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Archive: April 2018 (12 Posts)

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Poetic Decisions

Posted by: Jennifer Davis

The following is a guest post by Brandon Fitzgerald, project manager of a Law Library staffing contract, writer and student of poetry and literature. As we come to the tail-end of National Poetry Month, I have been thinking about my earliest post on the relationship between law and poetry and my follow-up titled “Poetic Justice” …

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World Intellectual Property Day, April 26– On the Shelf

Posted by: Jennifer Davis

The following post is a joint effort by Jennifer Davis (collections text) and Betty Lupinacci (gazette curation and photo). Today, April 26, is World Intellectual Property Day. At the Law Library, one subject matter area most frequently requested by patrons from our collections is intellectual property law. Since our foreign law specialists are frequently producing …

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Numbers, Numbers, Numbers

Posted by: Jim Martin

Congress did not adopt the practice of printing numbers on bills until the 19th century.  By the end of the end of the 16th Congress, both chambers assigned numbers to bills; however, neither chamber immediately assigned sequential numbers for bills throughout a congress.  The House of Representatives adopted this practice in 1818 during the second …

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The “Lieber Code” – the First Modern Codification of the Laws of War

Posted by: Jenny Gesley

On April 24, 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued “General Orders No. 100: Instructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field,” commonly known as the “Lieber Code” after its main author Francis (Franz) Lieber. The Lieber Code set out rules of conduct during hostilities for Union soldiers throughout the U.S. Civil …

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Congress.gov New, Tip, and Top for April 2018, Part 2

Posted by: Andrew Weber

Robert shared the news about our first release in April, which included enhancing the search result sorting.  With this release, we add some additional new features for alerts, such as the ability to edit and change your saved search.  One goal we have is to provide you with timely legislative information.  Another alert enhancement is …

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Law Day 2018 Event: Separation of Powers

Posted by: Donna Sokol

The Law Library of Congress and the American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Law Library of Congress will co-sponsor the annual Law Day 2018 event on Tuesday, May 1 at 3:00 p.m. in Room LJ-119 of the Jefferson Building. Law Day, held annually on May 1, is a national day set aside to celebrate …

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Family Voting as a Solution to Low Fertility? Experiences from France and Germany

Posted by: Jenny Gesley

The following is a guest post by Johannes Jäger, a foreign law intern working in the Global Legal Research Directorate of the Law Library of Congress. I recently read an op-ed in the New York Times in which the author passionately advocated for the introduction of “Demeny voting” in the United States. The concept behind this term, named after the demographer …

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FALQs: The Swedish Budget Process

Posted by: Ruth Levush

This blog post is part of our Frequently Asked Legal Questions series. Introduction Yesterday, April 16, the Swedish finance minister supplied the Swedish Parliament with a 2019 budget proposal, known as the spring fiscal bill. The delivery of the spring fiscal bill to the Parliament marks the beginning of the 2019 budget process, culminating in a budget to …