A version of the following article originally appeared in the July 1, 2016, edition of Library of Congress staff newsletter, The Gazette. THOMAS, which launched with great fanfare on January 5, 1995, twenty-one and a half years ago, is nearing its retirement on July 5, 2016. Back when it launched, then-Librarian of Congress James H. …
Josh Darland, an assistant project manager in the Law Library, brought me this book on Minnesota law, written in Danish and published in the United States in 1896. He thought it would make a good post for our On the Shelf series because it was so unexpected. And he was correct. Though it’s not as …
When she entered the courtroom as a young attorney, Paulette Brown said, people often presumed she was the defendant, the court reporter, or even a juror. “I was anybody but the lawyer,” said Brown, now the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), in describing the obstacles she has faced practicing in the legal profession …
The following is a guest post by Shameema Rahman, senior legal research specialist in our Public Services Division. The United States Congress passed 115 Public Laws in 2015. The laws are numbered from Public Law 114-1 through Public Law 114-115. The number 114 represents the current congress followed by the numerical order of the law. These public …
The following is a guest post by Peter Roudik, director of legal research at the Law Library of Congress. Peter specializes in Russia and the former Soviet Union. He has written a number of posts on topics related to countries in that region, including posts on Christmas, Soviet Style; Soviet investigation of Nazi war crimes, lustration in Ukraine, …
In Custodia Legis published 232 posts in 2015. Thanks to our prolific team of authors, that’s almost one post per day (not counting holidays or weekends)! Liah Caravalho and Jennifer González joined us as full-fledged members of the blog team in 2015. Liah keeps us up-to-date on Law Library events and special visitors. Jennifer’s posts …
Surprise! Another baseball-related post from Betty. This one is not entirely my fault. A would-be anonymous colleague brought the pictured item to me, having received it from the general collection. Why would the general (non-law) collection have congressional hearings, you may ask? Well, up until the 1960s when the Class K schedule was completed, congressional …
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, …
Prior to the 5.8 magnitude earthquake in the DC area in August 2011, it would have been a safe bet to say that most local long time residents didnt think about earthquakes often. Although that earthquake was considered fairly run-of-the mill, according to USGS, it certainly got everyones attention in the District, Maryland and Virginia. …