This Week's Featured Book

The Featured Book of the Week is Fathers’ Rights: The Best Interest of Your Child Includes You by James J. Gross and published by Sphinx Publishing.

“Millions of fathers are currently fighting for custody of their children. Many wonder if they will ever again be an important part of their children’s lives. Fathers’ Rights covers every aspect of the custody process, including protecting the parent/child relationship as a break-up occurs, determining when to settle and when to litigate and explanations concerning the court’s determination of a fair level of child support. This new edition updates the ever-changing laws in this area and expands into additional topics of importance concerning paternity issues and fathers serving in the armed forces. Numerous court cases are used as examples to illustrate relevant situations. An extensive list of resources including agencies, organizations and websites is included as easy reference for the reader.” - Book Description

Fathers’ Rights will be available to borrow after Friday, June 22, 2007.

Rico Is Law Dog of the Week

This week's SIU Law Dog is Rico. Georgeen Stevens sent us these pictures of Rico with her grandson, Jeffrey. Georgeen just completed her first year of law school here at SIU. Click on the small photo to see more of Jeffrey and Rico.

The SIU Law Dogs and Cats of the Week will be on a hiatus until we receive more photos. Thanks to everyone who contributed. If you are an SIU School of Law student, professor, staff member, alumnus, or friend of the law library, see our Call for Photos for instructions on submitting your dog or cat photo. To see photos of all previous Law Dogs and Cats of the Week, visit our Gallery of SIU Law Dogs and Cats, which you can find under Related Links in the sidebar.

This Week's Featured Book

The Featured Book of the Week is Owning and Managing Forests: A Guide to Legal, Financial, and Practical Matters by Thom J. McEvoy and published by Island Press.

“Owning and Managing Forests is both an accessible overview of the privileges, rights, and obligations that accompany forest ownership and a guidebook to help active forest owners and managers use laws to their advantage and avoid the pitfalls of expensive and exhausting litigation... The book also describes the many different facets of trusts, changes in forestland taxation methods, and new licensing and certification options. Included, too, is a section on avoiding disputes and how to use alternative dispute resolution methods to avoid costly, troubling, and time-consuming court battles. Owning and Managing Forests provides clear and concise descriptions of often confusing concepts and difficult subjects, and addresses issues in a competent yet conversational tone. Anyone involved with owning or managing forestland will find the book an essential guide and reference.” - Book Description

Owning and Managing Forests will be available to borrow after Friday, June 15, 2007

Featured Resource: BNA Databases

BNA has added five new databases to the "BNA All" law school package: Digital Discovery and e-Evidence, Corporate Compliance Library, Life Sciences Law & Industry Report, Medical Devices Law & Industry Report, and World Communications Regulation Report. You can access these databases from any computer connected to the law school network, including using your VPN if you are SIU Law faculty, staff, or student.

The law library subscribes to over 100 BNA databases on a wide variety of subjects. You can browse the complete list in alphabetical order or by subject. SIU Law faculty, staff, and students can sign up to receive BNA email summaries.

Dooley Is Law Dog of the Week

This week's SIU Law Dog is Dooley, who came to live with Candy Sue and me after Dakota died last fall. Dooley is very loving and gets along fabulously with Candy Sue. Click on the small photo here to see more of Dooley.

Shortly after we adopted Dooley, he was diagnosed with heartworm disease. He had to undergo an unpleasant and potentially fatal course of treatment. Just this week he had his final post-treatment heartworm test, which showed that he is clear of heartworms. Don't let this happen to your dogs. If you haven't already done so, have your dogs tested for heartworm and start them on heartworm prevention medicine. Learn more from the American Heartworm Society.

The SIU Law Dogs and Cats of the Week will be on a hiatus until we receive more photos. Thanks to everyone who contributed. If you are an SIU School of Law student, professor, staff member, alumnus, or friend of the law library, see our Call for Photos for instructions on submitting your dog or cat photo. To see photos of all previous Law Dogs and Cats of the Week, visit our Gallery of SIU Law Dogs and Cats, which you can find under Related Links in the sidebar.

This Week's Featured Book

The Featured Book of the Week is Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law by Lawrence Rosen and published by Prentice Hall PTR.

“Now that open source software is blossoming around the world, it is crucial to understand how open source licenses work—and their solid legal foundations. Open Source Initiative general counsel Lawrence Rosen presents a plain-English guide to open source law for developers, managers, users, and lawyers. Rosen clearly explains the intellectual property laws that support open source licensing, carefully reviews today’s leading licenses, and helps you make the best choices for your project or organization...” - Book Description

“I have studied Rosen’s book in detail and am impressed with its scope and content. I strongly recommend it to anybody interested in the current controversies surrounding open source licensing.” - John Terpstra, Samba.org; cofounder, Samba-Team

“Linux and open source software have forever altered the computing landscape. The important conversations no longer revolve around the technology but rather the business and legal issues. Rosen’s book is must reading for anyone using or providing open source solutions.” - Stuart Open Source Development Labs

Open Source Licensing will be available to borrow after Friday, June 8, 2007.

Research Tip: Use an Index

Westlaw and LexisNexis are great resources for doing legal research. They have thousands of databases of full-text documents, including statutes, regulations, cases, and articles from law reviews and other legal periodicals.

But searching a full-text database can be time-consuming and frustrating. How many times have you run what seems like a very precise search in a full-text database of journals and law reviews, and ended up having to sort through hundreds of articles in which your search terms appear only in the footnotes.

One way to improve the relevance of your search results is to use a legal periodical index such as LegalTrac or WilsonWeb. Because these indexes typically search just the most important parts of articles, like the title and abstract, they are much more likely to retrieve articles you can use. You can use LegalTrac from any computer on the SIUC campus network, but you must be connected to the law-school network to use WilsonWeb.

Westlaw and LexisNexis also have legal-periodical indexes: both systems have Legal Resource Index, the database that LegalTrac searches, and Westlaw has Index to Legal Periodicals, the WilsonWeb database. The indexes link you to full-text articles available on the system you are using.

Indexes can save you time and improve the relevance of your search results. For more information see:

• Using WilsonWeb to Find Legal Articles;
• Using LegalTrac to Find Legal Articles.

Patrick Is Law Dog of the Week

This week's SIU Law Dog is Patrick, shown here when he was between 3 and 4 months old. Heidi Ramos, who works as a staff attorney with the Elderly Clinic and as project coordinator of the Self Help Clinic, adopted him in January '07, from PAWS in Anna. His full name is Prof. Patrick O'Grady, Esq. Patrick is proud of his diverse (breed) heritage. He likes going for long hikes in the Shawnee Forest but gets impatient when his human friends lose their way.

To see photos of all previous Law Dogs and Cats of the Week, visit our Gallery of SIU Law Dogs and Cats, which you can find under Related Links in the sidebar. See our Call for Photos for instructions on submitting your SIU Law Dog or Cat photo.

This Week's Featured Book

The Featured Book of the Week is Bioethical and Evolutionary Approaches to Medicine and the Law by W. Noel Keyes and published by the American Bar Association.

“Bioethical and Evolutionary Approaches to Medicine and the Law is a comprehensive, scholarly analysis of bioethics and the development of its standards. This book provides an explanatory forum of ideas and innovative solutions covering the major medical, legal, and ethical issues that we face in the 21st Century. Beginning with a history of how these ethical dilemmas originated and progressed, the author provides you with facts, analysis and case law that will help you understand these issues and further identify how we can face them…Bioethics is a multidisciplinary field of law and one that can not be ignored. Bioethical and Evolutionary Approaches to Medicine and the Law provides you with timely analysis to help you understand current ethical issues in legal medicine, health law and policy, professional liability, hospital law, food and drug law, medical legal research and more.” - Book Description

Bioethical and Evolutionary Approaches to Medicine and the Law will be available to borrow after Friday, May 25, 2007

Gracie Is Law Dog of the Week

This week's SIU Law Dog is Gracie, a 1-1/2-year-old cocker spaniel who belongs to Akami Marik. Akami works in the Admissions Office. Gracie is full of energy, and she loves her toys, "Dingo" bones, and her chair. Click on the picture here to see more of Gracie.

To see photos of all previous Law Dogs and Cats of the Week, visit our Gallery of SIU Law Dogs and Cats, which you can find under Related Links in the sidebar. See our Call for Photos for instructions on submitting your SIU Law Dog or Cat photo.

Toby Is Law Dog of the Week

This week's SIU Law Dog is Toby, an American Cocker Spaniel who belongs to Rusty Allen. Susan Williams sent us this picture. She thinks that the sweet look on Toby's face is there to disguise any devious plans he is turning over in his mind. Click on the picture here to see a bigger picture.

To see photos of all previous Law Dogs and Cats of the Week, visit our Gallery of SIU Law Dogs and Cats, which you can find under Related Links in the sidebar. See our Call for Photos for instructions on submitting your SIU Law Dog or Cat photo.

Featured Book of the Week

The Featured Book of the Week is The Relationship Rights of Children by James G. Dwyer and published by Cambridge University Press.

“The book presents the first sustained theoretical analysis of what rights children should possess in connection with state decision making about their personal relationships which the state does in numerous aspects of family law, including paternity, adoption, custody and visitation, termination of parental rights, and grandparent visitation. It examines the nature and normative foundation of adults’ rights in connection with relationships among themselves and then assesses the extent to which the moral principles underlying adults’ rights apply also to children. It concludes that the law should ascribe to children rights equivalent (though not identical) to those which adults enjoy, and this would require substantial changes in the way the legal system treats children, including a reformation of the rules for establishing legal parent-child relationships at birth and of the rules for deciding whether to end a parent-child relationship.” - Book Description

The Relationship Rights of Children will be available to borrow after Friday, May 18, 2007.

Congratulations, Student Authors

The following SIU Law students had their articles published the winter 2007 issue of the Southern Illinois University Law Journal:

Justin Chasco, Comment, Judge Alberto Gonzales? The Attorney General's Power to Overturn Board of Immigration Appeals' Decisions

Natalie J. Kussart, Comment, Reporting Medical Errors: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Stephanie Lindsay, Note, Dirty Water on a Daily Basis: Friends of the Earth v. Environmental Protection Agency

Michelle Sanders, Note, To Serve and Protect? Supporting Police Inaction over Domestic Violence Victim Protection in Castle Rock v. Gonzales

Shelby Is Law Dog of the Week

This week's SIU Law Dog is Shelby, a Shetland Sheepdog who belongs to Caitlin King. Caitlin is a first-year SIU law student. Click on the photo here to see more of Shelby.

To see photos of all previous Law Dogs and Cats of the Week, visit our Gallery of SIU Law Dogs and Cats, which you can find under Related Links in the sidebar. See our Call for Photos for instructions on submitting your SIU Law Dog or Cat photo.

This Week's Featured Book

The Featured Book of the Week is Gypsy Law: Romani Legal Traditions and Culture edited by Walter O. Weyrauch and published by the University of California Press.

“Approximately one thousand years ago Gypsies, or Roma, left their native India. Today Gypsies can be found in countries throughout the world, their distinct culture still intact in spite of the intense persecution they have endured. This authoritative collection brings together leading Gypsy and non-Gypsy scholars to examine the Romani legal system, an autonomous body of law based on an oral tradition and existing alongside dominant national legal networks. For centuries the Roma have survived by using defensive strategies, especially the absolute exclusion of gadje (non-Gypsies) from their private lives, their values, and information about Romani language and social institutions. Sexuality, gender, and the body are fundamental to Gypsy law, with rules that govern being pure (vujo) or impure (marime). Women play an important role in maintaining legal customs, having the power to sanction and to contaminate, but they are not directly involved in legal proceedings. These essays offer a comparative perspective on Romani legal procedures and identity, including topics such as the United States' criminalization of many aspects of Gypsy law, parallels between Jewish and Gypsy law, and legal distinctions between Romani communities. The contributors raise broad theoretical questions that transcend the specific Gypsy context and offer important insights into understanding oral legal traditions. Together they suggest a theoretical framework for explaining the coexistence of formal and informal law within a single legal system…” - Book Description

Gypsy Law will be available to borrow after Friday, May 11, 2007

The ABA now has iPod-compatible CLE programs

This is great! About a month ago, I finished writing an article on Podcasts and Podcasting for Law Librarians, which will appear in the August issue of Law Library Journal. I mentioned that not many CLE providers were making their programs available in MP3 formats, which can be played on portable audio devices. Today I discovered that the ABA offers several portable CLE options.

ABA-CLE programs are available:

• on an iPod nano or video iPod preloaded with programming in selected practice areas;
• as audio or video downloads in MP3 and MP4 format;
• and as part of the monthly ABA-CLE Podcast series.

The ABA-CLE Podcasts series programs are complimentary. Program materials can also be downloaded for all types of programs.

Law Library Food Ban Temporarily Lifted

Hear ye, hear ye! As the library’s way of trying to ease the burden of finals just a tad, effective Tuesday, May 1, 2007 through Friday, May 11, 2007, the food ban shall be lifted in the law library! Light snacks (cookies, candy, crackers, etc.) will be permitted. The law library only asks that you clean up after yourself and that you do not eat near or over library materials and equipment, since no one wants to use a book filled with crumbs and we don’t want the law library to look like a pig-sty or your freshman year dorm room-some of you know what we mean. So, enjoy a candy bar while you are studying for contracts or a cookie while you are reviewing your outline for trusts & estates! We hope this reprieve will make your exams a bit more bearable :) Good luck on your finals and congratulations 3Ls!!

Westlaw & LexisNexis: Summer 2007 Access

Westlaw & LexisNexis: Summer 2007 Access
Unless you qualify (and register) under one of the categories below, your access to LexisNexis and Westlaw will be limited during Summer 2007 as follows:

Westlaw: Students will have 2 hours of access in June and 2 hours of access in July.
LexisNexis: Students’ LexisNexis IDs will be limited to career materials (as of June 1, 2007).
Full access to both services will generally resume August 1st, 2007.

Full Summer 2007 Access: You may be granted full access to LexisNexis and/or Westlaw during Summer 2007 if you meet one of the following criteria and register.

LexisNexis
To register, go to LexisNexis. Click on "Summer Access" and choose one of the following criteria:

• Summer School
• Moot Court Research
• Law Journal research
• Research Assistant for Law Professor
• Non-Profit Externship (includes Public Interest position)
• Unpaid Internship/Externship (or small stipend)

Westlaw
To register, click on the "Need Summer Access" link on the right when you sign-on to Westlaw. Register for Summer access online by May 31, 2007. After May 31 you will have to call Westlaw (800.850.9378).

For full access, you must be doing one of the following:

• Summer School
• Moot Court Research
• Law Journal research
• Law Journal research
• Research Assistant for Law Professor
• Public interest intern/externships

Questions? Contact Kara Grimme (SIU Westlaw Account Representative, kara.grimme@thomson.com) or Marantha Beatty-Brown (SIU LexisNexis Account Representative, marantha.beatty-brown@lexisnexis.com).

Ruger Is Law Dog of the Week

This week's SIU Law Dog is Ruger, a five-year-old German Shepherd who belongs to Tammi and Tom Pinski. Tammi is a first-year SIU law student. Click on the photo here to see a larger photo.

To see photos of all previous Law Dogs and Cats of the Week, visit our Gallery of SIU Law Dogs and Cats, which you can find under Related Links in the sidebar. See our Call for Photos for instructions on submitting your SIU Law Dog or Cat photo.

Featured Book of the Week

This week's Featured Book is It’s Legal but It Ain’t Right edited by Nikos Passas and Neva Goodwin and published by the University of Michigan Press.

“Many U.S. corporations and the goods they produce negatively impact our society without breaking any laws. We are all too familiar with the tobacco industry's effect on public health and health care costs for smokers and nonsmokers, as well as the role of profit in the pharmaceutical industry's research priorities. It's Legal but It Ain't Right tackles these issues, plus the ethical ambiguities of legalized gambling, the firearms trade, the fast food industry, the pesticide industry, private security companies, and more. Aiming to identify industries and goods that undermine our societal values and to hold them accountable for their actions, this collection makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing discussion of ethics in our time. This accessible exploration of corporate legitimacy and crime will be important reading for advocates, journalists, students, and anyone interested in the dichotomy between law and legitimacy.” - Book Description

“It's Legal but It Ain't Right chronicles the abuse of power and privilege by businesses that defy the strictures of law and limits of regulation. Contributors stretch the conceptual boundaries of corporate deviance across a wide range of industries at a time when standards of corporate social responsibility and good corporate citizenship are in flux.” - William S. Laufer, Professor, The Wharton School of Business

It’s Legal but It Ain’t Right will be available to borrow after Friday, May 4, 2007