Pulitzer-Prize winning Greenhouse (Becoming Justice Blackmun) who has covered the Supreme Court for nearly 30 years; together with Yale Law professor Siegel (Processes of Constitutional Decision Making) discuss their new book, "Before Roe v. Wade: the voices that shaped the abortion debate before the Supreme Court's ruling." Bringing to light key voices that illuminate the case and its cultural context, the authors look back and recapture how the arguments for and against abortion took shape as claims about the meaning of the Constitution—and about how the nation could best honor its commitment to dignity, liberty, equality, and life.   The book is available at the Law Library  and you may watch the video online in our catalog.

The Law Library's list of new acquisitions for November 2010 are now available:

• All Acquisitions
• German, French and Italian Language Acquisitions
• Spanish Language Acquisitions
• Movies and TV Programs
  

Or, as always, you can visit the library's new acquisitions web page: http://www.law.yale.edu/library/acquisitions.asp.

The Yale Law Library is happy to announce an exciting book publishing event connected to our library, and an engaging web site created by our library related to the book.  The book is the long-awaited "Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy, and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms" by Judith Resnik and Dennis Curtis, two of our faculty members.  It is the third book in the Yale Law Library Series in Legal History and Reference, published by Yale University Press with Yale Law Librarian Fred Shapiro as the series editor.  Resnik and Curtis trace the development of public spaces dedicated to justice, and how this development has reflected and shaped the evolution of adjudication itself and the intimate relationship between the courts and democracy.  The book is visually stunning, with over 200 magnificent color illustrations.

To support "Representing Justice," Camilla Tubbs, Jason Eiseman and Mike Widener of the Yale Law Library have created a website, the first component of our Document Collections Center:  <http://documents.law.yale.edu/representing-justice>.    This website brings the work of Resnik and Curtis to life by connecting readers to fascinating images from the book and from related rare volumes in our library collection, links to library events and videos, and information about a "Representing Justice" course being taught this spring by Resnik and Curtis at the Law School.   

This project is one of many developed in the wake of the Yale Law Library's Strategic Plan to increase the importance of the library in the digital age.  Faculty and students here are deeply engaged in scholarship which requires library support, and in turn, the Law Library benefits from the expertise and knowledge base of the researchers who use, identify and support our collections.  The Yale Law School Library Document Collection Center will publish discrete collections of research material collected by the library.  Some collections are related to faculty publications the library worked on, some collections come from in-house digitization projects, and others have been collected as part of other law school projects.   All digitized collections are intended to make our unique content available to a wider audience.  We look forward to adding additional collections and enhancements in the future, including a powerful cross-collection search. 

You may also view faculty and student publications in the YLS Scholarship Repository.

Responding to requests from law students, we will restrict non-law student access during
undergraduate and Law School reading/exam periods. 
 
Effective the evening of Friday, December 3 and continuing through the afternoon of
Wednesday, January 19, admission to the Law Library will be limited to Law School affiliates,
University faculty, and Law Library pass holders. 
(Passes will be given to non-law students doing legal research and presenting a letter from a faculty member or college dean.) 
 
During this restricted period, law students must show their ID card with the Law School sticker
every time they enter the library to gain admission to the Law Library. 
 
The library monitors will be intending conscientiously to enforce this policy so please help them
by having your card when you come to the library.  If for some reason you do not have the Law School sticker
on your card, you can get one from the Registrar's Office.  In general, we ask for your cooperation with staff
who will be implementing the rules in the stressful environment that exams create for all of us. 
 
Restrictions must always be implemented with caution because we are committed to participating in the University community. 
If you have suggestions about these policies, please feel free to communicate them to me. 
 
Fred Shapiro 
Associate Librarian for Collections and Access 
Lillian Goldman Law Library 
Yale Law School 

Linda Greenhouse and Reva Siegel 
Before Roe v. Wade:  Voices that Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court’s Ruling
Thursday, December 9, at 6 p.m 
Labyrinth Books
290 York St., New Haven, CT

The Lillian Goldman Law Library invites you to a discussion of an important new book by Professor Reva Siegel and Linda Greenhouse, with critical commentary by Professor Jack Balkin.    

Before Roe v. Wade offers compelling review of the societal conditions, incidents, and cases that led to the Supreme Court's historic decision legalizing abortion, which recaptures how the arguments for and against abortion took shape as claims about the meaning of the Constitution—and about how the nation could best honor its commitment to dignity, liberty, equality, and life.

Reva Siegel is the Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law at Yale Law School and Professor of American Studies at Yale University. 

Linda Greenhouse is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and long-time Supreme Court reporter who is the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Joseph Goldstein Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. 

Jack Balkin is the Knight Professor of Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School.

Douglas Kysar and Robert Verchick
Vision, Values and Environmental Law 

Thursday, December 2, at 6 p.m. 

Room 120, Yale Law School 

The Lillian Goldman Law Library invites you to a discussion of two new powerfully sweeping books by Professor Douglass Kysar and Professor Robert Verchick. 

In Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental Law and the Search for Objectivity   Professor Kysar examines a wide array of sources to propose a new theoretical basis for understanding environmental law and policy.  He concludes by advocating a movement toward environmental constitutionalism in which allowing life to flourish is always considered a priority.

In Facing Catastrophe: Environmental Action for a Post-Katrina World Professor Verchick draws on the experience of post-Katrina New Orleans to sound a wake-up call for environmental action and argue that government must assume a stronger regulatory role in to limit and manage the consequences of future natural disasters.

Douglas Kysar is the Joseph M. Field ’55 Professor of Law at Yale Law School, where his teaching and research areas include torts, environmental law, and risk regulation.

Robert Verchick is the Gauthier-St. Martin Eminent Scholar and Chair in Environmental at Loyola University Law School, in New Orleans.

Jacob Hacker 
Winner Take All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
Wednesday, December 1, at 5 p.m.  
Labyrinth Books
290 York St., New Haven, CT 

The Lillian Goldman Law Library invites you to a discussion of an important book by Professor Jacob Hacker, with commentary by Professor Robert Shiller.    

Winner Take All Politics is a ground-breaking work demonstrating how the U.S. political system was hijacked by the super-rich over a series of both Democratic and Republican led administrations and showing a path for taking it back.  The authors are lauded for their insights in featured reviews ranging from the New York Times* to Mother Jones, and famed consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren calls this book must reading.  Learn more from the author with commentary provided by Professor Robert Shiller at the upcoming book discussion being held at Labyrinth Books and sponsored by the Lillian Goldman Law Library.

The Acquisitions & Continuing Resources Department obtains library materials from worldwide sources - from Bemidji to Beijing, from New Haven to New Delhi, from Saint Louis to Saint Petersburg. MORRIS, our on-line library system, currently tracks 996 vendors – and we are adding new business partners every year.

Book sellers, print and electronic serial subscription agents, rare book specialists, and film sources have all played a role in the growth of our collections. In a way, every item's journey to us tells a story. These days, acquisitions information is viewable in MORRIS. But long before on-line library systems, records of titles added through purchase or gift were kept through diary entries.

From January 21, 1948

Dr. Ernst Sauer, Nordrhein-Westfalen, British Zone, GERMANY sent us the two books listed below and asked that in return we send him soap and fat.  Two cans of Crisco and six bars of soap were sent him with instructions that they be given to “Care” if they could not be delivered to him.

Kipp – Mensch, recht und staat

Sauer – Grundlehre des völkerrechts

In May 1948 we were notified by Yale Station that Dr. Sauer had not been located so we authorized the Post Office in Germany to turn the box over to CARE.

On June 8, 1948 we received a postal from Dr. Sauer notifying us that he had received the package and was sending us another book since the value of the gift was greater than the value of the books he sent.

Turegg – Deutschland und das völkerrect, 1948

We do not know the name of the law library staff person who recorded the acquisition details of these three German monograph titles – but we are thankful for the historical look back.

 -- Jo-Anne Giammattei

Patrick Weil
How to Be French: Nationality in the Making Since 1789
Tuesday, November 16, at 6:15 p.m.
Labyrinth Books
290 York St., New Haven, CT 

The Lillian Goldman Law Library invites you to a discussion of an important book by Professor Patrick Weil, with commentary by Professor Timothy Snyder.    

How To Be French is an award winning book in which Patrick Weil employs comparative techniques to dissect the history of French nationality laws from 1789 to the present.  Originally published in France, in 2002, this masterful English language translation offers important lessons for discussing contemporary issues of nationality in France and other western nations, including the U.S.  Learn more from the author and commentary provided by Professor Timothy Snyder at the upcoming book discussion being held at Labyrinth Books and sponsored by the Lillian Goldman Law Library.

Patrick Weil is Visiting Professor of Law and Robina Foundation International Fellow at Yale Law School and a senior research fellow at the French National Research Center in the University of Paris, Pantheon-Sorbonne. 

Timothy Snyder is a Professor of History at Yale and an expert in modern East European political history. 

The Law Library's list of new acquisitions for October 2010 are now available:

• All Acquisitions
• German, French and Italian Language Acquisitions
• Spanish Language Acquisitions
• Movies and TV Programs
  

Or, as always, you can visit the library's new acquisitions web page: http://www.law.yale.edu/library/acquisitions.asp.