Writing a paper and need non-legal sources? The Widener Law Library subscribes to three databases that can be very helpful for non-legal research. EbscoHost, ProQuest, and JSTOR each offer full text articles from many journals different subject areas, including economics, science, medicine and more.
Like many of our other databases, you can access all three from on campus and off. If you are off campus you’ll be asked to enter your name and the barcode number on the back of the Widener ID to log on.
Back in August I covered 30 Lawyers 30 Books an ABA Journal article on book recommendations for lawyers. Now Widener law professor Jules Epstein has enlisted his colleagues to publish a similar book recommendation list. If we have the book in the law library I’ve linked to our catalog, if not I’ve linked to Google Books. For more information on the project see the Widener Law website.
Here’s the list of books:
Fran Catania: The Wild Birds by Wendell Berry
Erin Daly: The Oxbow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
Jean Eggen: The Plague (La Peste) by Albert Camus
Jules Epstein: Picking Cotton by Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton and Bloodsworth: The True Story Of the First Death Row Inmate Exonerated by DNA by Tim Junkin
Michael Goldberg: The Buffalo Creek Disaster by Gerald Stern
David Hodas: The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Lawrence Hamermesh: American Law: An Introduction by Lawrence M. Friedman
Patrick Johnston: Thinking and Deciding by Jonathan Barron and Influence: Science and Practice by Robert Cialdini
Thaddeus Pope: The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law by Joel Feinberg
Laura Ray: The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin
Luke Scheuer: The Buffalo Creek Disaster by Gerald Stern and The Legal Analyst: A Toolkit For Thinking About The Law by Ward Farnsworth
Michael Slinger: A Lawyer’s Journey: The Morris Dees Story
Andre Smith: Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon
Kathleen Turezyn: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow
Serena Williams: Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in The Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle
With the new HeinOnline iPad app you can search and read law journals, legal classics, session laws, treaties and anything else available on HeinOnline right from your iPad. The app is free, as long as you have access to HeinOnline, as all Widener students and faculty do. You have to authenticate your subscription once every 30 days from the Widener campus but otherwise you can use the HeinOnline app from anywhere.
BNA’s United States Law Week brings you the latest legal news from across the country. It covers the Supreme Court as well as other federal and state courts and federal agencies. It’s also a great source of ideas for paper topics, including coverage of all the latest cases, circuit splits, and BNA Insights.
US Law Week is free for all Widener students and faculty. You can also register to have US Law Week emailed to you every week.
CALI and the Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell Law School have created three free ebooks. Download free ebooks of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and Federal Rules of Evidence for your iPad, Nook or any other device that supports .epub files. They are working to add support for Kindles.
The Widener law librarians have been busy creating research guides, called LibGuides on a number of subject areas. Each guide tells you how to get started and provides links to online resources or tells you where to find books and treatises on your subject.
New students might enjoy Law School 101: Resources for Succeeding in Law School by Widener law librarian Ed Sonnenberg. We also have Criminal Law by Maggie Adams and Voting Rights and Election Law by Susan Giusti. I’ve created a LibGuide on Food and Drug Law.
You can access the complete list of LibGuides from our LibGuide site or click on “Research Guides” on the Widener Law Library webpage.
The library has a great collection of study aids located in the room right behind the reference desk. Study aids can be checked out for 3 days. Please return them on time as your fellow students will be waiting for them!
Some of the most popular study aids we have are the Examples and Explanations series and the Understanding series.
A new study guide series we started buying a few years ago that proved popular with students is the Glannon Guide series. Glannon Guides contain sample multiple choice questions with explanations of why each answer choice is right or wrong.
It’s been great seeing our new students around campus. Things just get too quiet when you’re not here. Welcome to Widener Law! Please stop into the library if you need a place to study or relax during Intro to Law week. We also have a great collection of study aids and plenty of computers and printers for you to use.
Please let our librarians know if you need any help or have any questions.
Starting this fall CALI lessons will have a new look. The new lessons will also work on iPads, iPhones, and other mobile devices. Right now the mobile lessons are available in a beta version. If you’d like to give them a test run check out CALI’s website for more info.
Also, if you are an incoming first year and would like to try out CALI just email Janet Lindenmuth or stop by the reference desk for the authorization code.
The Law Library of Congress has posted a helpful guide for researching the law of the new nation of South Sudan.
The U.S. Dept. of Justice has posted a collection of legislative histories on its website. These were compiled by librarians at the Dept. and were previously only available to Dept. of Justice employees.
Need some ideas for summer reading? One of my favorite websites, The Browser, has a great section called Five Books, where they interview people about five books they would recommend on their subject area. Recently they interviewed Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer on his intellectual influences. Other law related book lists include Scott Turow on legal novels, FBI agent Kevin Slotter on the FBI and crime, and Jack Rakove on the Constitution. Plus their special Five Books coverage of American Conservatism, featuring Karl Rove, Mitch Daniels, David Frum and more.
OK, while you all read the law books, I’m going with Simon Kernick on thrillers.
Just received in the library is Treating Young Veterans: Promoting Resilience Through Practice and Advocacy. Co-edited by Widener Law professor Sydney Howe-Barksdale the book also features chapters by Widener Law’s Justin Holbrook and Tom Reed.
We’re sometimes asked to recommend books for new students to read before they start law school. I personally would advise you to relax and read something fun while you still can, but we know you’re anxious to get started. We have a list of books for new students on our webpage. It’s a long list so don’t feel you have to read them all. Just pick one!
PrawfsBlawg has a recent post on books for rising 1Ls (or as we usually say at Widener, first years). Besides the books in the initial post there are some great suggestions in the comments.
Hat tip to the Biddle Law Library Facebook page!
The library has a new book just published by John Culhane. Prof. Culhane is the editor of Reconsidering Law and Policy Debates A Public Health Perspective recently published by Cambridge University Press.