ZiefBrief

Historical Supreme Court Briefs by the Thousands - Now Online at the Zief Library

The Zief Library's latest big digital acquisition is Thomson⁄Gale's U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978, part of its Making of Modern Law collection.

Researchers in the USF community can connect to U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs on campus or at home. (For remote access, you'll be asked to give your name and your USF student or staff ID number.)

Once you're connected, you'll have access to something like 350,000 documents from about 150,000 cases — many of them cases the Court declined to hear. All of the documents are available in PDF format, giving the exact image of the original. There are also multiple search features: key word searching; searching or browsing by case name; searching or browsing by author; retrieving documents by case citation.

These few examples give a sense of the treasures in Gale's U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs —

• The Motion to Advance in Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905)
• The Transcript of the Record in Dred Scott v. Sanford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857)
• The Petitioner’s Brief in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)
• The Petition in Erie Railroad Company v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938)
• The Government’s Brief in Ex Parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942)

And for the post-1978 period? The Zief Library has Supreme Court records and briefs from 1951 to the present on microfiche, and for the most recent years there are a variety of options on the web and on Lexis and Westlaw. (For more information on finding Supreme Court briefs and other documents, see the Zief Library research guide Supreme Court Research: Getting Started.)

ZiefBrief Breaks In To Print

We here at ZiefBrief never pass up a chance to toot our own horn and when the Recorder called about including us in a feature article about blogs in the legal workplace we jumped at the chance. Well, the article, A Blog of Their Own, is out and available at the CAL LAW web site. The article discusses ZB's humble origin as an alternative to a widely ignored print newsletter that the library produced. It also brings up the ZiefBrief's moment in the sun when a 10 minute call to the Archivist at the Yale University Library helped settle the burning question  of whether Anna Nicole Smith's first husband taught wills and trust while a professor at Yale Law School. Thanks to article author Pam  Smith for getting the word out about our efforts.

Congressional Research Service Reports - The Research Goldmine Congress Doesn't Want To Share

When members of Congress need the best possible objective, non-partisan research on any of the diverse issues Congress faces, they can turn to their very own Congressional Research Service (CRS), which boasts a staff of "nationally recognized experts in a range of issues and disciplines, including law, economics, foreign affairs, public administration, the information, social, political sciences, natural sciences." (About the Congressional Research Service.) The rest of us… not so much. Congress has always maintained that it has no obligation to share CRS reports. They're not secret, but Congress makes no effort to release them, so although CRS reports do show up on the web, they appear only in selected, topically-focused collections.

But there are private suppliers for Congressional Research Service reports. And with the Zief Library's recent purchase of CRS reports (through LexisNexis's Congressional Research Digital Collection), researchers at the University of San Francisco may dig into the most complete collection of CRS reports — thousands upon thousands of them — available outside Capitol Hill.

USF’s Congressional Research Service Reports are presented as part of the much larger LexisNexis Congressional service, which is available to all current members of the USF community. Right now CRS reports are available from the early 1940s through 2003. This spring LexisNexis has begun extending the collection both retrospectively and prospectively, and by some time in about two years CRS reports from 1916 to the present should be available. [Update, 5.18.06: LexisNexis's coverage of CRS reports now extends from the early 1940s through January 2006.]

USF researchers can search CRS reports by following these steps.

• Sign on to LexisNexis Congressional [USF community only. If you are connecting from off campus, follow the "Remote Access" instructions.]
• Select "Advanced Search" tab
• Check the "Search within" checkbox to the left of "CRS Reports" and uncheck all the others.
• Set a date range for your search (The default date restriction is "most recent 2 years." You can pick other date ranges from the "Restrict by: date" pull-down menu.)

The LexisNexis Congressional search engine searches the detailed descriptions of CRS but not the reports' full text. The reports themselves are available in PDF format.

You can restrict searches to the CRS reports' titles, subjects, or authors, and if you have a CRS report number (e.g., 92-959), you can enter that number as a search term.

Smaller collections of CRS reports are available for free on the web. If you're not with USF and your institution can't swing the cost of LexisNexis's CRS reports, these sites may lead you to useful reports.

• CRS Reports, by Stephen Young
  
• Univ. of Oregon Libraries Documents Center Congressional Research Service page
  

Legislative Histories - Compiled and Ready to Use

HeinOnline, known for its extensive collection of law reviews, has branched out into compiled federal legislative histories.

A compiled legislative history reproduces the full text of key Congressional documents, saving researchers the time and effort of having to find and copy the documents themselves. Many compiled legislative histories also include an introductory essay tracing the development of the law in question.

HeinOnline is launching their "U.S. Federal Legislative History Library" with a small but impressive collection of histories that covers: the ADA; ERISA; the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; NAFTA; the USA PATRIOT Act; the Copyright Acts of 1909 and 1976, and copyright legislation of the 105th Congress; and the Clean Air Act. HeinOnline plans to add dozens more compiled legislative histories soon.

The Federal Legislative History Library also includes "Sources of Compiled Legislative History Database," a digital version of Nancy Johnson's Sources of Compiled Legislative History (available in print at the Zief Library, KF 42.2 1979 Law Reference Desk). This tool lists existing legislative histories, and gives full citations so that you can find them in the Zief Library or another library.

Related to the Legislative History Library is HeinOnline's new "U.S. Statutes at Large Library." U.S. Statutes at Large is the official chronological publication of U.S. federal legislation (and also includes many important foreign and Indian treaties.)

All these new HeinOnline products use HeinOnline's new "Lucerne" search engine — which will soon be available for all other HeinOnline materials (including their popular law review library)

USF researchers have access to HeinOnline both on and off campus. To use the compiled legislative histories, first connect via the HeinOnline start page. Select the "U.S. Federal Legislative History Library" link and then the "U.S. Federal Legislative History Title Collection" link.

Keeping Up With the Supremes

It's the First Monday in October and they're off, with a new Chief Justice, another nominee in the pipeline, and a docket full of controversial cases. To keep up with the Supreme Court from day to day and month to month during this October 2005 term, start with the Zief Library research guide Supreme Court Current Awareness. The guide leads to:  breaking news about the Court and new grants of review; summaries pending cases; new briefs and oral argument transcripts; and the latest opinions.