NOTICE OF THE 2008
ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING
APRIL 16, 2008
The Annual Meeting of the members of the Cleveland Law Library will be held on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 12:00 noon in the Law Library, 404 Cuyahoga County Courthouse. Agenda items will include the election of four (4) trustees to serve three (3) year terms from April 2008 to April 2011 and an amendment to the Library Constitution regarding bar association appointments. Please join us for the meeting and a light luncheon immediately following.
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LIBRARY DIRECTOR
AUTHORS CHAPTER
IN OSBA’s OfficeKeeper E-BOOK |
Members of the Ohio State Bar Association now have access to a wonderful new, online resource called OfficeKeeper: Professional Tools for Law Office Management and Client Relations. According to the OSBA, this e-book is a “nuts and bolts resource guide to opening, maintaining and closing a law office, covering both the day-to-day operations of a law office, as well as professional responsibility.” Launched solely online, OfficeKeeper was created as an interactive pdf file with forms, checklists, live cross-references, URLs, and other links. Multiple authors contributed to this work, and the Cleveland Law Library’s Director, Kathleen M. Sasala, Esq., was asked to write Chapter III on Legal Resources and Law Libraries. Ms. Sasala’s chapter covers the spectrum of legal resources available at lawyer’s desktops, on the Internet, in print, and at local law libraries. She covers all major primary state and federal resources and recommends some of the best practice-specific books, databases, and Website bookmarks.
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ARCHIVES
LAW LIBRARY BLAWG |
The Library of Congress (LOC) has selected the Cleveland Law Library’s Blawg for inclusion in its historic collection of Internet materials related to legal blawgs. At regular intervals, the LOC will take snap shots of our blawg and add them to the LOC’s research collection. These materials will be available both at the LOC in Washington and on the LOC’s public access site.
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NEW PATRON COMPUTERS
AT THE LAW LIBRARY |
To help you perform your legal research more quickly and efficiently, the Law Library has finally purchased five (5) new patron computers. These computers are in the process of being installed as this Newsletter goes to print. With luck, they will be available the week of St. Patrick’s Day. Internet-ready, these computers will be much faster for searching Lexis, Westlaw, and all of the other databases you can use as a member of the Law Library. These computers are also equipped with both Word and WordPerfect software to enable you to create pleadings, motions, and briefs on-the-fly while conducting legal research.
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NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK |
In honor of National Library Week, we will be serving complimentary bagels, muffins and juice from 9:30 a.m.-11:00 a.m. on Friday, April 18, 2008. Please join us in celebrating this event. Upon request, we can provide a tour of our facility.
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DAYS THE LIBRARY
WILL BE CLOSED |
The Law Library will be closed the following days in 2008:
- Memorial Day, Monday, May 26th
- Independence Day, Friday, July 4th
- Labor Day, Monday, September 1st
- Columbus Day, Monday, October 13th
- Veterans Day, Tuesday, November 11th
- Thanksgiving, November 27th & 28th
- Christmas Eve, Wednesday, December 24th at noon
- Christmas Day, Thursday, December 25th
- New Years Eve, Wednesday, December 31st at 4:00
- New Years Day, Thursday, January 1st
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BORROW A LAPTOP
FROM THE LAW LIBRARY *
* All members must sign an
“AGREEMENT FOR LAPTOP USE”
prior to circulation |
Borrow one of the Law Library’s Laptops, and take it to your office or home today. They are pre-loaded with 4 databases from CCH:
Labor & Employment Law - Coverage includes fair employment practices, labor relations, wages and hours, labor arbitration, state labor laws, and current news. Tax Research NetWork - Coverage includes the Standard Federal Tax Reporter and all 50 state tax reporters. Accounting Research Manager - Coverage includes accounting standards and publications from AICPA, GASB, GAO, SEC, EITF, plus multiple GAAS publications and other information. Capital Changes Reporter - Coverage provides detailed information on publicly held companies, including offers, recapitalizations, reorganizations, stock dividends, splits, plans, offerings, calls, bankruptcies, and more.
If you would like more information, please contact the Library Director, Kathleen M. Sasala, at ksasala@clelaw.lib.oh.us or 216-861-5070.
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INDEX TO OHIO
LEGAL PERIODICALS |
Can’t find an Ohio law review or journal article? Our new Index can help!
With increasing frequency, our members ask our staff to find law review articles they saw or read in a local journal but cannot remember where, when or by whom. In addition, when members request research assistance or ask us to conduct a periodical search, we often like to recommend relevant, topical articles from local publications. Because these articles are not indexed in print or online anywhere, we have always relied on the wealth of our staff’s collective memory to locate what our patrons need. However, searching for these articles can become an arduous process of thumbing through journal after journal looking for the proverbial “needle in a haystack.” In an effort to streamline our patrons’ access to these articles and save our staff time, our Director decided to create a brand new periodical index that could serve as a gateway to the authors, titles and subjects contained within these legal gems.
Confident that our members are representative of law library patrons state-wide, we decided to take this project more “global” by including a comprehensive list of journals and law reviews that are or were historically published in Ohio. It did not take long for this bud to blossom into an online product we called the Index to Ohio Legal Periodicals. Members can use this resource either in-house or on our Members’ Only page, and Library staff would be happy to search the Index for members. To ensure that our Index continues to serve as a vital resource for legal research in Ohio, we are continually adding new articles from our current publication list, as well as articles from a select list of additional journals.
If you would like more information on how to access and use this product, please contact the Library Director, Kathleen M. Sasala, at ksasala@clelaw.lib.oh.us or 216-861-5070. You can also listen to the Library’s podcast about the Index by clicking this link on our website: clevelandlawlibrary.org/Public/Misc/Podcasts.html
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WAITING ON OUR WORLD TO CHANGE:
COUNTY LAW LIBRARY UPDATE |
Preface: It has now been over three (3) years since H.B. 66 was introduced in the Ohio Legislature, and we are still waiting on a resolution to the drastic cuts it proposed in county funding for Ohio’s county law libraries, including the Cleveland Law Library.
Timeline: With H.B. 66’s passage in the summer of 2005 came a welcome reprieve which postponed the funding cuts until January of 2007 and created a Task Force to study the funding, structure and operations of all of Ohio’s county law libraries. The ultimate goal of the Task Force was to propose new legislation for the continued operation of the libraries, but although the Task Force issued its report last year, and proposed legislation has been drafted by the Ohio Legislative Service Commission, it has not been finalized, introduced or passed. As a result, the Cleveland Law Library is currently suffering 40% cuts in county funding for our county librarians and facing an invoice for 20% of the costs of our space, heating and cooling. A small working group of representatives from the Ohio State Bar Association, the Ohio Judicial Conference, the County Commissioners Association of Ohio and the Coalition of County Law Libraries is currently hashing out remaining details related to staff and benefits, and we are as close to a resolution as we have ever been. We have been told that a new draft should be issued soon, and the working group is still shooting to introduce the legislation before the General Assembly recesses for the summer in May.
Proposed Changes: As currently drafted, new legislation would create a two-tiered system of local county agencies called County Law Library Resource Boards (CLLRBs) and a state-wide consortium composed of all of these boards. Local CLLRBs would manage and provide legal research, reference and library services to counties, cities, townships and courts. CLLRBs would also establish rules for public access, fees for services, and rules on how to spend the fines and penalties county law libraries currently receive from traffic and liquor fines. Each CLLRB would be required to hire a law librarian and additional staff as necessary, all of whom would officially become county employees.
The state-wide consortium would have various responsibilities, including negotiating contracts the CLLRBs could use, cataloging all resources owned by CLLRBs, making collection and access recommendations to CLLRBs, and otherwise assisting the CLLRBs in their operations.
Existing private law library associations like the Cleveland Law Library could continue to exist and manage their private funds, staff and resources, but they would no longer receive traffic fines and penalties to spend on legal research materials. Two members of current association boards would have interim seats on the CLLRBs, but the relationships between the public and private entities are not specifically enumerated in the proposed legislation.
For more details and information on the proposed legislation, please contact the Director, Kathleen M. Sasala, at ksasala@clelaw.lib.oh.us or 216-861-5070.
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CLEVELAND LAW LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
Cuyahoga County Courthouse
1 West Lakeside Avenue-Floor 4
Cleveland, Ohio 44113-1023
Phone: (216) 861-5070
Fax: (216) 861-1606
Email: lawlib@clelaw.lib.oh.us
Home Page: clevelandlawlibrary.org
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Board of Trustees:
Joseph N. Gross - Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP, President
Carla M. Tricarichi - Tricarichi & Carnes, Vice-President
Kathleen B. Burke - Jones Day
Hon. Kenneth R. Callahan
Thomas A. Cicarella - Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP
Hon. Colleen Conway Cooney
Irene Keyse-Walker - Tucker, Ellis & West
Brian Linick - Cuyahoga County Bar Association
David J. Naftzinger - Thompson Hine LLP
Alvin Podboy - Cleveland Bar Association
Patricia A. Poole - Baker & Hostetler
Scott E. Stewart - Stewart & DeChant
Philip M. Oliss - Squire, Sanders & Dempsey |
Law Library Staff:
Kathleen M. Sasala, Director
Anne McFarland, Reference & Research Services Librarian
Nancy E. Schieman, Reference & Research Services Librarian
Michael McFarland, Reference & Research Services Librarian
Sharla Johnston, Circulation Services Librarian
Eric Hess, Network Services Librarian
Terri Faulhaber, Technical Services Librarian
Leslie Hall, Business Manager
Gwen Williams-Ross, Filing Clerk/Library Assistant
David Novak, Filing Clerk/Library Assistant
Isaac Mintz, Page |
Copyright © 2008, Cleveland Law Library Association. All rights reserved.
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