Thursday, January 29, 2009

Russell v. Men of Devon

Just to clarify the reporter and citation
100 Eng.Rep. 359 (1788)

"Eng. Rep." stands for "English reports";. it's volume 100, page 359; year 1788

As of this writing, I'm unaware of an online, full-text of the decision. However, one should search Lexis Nexis for cases that cite it (yes, it was cited in American cases!) and search Google Scholar (like this search) or Jstor for articles that mention it.

Interns: Great questions

One of our interns here at the library participated in a law refresher that I gave the other day. She told us about here experiences doing some grad work at the New York state Library, where she was frequently asked about "chaptering" laws. What, pray, tell, is chaptering?

Simple enough: Nolo offers this definition
Chaptered: A bill becomes chaptered if it is approved by the legislature and signed by the governor.

Long story short, session laws -- the laws that are grouped together by subject but are not yet incorporated into the Consolidated Laws -- are given chapter numbers. Chaptering is the process of taking a new law and locating it in the session laws.

Interns. Always another brilliant question!

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

New York City Chancellor's Regulations...

...are available here.

CF this post from Gotham Schools, which refers to the recent Pollicino decision.

Other Commish decisions related to the DOE or the Chancellor? Glad you asked!!
Part 113 of 8 NYCRR concerns how the DOE fits into the Commish's appeals process.

Article 52-A, or section 2590, or the Consolidated laws of NYS, covers the New York City Community School District System

Friday, January 23, 2009

Public Access Libraries

Here is a listing of court libraries in NYS. This page currently also links to library policies, contact information and to LION, the combined law library catalog.

Here's the search result for "Education Department Reports" AKA The Commissioner's Decisions

Court decisions we'll see often.

Commissioner's Decisions Sampler

These decisions often make their way into our class demos:
Now, you try! Click to the Commissioner's decisions website and locate by searching or browsing (or both)
  • Appeal of McKenna Dec. no. 14,774
  • Appeal of Pintka Dec. No. Decision No. 13,034
Need I remind you that these are not referred to as "cases" but as appeals or matters!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

NYPER??

In looking up the Taylor Law, I was reminded that compilations of the NYS Public Employment Relations Board are available online, but they're not complete. We DO have access PERB's decisions, collected in New York Public Employee Reporter, or NYPER, In LexisNexis Academic.

How to search for, and Search inside, NYPER:

  1. Log into Lexis Nexis, then click the Sources tab at the top of the page
  2. Click the Search by Source button, then
  3. on the next screen , type in the Keyword box "public employee reporter". Search!
  4. From the results, locate New York Public Employee Reporter and click it. Then click Continue
  5. Lexis is ready for you to search that resource. type in what you're looking for in the search box and all your results should be from the NYPER.

Which Education Law Journals do we own?

Here's a list we compiled using our "Journals" search tool, found on the [NEW!] orange tool bar on our library's website
Remember that results that say "SUNY New Paltz Library Catalog" are items we have in paper; ones that mention the name of a database, like LexisNexis Academic, are online.

Where's Education Department Reports??

For our students studying away from our home campus (and needless to say, we welcome your visit!), we've compiled a short list of libraries that may have Education Department Reports, AKA "Judicial decisions of the Commissioner of Education and formal opinions of counsel", volumes 1 to ___.

While we've tried to ascertain that these libraries own the older, paper volumes you may need for your, we can't make any guarantees. Additionally, every library has its own policies for admitting visitros to use their libraries, so please call them before you travel!

Here's a short list of nearby libraries. Google 'em for their phone numbers and to search their catalogs top verify they have the volumes you need

SUNY New Paltz

Vassar

Greene County Courthouse

Newburgh Free Library

Mount Vernon

Yonkers –Riverfront

[Many CUNY libraries]

Iona College

Concordia

Pace (and Pace Law library)

Columbia Teacher’s College


ALSO: are you familiar with worldcat.org? It's a tool for locating materials in libraries and it even informs you how far away those libraries are! Here is the search result for Education Department Reports (distances may appear with New Paltz as the origin),

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1760195&referer=brief_results


U.S. Department of Education Home Page

Arne Duncan is the [new] Secretary of Education. A link to his youtube video is available at the
U.S. Department of Education Home Page