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Archive for the Collections Category (377 posts)

National Police Week, May 13-19

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The following post is a joint effort by Jennifer Davis and Betty Lupinacci.

This week memorializes National Police Week, when law enforcement officers honor their colleagues who have died in service. May 15 was first proclaimed Peace Officers Memorial Day by President Kennedy in 1962. There is a series of events surrounding the day—a memorial run, a bike ride, a candlelight vigil for fallen officers and police K-9s, and events for family survivors. Now is a good time to pause and remember service and sacrifice that is generally taken for granted.

Law libraries and law enforcement inevitably intersect. In addition to their equipment and the laptops fixed in their patrol cars, many law enforcement officers have police handbooks, copies of the state code and motor vehicle law. Betty’s brother, a Pennsylvania law enforcement officer, knew his Pennsylvania borough’s code cold. Jennifer’s dad, a retired Maryland and federal law enforcement officer, used to quote the Maryland Vehicle Code and portions of the Annotated Code of Maryland from memory, the way other people quote poetry or baseball stats. Police handbooks, criminal, motor vehicle, and state codes like the ones the Law Library collects are the most important part of a peace officer’s gear. The mission of law enforcement officers is to uphold the law so that citizens are safe and justice can be carried out in the courts, and these handbooks and codes are the tools they use to do it.

 Police School, between 1909-1940 [National Photo Company //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/npcc.28466 ]

Following is an exemplar of some recently published law enforcement works we hold in the collection:

KF390.P65 W35 2013 Wallentine, Ken. K9 officer’s legal handbook. 2nd ed.

KF8505 Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers. Office of Chief Counsel. Artesia Legal Division.  Indian law handbook.

KF9630.M43 2013 Medina, Matthew. Real world search & seizure: a street handbook for law enforcement. 2nd ed.

KFD1230 2001.A23 District of Columbia. District of Columbia official code : containing the laws, general and permanent in their nature, relating to or in force in the District of Columbia (except such laws as are of application in the general and permanent laws of the United States) as of September 13, 2012. (See: Title 5)

KFM1761.A452 Maryland State Police. Digest of criminal laws.

KFP432.5 Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs. The Borough code and related laws.

KFP561.A29 P49 Pennsylvania State Police criminal justice handbook.

KFV2961.A29 V565 Virginia. Police, crimes and offenses, and motor vehicle laws of Virginia.

KFV2976.5.A95 2016 Virginia search and seizure for law enforcement officers. 8th ed.

Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers. Office of Chief Counsel. Legal Division. Legal Division handbook.

KD7869.6.B55 2009  Blackstone’s police operational handbook 2010: police national legal database.

KD8039.P65 2013  Police National Legal Database (England)  Blackstone’s counter-terrorism handbook.

KD8335.H37 2016  Harfield, Clive. Covert investigation. 4th ed.

KU4610.F45 2015 Feld, Francine. Criminal procedure in Australia.

KUC7.3 .P65 Detectives’ handbook.

KUC106.3.A15 N78  NSW police traffic law handbook.

World Intellectual Property Day, April 26– On the Shelf

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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 […]

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

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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 […]

Irish Law and St. Patrick’s Day on the Shelf

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Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, has his feast day on the anniversary of his death, March 17. Thanks to the Irish diaspora, “St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated in more countries around the world than any other national festival” (Cronin, 242). Originally observed to celebrate Saint Patrick bringing Catholicism to Ireland, it has also […]

Historical U.S. Reports Available Online

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Following our releases of the Federal Register and United States Code collections, the Library of Congress is pleased to make available the decisions and orders from the United States Reports, from 1754 through 2003. The U.S. Reports is the collection of bound volumes that contain the official version of the U.S. Supreme Court opinions. The […]

The Pyramid of Niches in an 18th Century Legal Gazette

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Today, February 5th, is the 101st anniversary of the Mexican Constitution of 1917.  As I have covered the history of the Mexican constitution before, I would like to observe this holiday with another Mexican matter. I have been working on a digitization proposal, and–as I was drafting the narrative and compiling the details for it–I chanced upon this […]

Nauru – 50 Years of Independence

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Fifty years ago, on January 31, 1968, Nauru became an independent nation. It is the smallest island republic in the world with a land area of just 8.1 square miles (“about 0.1 times the size of Washington, DC“) and a population of around 10,000 people. Prior to independence, from 1947 onward, the island was subject to a […]