As you begin the process of course registration, make sure to consider these valuable Legal Research classes, Legal Research: Practical Skills (1-cr.) and Legal Research: Skills for the Digital World (3-cr.). Find more details here, Why Focus on Research Skills, which lays out the NYLS Student Competencies and Learning Outcomes.

 

 

 

Good news—Bloomberg Law has just announced that it will provide free, unrestricted access to 2020 graduating law students through June 1, 2021. That’s six months longer than either Lexis or Westlaw!

Be sure to take advantage of what Bloomberg Law has to offer, including access to:
• In Focus pages and legal news to stay on top of turbulent areas of law and legal practice
• Practical Guidance and other Legal Research tools to provide support in legal practice
• Company Screener and Litigation Analytics to research companies and law firms for potential employment
• A full library of on-demand training webinars

New York Law School’s temporary access to casebooks, texts, and some study aids on the LexisNexis Digital Library will expire on Friday, May 15. This includes works published by Carolina Academic Press and LexisNexis. (It does NOT include works published by Aspen, Wolters Kluwer, Foundation Press or West Academic.)

We very much regret this inconvenience. We contacted representatives from both LexisNexis and Carolina Academic Press, asking for an extension. They declined our request, stating that their policies around licensing and royalties are very strict.

Thus, if you are preparing for exams using ebooks published by Carolina Academic Press or LexisNexis on the LexisNexis Digital Library, your access will terminate on May 15. However, if your exams are after that date, there are two ways that you can preserve the content you need:

Method 1: Use the LexisNexis Digital Library’s print function for the sections of the ebooks that you need. When you navigate to a chapter, you have the option of printing a section, which is the full text of that chapter. Choose “print”, and then use the “print to PDF” feature. The PDFs that you create can be saved to your computer for permanent use. Unfortunately, you cannot choose to print an entire book; you can only go section-by-section, which is chapter-by-chapter for the chapters you need. Make sure to do this before May 15.

Method 2: Ebooks you download on LexisNexis Digital’s new platform will probably remain available to you for 14 days. If you haven’t used the new platform, you can go here: https://lexisdl.com/library/nyls Our institutional code is nyls. Remember to use your NYLS network ID, not your Lexis login credentials, to use this resource. The new platform works best on the Chrome browser. You can also use the new platform on the LexisNexis Digital Library app, available for free on Google Play and the App Store. Once you have chosen “Read” for an ebook, it is automatically downloaded to your mobile device. Make sure to do this before May 15.

The publishers’ representatives could not guarantee that Method 2 would actually work.

Also, please note that the May 15 expiration affects only the group of Carolina Academic Press and LexisNexis publications that were provided to us temporarily, in response to the COVID crisis. A large collection of other useful study aids and treatises will remain available to students indefinitely on the LexisNexis Digital Library. If you’re uncertain whether the works you need are expiring, don’t hesitate to contact us at reference@nyls.edu .

Each year on May 1st, the United States celebrates Law Day. First designated in 1958 by President Eisenhower, Law Day celebrates the rule of law and its contributions to Americans’ many freedoms. This year’s theme is “Your Vote, Your Voice, Our Democracy: The 19th Amendment at 100,” commemorating the constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote. 

The Law Library of Congress has a Law Day Research Guide, with links to legislative and executive documents as well as books, journal articles and speech transcripts. Additional information on Law Day and materials relating to this year’s theme are on the ABA’s Law Day web page.

If you’ve got 30 minutes we can help hone your Bluebook skills!

The Library is offering a series of online Bluebook classes via Zoom beginning Wednesday April 8 at 5:15 p.m.  The complete schedule can be found here.

The classes are intended for any member of the NYLS community who has questions about using the Bluebook.  While the Bluebook may look daunting at first glance, spending a few minutes learning how to use it can save you hours of anguish during crunch time when your brief, paper or Journal assignment is coming due.

Remember, you can gain access to the online Bluebook by following these instructions (bottom of page).

If there are other research classes you would find helpful, send your suggestion(s) to reference@nyls.edu. We will try our best to offer additional online instruction via Zoom.

 

February is Black History Month, and a recent HeinOnline blog post offers “5 Easy Ways to Research Black History in HeinOnline.”  The post highlights five of its research databases, including Slavery in America and the World.  You can access the blog post here, and you can access all the HeinOnline databases here.

Can you find love in the Library? Yes, you can! Click here to access our Valentine’s Day Info Hunt.

WIN study aids, Lexis points, NYLS swag, and other useful items, while having fun doing some easy legal research about some offbeat cases. Each question comes with step-by-step instructions to get you to the answer.

Print the PDF entry form (or pick up a copy at the Reference Desk) and drop it in our Reference Desk Raffle Drum by 5:00 pm on Thursday February 13. Then join us outside the library at 5:30 for some sweets and the prize drawing at 5:45pm.

Legislation signed in 1983 marked the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a federal holiday. It is celebrated on the third Monday of each January. In 1994, Congress designated the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday as a national day of service, now led by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

This year, the NYLS community is honoring Dr. King’s legacy through a service project for God’s Love We Deliver on January 24, 2020.  NYLS students and staff will be volunteering to assist in the preparation and delivery of nutritious, high-quality meals to people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other serious illnesses, who are unable to provide or prepare meals for themselves. The effort is being organized by NYLS’s Impact Center for Public Interest Law.

For the twelfth consecutive year, the Mendik Library surveyed 1Ls during First Week about some of their digital inclinations. For the complete survey and how they compare to results over the past five years, click here. For results back to 2007, click here.

Spoiler alert—pepperoni once again repeated as the most popular pizza topping, this time based on the preferences of 366 members of the classes of 2022/23. These students also responded to questions about:

• their preferred platforms for electronic communication;

• their usage of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Twitter, Blogs & Podcasts;

• the digital devices they owned and used, including Macs v. PCs, Smartphones, Tablets and E-Book Readers.

Some highlights:

Communication

• Text messaging remains the dominant preference at 77%, four points lower than the previous year. Email saw a slight uptick from 11% to 16%.

Social Media

• Instagram continues to dominate (56%) as the social networking platform of choice for these students. Only 11% labeled Facebook as the social networking platform they used most often.

Preferred Devices

• When it comes to the computer students use most often, Macs are favored over PCs 3:1.

E-Books

• Roughly 70% of students reported having used an e-textbook for undergraduate or graduate school classes, an increase from 62% in the previous year.

• Significantly, only 17% of students preferred using an e-textbook to a print textbook, which is consistent with data from prior years.

Pizza

• Pepperoni continues to reign supreme as students’ favorite pizza topping, pulling in 26% of the vote. Extra cheese was its closest competitor at 19%, followed by mushrooms at 11%.