The Library will be closed for winter recess from 5:00pm on Friday, December 21, 2012 until 9:00am on Wednesday, January 2, 2013.
Our hours during intersession are:
Wednesday-Friday, January 2-4, 2013: 9:00am-10:00pm
Saturday & Sunday, January 5-6, 2013: 9:00am-5:00pm
Monday-Tuesday, January 7-8, 2013: 9:00am-10:00pm
Happy Holidays to All! Enjoy the Break!!
Have you ever forgotten your case book at home and found yourself scrambling to complete reading before class?
The library is excited to announce that we will have required course materials for all classes available on Reserve for Spring 2013 classes! Case books and monographs can be checked out in 2-hour increments for use in the library at the Circulation desk.
Stay tuned for more details!
BLS Library users looking for inspirational reading for the holidays will enjoy the short 84 page book Memory of a Large Christmas by Lillian Smith (1897-1966). Written fifty years ago in 1962, the book recounts Christmases of fifty years earlier in the South which Smith recalls as being certainly big with lots of people who ate lots of food in a house with lots of room. From the preface of Thanksgiving through the hog-killing, gift-buying, stocking-hanging and finally the main event, the small volume is packed with illustrations and a few recipes. Smith‘s recollection of Christmas as a child at the turn of the last century transports the reader to a kinder and gentler time where the anticipation of hog killing is a wondrous and dreaded occasion. In addition to being a writer, Smith became a vocal social critic of the Southern United States. A white woman who openly embraced controversial positions on matters of race and gender equality, she was a southern liberal unafraid to criticize segregation and work toward the dismantling of Jim Crow laws, at a time when such actions almost guaranteed social ostracism. 
The Cataloging Department at the Brooklyn Law School Library has put out its latest New Books List. It has 69 items including Legal Analysis: 100 Exercises for Mastery, Practice for Every Law Student by Cassandra L. Hill and Katherine T. Vukadin (Call #KF240 .H533 2012). Aside from helping preparation for first year exams, it teaches how to issue spot and to formulate answers to get the maximum points in the most efficient way. There are 100 paced exercises to sharpen students’ legal analysis skills. The book will appeal to Professors who will find a bank of 100 legal analysis exercises at the ready, whenever students’ analysis skills need attention or refinement; assignments that contain thoughtful sample answers and helpful annotations; learning objectives and outcomes for each chapter; Sample annotated answers for 50 of the exercises that their students can use to assess their own performance; and online resources for ready access to authority.
Students will receive tools to develop a keen understanding of rule-based and analogical reasoning; self-assessment opportunities to ensure progress in analysis; writing assignments with self-contained feedback; and online resources for easy access to exercise cases, statutes, and regulations and helpful tips on improving legal analysis and writing skills.
• All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Another interesting title in the latest Brooklyn Law School Library New Book List is Law and Medicine in Revolutionary America: Dissecting the Rush v. Cobbett Trial, 1799, by Linda Myrsiades (Call #KF228.R85 M97 2012). The book focuses on the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 in Philadelphia, which resulted in the death of 4,044 people, and the ensuing libel trial of Rush v Cobbett that pitted medicine against the press, republicanism against federalism, and privacy against the public welfare. The case was between two critical figures in late eighteenth-century America, the new nation’s most prestigious physician-patriot, Benjamin Rush, and its most popular journalist, William Cobbett, editor of Porcupine’s Gazette.
Rush, an advocate of bleeding patients, would sometimes apply the treatment to a hundred patients in a single day. Evidence showed that bloodletting coincided with higher death rates. In 1797, Englishman William Cobbett stated that Rush had “contributed to the depopulation of the earth” in the wake of the yellow fever epidemics in 1794 and 1797. Rush then sued Cobbett in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for libel for criticizing him. Cobbett, being an Englishman, had little chance of defending himself in the newly independent United States and lost the case when, on December 14, 1799, the jury ordered him to pay $5,000 compensation to Rush, at the time the largest award ever paid out in Pennsylvania.
The book brings together many primary sources including trial records, press coverage, and personal correspondence, dissecting the libel trial and contributimg to the study of medicine, law, and the humanities. Using a rare surviving transcript, the author examines the trial’s six litigating counsel whose narratives of events and roles provide a unique view of how the revolutionary generation saw itself and the legacy it wished to leave for future generations. On the one hand, the trial featured assaults against medical bleeding and its premier practitioner in the yellow fever epidemics; on the other, it castigated the licentiousness of the press in the nation’s then-capital city. The history shows the itigiousness of the new nation as well as the threat of sedition characterizing the development of political parties and the partisan press in the newly independent America nation. Chapters in the book include: Benjamin Rush and the culture of medicine — Malpractice law and Benjamin Rush — William Cobbett and the scurrilous press — Libel law and William Cobbett — The trial concluded.
Having a hard time concentrating while you study in the Library? Small noises bothering you? Stop by the library circulation desk and pick up a pair of complimentary ear plugs.
A newly released Quinnipiac University poll shows that American voters favor the legalization of marijuana, 51% to 44%, with a substantial gender and age gap. The poll states that men support legalization 59% to 36%, but women are opposed 52% to 44%. The racial split is barely noticeable on this question with 50% of white voters and 57% of black voters backing legalization. Those who are 18 to 29 years old support legalization 67% to 29% while voters over age 65 are opposed 56% to 35% and those who 30 to 44 years old like the idea 58% to 39%, while voters 45 to 64 years old are divided 48% to 47%.
The Brooklyn Law School Library has on order a book by retired police officer Howard Rahtz, Drugs, Crime and Violence: From Trafficking to Treatment, which examines the history of drug abuse and provides a unique perspective on the drug war. It covers all aspects of the “war on drugs” to help readers become well-informed and capable of developing an educated reasonable conclusion. Chapters include Drugs, Crime and Violence — The Illegal Drug Market — Learning From the Past — Policy Options — An International Perspective — Drug Abuse-The Damage Done — Addiction: The Driving Force behind the Illegal Market — Marijuana-The Cartel’s Cash Cow — From Trafficking to Treatment — The Costs of Policy Paralysis — A New Direction.