him to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the retirement of Justice William O. Douglas.

Justice Stevens leaves an indelible impression on many of the critical social issues that have reached the Supreme Court.  The broad scope and range of his many opinions include those impacting abortion, affirmative action, civil rights, climate change, criminal justice, the death penalty, and many other pressing issues.

Despite a perceived evolution in his ideology over the course of his years on the bench, Justice Stevens was known to be an intellectual and pragmatic jurist, with a strong aversion to ideological and partisan characterizations.  His commitment to justice and passion for “learning on the job” helped him garner a reputation for honesty, humility and wisdom as well as the respect of many.

If the impact and influence of a jurist can be determined by how much has been written about him and his body of work, the numerous tributes and memorials that have proliferated since his passing provide testimony to Justice Steven’s exemplary life and judicial career.

The following is a list of works written by Justice Steven that are available in the Library’s collection:

The Making of a Justice: Reflections on my First 94 Years (2019)
KF8745 .S78 A3 2019

With William N. Eskridge Jr., Interpreting Law: A Primer on How to Read Statutes and the Constitution (2016)
KF425.E833 2016

Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution (2014)
KF4557 .S74 2014

Five Chiefs: A Supreme Court Memoir (2011)
KF8745.S78 A3 2011