Hispanic Heritage Month

Hispanic Heritage Month is September 15 - October 15. This month long celebration is not picked arbitrarily - September 15th marks the anniversary of independence for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, Mexico celebrates their independence on the 16th, and Chile celebrates theirs on the 18th. For a brief history on the proclamation of Hispanic Heritage Week/Month, and to view Executive and Legislative documents, see the Law Library of Congress' National Hispanic Heritage Month site.

The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have also teamed up to provide us with this special collection celebrating Hispanic Americans (I thought "The Red that Colored the World," was especially neat).

So, if you find you have a little time, change gears for a bit and learn yourself something cool about the heritage of some 50 million fellow Americans.

Happy Constitution Day!

Meet the Class of 1787, the signers of the United States Constitution.

Also, there's this sweet digital collection on the United States Constitution, brought to you by the Library of Congress.

Ralph Nader Built a Law Museum, and there is a Corvair

Image credit: The American Museum of Tort Law

Dedicated to Tort Law, America has its first law museum. At first this "tort museum" idea seems like a flop of an idea, but, they have some interesting exhibit ideas and are working with Eisterhold Associates (the people who brought you "FOOD: How America Eats, at the National Museum of American History" and "Jurassic Park Discovery Center at Universal Islands of Adventure.") It will feature precedent-setting cases and artifacts from them and other landmark cases. Basically, a museum of disaster.

So, if you are in the Winsted, Connecticut area on September 26, you could attend the convocation ceremony.

 For more info, check out their website: tortmuseum.org, and their Twitter feed at twitter.com/TortMuseum.

ProQuest News

Fellow bookworms,

A heads-up that the ProQuest EBL platform will be out of commission for about 3 hours (5 PM- 8 PM) on Tuesday, September 15, while they merge ebrary and EBL into a new back-end system.

Why are they combining ebrary and EBL? For the launch of Ebook Central! This union will allow access to all the same content, through an updated, streamlined, and more user-friendly interface. For more information on some of its new features, see also "ProQuest Ebook Central Enters Beta, Debuting New Features that Enhance User Productivity"

HeinOnline News

This past year, HeinOnline has updated and added new features to their database. Early this year they introduced the ABA Law Library Collection Periodicals. Without getting too wordy about how awesome this is, it makes accessible both archives and new issues (keeping you current), exclusively through HeinOnline. Additionally, they've included 44 new titles that have never been open to non-members of specific American Bar Association sections. The cherry on top - they are full color PDFs. While this may not seem exciting initially, think about all those charts and graphs and infographics when not in color. It's pretty hard to glean anything from them when its just shades of grey. And it's not just my opinion, science says so too.

Only thing saving this graphic: itsocute!
Illus. by Frank Sommers

HeinOnline has also had an interface-lift (bad, "dad joke"). To help you get adjusted, they have provided a "Getting Started in HeinOnline Quick Reference Guide." Its cleaner, mobile friendly, has updated search options, and is easier to navigate.

Give it a whirl and see how you like it. Until next time, Happy Researching!

September in the Law Library: Constitution Day and Banned Books Week

Constitution Day is September 17 and Banned Books Week is September 27 through October 3.  Both present a great opportunity to highlight our resources on free speech and the First Amendment. On our first floor display, in addition to selected reads brought to you by HeinOnline, we also have a handpicked assortment of books centered around human rights, free speech, and the First Amendment. "Freedom From Speech" by Greg Lukianoff, "Finding Jefferson" by Alan Dershowitz, and "Saving Our Children from the First Amendment" by Kevin Saunders, are just a few of the titles for you to peruse and/or borrow.

Labor Day Weekend Hours

The McKusick Law Library will be closed to the public on Monday, September 7 for the Labor Day Holiday.  There will not be any Circulation/Reference service hours to USD law students on Sunday, September 6 or Monday, September 7.  Law students will continue to have 24/7 access to the Law Library throughout the holiday weekend using their University ID cards.

The Law Library will reopen to the public on Tuesday, September 8 at 7:45 a.m.