The Louis L. Biro Law Library of the John Marshall Law School (JMLS) in Chicago recently completed a project to digitize an historical archive of unpublished Illinois Appellate Court opinions from 1900-1975. This digital collection was made possible by a grant from the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries of Illinois (CARLI). Read more about this exciting project at the JMLS blog.
On July 12, the Uniform Law Commission of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) approved a new Act designed to encourage states to create authenticated versions of online legal information and to preserve permanent ongoing access to such information. The Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA) was considered at the NCCUSL meeting in Vail, Colorado with review of a draft of the Act and a memorandum outlining the issues addressed by it. The Act establishes uniform legal standards for the authentication and preservation of U.S. state legal information in digital formats.
The American Bar Association publishes a useful interactive map with information on bar association membership and activities for each state. Local bar association information for major cities is included by state.
The Illinois Bar Association reports that the Illinois Supreme Court will be adopting a medium neutral citation scheme. The Illinois Supreme Court issued a statement on May 31, 2011 announcing these changes which will go into effect on July 1, 2011. The medium neutral format moves away from citations based on printed books, focusing on volume and page number references. Instead, opinions will be identified by a public-domain case designator number, or docket number, along with paragraph number references. The Court gives the following example of a new opinion citation: People v. Doe, 2011 IL 102345, ¶15. The citation changes will be reflected in Illinois Supreme Court Rules 6 and 23. While Illinois will cease print publication of its official court reports this summer, the citation rule changes continue to allow parallel references to unofficial reporters, including the North Eastern Reporter and Illinois Decisions.
Access to the D’Angelo Law Library for non-law students will be limited from May 21 through June 8 during the law school reading and exam periods. Consult the D’Angelo Law Library web page on access for additional information.
The D’Angelo Law Library has ethernet cables available for check out at the circulation desk. The cables circulate for four hours and are available for check out by any University of Chicago student, staff or faculty.
Audio recordings of the Microsoft Office Training on April 2 are available on the Law School web site at http://www.law.uchicago.edu/events/2011-04-02-140000-computer-training. The morning session features tips on using Microsoft Word, with some focus on resume formatting. The afternoon session covers Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint.
First year law school students may attend one of two sessions on formatting for the Bigelow appellate brief assignment:
The training will focus on Microsoft Word and cover formatting the cover page and generating a table of contents and a table of authorities. Students are welcome to attend either session.
Beginning March 28th, 2011, the D’Angelo Law Library will page materials from other libraries on campus for University of Chicago Law School students. The Library staff will page any book that you need for your academic work that is held in the stacks of another library on campus. The Library cannot page materials with restricted borrowing types, such as reserve materials or building use only materials. If all copies of an item are checked out, you will still need to recall it through normal procedures.
Typically, paged materials will be available within two business days. All paged items will be held for seven days at the D’Angelo Law Library Circulation Desk for you to check out.
Submit a paging request at http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/ask/DLL_pagingservice.html This form also has more detailed information about what can be paged and when it will be available.
A full day of Microsoft Office
training for Law Students will be held on Saturday, April 2nd, beginning at 9:00 AM in classroom V. This program will give students the basic skills on MS Office (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) needed during summer employment and future work as an attorney. The program agenda is as follows;
Both Mac and PC platforms will be covered in this program. Students should bring their laptops. A light lunch and snacks will be available. Law School students must register in advance: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/microsofttrainingRSVP
![Illustration from Cassell's Household Guide, Being a Complete Encyclopaedia of Domestic and Social Economy... London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, [187-] Vol. 2. Rare Book Collection. The University of Chicago Library](http://news.lib.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/5.cassells_household_guide-52x80.jpg)
