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Posted by: Nathan Dorn
King Canute may have failed to stop the rising of the tide when he commanded the sea to halt, but Pope Gregory XIII was able to decree the annulment of time itself; or to be more specific, he declared the erasure of 10 days in October of 1582, and he pulled it off in such …
Posted in: Collections, Global Law, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
We at In Custodia Legis are sensitive to the fact that some of our readers may be disappointed that the Mayan Apocalypse of 2012, predicted for today, has turned out to be a bust. In order to soothe your nerves, we thought it would be courteous to invite you to look at a couple of scenes …
Posted in: Collections, In the News, Law Library, Pic of the Week
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
If you’ve been wondering whether your polygamous marriage to three Tarascan women was still valid after you converted to the religion of the conquistadors, look no further. A title recently acquired for the Rare Book Collection of Law Library of Congress answers this and other burning questions on the topics of marriage, canon law …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
Institutional memory is a funny thing. It expands and contracts through generations of staff changes. Some things are passed on to the next cohort; some things are forgotten; and from time to time forgotten things resurface. Most people at the Library of Congress know, for instance, that the original library of the United States Congress …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
New Jersey was once “the Two Jerseys” (East and West). Kentucky started out as Virginia’s backyard. Connecticut once harbored imperial dreams—claiming a Western Reserve that stretched all the way to the banks of the Mississippi. The shapes of our States have a complex and unexpected history. It’s easy to forget that history owes a debt to …
Posted in: Collections, Education, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
On February 15, the Law Library of Congress in cooperation with the John W. Kluge Center hosted John Hessler, Senior Cartographic Librarian in the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress, and a Kluge Staff Fellow, as a guest speaker for the Law Library’s Power Lunch series. Mr. Hessler’s lecture, “Written in Stone: Roman Land …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
Recently, the Law Library welcomed Ms. Jolande Goldberg, Law Classification Specialist at the Policy and Standards Division of the Library of Congress, as a guest lecturer for the Law Library’s Power Lunch series. A longtime employee of the Library of Congress, Jolande Goldberg is well known as the principle architect of the K schedule – …
Posted in: Collections, Event, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
This week’s interview is with Patrick Brown, Friends of the Law Library of Congress Rare Book Fellow. Patrick previously participated in the Junior Fellows Program at the Library of Congress (Summer 2011) and has returned at the invitation of the Friends of the Law Library to combine work and study as the inaugural participant in …
Posted in: Collections, Interview, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
Sunday (January 22) was the 451st birthday of the English philosopher and politician, Francis Bacon (1561-1626). Francis Bacon is usually remembered as the father of modern science and the founder of the empirical method of inquiry. Opinions vary on how important he was for any particular science, but he is generally held to have been …
Posted in: Collections, In the News, Law Library