1L? There’s a LibGuide for That…

With the new semester just days away and our 1L orientation well underway, Charlotte Law classrooms are filled again and the school is bustling with excitement.  It seems like a fantastic time to point a finger at one of our newest LibGuides, Commonly Used 1L Resources.

This LibGuide is filled to the brim with tips, tricks and a variety of print and electronic resources hand selected by Charlotte Law students to help you survive your first year in law school.

Here you’ll find not only online materials specifically targeted to your 1L needs and books available through our library, but how-to-guides, tutorials, quick reference cards, specialized research guides and so much more…

Westlaw, TWEN, LexisNexis and CALI questions?  We’ve got you covered.  There’s even a collection of amusing law school videos to peruse when the stress quotient ratchets up too high and the sweet release of laughter is needed.  Check out this gem from George Washington University’s Law Review below…

So to all of our new students – enjoy the beginning of your semester, and be sure in the coming years to capitalize on all of the support the library can offer you on your journey!

~Ashley Moye~

The “WOW” factor – Encore Synergy and the Charlotte School of Law Library Catalog

You’ve seen the posters, the signs and the “WOW” buttons worn by staff and faculty.  Soon you’ll see a change in the CSL Library catalog. Beginning the week of August 15th, you’ll be able to construct and launch your search of library materials from a single search box, much as you would do a Google search.

Click here to discover the power of library search...

Encore Synergy provides a method of federated searching across various resources.  This means that in addition to searching the CSL library catalog for physical holdings at our school, you’ll be able to simultaneously search multiple resources. Not only will you be able to retrieve books, journal titles, e-books, DVDs and cassettes, but you will also be able to retrieve abstracts and full text articles from our specialized electronic resources.  Specifically, you’ll be able to retrieve full text articles from HeinOnline.

For example, if you wanted to search for only articles on the subject of Dred Scott, you would click on the word “articles” in the top left corner and enter the words “Dred Scott” in the search box.  You results would include a list of citations and access to the full text in pdf format when available.

Your results would also be sorted by source and listed along the left side of the screen.  For example, this search indicates that there were 1149  references to Dred Scott in the HeinOnline resource,  30 in the Legal Trac resource, and others available in the Making of Modern Law, etc.

The Charlotte School of Law Library staff will be presenting training opportunities and will be available to answer any questions you have concerning this resource.

~Susan Catterall~

Law Library Course Reserves, CPAS, Study Rooms, and Fines

With mid-terms upon us the CSL Library wants to remind you about Circulation policy regarding course reserves, CPAS (Academic Success) and study rooms.

• Course reserves are located behind the Circulation desk in the law library. These materials are put on reserve by your professors and can only be checked out for three hours, cannot be renewed, nor can they be put on hold. The course reserves also carry a fine of $3.00 an hour even if the book is only one minute late. These materials have the highest demand in the law library. The course reserves are there for the convenience of all CSL students, so please be respectful and professional toward your fellow students and return these items on time.
• At the end of September an announcement was sent out stating that the CPAS (Academic Success) materials would be moved from their location in front of library reference to behind the circulation desk. We know that some of you have found this move an inconvenience; however, these materials are also in high demand and having the CPAS collection behind circulation better serves all students. Currently, the CPAS materials can be checked out for seven days, may be renewed once, may have a hold request placed on them, and do not carry a fine. Because of mid-terms we have discontinued renewal of these materials.
• CSL now has 20 study rooms, which means we have more study rooms than 80% of all law schools in the country. Of course, the rooms are in very high demand at this time. Remember, you can either call the circulation desk at 704-971-8574 or come to book a study room up to 24 hours in advance. It is possible to renew a study room a half hour before your allotted time is finished if the room is not booked in advance for another group.
• In order to pay library fines you will need see Ms. Linda Pickett who is the Accounting Manager in Financial Services, Room 333. When you pay for a fine Ms. Pickett will provide you with a receipt to bring to Circulation, and after we receive the receipt the fines will be cleared from your patron record.  Remember unpaid fines can result in restricted ability to register for classes or graduate.

If you have questions or concerns regarding CSL Library Circulation policy and related issues please contact Kim Allman, the Library Access Services Manager, or visit the library website for more information.

- Kim Allman -

 

Happy Banned Books Week!

In 1982, the American Library Association (ALA) created Banned Books Week in response to a rise in challenges to books in libraries, schools and bookstores.  Banned Books Week is sponsored by the ALA, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers, the American Society of Journalists and the National Association of College Stores, and is endorsed by the Center for the Book of the Library of Congress.  Held annually during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the harms of censorship while “celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment.” ALA Banned Books Week Site

In celebration of this year’s Banned Books Week, the CSL library is spotlighting historically banned or challenged books in a display case in the library.  The display includes Harper Lee’s classic To Kill a Mockingbird, Nabokov’s Lolita, Walker’s The Color Purple, Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, and many more.  For more information on the reasons behind the banning of certain titles, see the Banned or Challenged Classics page, here. We encourage students to drop by the display case during a study break or between classes.

According to the American Library Association, the 10 most challenged books of 2009 were:

1. ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle

2. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson

3. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky

4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

5. Twilight (series), by Stephanie Meyer

6. Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

7. My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picoult

8. The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler

9. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

10. The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier

The American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF) is featuring a series of blog posts on the creative ways libraries are celebrating Banned Books Week.  Readers and librarians are also celebrating Banned Books Week on ALA island in Second Life, and on Twitter with the hashtag #BannedBooksWeek. The OIF has also created a YouTube video to depict the top 10 most frequently banned or challenged books in 2009.

Thank you for celebrating Banned Books Week!  Read something you love!

- Lyn Batty -

Buying Books and Dressing the Part

I’m sure by now, you’ve realized that CharlotteLaw does not have a bookstore.  Don’t worry there is a bright side!  Law Books for Less is an online vendor that sells law books at a discounted price, and we have negotiated free shipping for all orders over $49.00 for incoming and returning CharlotteLaw students.  Of course the shipping is nothing fancy, but it is FEDEX Ground, so the turn around shouldn’t be too long.

Here are a few other sites to check out for order books for class:

25% off online orders for a select time

Qualified free shipping on order over $25.00

Searches all major book-selling sites to find you the best deal on books

If you’re not having any luck ordering your books, check out the Library Catalog (go to the side link to do a search in our Course Reserves collection).  We are working on getting 1 copy of each required textbook on Course Reserves as we speak.  So, if you don’t have your books by Day 1, come on up to the second floor and check out some of the books on our shelves!

Looking for some CharlotteLaw gear?  Go check out the CSL Online Store for hot new deals!

-Liz McCurry-

Forsenic Science: Making the Important Connections

Yesterday, less than 30 miles from Charlotte, 41 year-old, Patrick Burris was shot and killed. Burris is the suspected Gaffney serial killer, and with his death authorities hope to put some fears to rest.  According to MSNBC, officers were responding to a burglary complaint on July 6th that ultimately ended in the shootout with Burris.   State Law Enforcement Division Chief Reggie Lloyd concluded that the “bullets in [Burris’s] gun matched those that killed residents in and around Gaffney over six days last week.”

Curious about the theories and methods that police officers and SBI agents use in criminal investigations?  Or, the forensic techniques used to make the connection between the bullets found in Gastonia, Burris and the Gaffney murders?

Then, check these out:

Forensic science resources

Crime and science; the new frontier in criminology / Thorwald, Jürgen.

Forensic science : an encyclopedia of history, methods, and techniques / William J. Tilstone, Kathleen A. Savage, and Leigh A. Clark.

Arrest, search, and investigation in North Carolina / Robert L. Farb.

-Liz McCurry-

Life of Pi – Nothing to do with Math

Liz McCurry, Electronic Resources/Reference Librarian

The Life of Pi / Yann Martel

I remember reading this book years ago, and it has never left my list of  my top 3 favorite books (even with the emergence of the Twilight series).  The reader follows a young boy through his religious journey where he questions his Hinduism heritage with practices of Christianity and Islam. Ultimately, a shipwreck brings to light those answers he was seeking.  Pi, the main character of the story is just a small boy, but takes the reader through his 200+ days at sea by describing the wildly imaginative experiences with vivid intensity.   Make sure to read the book from front to back because the ending has a twist that will make you question everything.

Synopsis

The peripatetic Pi (the much-taunted Piscine) Patel spends a beguiling boyhood in Pondicherry, India, as the son of a zookeeper. Growing up beside the wild beasts, Pi gathers an encyclopedic knowledge of the animal world. His curious mind also makes the leap from his native Hinduism to Christianity and Islam, all three of which he practices with joyous abandon. In his 16th year, Pi sets sail with his family and some of their menagerie to start a new life in Canada. Halfway to Midway Island, the ship sinks into the Pacific, leaving Pi stranded on a life raft with a hyena, an orangutan, an injured zebra and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. After the beast dispatches the others, Pi is left to survive for 227 days with his large feline companion on the 26-foot-long raft, using all his knowledge, wits and faith to keep himself alive. The scenes flow together effortlessly, and the sharp observations of the young narrator keep the tale brisk and engaging. Martel’s potentially unbelievable plot line soon demolishes the reader’s defenses, cleverly set up by events of young Pi’s life that almost naturally lead to his biggest ordeal.

BBC’s Top 100

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books listed below.

How do your reading habits stack up?

How many of these books have you read?

Which is your favorite?

-Brian Trippodo-

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Mere Christianity – CS Lewis
34 Emma-Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Illiad – Homer
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov x
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 A Tree Grows in Brooklynn – Betty Smith
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

The Marrow of Tradition

“Impossibilities are merely things of which we have not learned, or which we do not wish to happen” – Charles W. Chesnutt

Stop by circulation and say hello to Monica Alston-Carr.  Her book suggestion is both riveting and magnificent.

The Marrow of Tradition / Charles W. Chesnutt

I like this book because Chesnutt tells his version of the Wilmington (North Carolina) Race Riot of 1898 in fictional history literature.  A lot of people aren’t familiar with this riot between prosperous African Americans and mid to low income white Americans about who should be in control of the city.  It also reminds me of this past year’s election – Will America vote for its first African American president?

Synopsis

Based upon the Wilmington, NC, race riot of 1898 and written in 1901, this historical novel makes a plea for racial justice. A group of powerful white men continue to run the fictional town of Wellington and their households as though the Civil War had never occurred. Complicating matters even further, Olivia Carteret, wife of the white newspaper editor, discovers she and Janet Miller, wife of the town’s black doctor, have the same father. As the town’s residents battle their way through the social and racial issues resulting from the war, Olivia and Janet work their way through racial, social, and family issues. Michael Collins provides an excellent reading with his well-paced and expressive delivery combined with a wide range of male and female voices and accents. Professionally produced, this classic tale is recommended for all public, academic, and school libraries.

You’re never too old for magic…

“But before Uncle Bilius went loopy he was the life and soul of the party,” said Fred. “He used to down an entire bottle of firewhisky, then run onto the dance floor, hoist up his robes, and start pulling bunches of flowers out of his-”

“Yes, he sounds a real charmer,” said Hermione, while Harry roared with laughter. [Except from: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling)

Tom Hemstock, Reference Librarian, the life of the library party.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows/J.K. Rowling

Synopsis
Readers beware. The brilliant, breathtaking conclusion to J.K. Rowling’s spellbinding series is not for the faint of heart–such revelations, battles, and betrayals await in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that no fan will make it to the end unscathed. Luckily, Rowling has prepped loyal readers for the end of her series by doling out increasingly dark and dangerous tales of magic and mystery, shot through with lessons about honor and contempt, love and loss, and right and wrong. Fear not, you will find no spoilers in our review–to tell the plot would ruin the journey, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is an odyssey the likes of which Rowling’s fans have not yet seen, and are not likely to forget. But we would be remiss if we did not offer one small suggestion before you embark on your final adventure with Harry–bring plenty of tissues.