Yale Law Library - News and Events
April 2009 - Posts
Restricted Access April 27 - May 22
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 Monday, April 27 and continuing through the afternoon of Friday, May 22, 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
Zachary Kaufman Book Talk
Our very own Zachary D. Kaufman, YLS JD Candidate '09, will be
giving a book talk this Friday, April 17, 2009, at 4:00pm, in the Law
Library's L3 Periodical Reading Room. Zach, an Olin Fellow and
editor-in-chief of the Yale Law & Policy Review edited After Genocide: Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, and Reconciliation in Rwanda and Beyond with Philip Clark, research fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of
Oxford, and co-founder of Oxford Transitional Justice Research.
In After Genocide, published by Columbia University Press, ". . . leading scholars and practitioners analyze the political, legal, and
regional impact of events in post-genocide Rwanda within the broader
themes of transitional justice, reconstruction, and reconciliation."
The book includes ". . . chapters from Rwandan academics and practitioners, such as
Tom Ndahiro, Solomon Nsabiyera Gasana, and Jean Baptiste Kayigamba—all
of whom are also survivors of the 1994 genocide—and draws on their
personal experiences. After Genocide
constitutes the most comprehensive survey to date of issues related to
post-genocide Rwanda and transitional justice." Read a more complete description of the book.
After Genocide is not on our shelves yet, but it will be very soon!
Heather Gerken Book Talk
On Thursday, April 16, 2009, at 5:30 pm, Labyrinth Books and the Yale Law Library invite you to a discussion about
election reform with Heather Gerken in honor of her new book, The Democracy Index. The book talk will take place at Labyrinth Books, 290 York Street, New Haven.
Despite
howls for reform, the only thing separating us from another election disaster of
the kind that hit Florida in 2000, and that almost struck again in Ohio in 2004,
may simply be another close vote. In this lucid and lively book, Heather Gerken
diagnoses what is wrong with our elections and proposes a radically new and
simple solution: a Democracy Index that would rate the performance of state and
local election systems. A rough equivalent to the U.S. News and World Report
ranking of colleges and universities, the Index would focus on problems that
matter to all voters: How long does it take to vote? How many ballots get
discarded? How often do voting machines break down? And it should work for a
simple reason: no one wants to be at the bottom of the list.
For a
process that is supposed to be all about counting, U.S. elections yield few
reliable numbers about anything--least of all how well the voting system is
managed. The Democracy Index would change this with a blueprint for
quantifying election performance and reform results, replacing anecdotes and
rhetoric with hard data and verifiable outcomes. A fresh vision of reform, this
book shows how to drive improvements by creating incentives for politicians,
parties, and election officials to join the cause of change and to come up with
creative solutions--all without Congress issuing a single regulation.
In
clear and energetic terms, The Democracy Index explains how to realize the full
potential of the Index while avoiding potential pitfalls.
Heather K.
Gerken is a professor at Yale Law School, where she teaches election and
constitutional law. She is a frequent media commentator on elections and has
written for the New Republic, Roll Call, Legal Affairs, and the Legal
Times.
This event is free and open to the public.
Not wheelchair
accessible.
290 York Street
New Haven, CT
203.787.2848
New Law Library Acquisitions for March 2009
The Law Library's list of new acquisitions for March 2009 are now available:
Or, as always, you can visit the library's new acquisitions web page: http://www.law.yale.edu/library/acquisitions.asp.
