Amicus Briefs - News from the Alexander Campbell King Law Library  
April 2007
 
In This Issue

Carol Humphries

Carol Humphries is the Law Library's new Cataloging Assistant. Learn more about Carol below.

Search Smart and Amaze Your Friends!

Join us for pizza and great tips for effective web searching at the Law Library's next Lunch-n-Learn session. We'll provide pizza and treats - you bring your beverage of choice.

When: Friday, April 6, 12:30 - 1:00pm
Where: Classroom E
Who: Maureen Cahill, Student Services Librarian
Why: learn search tips that will increase your efficiency and improve your results


Library User Survey Continues to Inspire Change

Although it has been a couple of months since the user survey closed, please don’t imagine that we have forgotten about your input. We have final approval for Annex improvements, and we recently agreed to new library hours that will begin in the fall.

Moser cabinetmakers have begun work on our new tables and carrels. University Physical Plant planners have finalized drawings to bring electricity to each table and carrel in the Annex. That portion of the project will be a bit harrowing since getting power to the work surfaces will involve jack hammering channels in the concrete floors to run the lines.

Beginning fall semester, the law library will open a half hour earlier, at 7:00 am. In addition, we will expand Friday and Saturday evening hours. Our new closing time on those nights will be 10 pm.

Thanks again to all of you who responded to the survey.  We will continue to look for ways that we can implement more of your suggestions.

Meet Carol Humphries

Carol Humphries is the Law Library's new part-time Cataloging Assistant. Most of her work is done behind the scenes in Technical Services, but you will see her around the library keeping the most up-to-date materials on our shelves. She was born and brought up in Shropshire, England, which is a beautiful, fairly unspoiled county on the border with Wales.  She notes that "it is a wonderful mix of hills and meadows. It is mainly agricultural but it is famous for being the ‘Birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.’ In the early eighteenth century the process of making high-grade cast iron with coal instead of charcoal was developed at Coalbrookdale. As a result of this development the first large iron bridge was constructed in 1779, and still spans the River Severn today.The County Town of Shrewsbury* was the birth place of Charles Darwin. Like many places in England it is rich in ancient castles, roman ruins and historical buildings.”

Carol has an Associate Degree in Business Studies, with secretarial qualifications, and had a career in banking before moving to the United States in 1996. She acquired her library experience while working as a Periodicals Assistant at Valparaiso University Law Library in Indiana. Carol came to Athens in 2002, when her husband Paul relocated for his job.  She worked at the Oconee County Library before joining the Law Library staff as Cataloging Assistant.

Carol’s hobbies are keeping fit, golf and gardening. She also loves to travel, and has visited numerous places: the European countries France, Austria, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey. However, when Carol and her husband decided to come to the United States, they promised themselves that they would see as much of this country as possible. They are still working their way through this vast continent.

Welcome to Carol!

*[ed.: Shrewsbury is also the site of the great monastery which serves as the home of Ellis Peters' fictional Brother Cadfael.]

iSinoLaw: Newly Acquired Chinese Law Database
In response to increased demand for Chinese legal materials, the Law Library recently purchased access to the Chinese law database iSinoLaw. This database provides selected Chinese laws, court decisions, regulations, treaties, arbitration awards, and more. The Chinese government has granted iSinoLaw permission to provide authoritative English translations, and the product displays them in a useful side-by-side split screen format with the original Chinese version (see screen capture below).

Access Isinolaw from the Law Library's Research Resources page at http://www.law.uga.edu/library/research/index.html.


Screen Capture of bilingual split screen in iSinoLaw
isinolaw

Law Librarians Present CLE Program

On March, 7, 2007, the law librarians presented a continuing legal education seminar on Internet Legal Research for members of the State Bar of Georgia. Approximately 100 lawyers attended the all-day seminar and the presentations were well-received. 

Presentation topics included:
  • What's New, What's Not, What's Old, What's Hot: New Technology and Services for the Legal Sector, Sharon Bradley
  • Process in Poland? Evidence in Ethiopia?: Online Help with Transnational Legal Transactions, Anne E. Burnett
  • The Internet: Complicating Legal Ethics, But Full of Resources to Help You Understand the Complications, Maureen Cahill
  • Peaches 'N Cream: The Best of Georgia Electronic Resources, James M. Donovan
  • Navigating "Social Networking" Tools: Blogs, Wikis, RSS Feeds and Beyond , Elizabeth Geesey Holmes
  • Search Smart: Locating and Evaluating the Best of the Web, Wendy E. Moore
  • From Locating Missing Heirs to Investigating Expert Witnesses: Maximizing Free Investigation Tools on the Web, Carol A. Watson
To view powerpoint slides and the accompanying printed materials from these presentations, visit our Digital Commons website: http://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/speeches/

The Institute for Continuing Legal Education (ICLE) also videotaped the presentation.  Contact ICLE at 369-5664 for information on availability of the videotaped presentation.

CALI Brings Exam Prep Relief
Finals are fast approaching, and CALI's interactive online lessons can help you prepare!

CALI (http://www2.cali.org/) is the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction, which is a consortium of U.S. law schools formed in 1982 to coordinate the distribution and use of computerized instructional materials and to support the sharing of information on computer applications in legal education and law. UGA Law is a member of CALI, which means members of the law school community can avail themselves of access to the CALI lessons.

Currently there are over 600 interactive lessons. Features of the lessons include:
  • Students can take the lessons multiple times and see different questions or paths through the material. Each lesson provides feedback for every question.
  • Complex areas of law are taught with a multimedia approach through the use text, video, audio, flowcharts, graphics and photos.
  • Students can keep score and gauge their progress and even save their scores on the CALI website.
  • The exercises are extensively reviewed by other faculty who teach the same subject, by faculty who teach other subjects, and by the CALI staff. Based on student feedback (which is built into each lesson), CALI refine the clarity of the language and double-check the accuracy of the materials in the lessons.
In addition to lessons on 32 individual topics, there are also lessons created to accompany specific casebooks and subject outlines. Graduating law students might also consider using the lessons for bar exam review.

To access CALI exercises, you have to register for My CALI by clicking on the link to “Not a registered user yet? Click here!” You’ll need to provide our School Authorization Code which was provided in the body of the email message containing the link to this edition of Amicus Briefs. If you've already deleted the message stop by the Reference Desk to obtain the code.

Law Library Hours

Extended study hours in the Law Library during exams begin on April 20. The library will be open until 2:00 a.m. every day thereafter, including weekends, until May 16.

The complete schedule can be found by following this link: http://www.law.uga.edu/library/hours.html

Good Luck!

Students looking for good places to study will be interested in the schedule of hours for the Student Learning Center.
The center will be open 24 hours a day from April 25 through May 7.Thereafter it will revert to the schedule posted at http://www.slc.uga.edu/hours/current.html


Crossword Puzzle

Favorite Treatise Authors (adapted from AALL materials for 15th National Legal Research Teach-In!)

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