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In Custodia Legis Posts: 2013 Roundup

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As I said in my post last week on the foreign and comparative law reports we published in 2013, December is a good time to look back and evaluate the year.  This has been a busy year for the In Custodia Legis blog team.  So far in 2013, we have published 233 posts and May was our busiest month with 27 posts.  This pushes the total number of posts since our founding in August 2010 to more than 860.  Not bad, eh?  Also, this year Barbara, Donna, Laney, and Robert, who had been avid guest bloggers for a while, decided they enjoyed blogging so much they joined the blog team.  In addition, we added a new category to the blog, Research Guide, which has proven quite popular with our readers thanks to the hard work of Barbara and Robert.

As a member of the In Custodia Legis team, I constantly think about what types of posts our readers might enjoy reading.  One way of gauging such interest is by looking at which posts attract more readers.  Here is a list of the ten posts that topped the In Custodia Legis charts this year in the order of their popularity:

Globe, 2nd Floor, Main Entrance, Madison Building, Library of Congress.
Globe, 2nd Floor, Main Entrance, Madison Building, Library of Congress.
  1. Frequent Reference Question: How Many Federal Laws Are There?
  2. How to Locate Free Case Law on the Internet
  3. The Transition from THOMAS.gov to Congress.gov
  4. The Cyprus Banking Crisis and its Aftermath: Bank Depositors be Aware
  5. Congressional Record Added to Congress.gov
  6. Contract Law: A Beginner’s Guide
  7. Employment and Labor Law: A Beginner’s Guide
  8. Legal Drafting: A Beginner’s Guide
  9. How Robin Hood Defied King John and Brought Magna Carta to Sherwood Forest
  10. Nonprofit Organizations: A Beginner’s Guide

While preparing this post, I asked some of my colleagues what their favorite posts of the year had been.  Here is what they told me:

In Custodia Legis Authors
The blog team

Robert:

I enjoyed Clare’s “Odd Laws of the United Kingdom,” because now I know conclusively that I may not operate a cow while intoxicated outside of Buckingham Palace.

Kelly:

I always love to read our interviews.  We have published more than 120 of these now!  I particularly enjoyed the interviews with many of the interns that we hosted in the Law Library this year.  These students have such diverse backgrounds and interests and will no doubt have wonderful careers ahead of them.  They provided great assistance to our research staff and really added to the international vibe here in the Law Library too – this year our interns were from countries all over the world, including Korea, China, Thailand, Ghana, France, and Ukraine.

Margaret:

My favorite post of the year was Kelly Buchanan’s post “Marmite: A Sticky Legal Issue.”  Having spent time in Britain I had eaten marmite there and found it to be to rather awful – at least to my taste!  But I am glad to know that Kelly and her fellow expat Kiwis will be able to get their New Zealand “black gold” on a regular basis.

This is a picture of a squirrel eating a peanut outside the Madison Building.
Squirrel eating a peanut outside Madison Building, Library of Congress

Elizabeth:

I always like the interviews and the pics of the week.  The two posts I remember enjoying most were: After the Fall of Richard the III: Vengeance and the Alteration of History and Odd Laws of the United Kingdom.

Tina:

I don’t think I could pick just one favorite, but I really liked these: Marmite: A Sticky Legal SituationPrudence, Parrots and an Odd Emperor: An Example of Legal Engraving; and Smoke from the Flame of Knowledge – Pic of the Week.

Andrew:

I really liked two of Nathan’s posts this year: How Robin Hood Defied King John and Brought Magna Carta to Sherwood Forest and Collection Development with Litteratura Iuris, or, Heads Will Roll – Pic of the Week.

Please do not hesitate to use the comments section to tell us what your favorite posts were this year or give us any feedback.

On behalf of the In Custodia Legis team, I would like to say thank you for reading and happy holidays!

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