I was recently vacationing in France and, while there, thought it would be fun to take a picture of a library to bring back for the blog. I managed to find the Bibliothèque National de France (BnF, the National Library of France) on the Rue de Richelieu. By law, every book published in France is …
The following is a guest post by Nicole Atwill, Senior Foreign Law Specialist at the Law Library of Congress. In February 2011, the French government launched the Year of Overseas Territories (Année des outre-mer) with a conference on the future of coral reefs. The Year of Overseas Territories highlights the historic place and contemporary role …
The following is a guest post by Dr. Meredith Shedd-Driskel, Law Curator. With the rise of feudalism in medieval France, the country had evolved into two judicial territories. The provincial parliaments in northern France, acting as sovereign judicial bodies independent of each other and claiming independence from the king, applied droit coutumier, or legal principles …
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to attend Summer School LEX 2011. As background, [t]he school aims at providing knowledge of the most significant ICT standards emerging for legislation, judiciary, parliamentary and administrative documents. The course provides understanding of their impact in the different phases of the legislative and administrative process, awareness of the tools based …
The Kenyan Law Reports (KLR), a free Kenyan Law database, was just announced winner of the International Association of Law Libraries (IALL) 2011 Website Award Competition. With this award, Kenyan Law Reports joins the ranks of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law websites that claimed …
This week’s interview is with LeeAnne Rupple, Special Assistant to the Law Librarian. Enjoy! Describe your background. I was born in South Carolina to a family of die-hard, born and bred, Texans! I spent the bulk of my adolescent years in St. Louis, Missouri; however, my dad’s job required us to move frequently, so I …
The following is a guest post by Nicole Atwill, Senior Foreign Law Specialist in the Global Legal Research Center. I recently watched Dominique Strauss Kahn’s return to France on the French news as I vacationed there. There was nonstop live television coverage during the day. Many commentators pointed out that although Dominique Strauss Kahn (“DSK”) …
When doing my cool job, I never know what will cross my path. Recently, I happened to discover some items covering early sumptuary laws in England. These laws were prohibitions against what the Monarch at the time considered to be “extravagance,” typically in the form of food or clothing. They were reportedly aimed to preserve the class system …
This week’s interview is with Dr. Mary-Jane Deeb, Chief of the African and Middle Eastern Division at the Library of Congress. Describe your background My background is a bit complicated: my mother was Slovenian and my father was a Levantine from Egypt. I grew up in Alexandria, Egypt, spoke French at home, and went to …