Cleveland Law Library Weblog

Cleveland Law Library Recognizes Sherlock Holmes Day This Sunday, May 22, 2022

Our Law Librarians are a lot like detectives. We search and navigate through all types of legal resources to find the answers to legal research questions. Although Sherlock Holmes is a legendary fictional character that was created by Scottish writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, there are definite analogies between what law librarians do and what Sherlock Holmes accomplished in solving crimes. We help our patrons find the answers to legal research puzzles, and Sherlock Holmes helped local law enforcement officials find criminal perpetrators. As a result, the Law Library is happy to recognize Sherlock Holmes Day this coming Sunday, May 22, 2022. Although there are many great books and movies, including the movies with Robert Downey, Jr., make sure to try the fourteen film series which originally aired from 1939 through 1946 starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as his trusty sidekick Dr. John Watson.

The Cleveland Law Library is Celebrating National Library Week

Happy National Library Week! The theme for NLW this year is "Connect with Your Library," and the Cleveland Law Library will be celebrating all week. To connect with our members both in person and online, we created 5 original library word games that can be enjoyed at the Law Library or online at this link on our web site. Help us recognize our staff for their professionalism and work ethic tomorrow, April 5th, on National Library Workers Day. We will also be offering light snacks and refreshments on Wednesday, April 6th, the day that we are open to the public. However, the highlight of our celebrations will include a virtual book discussion with Wendy Koile at 12:00 Noon on Thursday, April 7th. Wendy Koile is the author of Lake Erie Murder & Mayhem, a fascinating exploration of crimes which occurred on and around the shores of Lake Erie. This book discussion is perfect for readers who enjoy history and true crime. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Click here to go directly to the registration page.

Recording of Book Discussion with Snowball's Chance Author Available to Watch

If you missed the Cleveland Law Library and the Cleveland Public Library's great Book Discussion with Snowball's Chance author David Lynch, the recording is available on our YouTube page. Snowball's Chance is the debut novel for David Lynch, and it chronicles his struggles he endured and the triumph he achieved in overcoming the local political machine to become the Mayor of Euclid, Ohio. Dave is an engaging and multi-faceted person. A retired lawyer, he has also dabbled in TV, music, radio, and writing before with Lynch Pen column. The recording is worth watching, and the book is worth reading. Digital copies are available right now for Amazon Kindle, but other media and print copies will be available soon. The author will also be dropping off signed copies at the Cleveland Law Library by next week.

Happy National Library Week!

Happy National Library Week to libraries of all types, including all law libraries! Please celebrate NLW with the Cleveland Law Library this week by joining our virtual book discussion this Friday with local athor, attorney and cyclist, Ken Knabe, who will discuss his book entitled Cycling Rights: Bicycles, E-Bikes &
Micro-Mobility Devices. The event is free, totally online, and all are welcome to attend. Please register for this Zoom event at this link.

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..

Public Domain Day 2019 Releases Many Books, Movies and Musical Works from 1923

Thanks to Duke Law School for its post about Public Domain Day 2019. According to Duke, many books, movies, and musical works are now in the public domain and can be used without restriction. Two of the books on Duke's short list include:

• Agatha Christie, The Murder on the Links
• Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis

One of the movies that hit Duke's short list is a classic called Scaramouche, directed by Rex Ingram, and a fun song on the list is Yes! We Have No Bananas, w.&m. Frank Silver & Irving Cohn. 

There is a lot of available content coming to the Internet. Duke reports that:

"Google Books will offer the full text of books from that year, instead of showing only snippet views or authorized previews. The Internet Archive will add books, movies, music, and more to its online library. HathiTrust has made over 50,000 titles from 1923 available in its digital library. Community theaters are planning screenings of the films."

Cleveland Law Library to Host Book Discussion on Target OMEGA on September 29th.

The Cleveland Law Library will host a Book Discussion on Target OMEGA by Local author and attorney Peter N. Kirsanow, Esq., Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP., on September 29th. This event is free and open to the public. To read an excerpt of the book, click here. For reviews, click here.

Our Law Library, the Cleveland Law Library, Dedicated a Little Free Library at Cuyahoga County Juvenile Justice Center Yesterday, 4/18/17

In collaboration with the FBI Citizens Academy Foundation of Cleveland and the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court, our Law Library, the Cleveland Law Library, dedicated a Little Free Library at the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Justice Center yesterday on April 18, 2017. We believe that this is the first LFL to be installed in a courthouse in the United States.
This LFL is located in the 2nd floor lobby of the Justice Center near the balcony that overlooks the 1st floor entrance and lobby. It is conveniently located between the Clerk's office and the cafeteria. Our Charter Number is 40074, and it will soon be posted to the map located at littlefreelibrary.org.   After a lovely ceremony and reception yesterday at 1:00 p.m., we saw a little girl take the very 1st book from the LFL! Seeing that assured me that it will be a success and cemented my belief that there can never be too many opportunities for children and teens to read!

This is the 2nd LFL we have created this year. See our prior post about the LFL we established with the Cleveland Public Library. 

Cleveland Law Library Hosting Book Discussion of My Own Words by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Friday, 3/31/17

Our Law Library, the Cleveland Law Library, is hosting a Book Discussion of My Own Words by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg this Friday, 3/31/17. This program is a joint collaboration with the Cleveland Public Library, and the Honorable Cassandra Collier Williams of the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court will serve as the program's Special Guest.. The Book Discussion will be held in the Law Library's Conference Room from 12:30-2:00 p.m. on the 4th floor of the Cuyahoga County Courthouse, 1 West Lakeside Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44113. Click here for the flyer for the program with additional details.