Black Lives Matter: Titles from Antiracist Reading Lists Available as E-Books at NU Libraries

Posted on June 12, 2020 by Sarah Reis

To assist Northwestern Law faculty, staff, and students with accessing books on racism, the law library has obtained e-books for many of the titles recommended on the Office of Inclusion & Engagement’s Racism Resources list, Ibram X. Kendi’s Antiracist Reading List, and Bridgette R. McCullough’s Booklist to Make Yourself Innocent. How to Be an Antiracist

We thank Bridgette McCullough (member of the NLaw community) and the Office of Inclusion & Engagement for sharing these resources as part of the Real Conversations: Racism, Allyship, and Police Reform program on June 3.

The following links are to e-books available through NU Libraries (please note that the publishers often limit the number of users who can access an e-book copy at a time, so access information is noted below):

New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (unlimited users)
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (single user)
The Philadelphia Negro by W. E. B. Du Bois (unlimited users)
The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois (unlimited users)
Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves by Glory Edim (single user)
The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain by Langston Hughes (unlimited users – essay)
White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg (single user)
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (1-2 concurrent users)
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde (unlimited users)
Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous? by Haki R. Madhubuti (single user – temporarily available via HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service)
Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love, and So Much More by Janet Mock (single user)
West Indian Immigrants: A Black Success Story? by Suzanne Model (temporarily available via Project MUSE for free through June 30)
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (single user – temporarily available via HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service)
Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America by Khalil Gibran Muhammad (unlimited users)
Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century by Dorothy Roberts (single user)
Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition by Cedric J. Robinson (unlimited users)
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson (1-2 concurrent users)
Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago by Flint Taylor (unlimited users)
How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (unlimited users)
The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurman (unlimited users)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley (unlimited users)

Graduate and Summer Access to Online Resources: Resource Spotlight

Posted on May 17, 2020 by Clare Gaynor Willis

With the semester over, a common question students have is how they can get access to Westlaw and Lexis. With the coronavirus pandemic upending everything, it’s fair to ask whether it’s upending access to your legal research tools as well. Here, for once, we have some unequivocal good news for you!

Bloomberg: Have you used Bloomberg? You may like it for docket research, sample documents, or secondary sources. Current students get access to Bloomberg all summer long with their current credentials. There’s nothing to register for. Graduating students get access to Bloomberg all the way until June 2021.

Lexis: Like Bloomberg, Lexis is giving current students access all summer. Graduates get access until February 8, 2021. Again, no registration required. Keep using your normal ID and password.

Westlaw: Westlaw’s access offer has more restrictions, but it’s still good. Current students have access for non-commercial purposes over the summer. What does that mean? Essentially, if you’re working for a law firm, the firm needs to get you a Westlaw password to use. If you’re using Westlaw for law review, clinic, or work for a non-profit, then you can you your current Westlaw password.

For graduates, the library subscribes to a Westlaw Practice Ready library that provides 18 months of continued access for graduates. This access gives you 60 hours of usage on these products per month. To extend access, graduates must log into lawschool.thomsonreuters.com. Choose “Grad Elite Status” from your homepage and press the “Extend Access” button.

All those other goodies? Current students have continued access to all of our other electronic resources like HeinOnline and Law360 via your NetID throughout the summer and graduates retain access for as long as your NetIDs remain active (through Oct. 2020).

If you have any questions about the ins and outs of these policies or if you want to talk about free or low-cost alternatives to these services, reach out to the library.

Stay safe and be well.

Posted in Resource Spotlight

Resource Spotlight: PitchBook

Posted on March 27, 2020 by Lisa Winkler

Analytic tools have cropped up in many different fields, and while we normally focus on legal information resources, I’d like to highlight a business data platform recently licensed by NU: PitchBook*. PitchBook tracks startups, public and private equity markets, including venture capital, private equity and M&A. Data is systematically sourced by web-crawling and applied machine learning technologies, the results of which are reviewed by humans who verify accuracy and relevance. The content in PitchBook is extensive (see screenshot below) but easy to navigate, and thanks to robust filtering, you can efficiently narrow in on what matters to you. After logging in you’ll land on your dashboard, which contains news and industry data feeds based on what you’ve selected under the “Personalize” preferences: industries, verticals, deal types and locations.

*“Quick Counts” on the dashboard shows the enormous amount of compiled data in PitchBook.*

You can search and browse in PitchBook. The quick search bar at the top is just that, quick access to what you know you’re looking for, while the advanced search initially acts like browsing and then helps you direct your search in more detail. Until you’re familiar with how information in Pitchbook is structured, I recommend using this feature so you learn how it’s organized and what the many categories contain.

*Advanced search, the magnifier icon, initially acts like browsing.*

As you’re clicking into different areas or trying to search the voluminous information in PitchBook, you’ll likely encounter unfamiliar terminology. Just like Westlaw, Lexis, and other academic databases, there’s an “i” icon next to certain fields (e.g. above the open text field on the industry page) that will provide you with more details pertinent to that specific field, such as the scope of what’s included, the functionality of that feature, or definitions. You’ll see this “i” icon when using advanced keyword searching. For example, see the screenshot below of “Ownership Status”. Clicking the “i” takes you to definitions of each type of status. This extra information will quickly guide you in more effective and accurate searching. Pro tip: check the “i” icons in any database when you see them; it usually takes less than a minute to review and has helpful information specific to what you’re doing.

“i” icon

PitchBook has two powerful industry exploration tools to note: Emerging Markets and Market Maps.The Emerging Markets section flags new investment industries that have shown, or are highly likely to show, recent or continued growth. It also lists specific companies in their respective spaces. Market Maps are visual renderings of the companies in a particular industry organized by primary value proposition and then sorted (by default) by total amount of raised capital. These maps can be modified to fit your needs: narrow in on specific industry subsections, change the way the companies are grouped or sorted, exclude or add certain companies, switch from graphical to column display, change what columns are included, amongst others. You can use these maps to discover industry leaders or constituents and jump directly into that company’s detailed profile. Pitchbook company profiles also include non-financial metrics like employee count, social followers and website traffic to provide a full-context view of a company’s viability, market position, and future prospects. Alternatively, you can access all of the available profiles and reports from PitchBook analysts through the “Research Center,” found on the left pane navigation bar.

There are a few limitations imposed under our subscription that may affect your research. First, we do not have access to live training support; this includes the one-on-one support offered to other subscribers and webinars. We do have access, however, to on-demand video tutorials both within the platform (see “Help Center”) and from their full video library. Live chat support is also available. Second, there is a download limit: 10 lines of data/day and 25 lines of data/month. If you find this limit to be cumbersome, you are able to save searches, make lists (e.g. business development and marketing lists), add notes, and upload files since you’ve created your own account. This means any firm information, data, profiles, reports, annotations, and even your own external pertinent files can be consolidated and are only a quick login away.

Finally, if you want even quicker access to your personalized “My PitchBook” content, you can leverage the mobile app, Chrome extension, Excel plugin, daily newsletters, and alerts, all of which are available through our academic subscription.

*When you’re off campus, be sure to activate Northwestern’s VPN before you pull up PitchBook. This is particularly important the first time when you create an account. Reference librarians are available to provide research support via chat and via email at law-reference@law.northwestern.edu if you have any questions.

Posted in Library Resources, Resource Spotlight

Temporary Access to the Online Bluebook for Northwestern Law Students

Posted on March 25, 2020 by Jesse Bowman

Students at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law now have 60-day temporary access to the online edition of the Bluebook, accessible at https://www.legalbluebook.com. For information on creating an account, check your Northwestern email inbox for an email from Jesse Bowman with the subject, “Access Key for Online Edition of Bluebook.”

If you have any questions about legal citation, legal research, or the law library, generally, feel free to email the librarians at their shared address, law-reference@law.northwestern.edu. A librarian will also be available to help via chat from 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.

The Bluebook

Posted in Instruction, Library Resources, Resource Spotlight, Uncategorized

Resource Spotlight: Lean Library

Posted on February 25, 2020 by Jamie Sommer

Northwestern University Libraries now subscribes to Lean Library, a browser plug-in that seamlessly brings our library resources into your workflow. The Lean Library browser extension makes it simple to access academic articles, journals and databases licensed by the Libraries while searching the web.

The extension works with our library to identify e-resources we subscribe to. Whether you search through Google, Google scholar, or the library itself, it’s easy to access our subscriptions. If you reach a paywall for an article or eBook, Lean Library will look for an alternative, legal option for access.

After downloading, the extension will notify you via an icon in the bookmarks bar when you’re on a website that we have a subscription for. If the icon is green, then you have access. A grey icon means that access is denied. If the material you’d like to use doesn’t seem accessible, Lean Library will automatically check for open access versions of the article.

To get started, Download the extension ⇨ Select our institution ⇨ Start researching

Posted in Resource Spotlight

Resource Spotlight: Global-Regulation

Posted on January 6, 2020 by Sarah Reis

Although there is no database that allows you to conduct a comprehensive keyword search across all laws from every country in the world in one place, Global-Regulation can at least help you efficiently run a search across laws and regulations from 95 countries at one time.

The laws and regulations available through this database are translated into English using machine translation. The machine translations enable you to conduct keyword searches across the text of these laws and regulations in English, but you should not rely on these translations for the basis of your legal arguments because machine translations may contain errors or be inaccurate.

However, Global-Regulation is still a valuable resource to assist with identifying whether legislation on a specific topic exists in certain countries and can help save you time with “survey-like” or comparative law projects, such as if you need to collect domestic laws on a particular subject from several foreign countries. Coverage in the database is currently at 95 countries with varying levels of depth of coverage for each country.

Within a result, the “Show Original” link will show the text of the law or regulation in the original language as a side-by-side comparison with the machine-translated English version.

Laws and regulations from the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and other selected countries include direct links to where a PDF copy of the law or regulation is available through one of the country’s official government websites.

If a direct link for a law or regulation is not available through Global-Regulation, you can easily use the citation provided by this database to retrieve a copy of the law from the country’s legislature website.

Give this database a try the next time you work on a project involving foreign legal research!

Posted in Resource Spotlight

HeinOnline’s U.S. Presidential Impeachment Library

Posted on December 16, 2019 by Jesse Bowman

Keeping track of the ongoing impeachment process in the U.S. House of Representatives requires that we process constant references to a whistleblower complaint, subpoenas, witness statements and testimony, and committee procedural rules. A tremendous resource for reviewing these documents is the U.S. Presidential Impeachment Library, available to members of the Northwestern University community at http://turing.library.northwestern.edu/login?url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/Index?collection=presidentsimp.

HeinOnline’s U.S. Presidential Impeachment Library

The landing page for this database provides links to impeachment materials categorized by President, as well as a brief, but informative, history of presidential impeachment in the United States. Upon clicking the link for “Donald Trump,” we arrive at a page with links to a pair of resources. The first, “Impeachment Process in the House of Representatives (R45769),” is a digestible, 17-page report published on October 10, 2019 by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. The second, “Whistleblower Complaint on Ukraine,” leads to an extensive collection of documents, listed in reverse chronological order, related to the ongoing impeachment investigation. These documents are available either as downloadable PDFs or via external links to congressional websites. In addition to browsing the list for a particular document, it’s also possible, using the “Search this title” box, to locate document containing particular phrases or terms.

In addition to serving as a useful resource for understanding the ongoing impeachment investigation of President Trump, the U.S. Presidential Impeachment Library is also a superb tool for learning about previous presidential impeachments, as well as the process, more generally. Indeed, the collections relating to Presidents Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton each contain troves of primary documents. Moreover, the “Scholarly Articles” tab offers a vast collection of law review articles dealing with the topics of impeachment and presidential power. Usefully, this collection is both searchable and sortable by date or number of citations.

If you’re interested in locating primary documents relating to the current or past presidential impeachments, or if you’re hoping to take a step back and review scholarly discussions of the topic, we recommend taking a look at this excellent resource.

Posted in Library Resources, Resource Spotlight, Uncategorized

Resource Spotlight: Native American Treaties from HeinOnline

Posted on November 19, 2019 by Clare Gaynor Willis

Too often, a library, a legal research vendor, or even Google will digitize something, put it somewhere online, and call it accessible. But anyone who has ever struggled to find something online knows that simply existing somewhere on the internet does not mean something is accessible. The most valuable research resources are designed with features to help guide users and assist in search. The addition of Native American treaties to Hein’s American Indian Law Collection is an example of a research vendor adding features that make material truly more accessible.

Hein’s U.S. Treaties and Agreements Library already contains a work with the unassuming title, “Indian Affairs Laws and Treaties.” This multi-volume work contains a compilation of treaties concerning American Indians by Charles Kappler, the clerk of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Commonly known as “Kappler,” this index has been the best source to access treaties and laws affecting the native nations. But you kind of had to know that it existed.

Kappler’s was available in the U.S. Treaties and Agreements library, which lumped that title in with every other treaty in the library. A researcher looking for American Indian treaties would have to either: search across the U.S. Treaties and Agreements library and weed out things that are irrelevant, or know to go to Kappler’s.

But now Hein’s American Indian Law Collection has a comprehensive list of 418 American Indian Treaties, most with full text. It includes nine that were missing from Kappler’s famous compilation. It gives the name of the tribe, subjects, a description of the treaty, and who the signatories were. A librarian, Susan Galtier, worked hard to make sure that the treaties had metadata that let them be found and understood.

I think possibly the most interesting thing is the ability to see all of the treaties with one tribe organized together. The search possibilities are also great. You can narrow your search to pertain to a particular tribe. You can search for different subjects across agreements. You can combine those two. You could search for treaties tagged as being about “mineral resources” that involve the Creek Nation.

Were those treaties already available on HeinOnline? Yes. In fact, they’re also both in the Statutes at Large on Hein. But putting this information in its own area, tagging it with relevant information, and putting it with related things aids in finding information and comprehending what you find. Well done, Hein!

For other information on researching American Indian law, please see our research guide to American Indian Law Resources.

Posted in Resource Spotlight, Uncategorized

New Exhibit on the Chicago Eight Conspiracy Trial

Posted on October 28, 2019 by plrcspecialcollections

This year marks the 50^th anniversary of one of the country’s most controversial cases, the Chicago Eight Conspiracy Trial.

In late August 1968, the city hosted the Democratic National Convention at the International Amphitheatre, which was located on the south side. This was a tumultuous time in America; Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert “Bobby” Kennedy had been assassinated that same year, and the country was in the middle of a very controversial war in Vietnam.

Activists saw the Democratic National Convention as an opportunity to protest the War and their leaders. They filed for permits to protest in the city’s parks, but most were denied; instead, they were granted one rally at Grant Park and an 11 o’clock nightly curfew. Because of these restrictions, riots erupted in the parks and the streets, leading to violence between the police and protestors.

Sixteen men were held responsible for this disaster: eight police officers and eight protestors. None of the police officers received any punishment—either their charges were dropped or they were cleared in court. The protestors, on the other hand, had became co-defendants in a long, messy trial.

This exhibit presents the chaos of the Chicago Eight Conspiracy Trial through the lens of three courtroom sketch artists: Andy Austin, Franklin McMahon, and Verna Sadock. Each has a unique artistic style that brings to life the characters and events that ensued.

Special thanks to Andy Austin, Robert Hirsch, Margot McMahon, and the Chicago History Museum for their contributions. This exhibit will be on display for the next several months on the third floor of the Pritzker Legal Research Center.

If you have any questions, please contact Brittany Adams, the Special Collections, Digitization, and Archival Services Librarian.

Posted in Uncategorized

Open Reference Hours for CLR Research

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Jamie Sommer

Are you working on your CLR open memo and feel like you’re stuck? Are you finding no results? Too many results? Research librarians are available to answer questions from students working on their CLR assignments.

Note, as much as we love research (and we do!) we can’t do the research for you. But if you have specific questions about strategies or sources that we discussed in class, librarians are here to help.

We will hold open reference hours on Tuesday, October 29 from 1:00 – 3:30 pm in L203. If you can’t make the open reference hours on 10/29, you can request a research appointment with a librarian.

Posted in Events