Free For All: Digital Images of Yale's Treasures

Yale University announced this week that it is making the digital images of millions of objects in its museum, library and archive collections--paintings, sculpture, rare artifacts and historical documents--freely available to the public online. Not only can anyone explore the digital images of these treasures from a new online collective catalog (currently holding over 250,000 images), but scholars, artists, and educators will have no concerns about licensing fees and restrictions on their use. The images are freely available, as the Yale announcement states, "for study, publication, teaching or inspiration." For an inspiring study break, spend a few minutes with this slide show highlighting some samples from the Yale collections.
Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Lady Justice: Story of an Icon

Two Yale Law School professors have just published a long-awaited book tracing Lady Justice (with and without blindfold) as both art and symbol throughout the ages and as a presence in courtrooms worldwide. In Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy, and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms, reviewed earlier this week in a New York Times feature article by Randy Kennedy, professors Judith Resnik and Dennis E. Curtis use of history of the familiar symbol to explain its role in the relationship between democracy and the courts. Explore some of the wonderful images from the book at the Yale Law School Library Document Collection Center site. In February, Hofstra Law Professor Bennett Capers, who has also written on Lady Justice, will speak at a special Yale Law School symposium.




Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

American Car Art

Take a break from summer work, courses, or bar exam study. Escape for a few minutes into the glamorous world of car advertising from the decades when the U.S. auto industry was immensely profitable and car ads represented an idealized vision of an era. "Drawing Power: Motor City Ad Art in the Age of Muscle and Chrome" features original works of advertising art created in the large graphic illustration studios that once filled the skyscrapers of Detroit, Michigan. While most original work by these talented illustrators has disappeared, this Detroit Public Library exhibit brings together a wonderful collection by the finest commercial artists of the Motor City.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Arts and Letters Daily

I've always been an erudite feline and I do like to read up on literature, history, art and philosophy. But, as you can imagine, the life of a law library virtual cat can get hectic! That is why I read Arts and Letters Daily. Created by the Chronicle of Higher Education, Arts and Letters Daily finds and links to interesting articles, book reviews and essays on the internet. It is updated daily and summaries of the articles are displayed at the top of each page--this makes it easy to scan and decide what I'm interested in reading without having to click into each article.

Recently, Arts and Letters Daily has linked to: a review of Paul Theroux's latest book from The New Statesman; an article on the "newspaper of the future" from the American Journalism Review; and an article from Slate about Emily Dickinson's secret lover. Happy reading!


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

If You Think Law School Is Hard . . .

. . . just try being waterboarded. Artist Steve Powers is looking for 50 attorneys to waterboard for five seconds, because attorneys are "qualified to impartially describe the experience." There is no word on whether Steve Powers is related to Fran Powers, who ran to become the nominee of the Libertarian Party for the congressional seat representing Staten Island. (Fran's father, Frank Powers, who had been the Republican Party's choice for that seat, sadly died last week.)



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat