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Posted by: Andrew Weber
What an exciting year it has been for In Custodia Legis! We added Jennifer and Betty to our blog team. We published over 200 posts (go back and read any of them you might have missed, I’ll wait). The three most-viewed months in our blog’s four year history came in September, October, and November. Towards the …
Posted in: Law Library
Posted by: Donna Sokol
If you are planning a trip to Washington, D.C., to see the Magna Carta exhibition, may I suggest another stop on your itinerary? You’ve heard the phrase “hidden gem,” but the object I am sharing with you today truly takes that term to a new level. It is a Magna Carta replica tucked into the …
Posted in: Pic of the Week
Posted by: Margaret Wood
The Constitutions of Clarendon were issued by Henry II in 1164. This document became the bone of contention between Henry II and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was also his former chancellor and friend, Thomas Beckett. The quarrel between these two men eventually led to Thomas’s murder and then elevation to sainthood, as well as …
Posted in: Law Library
Posted by: Betty Lupinacci
Here it is, our beloved Law Library card catalog–in its day, a glorious collection of information on all legal material in the Library of Congress’ collection, sorted by Author, Title and Subject. So admired that a smaller version was housed behind the reference desk, holding duplicate cards for those titles shelved in the Reading Room. …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library, Pic of the Week
Posted by: Jeanine Cali
We hosted our second program in the Magna Carta lecture series, “Selecting and Conserving Primary Sources,” on Wednesday, August 20. William “Jake” Jacobs, chief of the Library’s Interpretive Programs Office, the division charged with managing exhibitions, moderated a panel of Library specialists who discussed the methods by which they prepare and select materials for Library exhibitions and …
Posted in: Event
Posted by: Kelly Buchanan
These days when we think about forensic evidence our minds turn to shows such as the “CSI” franchise. We think of DNA. Bullet striations. Hair and fiber analysis. And fingerprints. Of all these things, fingerprint matching has perhaps the longest history and remains one of the most used tools for identifying criminals. I was therefore …
Posted in: Global Law
Posted by: Francisco Macías
In keeping with the subject of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, May 17, 2014 marks the 60th anniversary of the issuance of the decision on Brown v. Board of Education. Brown is a landmark case in which the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found that, contrary to the legal doctrine of separate …
Posted in: Education, Law Library
Posted by: Kelly Buchanan
The following is a guest post by Elin Hofverberg, a foreign law research consultant at the Law Library of Congress. May 17 (or “Syttende Mai” as the locals call it), which falls this weekend, is always cause for great celebration in Oslo as Norway celebrates its National Day or Constitution Day. This generally means dressing …
Posted in: Global Law, Guest Post
Posted by: Margaret Wood
April 2014 marks the 450th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth. As a way of combining a salute to Shakespeare and continuing our fascination with all things Magna Carta, I thought I would take a look at Shakespeare’s play, “King John.” The play is believed to have been written in the 1590s, but it was not …
Posted in: In the News