Public Services Issues With Rare and Archival Law Materials

by Widener; Michael

• ISBN13: 9780789014078
• ISBN10: 0789014076
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-11-21
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This helpful book gives practical advice and information on providing access to rare and archival law collections and promoting their use by scholars, teachers, and students. Public Services Issues with Rare and Archival Law Materials offers detailed instructions for the care and use of rare legal materials, ideas for creating exhibits and outreach activities (including Web sites), suggestions for working with early books on Roman and canon law, practical techniques for using archives in litigation, and a bibliography of law-related archives and rare-book librarianship. In addition, it discusses the ethical implications of using archives and the research habits of legal scholars. An essential reference for law librarians and archivists.

Author Biography

Michael Widener, BJ, MLIS, has been the Archivist/Rare Books Librarian at the Tarlton Law Library, University of Texas at Austin, since 1991. In 1994, he was named a Joseph D. Jamail Fellow in Law Librarianship. He holds a Master's Degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Texas at Austin. Mr. Widener serves on the Board of Trustees of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society and the Editorial Board of H-LAW, the legal history listserv sponsored by the American Society for Legal History. He is active in the Society of American Archivists and has served on its publications board and committee on legal and legislative affairs. Mr. Widener's publications include a number of articles. He edited four published oral history interviews and bibliography of the current faculty of the University of Texas School of Law. In addition, Mr. Widener was a consultant on the cataloging, housing, and public services for the rare book collection at the law school of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.

Table of Contents

Public Services Issues with Rare and Archival Law Materials: An Introduction	1	(4)
Michael Widener
GENERAL
A Portrait of Research in Legal History	5	(12)
Ann D. Gordon
Helping Historians Write Legal History ``From Below'': Collecting New Sources, Teaching New Strategies	17	(12)
David Warrington
Training Law Librarians in the Use of Rare Legal Materials	29	(12)
Morris L. Cohen
Rare and Archival Law Materials: Exhibits and Outreach, Traditional and Electronic	41	(26)
Mark W. Lambert
Rare and Archival Law Materials on the World Wide Web: An Evaluation of Selected Sites	67	(12)
Carole Prietto
Bibliography on Rare and Archival Law Materials	79	(6)
Mark W. Lambert
Michael Widener
RARE BOOKS
The Role of Rare Books in Law Libraries	85	(8)
Joel Silver
Rediscovering Rare Books in an Electronic Age	93	(6)
Claire M. Germain
Roman and Canon Law Research	99	(14)
Lucia Diamond
ARCHIVES
Lawyers, Archivists and Librarians: United or Divided in the Pursuit of Justice?	113	(22)
Menzi L. Behrnd-Klodt
Using the Tom Clark Papers for a Seminar: A Faculty Member's Perspective	135	(4)
Michael J. Churgin
Access to the Working Papers of State Supreme Court Justices: A Case Study from Texas	139	(12)
Michael Widener
Providing Access to Lawyers' Papers: The Perils...and The Rewards	151	(30)
Akiba J. Covitz
Lawyer-Client Files: A Historical Source, But Can We See Them?	181	(10)
Victor Tunkel
Index	191