ZiefBrief

CA Supreme Court Rules on Same-Sex Marriage

The California Supreme Court ruled today that language within California laws designating marriage as a union solely between "a man and a woman" is "unconstitutional and must be stricken from the statute."  A larger excerpt of the court's holding appears below:

[W]e conclude that retention of the traditional definition of marriage does not constitute a state interest sufficiently compelling, under the strict scrutiny equal protection standard, to justify withholding that status from same-sex couples. Accordingly, insofar as the provisions of sections 300 and 308.5 draw a distinction between opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples and exclude the latter from access to the designation of marriage, we conclude these statutes are unconstitutional. . . .

[I]t is readily apparent that extending the designation of marriage to same-sex couples clearly is more consistent with the probable legislative intent than withholding that designation from both opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples in favor of some other, uniform designation. In view of the lengthy history of the use of the term “marriage” to describe the family relationship here at issue, and the importance that both the supporters of the 1977 amendment to the marriage statutes and the electors who voted in favor of Proposition 22 unquestionably attached to the designation of marriage, there can be no doubt that extending the designation of marriage to same-sex couples, rather than denying it to all couples, is the equal protection remedy that is most consistent with our state’s general legislative policy and preference.

The *?$%! Bluebook

Let's face it.  The Bluebook can be a baffling, frustrating experience for first-time cite-checkers.  Our wise colleague, Mary Whisner, at the University of Washington's Gallagher Law Library, has a helpful essay in the Law Library Journal on Bluebook woes, "The Dreaded  Bluebook," which is a "must read" for anyone who has ever thrown a Bluebook against the wall in sheer frustration.  In this essay, Mary reveals one of the tips that I often recommend to newbie cite-checkers -- when in doubt about how to cite to a particular authority, use Lexis or Westlaw to search the footnotes of existing law review articles to find out how other editors are citing the authority. For example, if I need to figure out how to cite to a  Congressional Research Service report entitled, "Federal and State Laws Regarding Pharmacists Who Refuse to Dispense Contraceptives," I would search the JLR database on Westlaw or the ALLUS database on Lexis with the following search:

federal /2 state /5 pharmacists /2 refuse /2 dispense /2 contraceptives

From there, I can browse the footnotes of the articles appearing in my search results to see how editors are handling this CRS report citation.  Of course, as Mary notes, you may find that different law reviews cite the authority in different ways, but you can usually decide which conforms most closely to the Bluebook rules and go from there. 

The most important point made in Mary's essay is this -- don't be afraid to ask the law librarians for help with the Bluebook's rules.  Some of us have toiled as student editors ourselves, and we have lots of arcane Bluebook knowledge that we would love to put to good use!

Lost and Found Items at Circ Desk

Did you ever wonder what happened to your travel coffee mug? Did you leave your phone charger behind somewhere? Are you missing a hat? Stop by the Circulation Desk and look through our Lost and Found items to see if there is anything that may belong to you. These items will be on display until May 16th and what is not claimed will be donated to a charitable organization.

McSweeney's List on Law School Classes

At this point in the semester, everybody needs a little dark humor, right?  Check out this McSweeney's List of "Classes My Top-Tier Law School Should Have Offered As Warnings About the Profession."  Thanks to Above the Law for posting this link.

Group Study Rooms

Group Study Rooms are available for groups of 2 or more law students for one 2-hour study session per group per day. To reserve a room in advance, stop by the Circ Desk and get signed up in our book. Don't have time to stop by? You can also reserve a room by calling the Circ Desk at 422-6679, or shoot us an email at ziefcirc at usfca.edu. Include a 2nd or 3rd choice in case your preferred day and starting time is unavailable. If you want a phone call confirming the reservation, send us your number and we'll get back to you.

Learn How to Find U.S. Congressional Materials

A pair of librarians at U.C. Berkeley have put together a short series of informative tutorials to help you figure out how to find U.S. Congressional materials both on-line and in print. It is pretty basic stuff but it could help any researcher get up to speed on finding essential government documents. The bottom half of the tutorial screen opens up an active LexisNexis Congressional connection. Luckily, the USF Gleeson/Geschke library subscribes to this service and all USF students and staff should be able to follow along without any trouble.

Thanks to the Librarian's Internet Index for this tip.

Wireless Printing From Your Mac at USF Law

A question from a student and fellow Macintosh user reminded us at ZiefBrief that we've been wanting to post some handy instructions on how to print wirelessly from Macs at the law school here at USF.

A hat-tip to our excellent law school IT staff, who put these instructions together!

(Windows users will find wireless printing instructions in the USFwireless FAQ.)

Clever Viral Video: Legal Research - The Movie

It takes a lot to make ZiefBrief chuckle at something on YouTube but our crack librarian-in-training/intern Suzanne Mawhinney shared this with us and we thought we would pass it along. The work of Stanford Law students, it is only NSFW if you lip read. Enjoy:

Trouble With Food and Drink in the Library.

Due to growing complaints about the noise and odor that accompanies eating, the Zief Law Library is stepping up enforcement of the existing "no food" policy. We are trying to do it as unobtrusively  and with as much good humor as is possible. The following images shows that libraries have had to deal with the problem for a long time (click image for larger version, (image made with the Historic Tale Construction Cit)):

Finding Quotations on Google News

Google News just announced a nifty new feature -- if you enter the name of a prominent figure in the news in the Google News search box, you can (sometimes) retrieve quotations made by this person.  You can also search within the retrieved quotations to find quotes about a specific topic.  Here's how to do it:

• Enter the name of a prominent person in the Google News search box.  I tried "antonin scalia."

• At the next screen, you'll see the usual news story search results, but you'll also see a quotation from that person at the top of the page, along with a link that says "by Antonin Scalia."  If you click on the "by Antonin Scalia" link, you'll be able to access all quotes within news stories by Justice Scalia.

• You can search within these quotes by entering some search terms in the "Search these quotes" box on the left-hand side of the quotations page.  You can also organize the quotes by date, by relevance, or view quotes from stories posted in the last hour, day, week, or month.

So far, this feature seems to be working sporadically for prominent political figures. I found quotations highlighted in my Google news search results for Senator Arlen Specter, but no quotes at all for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Thanks to beSpacific for the tip!