A humanist and generally recognized as an uomo universal [“Renaissance man”], Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) is known for his works in painting, sculpture, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, music, physics, philosophy, and cryptography. The writing of the mysterious Hypnerotomachia Poliphili has even been attributed to him. The Law Library recently acquired a compilation of his lesser-known works, simply titled …
Although I grew up in an arid western state, my first real awareness of the complicated rules governing water usage came when I saw the movie The Milagro Beanfield War in 1988. The action in the movie centers around the accidental and illegal diversion of water by Joe Mondragon, which brings down the wrath of the state government …
This week’s interview is with Jacinda Gill, IT specialist in the Digital Resources Division of the Global Legal Collection Directorate, Law Library of Congress. Describe your background. I was born in Washington, D.C. to a third generation family of Washingtonians. However, I only briefly lived in Washington (Adams Morgan area) before relocating to San Antonio, …
The following is a guest post by Norma C. Gutiérrez, senior foreign law specialist for Mexico and Central American countries in the Law Library’s Global Legal Research Directorate. It is part of our Global Legal Collection Highlights series that aims to inform readers about English-language materials in the Law Library’s collection. To date, the series …
The following is a guest post by Helen White Cauthen, Communications Specialist, Office of Development, University of Alabama School of Law. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of To Kill A Mockingbird, and to honor former Alabama law student and author Harper Lee, The University of Alabama School of Law and the ABA Journal partnered …
Since its beginnings in the Capitol in 1800, the Library of Congress’ recurrent theme has been that, as acquisitions outpaced storage, the need for additional buildings became evident. A series of acts passed by Congress and signed into law by at least six different presidents gave us our current campus on Capitol Hill. As early as …
On Sunday, Feb. 23, 2014, one of the oddest cases of unintended consequences came to an end. I refer to the death of Samuel Sheinbein in a shootout in an Israeli prison. According to media reports the thirty-three-years-old Sheinbein was shot after opening fire and seriously injuring several prison guards using a weapon he had smuggled …
This post was co-authored by Barbara Bavis and Robert Brammer, Legal Reference Specialists. We receive a wide array of questions here at the Law Library of Congress—from detailed foreign legal research, to tracing U.S. federal legislation, and everything in between—but one area of legal research on which we consistently receive requests for assistance is the …