LISNews: Librarian News

"The idea makes so much sense, it might serve as a standard for all graduate school courses: Create a Web-based library of original student research -- especially if the topic has long been neglected."

"With that in mind, Stanford Law School Professor Barbara Babcock, two sharp librarians and dozens of students have done exactly that, generating an extensive archive of unique biographies of important but forgotten women in law."

"It's already attracted widespread interest from other scholars -- and some descendants of these historic figures." (from Mercury News)

SomeOne points us to This Sad Story where The Dane County Law Library will close its doors Dec. 27 after a fund-raising effort by area lawyers failed to come up with the funds necessary to keep it open.
Two weeks ago, The Capital Times [and LISNews] reported a fund-raising effort was under way among lawyers and law firms to raise $65,000 to keep the law library open, after the library\'s 2003 budget was cut from $117,000 to $52,000.

Forwarded by Allen Overland:

Steve Perry, Information Resource Officer for the U.S. Consulate General in Lagos, Nigeria (U.S. State Department) is actively soliciting book donations for the four branches of the Nigerian Law School in Abuja, Kano, Jos and Lagos. We specifically would like donations of reference books, law books, classic books of cases, torts, study manuals and anything else you might find appropriate in building up a legal collection.

Ideally, it would be great if we could obtain four copies of each book for the four branches of the Law School. This way, each Law School would ideally
receive the same books. If you are cleaning out your Law Offices, weeding Law Books from University Libraries or other collections, might I suggest that this would be a perfect way to make a real difference. Nigerian Law
Schools are increasingly interested in American Law and actually turn to American Law (and not British Law) for precedents in a variety of new law cases that are currently being heard around the country. One additional consideration: the Nigerian IT infrastructure is so fragile and so undeveloped that it will be years before the legal profession here will be able to rely on the Internet for any type of legal research. What the Law Schools here need are books and plenty of them.

The Public Diplomacy Offices of the US State Department in Lagos and Abuja will find a grant for shipping these books from the nearest port in the U.S. (probably Baltimore) to Lagos, Nigeria where they will be cleared from
customs here by an accredited representative of one of these Law Schools.

What we need now (besides the actual donations of books, of course) is for one person to temporarily be responsible for collecting these books from potential donors, storing them temporarily, and making sure they are picked
up in a responsible manner by the shipping company before they are finally shipped to Lagos. We thank you so much for whatever efforts you can spare in this important endeavor.

If interested please contact:

Stephen Perry, IRO, Lagos
8300 Lagos Pl.
PAS Lagos
Washington, DC 20521-8300
Perryls@state.gov

Tel: 234-1-263-4868
Fax:234-1-263-5397

Please visit our Website at:
http://usembassy.state.gov/nigeria

LLRX writes \"Weighing the
Benefits of Legal Portals

Cindy Curling reviews the major and minor legal portals, detailing the strengths and weaknesses in their respective services and content.
\"