Trials, Journals, Cancellations: a week in the life of a selector

What a week. The balance of print and electronic never seemed more complex. We started with a list of serials up for renewal, and I cancelled several titles (or at least, I will find out early next week if they were active or lapsed and how much they really were versus my rough calculations; at that time I will share those specialized British titles with this FCIL blog). My hope was to reach around $4,000.00 in savings so I could purchase the Kluwer Litigation database, Legal :
http://business.cch.com/network which many libraries already have, no doubt. Fortunately the database proved much cheaper than was quoted months ago. Moral: always hold out until they get desperate.

Then we moved on to packages of Kluwer Law International e-journals and Cambridge University Press e-journals. The latter duplicate print in our collection completely; the former less so. I went only for the former. But all had merit.

Finally, to determine among so many Commonwealth and "world" trials. We are still debating, as we have Hein and have viewed the Gale MoML offer. But I enjoyed looking again at Famous Trials, the web site of Prof. Douglas O. Linder, http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/ftrials.htm and for my money (that is, none) I view trials of Socrates, Galileo, re the Mutiny on the Bounty, and more.
Enjoy!

LexisNexis Canada (Quicklaw )no longer offered free to US libraries

We were alerted last week to the discovery that LexisNexis Canada seems to be adopting the business model of its Butterworth products outside the US and giving US educational accounts just "slices" of the country information. While we could previously use separate passwords for the old Quicklaw system, these are now de-activated.
Along with French and Argentinian sources, commonwealth materials also need to be enhanced by separate subscriptions, and many of us have been disappointed that this structure has been adopted by LexisNexis. Our LLM students and others could benefit and continue to become familiar with these products under an educational subscription that would fold it all together, or at least allow law libraries to elect jurisdictional materials of interest. O Canada......

Revived FCIL Blog rises from sleep...

Dear FCIL Colleagues and Others

Lo, the sleeping blog awakes! In New Orleans at this year's (2007) AALL meeting and Electronic Issues Group meeting, several in attendance favored the continuation and expansion of the blog with more information and perhaps added features. Our look is still completely basic without a hint of Web 2.0 but we may be able to jazz it up and get your feedback.

First let me post an item by request, and then I'll move on to other requested items:

This from Sergio Stone, Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Librarian at the University of Denver College of Law:

"I recently wrote an article on the use Spanish dictionaries in U.S and Latin American courts, which appeared in the August, 2007 issue of “Colorado Lawyer.”
The paper discusses the most frequently cited Spanish language dictionaries in U.S. federal court opinions. I also include some analysis of dictionary
references in Argentine, Costa Rican and Mexican courts.
Since I retained copyright, I posted a copy of the article on our local AALL chapter Web site:
http://www.aallnet.org/chapter/coall/lrc/lrc0807.pdf

A Study of Spanish Dictionaries in U.S. and Latin American Courts
“Colorado Lawyer” vol.36 no.8 pp.115-120. August 2007 "

and this from Daniel Boyer, Wainright Librarian at McGill Law:

The Revue internationale de droit compare is available on the web from areliable site [Persee]. The only problem is that it is only available until 2001, a moving wall of six years...Anyway here's the URL http://www.persee.fr/listIssues.do;jsessionid=CC31BAE158BAA376B396E2A994
7BDFFE.vesta

All for now but more to come. I am now in a position to post early and often. Send your comments and suggestions: it is for everyone and everything FCIL!

Marylin Raisch
Born Again Blogger ...and...
Associate Law Librarian for International and Foreign Law
John Wolff International and Comparative Law Library
Georgetown Law Center

Oxford's International Law in Domestic Courts database

This database seems to be very similar to International Law Reports (ILR) in concept. Has anyone subscribed to the database and done a comparison? Also, those who have subscribed, what are some of the pros and cons re? Thanks, Lyonette.

Blogs and Collection Development

Blogs- international and foreign law

I just submitted to the AALL FCIL-SIS newsletter a piece that also serves as the minutes of the Electronic Issues Interest Group of that SIS, which I chair. The brief blog reflection and selective list of blogs. The main thrust is the use of blog monitoring for reference resource awareness and collection development.
Heidi Kuehl will contribute the technical side. This seems the best way to revive this blog- "a day in the life" may spark a better format.

New Journal from Gaunt letter

One more new title from Gaunt letter: International Journal of Women, Social Justice and Human Rights, New Delhi: Serials Publications, vol. 1, 2006 (ISSN 0973-4414.) ~ Dan

from Electronic Publications

via Opinio Juris blog:
Jounrnal of Philosophy of International Law, ISSN 17461863
and at the publisher's web site Journal of Islamic State Practices in International Law, ISSN 17424941
These new journals are born digital but have PDF access and some print copies may be ordered.