Web feeds make keeping up to date easy!

Keep up to date with changes in NZ legislation using web feeds.
The New Zealand Legislation website allows users to subscribe to ready-made feeds, or to design their own to match specific research needs.

oral arguments

The US Supreme Court has transcripts and audio files of oral arguments. According to their site:

A case selected for argument usually involves interpretations of the U. S. Constitution or federal law. At least four Justices have selected the case as being of such importance that the Supreme Court must resolve the legal issues.

Worth a look, and maybe a listen.
If you've ever been uncomfortable contributing to tutorial discussions, imagine dealing with this (from the recent Schwarzenegger case transcript dealing with violent video games):

JUSTICE SCALIA: An average minor is halfway between 0 and 18; is that 9 years old?

You don't have to understand the issues to find this interesting. Simply seeing how language changes when the arguing attorneys have to think on their feet is illuminating. And (from my cursory look) the justices aren't always eloquent. I'm guessing that that's partly because they don't need to show off; and partly because getting to the point often involves a bit of murkiness. Bathos alert... the murk factor is true in libraries too. Sometimes the question you most need to ask (and answer) is the one you can't express clearly. That may put you out of your comfort zone, but don't let it put you off. Research is a process, not a checklist; and teasing things out is part of your job and also part of ours. So don't hesitate to bring unclear questions to the desk. The good news is that we're not judges, we're just here to help.

You can find the oral judgment transcripts and audio files and more on the Supreme Court site.
You can find us at the Law Library desk, 8th floor, Richardson Building.

applying for jobs

We recently advertised for next year's team of student assistants. They're the ones (usually senior law students) who keep the library up and running in the evenings and weekends, when the permanent staff are home growing vegetables and feeding chickens and doing whatever else we do when we're not here.
We're always really impressed by the calibre of the applicants, and it's always disappointing that we can employ so few of them.
Anyway, for those of you thinking of applying for work here in 2012, or even if you're applying for summer clerkships or permanent jobs, here are a few tips based on our recent recruitment experience.

Please do:

• include a cover letter. It's the best way to get your voice across.
• sign your letter - old-fashioned but still expected in a formal context.
• keep your CV brief. At least for our purposes, a double-sided A4 sheet is about right.
• provide a work referee, if you have one, since it's a job you're applying for.

And please don't:

• send us the job description. We already know about the job. We want to know about you. With as few page-turns as possible.
• send us scruffy forms. Presentation counts, so don't change pens half-way through filling out a form. And if you spill coffee on it, get a clean one and start again.

These are minor points, but that's what counts when you have 50 good applicants and only five jobs.

And from the ridiculous to the sublime: thanks to the Law Librarian Blog I recently found the Yale Law School admissions blog. It's interesting, entertaining and potentially useful to anyone making any kind of application any time soon.

Parliamentary practice in New Zealand

David McGee's 2005 text is now available online at the NZ parliament website.
It's free (yes!) and searchable (yes!) but not necessarily updated - read the fine print
in the About this publication section.

End of Looseleaf Services?

A debate is currently occupying law librarians in the blogosphere about the future of looseleafs. Ruth Bird from the Bodleian Library at Oxford has described looseleafs as
"one of the legal publishing world’s more interesting phenomena of the last third of the 20^th century."
Here at the Otago Law Library we encourage students to use looseleaf services for their frequency, their usefulness - and just because we pay so much for them we want people to use them. But do you think their time has come? Can online resources do what looseleaf services have attempted to do for the past 50 years but better?
If you want to follow this debate then check out posts from Ruth Bird, from Jason Eiseman at Yale and Joe from the Law Librarian's blog.
My take. I love the looseleaf services we provide here at Otago. But that may be due to familiarity of the print versions and the cluttered interface of some of the online services. I find I can use materials more intensely if in print.
Comments welcome