image by flickr user hpnl

Have you ever wanted to travel through time? To see big events in our history as they happened? Unfortunately, no one seems to have invented a time machine yet (still), but you can still get a glimpse of the past using our new America’s Historical Newspapers database.

The oldest available issue is from a newspaper called Publick Occurrences, a Boston publication. The issue was published nearly 324 years ago, on September 24, 1960. In the issue, a smallpox outbreak is reported, there is a house fire, Native Americans have a Day of Thanksgiving, and more.

The archive covers newspapers through December 31, 1922, so many of the major events our our nation’s history, from Independence through World War I and the start of the Roaring Twenties, can be found.

By Darius Wood

This Sunday, September 7^th at 7 p.m. ABC will air a special where they attempt to rank and determine the best School House Rock song of all-time.

School House Rock is educational musical series that aired from 1973 to 1985 on ABC. The series covered a variety of topics including science, history, grammar, economics, and mathematics. Some of these songs may be particularly helpful and provide you with a creative refresher on some topics that you haven’t dealt with in years. Many of my teachers’ used these cartoons to introduce topics and help teach us things like The Preamble of the Constitution and how a bill becomes a law. So, take a break this Sunday and enjoy!

Voted top 25 on the 30th Anniversary DVD!

1. Conjunction Junction
2. I’m Just A Bill
3. Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here
4. Electricity, Electricity
5. Interjections!
6. The Preamble
7. Three Is A Magic Number
8. Interplanet Janet
9. A Noun Is A Person, Place, Or Thing
10. The Shot Heard ‘Round The World
11. My Hero, Zero
12. Figure Eight
13. No More Kings
14. Unpack Your Adjectives
15. Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla
16. Ready Or Not, Here I Come
17. Elementary, My Dear
18. Dollars and Sense
19. The Great American Melting Pot
20. 20. Mother Necessity
21. Naughty Number Nine
22. Telegraph Line
23. Them Not-So-Dry Bones
24. Verb: That’s What Happening
25. Elbow Room

You can listen to many of these at Disney or on YouTube.

Whether you have been spinning your wheels for hours on a Legal Bibliography assignment, unable to get started on a research paper, or are having trouble tracking down a source for your law review article, we can help. The reference librarians are here to help you with all of your research needs. You are asking yourself then, “How can I get in contact with a reference librarian?” Here are a couple of ways.

1. Chat Reference: Whether you are at home, on the train, or at a baseball game, you can always get in contact with a reference librarian by using our chat reference service. The chat reference service is located on every page of the Law Library’s website. Just look for the little red tab on the left side of the screen. Chat reference is operated while the reference desk is open. To see the reference desk hours, consult our calendar.

2. Reference Desk: If you are on campus, stop by the reference desk. The reference desk is staffed by reference librarians and reference graduate research assistants (GRA). To see the reference desk hours, consult our calendar.

3. Email, Telephone, In Person: If you would like to get help from a specific reference librarian, you can contact us by email, phone, or in person. To get our email addresses, phone numbers, and room numbers, refer to the Law Library’s directory. Generally, if you would like to meet in person, send us an email ahead of time with information about your question, so that we can set aside time to meet with you and do some preliminary research on your topic.

During the first week of orientation, you should have received authorization codes for Bloomberg Law, Lexis Advance, and WestlawNext. During your first year here at Georgia State Law, you will be using them predominately in Lawyering: Foundations and Legal Bibliography. While these classes will go over each of the systems in-depth, you can get a head start on familiarizing yourself with each one by watching the following introductory videos created by the Law Library.

Bloomberg Law 

Lexis Advance 

WestlawNext 

image by flickr user rianap

Law students at Georgia State University are awesome. And one of the ways they show it is by helping their fellow law students. They’ve shared a lot of good advice about law school on our blog in the past few years, and we wanted to highlight just a bit of it for our incoming 1Ls.

• A Quick & Dirty Guide For 1Ls
• Survival Guide: College of Law Library
• How to Outline
• 10 “1L” GSU Law Library Resources
• My Favorite Legal Terms
• Do This Now, So You Don’t Pay Later. Seriously.
• On Why Glannon’s Civil Procedure E&E Is the Best Law School Supplement of All Time

Thank you once again to our law students for offering their advice, and good luck to all new 1Ls!

flickr photo by Christopher Bulle

For most people now a days, if you need to directions to somewhere, you just punch it into your phone, and within a second, you know exactly what route to take. Although it may be hard to remember, there was a time in life when cell phones didn’t act as tiny computers. No email, no Facebook, and definitely no GPS. Instead, if someone needed to go from point A to point B, they used a map. A printed map allowed a user to plan out which route to take to most effectively get to a desired location. In the realm of legal research, research guides are very similar to maps.

When conducting legal research, a researcher is trying to get from point A, the legal question at hand, to point B, the sources that will answer that question. For someone unfamiliar with a certain area of law, it can be hard to begin research without a little bit of guidance. Research guides act as a map for a researcher, helping navigate the open wilderness of primary and secondary sources.

Like a map you would buy at a store, research guides come in all shapes and sizes. Some guides are in print, while others are web based. Even within the realm of web based research guides, there are some that are mostly text based, while others employ charts, tables, and video. Each has its on drawbacks and benefits. Users can write notes on print guides, while electronic guides can be accessed from outside of the library. The decision of which one to use will ultimately come down to user preference. Here at Georgia State University College of Law Library, we have a variety of guides to help assist our users.

So before you start researching an unfamiliar subject, try to find a research guide on your topic. Just like a good map, the guide can help you get from point A to point B more efficiently.

You can find our print guides located across from the Reference Desk. To access our web based guides, go to our LibGuides homepage. Below is a small sample of some of the guides we offer our users.

Print Guides 

• Call Number Guide
• Major Title Locator
• Locating Forms

Online LibGuides

 General 

• Introduction to Legal Research 
• Free Legal Resources 
• Treatises by Topic

Topic Specific 

• Georgia Legal Research 
• Tax Law – Federal 
• Introduction to Medical Research
• Mergers & Acquisitions Law 

Student Life 

• Life as a Law Student 
• Personal Librarian Program 
• Career Resources 
• Bar Exam Resources 

image by flickr user rwp-roger

Classes don’t start until August 18, but it’s not too soon to be thinking about books, clothes, and school supplies. Like many other states, Georgia offers a “sales tax holiday” before the start of school each Fall. This year’s sales holiday is this Friday and Saturday, August 1 & 2.

Per Title 48 of the OCGA, the following items are exempt from sales tax during the holiday:

• “Clothing and footwear with a sales price of $100.00 or less per item;
• Computers, computer components, and prewritten computer software purchased for noncommercial home or personal use with a sales price of $1,000.00 or less per item; and
• School supplies, school art supplies, school computer supplies, and school instructional materials purchased for noncommercial use with a sales price of $20.00 or less per item.”

What does that mean for you as a law student? Well, for starters, this is a great time to stock up on multiple colors of highlighters, get ready to suit up for OCI, and decide on your preferred tech for note-taking. And besides, every penny you save now is one you don’t have to pay back on your student loans later, right?

With the Georgia Bar Exam quickly approaching, here are a couple of logistical questions you need to decide before the first day of exams:

1. Know the exam date.

Flickr photo by photosteve101

2. Know the exam schedule.

flickr photo by John Ward

3. Decide on where you will stay. Family, Friends, Hotel, etc. Try to stay somewhere close by and stress free.

flickr photo by William Warby

4. How will you get to the exam? Train, Car, Bike, or Shuttle. If you are going by car, build in extra time. Atlanta traffic is notorious.

flickr photo by Nicolas Marchildon

5. Food. Whether it is room service, take out, or bringing your lunch from home, make sure you plan ahead of time what you are going to eat. Additionally, GSU Law provides a complimentary lunch for alumni taking the exam.

flickr photo by Louis Vest

6. What are you going to wear? Comfort is key, so dress in layers, that way you are prepared for the summer heat and the air conditioning inside the testing center.

flicr photo by Kate Tomlinson

These were just a few helpful tips to remember as you prepare for the exam. For more information, see the following sources:

• The Bar Exam: Five Tips for the Final Days 
• 13 Things to Do Before The #BarExam