Cleveland Law Library Weblog

Happy 150th Birthday to the Cleveland Law Library Association

Today is a day to celebrate at the Cleveland Law Library Association. One hundred and fifty years ago today on December 18, 1869, sixty-six local attorneys and judges met in a prior Cuyahoga County Courthouse to create a law library dedicated to legal research, education and the “promotion of the science of the law.” See our Charter. Five prominent attorneys named Jesse P. Bishop, John Hutchins, Seneca O. Griswold, William J. Boardman, and Samuel Williamson served as the CLLA’s first Board of Directors. The CLLA’s current Board has grown to include fourteen members that represent a cross-section of local practitioners at large and small law firms, as well as judges from the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas and Eighth District Appellate Courts. Since 1912, the CLLA has been located on the fourth floor of the Cuyahoga County Courthouse in downtown Cleveland.

The CLLA’s collection began with donations and purchases from its founding fathers. By 1901, the CLLA’s collection was growing by 1,000 volumes per year, and by its centennial in 1969, the CLLA could boast to owning substantially all of the world’s law available in the English language. Today, the Law Library’s print collection stands at 117,550 legal treatises, form books, practice guides, law journals, statutes, rules, and other materials. More importantly for modern attorneys, the CLLA maintains a large collection of online legal research databases in-house and over 1,100 eBooks that members can access anytime from anywhere.

Throughout its history, the CLLA has always embraced new, legal research technologies to enhance its patron services. Almost 50 years ago the CLLA installed its first stand-alone computer terminal from OBAR/Mead Data Central Inc., and in 1992, it purchased dial-up services and bar-coded all of its books so that they could circulate more efficiently to members. After creating a Local Area Network for its 125^th anniversary, the CLLA launched its first web page at www.clelaw.lib.oh.us in 1995. Before the end of the last Century, the CLLA had posted its first online Research Guide Series, purchased legal research CD-ROM’s from West (now Thomson Reuters), and created its flagship Members Only page. This cutting-edge portal offered members their first taste of remote access to online legal research databases and served as a model that other law libraries in Ohio have both envied and copied. Today, the Members Only page provides an online, self-serve gateway where members can access even more valuable legal research databases from their offices and homes.

Please join our staff for cup cakes today at noon to celebrate our 150th birthday!

Move Over Bluebook-There's an Indigo Book in Town

Every lawyer knows about The Bluebook, the gold standard in citation formats from the Harvard and Columbia Law Reviews. However, an NYU professor and a group of law students created a new citation manual called The Indigo Book. According to a recent Press Release, The Indigo Book was released in beta version in 2016, and it is free and "open" with "No Rights Reserved." Compared to The Bluebook, "The Indigo Book was created with a more flexible, arguably practical, citation system in mind." Check it out for yourself..

Ohio Legal Assistance Foundation Changes Its Name

A recent article from Court News Ohio recently stated that "The Ohio Legal Assistance Foundation, the largest funder of civil legal aid in Ohio is changing its name to the Ohio Access to Justice Foundation. Its mission is to "The Ohio Access to Justice Foundation is committed to improving access to justice and ensuring that legal aid societies and other resources, programs and services address the unmet civil legal needs of low-income and underserved Ohioans.The name change reflects the Foundation’s broader commitment to access to justice initiatives." With this change, OLAF is changing to OAJF, and it also has a new website.

TECH THURSDAY: RANSOMWARE

Are you protected from ransomware? There's been an increase in reported cases of this type of cyber attack recently. PCMag's Neil J. Rubenking's article "The Best Ransomware Protection for 2019" tells you why you need it and how to go about getting it. You can read his article here.

Today is Read an eBook Day!

eBooks allow us the freedom to access literature from wherever our lives (or our caseloads) may take us. In celebration of Read an eBook Day, we would like to announce that we have enhanced our eBook collection through continued participation in the Consortium of Ohio County Law Libraries. 

 

The following titles are now available in eBook format through the Cleveland Law Library: 

 

Lexis/Matthew Bender

Ohio Transaction Guide

Anderson’s Ohio Civil Practice with Forms

Ohio Creditor’s Rights

Ohio Consumer Law

 

ABA

Electronic Evidence for Family Law Attorneys

How to Succeed as a Trial Lawyer

Representing People with Mental Disabilities

The ABA Cybersecurity Handbook

Immigration Compliance and Best Practices

Accessing our eBooks is easy. Visit our website, https://clevelandlawlibrary.org/, and select eBook Libraries” from the gray navigation bar at the top of the screen.

Next, click on LEXISNEXIS® eBook Library. The list of available eBooks will appear on the left side of the screen; the instructions to access the eBooks will appear on the right side of the screen.

OSBA Launches Ohio Notary Services, LLC. for Notary Education and Testing

If you had not already heard, notary laws in the State of Ohio are changing in less than a week. These changes were enacted with the passage of SB 263, the Notary Public Modernization Act, which will centralize all Ohio notary applications in the Ohio Secretary of State. Just in time, the OSBA has launched Ohio Notary Services, LLC, a brand new "partnership between the OSBA and five metropolitan bar associations, including Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton and Toledo" which will "provide statewide notary education and testing services for current and future Ohio notaries public, as well as for those who wish to add the new designation of online notary public." Click here to read the OSBA's Press Release.

🏛 Participate in Our First Online Book Discussion!

Thanks to advances in technology and our Network Services Librarian, Eric, you now have the option to attend our book discussions online! 

Our first online book discussion will take place on Friday, September 13 from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM. 

Join us as we welcome local Cleveland author, Brad Ricca, to discuss his book Mrs. Sherlock Holmes: The True Story of New York City's Greatest Female Detective and the 1917 Missing Girl Case That Captivated a Nation. 

Attendance is FREE and all are welcome, however, you must register online to attend. 

Please contact the Cleveland Law Library at (216) 861-5070 or lawlib@clelaw.lib.oh.us if you have any additional questions or concerns.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Dispute Resolution Department No Longer Offers Foreclosure Mediation

If you had not already heard, the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Dispute Resolution Department no longer offers foreclosure mediation. The Dispute Resolution Department was established about 40 years ago, and judges can still refer cases for arbitration, mediation, and business mediation in non-foreclosure cases. To contact the Dispute Resolution Department or for more information, call 216-443-8504.

Ben & Jerry’s Creates New Ice Cream Flavor-Justice ReMix’d

As we all say goodbye to Summer, Courthouse News just announced that Ben & Jerry’s has created a new, law-inspired ice cream flavor called Justice ReMix’d. According to the article, the new ice cream was launched" to highlight what it calls structural racism and a broken criminal justice system." Ben & Jerry's claims it created the new flavor in the hope of "kick starting conversations about racial inequity in America, and the need for criminal justice reform."  Justice ReMix’d contains cinnamon, chocolate ice cream, gobs of cinnamon bun dough, and spicy fudge brownies. Ben & Jerry's will be donating a portion of proceeds from sales to support the "Advancement Project National Office, a multiracial civil rights group and its fight for justice for all, despite race or poverty."

TECH THURSDAY: INCREASING YOUR LAPTOP BATTERY LIFE

You know that feeling you get when you're out and you see your laptop battery is about to die? Don't worry, there are ways to increase the life of your battery. PCMag.com's Tom Brant's article "How to Increase Your Laptop Battery Life" gives you a few tips to do just that. You can read his article here.