Harvard professor and political philosopher, Michael J. Sandel is well known for his thought-provoking lectures on justice, ethics, democracy and markets. In fact, his course, “Justice,” which tackles some of the most complex ethical questions of our times, was the first Harvard course made freely available online and on television. Yet, despite his own commitment …
Once again, for Veterans Day, we decided to highlight the Veterans History Project (VHP) of the Library of Congress American Folklife Center. The VHP was established following the passage of the Veterans’ Oral History Project Act in October 2000, with the primary purpose of collecting “video and audio recordings of personal histories and testimonials of American …
The following is a guest post by Tariq Ahmad, a legal research analyst in the Global Legal Research Directorate of the Law Library of Congress. Tariq has previously contributed posts on Islamic Law in Pakistan – Global Legal Collection Highlights, the Law Library’s June 4, 2013 Panel Discussion on Islamic Law, Sedition Law in India, …
In this edition of On the Shelf we’re examining a rather large title both in size of the individual volumes and the total number of volumes that comprise a complete set. Staatskoerant is the current official government gazette of the Republic of South Africa. The title has been published continuously since 1961 when South Africa …
On a recent trip to Philadelphia, I stopped at the Eastern State Penitentiary. Opened in 1829, this was the most famous and expensive prison of its time. Tourists and researchers came from around the world to study this innovative prison system, including Alexis de Tocqueville and Charles Dickens. Eastern State Penitentiary was famous because it …
During a vacation in New Zealand in September, I was able to visit a new exhibition at Te Papa (New Zealand’s national museum) called Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War. The exhibition, which opened in April, provides insight into this particular aspect of World War I by telling the stories of eight New Zealanders involved …
Last year, we added Statutes at Large to our Digitized Material page. Initially, each Congress from 1789-1950 had a webpage that included a large PDF file of all statutes for that congressional session. Then we began splitting the large PDF documents into smaller pieces, which meant that we had to browse each statute, add metadata to …
This post is coauthored by Barbara Bavis and Robert Brammer, senior legal reference specialists. Compiling a federal legislative history may seem daunting, but it does not have to be. We hope, through our last few Beginner’s Guides, that we have made this process easier for researchers. There is another, possibly less complicated, option for finding …
We here at the Law Library of Congress are excited to learn that the Harvard Law School Library and the legal research platform, Ravel, are teaming up to scan and make available online 40 million pages of American caselaw from Harvard’s vast collection. The best part is that this content will be made freely available, …