Legal Information & Technology eJournal

Associate Director Lee Peoples recently began serving as co-founding editor of the Legal Information & Technology eJournal.

This eJournal includes working papers, forthcoming articles, and recently published articles in all areas of legal information scholarship. Topics include (but are not limited to): 1) the impact of legal information on domestic, comparative, and international legal systems; 2) the treatment of legal information authorities and precedents (e.g., citation studies); 3) the examination of rules, practices, and commentary limiting or expanding applications of legal information (e.g., citation to unpublished opinions and to foreign law); 4) the study of economic, legal, political and social conditions limiting or extending access to legal information (e.g., trends in the legal publishing industry, intellectual property regimes, and open access initiatives); 5) the finding and use of legal information by academics to produce legal scholarship, by law students to learn the law, by attorneys in practice, and by judges and others decisionmakers to determine legal outcomes; 6) the history of legal information systems and technological advancements; 7) legal information system design and assessment; and 8) the relationship of substantive areas of law (such as information law, intellectual freedom, intellectual property, and national security law) and other academic disciplines (e.g., information science) to legal information. This includes the scholarship of law librarians, other legal scholars, and other academic disciplines.

The eJournal also includes working papers, forthcoming articles, recently published articles, and selected documents (such as White Papers, briefings, reports, course materials) on the practice of law librarianship. Submissions are welcome in all areas of law librarianship including: 1) administration, management, and leadership; 2) facility design and construction; 3) evaluating and marketing law library services; 4) all aspects of public, technical, and technology services; 5) collection development, including sample collection development policies and procedures; 6) electronic resource management and development including licensing, digitization, and institutional repositories; 7) research and reference services; and 8) legal research instruction teaching methods and substantial or innovative course materials.

National Library Week - Candy Contest Counts

Several have inquired about the actual counts for the M&M Contest. There were 240 M&Ms in the short container. The tall container contained 417 M&Ms. Congratulations to winners, who not only won the candy and container, but also tickets to a performance of "Most Happy Fella" by the OCU Music Theater.

OCU Law Library Unveils Faculty Scholarship Repository

OCU LAW's law library has launched a new online repository that allows the public to search and access important scholarly works by the law school's 35 faculty members. The repository may be accessed at: http://www.okcu.edu/law/facultyandadministration/publications/index.php

“It is a vital part of our law school’s mission to contribute to the improvement and development of law and legal institutions,” said OCU LAW dean Lawrence Hellman. “We do this through the careful and creative research and scholarship of our faculty. This new on-line repository will enhance the accessibility and impact of this important body of work.”

"The repository has several unique features that set it apart from other similar online ventures," said Lee Peoples, OCU LAW's associate law library director, who designed the program. "We're offering the majority of articles by our faculty members as free downloads in PDF document form. This means OCU LAW alumni, students, the local legal community, policy makers and scholars around the world, and the general public will have nearly complete access to scholarly articles by our faculty members in the repository. It's an incredible research tool that opens the doors to scholarly cross-pollination in a way that just wasn't possible a few short years ago."

The open-access feature is modeled after Duke Law and Harvard Law School. Both schools recently unveiled open access scholarly repositories.

Publications in the new repository may be viewed by author, date and type. Titles may be searched by keyword. Links to the faculty’s works in progress and forthcoming works are provided at the repository’s homepage.

Items not available for free download are still accessible through links to Westlaw or LexisNexis. Links are provided for books and book chapters that are accessible on LexisNexis or Westlaw. Other books and book chapters are made accessible using links to WorldCat, a catalog that provides access to the collections of thousands of libraries.

Simply by entering a zip code WorldCat will link users to a nearby library, including the OCU Law Library, that holds the book or book chapter. Links to books and book chapters available through the Google Book Project and Amazon.com are also provided.

Peoples credited law School webmaster David Lodge and administrative assistant Lorraine Morrison for their invaluable assistance in creating the new online offering. Peoples said W.S. Hein & Company generously provided the full text images of many articles included in the database.

Using Twitter in a Law Practice?

The OBA's Jim Calloway has written an interesting article on the use of Twitter in the legal profession. Access it here.

Law Day - May 1, 2009

In 1961, the first day of May of each year was designated as Law Day. The observance of Law Day was intended "to foster respect for law, to increase public understanding of the place of law in American life; to point up the contrast between freedom under law and governmental tyranny." H.Rpt.165, March 15, 1961

"A Legacy of Liberty: Celebrating Lincoln's Bicententennial" is the 2009 Law Day theme. Visit the Law Day display in the library to view materials regarding Law Day as well as the Lincoln Legacy. You might even find a lucky Lincoln penny.

The schedule for Law Day activities in Oklahoma is available in the April 11, 2009 Oklahoma Bar Journal.

Should You Become Facebook Friends With Your Boss?

This article describes how you can without worrying about him or her seeing photos, videos, or other content that your friends might post. The trick is to create separate friend lists. The article walks you through it step by step.

Extended Law Library Hours Start 4/19

The Law Library will remain open until Midnight from 4/19 through May 14. Good luck with exams!

The hours during this period are:
Monday-Friday 730am-midnight
Saturdays 9am-midnight
Sundays 1pm-midnight

Access Over 1,000 CLE Publications Online

Litilaw is a free collection of over 1,000 recent legal articles of interest to litigators and related legal professionals. All articles are full-text, written by lawyers and have been published as part of continuing legal education (CLE) seminars, in legal journals, or are of similar quality. Litilaw links to copies of articles available on the internet, or hosted by us at the author's request.

Celebrate National Library Week

Please help us celebrate National Library Week at the Law Library.

Monday 4/13/09-Movie quiz with a prize, popcorn

Tuesday 4/14/09-Movie quiz with a prize, donuts, origami

Wednesday 4/15/09-Movie quiz with a prize, popcorn

Thursday 4/16/09-Movie quiz with a prize, cake

Friday 4/17/09-Movie quiz with a prize, cookies

Also, you will have two chances to guess how much candy is in the candy jar!

Good Friday Law Library Hours

The law library will close at Noon on Friday, April 10th in observance of Good Friday.

New Books - March 2009

A listing of new titles by subject acquired by the Law Library in March 2009 is available here.

Summer Associate Training - April 7 & 8

Many of you will be in situations this summer where your research ability will be called upon. To ensure you have a firm foundation to perform at a high level for your employer, Lee Peoples, Associate Professor of Law Library Science, will conduct specialized training sessions. Attendees will learn about sources and strategies that will make life easier for any summer legal job. Form Books, Pattern Discovery and Deposition Questions, Practice Guides, Treatises, Looseleafs, and other valuable Practitioner Resources will be discussed. The PCDC strongly encourages students to attend.

The session will be offered April 7 in Sarkeys 103 from 1 - 1:45 pm and repeated again on April 8 in Sarkeys 103 from 1 - 1:45 pm

10th Circuit Argument Briefs Available

Dig into the arguments made during the 10th Circuit's visit to OCU LAW by reading the briefs submitted in the cases. Briefs are available here.

Scholar R.B. Bernstein to Speak at OCU LAW

OCU LAW has arranged a presentation by noted legal scholar R.B. Bernstein, Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Law at New York Law School. Professor Bernstein’s lecture will be titled "The Constitution as Exploding Cigar," and will be based on his forthcoming book The Founding Fathers Re-Considered, to be published next month by Oxford University Press. Professor Bernstein will speak at 5 p.m. Thursday, April 2, in the Homsey Family Moot Courtroom at OCU LAW. The presentation is free and open to the public.