News

Remote Access to Casebooks and Texts

The publishers of law school casebooks and texts recognize the current health emergency, and have agreed to make these books available electronically to our students. The Mendik Library is working out the details of remote access with the publishers.

Below are access details we’ve received so far, organized by publisher. If you’re not sure which company publishes your book, consult the Library’s Online Catalog. Click on “Course Reserves” and you can search by course or professor’s name. The catalog record will indicate the publisher.

Our goal is to make this list as inclusive as possible. While these are the major publishers of law texts, your text may not be included. We’ll be adding and enhancing this information continuously, so check this page frequently. If you experience difficulty with remote access, or have any questions, contact us at reference@nyls.edu.

LexisNexis and Carolina Academic Press: Many of these publishers’ textbooks are available through the VitalSource platform. Click on this link, to access the VitalSource login page. You MUST use your New York Law School email address to create a VitalSource account. Then click on the “Explore” link to search for your casebook or text.

West Academic and Foundation Press: You should call 877-888-1330 and identify yourself as a student at a coronavirus-impacted school. You’ll be connected with a customer service representative who will give you access instructions.

Wolters Kluwer, Law & Business, and Aspen Publishers: Many of these publishers’ textbooks are available through the VitalSource platform. Click on this link, to access the VitalSource login page. You MUST use your New York Law School email address to create a VitalSource account. Then click on the “Explore” link to search for your casebook or text.

The Bluebook – a Uniform System of Citation: Watch this page for further details

Tracking the Impeachment Inquiry

GovTrack.us offers the impeachment.guide, an online guide tracking the impeachment inquiry of President Trump.  It contains a complete chronology, beginning in 2018 and ending with last week’s public hearings.  It also provides links to key documents, identifies possible charges the President may face and offers background on how the impeachment and removal process works. The guide will be updated on an ongoing basis.

Happy Constitution Day!

Constitution Day is observed each year on September 17 to commemorate the date on which thirty-nine delegates to the Constitutional Convention, held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, signed the United States Constitution in 1787. The Convention was convened as a result of dissatisfaction with the Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the United States.

In celebration of Constitution Day (and Citizenship Day) this year, a number of federal judges have been conducting naturalization ceremonies for hundreds of new citizens at a dozen major and minor league ballparks across the country. The effort will continue through September 20.

For deeper coverage on the world’s longest surviving written charter of government, download the Library of Congress’s free app containing the official, annotated version of the United State Constitution, U.S. Constitution: Analysis and Interpretation.

The original Constitution is held at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. but you can pick up your own pocket-copy at the library’s reference desk!

The Green Book

The Green Book: Travel is Fatal to Prejudice

Green Book, this year’s Oscar winner for Best Picture, was loosely based on the true story of a friendship between an African-American concert pianist, Dr. Don Shirley, and his Italian-American driver and bodyguard, Tony “Lip” Vallelonga—a friendship that developed on the road during a concert tour through the “Deep South” in the 1960s.

While the story is moving and the acting superb, the movie and its audiences might have been better served if its eponymous inspiration had been given a more prominent role.  Few people recognize the film’s title as a cinematic nod to the Negro Motorist Green Book—an indispensable ready reference source that many African-American travelers and motorists relied upon during the Jim Crow era.

The film is set in 1962—more than a quarter of a century after the “Green Book” was first published by Victor Hugo Green, a New Jersey mail carrier living in Harlem.  The Green Book, which was updated annually, contained travel tips, articles, and listings of hotels and other lodging, restaurants, nightclubs, gas stations, garages, salons, barbershops, and other businesses and establishments where African-Americans were known to be welcomed and served.

The Green Book provided a measure of protective reassurance and was designed to avoid or mitigate “embarrassing situations,” as Green himself put it, while also affording subtle commentary on the racial and social injustices of the time.  For example, the same 1949 cover that cautions its readers to “Carry your Green Book with you—You may need it” also displays “Travel is Fatal to Prejudice,” a quote from Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad.

 

You can access digital versions of one of the largest collections of Green Books here, courtesy of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

IMPORTANT CHANGES TO NYLS LIBRARY LABS

Important changes have been made to the Library lab PCs. Most students use these labs, and so should pay careful attention to the following:

Network Login: All lab PCs have been reconfigured to login automatically to a generic account named “Lab User”. You will no longer login with your personal username and password. Rather, the PC you’re using will have a desktop that gives you access to internet browsers and applications – Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat – logged in as Lab User.

Password? Your lab PC shouldn’t be asking you for a password, but if it does, just restart the PC.

My Network Account? You won’t be able to login to your own network account when you’re working at a lab PC. If you want to save a file you have several choices: 1) Save it to your OneDrive; 2) Email it to yourself; 3) Save it to a thumb drive.

Name Your Documents before Printing!!! When you send a document to print, it will appear in the queue as coming from “Lab User”, a generic name. To make sure you can identify your own document in the queue, you must give it a name you can recognize! If your document is named “Document1” you won’t be able to distinguish it from other users’ documents. Save it with a unique name before you send it to the printer!

The Library staff stands ready to help you adjust to these changes. Just visit the Reference Desk, or call us at ext. 2332.

See Something, Say Something

Exam period is here and your easygoing nature probably is diminishing quickly. So much studying and outlining to do! Because of that, little things that you ignored last week are a big deal today. So, if it bugs you, say something.

Tell us about the light bulb over your favorite study spot that is out. And the person who brings in those delectable garlic fries you love, that now seem too garlicky and too greasy for the library. And the guy in the stairwell talking on his cell phone at full volume.

If you see, hear, or smell something, say something. It’s your library and you are here to study without distractions. Let us help do that.

Resources on Moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel

On December 6, 2017, President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and instructed the State Department to develop a plan to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. On December 21, 2017, two weeks later, the United Nations voted 128-9 (with 35 abstentions) to demand that the US rescind the declared move.

Oxford University Press has made available a number of free resources explaining the legal and historical background of the issue and providing an account of the governing law.

Need a Quick Boost?

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.

Law and the Olympics

olympic_rings_logo_v_210Not heading to Rio for the Olympics?  Curious about the many different laws and regulations that underlie and sometimes impact what has been described as “the world’s most recognized international sporting event”?  Check out the wide-ranging Olympics and International Sports Law Research Guide produced by the Georgetown Law Library.  You may not win any medals but you’ll learn about the formal organization and legal structure of the Games and the various forums and procedures that govern resolution of disputes.  So, in the spirit of the Olympics . . . Citius, Altius, Fortius!