By Susan Gualtier
Mardi Gras in the French Quarter, New Orleans
Here it is… the final week of the first phase of next year’s programming proposal process! Ideascale will close this Friday, August 16, so this is your last chance to post your proposal ideas and to vote on the ideas that have already been posted!
We’ve had several great new FCIL programming ideas posted to IdeaScale this week, so be sure and check them out and give them an upvote! We also encourage you to submit your own program ideas to IdeaScale. We need your ideas as much as your votes!! You can do this anonymously if you like. If you have questions, comments, concerns, or calls for help, please reach out to me (sgua@law.upenn.edu) and/or Dennis Sears (searsd@law.byu.edu). As co-Chairs of the FCIL-SIS Education Committee, it is our job to encourage and support you in developing ideas and program proposals in anticipation of next year’s meeting.
Each Monday from now through August 16, DipLawMatic Dialogues will bring you an update on all of the FCIL-related program ideas currently posted in IdeaScale to encourage you to “up-vote” these programs. For more on why up-voting is important, see here.
Cultural Intelligence and Academic Law Libraries Research
As the 2019 ALL-SIS Research & Scholarship grant recipient, this presentation on “Cultural Intelligence and Academic Law Libraries” will report on my findings, analysis and recommendations based on my research study over the past year. The purpose of my research study is to examine the cultural intelligence in academic law librarians, in order to understand the perspective of these librarians and to help them better serve their stakeholders. Cultural intelligence is defined as the capability of an individual to function effectively across new cultural settings (Ang & Van Dyne, 2008). The following research questions are examined within the study and relate to areas of the American Association of Law Libraries research agenda: (a) What is the overall level of cultural intelligence of participating academic law librarians?, (b) What variations among participating academic law librarians, if any, exist among the four dimensions of cultural intelligence?, (c) What viewpoints do the law librarians have about the value and importance of cultural intelligence within their organizations?, and (d) how can academic law librarians best serve the information needs of their patrons through use of cultural intelligence? This research supports both the spirit and the practical application of at least three of the AALL Body of Knowledge Domains (professionalism + leadership, teaching + training, and marketing + outreach). The research includes a mixed-methods approach with 171 participants. I hope you will join me in learning more about my results and conclusions from our ALL-SIS membership and recommendations for practice and research.
BOK Content Area: Professionalism & Leadership at Every Level
Improving Access to Law and Justice in Communities of the World
In emerging democracies and developing countries, access to the law is necessary for members of the public to fully participate in the democratic process. However, people in communities around the world face barriers to accessing official law and legal information. How can law libraries and legal information professionals help members of these communities (including refugees, women, indigenous communities, the poor, and pro se litigants) gain access to the law? How can a strong legal information system assist both legal providers and average people by creating tools that expand understanding of the law? This program will look at efforts being made in other countries to ensure that members of the public have access to official versions of the law and will also consider global and regional endeavors by organizations including the Legal Information Institutes and Free Access to Law Movement. Projects underway to promote increased understanding of the law will also be examined.
Potential speakers include Stephen Wyber, Manager for Policy and Advocacy for the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), and a representative from one of the LIIs around the world, such as the African LII or the Canadian LII. Another possibility is someone to provide perspective from the International Association of Law Libraries (IALL) or the Chinese and American Forum on Legal Information and Law Libraries (CAFLL).
BOK Content Area: Marketing & Outreach
Louisiana Law/Civil Law/Comparative Law Roundtable
Building upon and combining some of the ideas already posted, this program would take place in a round table format where participants could discuss topics relating to Louisiana and other civil and mixed jurisdictions. Potential table topics include:
Collection development
Acquisitions
Government documents
Cataloging
Louisiana legal history
Louisiana’s place in comparative law
Civil law generally (structure and research methods)
Civil law in Louisiana courts
Facilitators would consist of librarians familiar with Louisiana, civil, and comparative law issues in the relevant areas.
This program could also be proposed in a longer form that included an overview of Lousiana’s legal system and its place in civil and comparative law, before the participants break up into tables.
BOK Content Area: Professionalism & Leadership at Every Level
Hebrew-script books on non-Jewish legal systems
These are books written by and for Jews in Hebrew script languages, about the legal systems they have lived under as a less-than privileged minority. Examples includes a book on Yiddish on the American legal system written at the start of the 20th century, a Hebrew/Aramaic parody of a talmudic tractae discussing prohibition in the early 20th century, a Hebrew translation of the Ottoman conscription law, and the text of the Austrian civil code written mid-19th century translated into Hebrew with an explanatory commentary in the style of traditional Jewish “rabbinical” legal commentary. This program was presented at the Association of Jewish Libraries conference six years ago and could be adapted by adding explanation of cultural background for non-Hebrew speakers. It could be enhanced or combined with a program on other examples of popular literature on the legal system written by and for minorities in a language not commonly known by scholars of those systems. It may be of special interested to the customary and religious law group in FCIL, the Jewish Librarians Caucus and the LHRB SIS.
BOK Content Area: Research & Analysis
Obtaining & Using Copyrighted Materials from Foreign Countries
What does a U.S. law librarian do when a book or report that a patron needs to consult is only available at a library in England or India? How about when a thesis or document that another patron needs for research purposes is only available at a library in Namibia or New Zealand?Many libraries do not want to lend items internationally through OCLC WorldShare Interlibrary Loan, so ILL requests sent to non-U.S. countries are frequently returned unfilled. If a librarian—undeterred and unwilling to give up—contacts the library in another country directly to request scanned chapters of the book or a scanned copy of the report, how can the librarian ensure that the request does not violate that country’s copyright laws? Do other countries have fair use exceptions and library exemptions in their copyright laws similar to U.S. copyright law? How do copyright term lengths differ in other countries?
This program addresses how to research foreign copyright laws, how to legally obtain copies of copyrighted material from libraries around the world, and how to obtain permission to use copyrighted material that has been registered for copyright protection in another country.
BOK Content Area: Research & Analysis
Unmasking the World’s 100 Most Influential Legal Texts
What are the 100 most influential texts in the world’s legal literature? Who better to ask than law librarians? We invite AALL members to share their expertise and diverse viewpoints in an interactive session that will be both fun and intellectually engaging. The resulting list may form the basis for a publication, a major public exhibition, and/or a dynamic, ever-growing online project. More than simply a tool for collecting or teaching, the list of the world’s most influential legal texts will demonstrate the profound impact of law on our lives throughout history and into the future.
BOK Content Area: Research & Analysis
Legal research in civil law jurisdictions – all that different?
Legal research in civil law jurisdictions may not be as different as you may expect! The
influence of the common law can be seen, for instance, in the increased reliance on precedent and increased length in decisions. One might even question whether the emphasis on doctrine is really as strong now as it used to be.
A slight spin on the ideas already suggested, this panel is a little more introductory, but acknowledges the changing nature of practice in a civilian jurisdiction. Starting with the same research question, law librarians/ lawyers in various civil law jurisdictions will explain how they would tackle the question in their respective jurisdictions. Case law from these jurisdictions will also be compared.
See: http://www.slaw.ca/2019/06/20/not-your-grandparents-civil-law-decisions-are-getting-longer-why-and-what-does-it-mean-in-france-and-quebec/?highlight=civil%20law
BOK Content Area: Research & Analysis
Tips Tools & Techniques for Environmental Law Research
We don’t do as many research subject specific programs as in past. Why not take advantage of local expertise for an introductory to intermediate level program on how to research / tools for environmental law research?
See Tulane Law School https://law.tulane.edu/centers/environment
BOK Content Area: Research & Analysis
Tools Tips & Techniques in Admiralty & Maritime Law
We aren’t doing as many legal research specific programs as in past. Why not take advantage of our location in New Orleans and the local expertise in admiralty and maritime law?
See Tulane Law School https://law.tulane.edu/academics/maritime
BOK Content Area: Research & Analysis
Screening of Documentary “Change the Subject” With Panel
“Change the Subject” is a recent documentary, about the students and librarians who have been fighting to change the Library of Congress subject heading from “Illegal Aliens” to something less pejorative, such as “undocumented people.” The struggle to change this heading even caught the attention of Congress, who until then had never taken an interest in LC subject headings that anyone could recall.
You can read more and view a trailer here: https://sites.dartmouth.edu/changethesubject/. The filmmakers are excited and available to come screen the film and then answers questions during a panel session. Panel would also include law librarians involved in this struggle.
BOK Content Area: Professionalism & Leadership at Every Level
How Codes are Made: Creating Laws in Civil Jurisdictions
Is there a difference between a code and a set of statutes? How does the process of codification differ between common law and civilian jurisdictions? What roles do legislatures and law reform bodies play? This panel will help librarians to understand the role that codes play in civilian and mixed jurisdictions and how and whether it differs from that of the “codes” that most of us would recognize as codified statutes. The panel will explore how codes are constructed in a variety of jurisdictions.
Speakers will include law faculty and drafters from Louisiana, as well as from or familiar with similar jurisdictions, such as Quebec, Scotland, and South Africa.
BOK Content Area: Research & Analysis
Is it Napoleonic? Foreign/Domestic Influences on LA Civil Code
Interpreting and researching modern civil law depends upon an understanding of the historical sources from which those laws evolved. People often say that Louisiana uses the Napoleonic Code, but is that true? Louisiana has been both a French and Spanish colony, and it has been a part of the American legal system for over 200 years; it has also been influenced by Roman Law, Greek Law, Canon Law, and the Germanic Civil Law tradition.
This panel will help librarians understand the legal system of Louisiana, how the Louisiana Civil Code is drafted, and how the Civil Code operates within Louisiana’s mixed, partially common law jurisdiction. It will explore the relationship between codes, statutes, and cases, and how primary and secondary authority are defined and developed within Louisiana’s unique legal system. The panel will also cover elements of Louisiana legal research, including Louisiana’s unique legal publishing industry, the importance of print resources in Louisiana legal research, and available historical treatises and primary sources. The program will be accompanied by a LibGuide to assist non-Louisiana law librarians in researching Louisiana legal issues.
Speakers may include Louisiana law librarians, Louisiana law faculty, and members of the Louisiana State Law Institute (LSLI).
BOK Content Area: Research & Analysis
Researching, Publishing, and Collecting the Laws of Louisiana
Most law librarians are aware of Louisiana’s unique and “different” legal system. But what does that mean for legal research, legal publishing, and collection development in the Pelican State?
This program will cover aspects of Louisiana legal research and collection development, including Louisiana’s small and specialized legal publishing industry, the importance of print resources in Louisiana legal research, and available primary and secondary sources. The program will be accompanied by a LibGuide to assist non-Louisiana law librarians in researching Louisiana legal issues and choosing Louisiana legal resources.
Speakers may include Louisiana law librarians, legal scholars, and representatives of university presses and other publishers of Louisiana law.
BOK Content Area: Research & Analysis
LA Civil Code & Other Influences on Civil Law in Latin America
The Louisiana civil code has directly and significantly influenced civil law in Latin America. It is generally believed that Spanish language translations of a mid-nineteenth century digest of world civil codes served as the first introduction of the civil law in Latin America. The Louisiana civil code was included in this digest (along with the codes of France, Sicily, Piedmont, the Netherlands, Bavaria, Austria, and Prussia), and the Spanish translation of the digest would therefore have served as the very first Spanish translation of the Louisiana civil code.
Around the same time, Spain was beginning to draft its first civil code post-unification, which would not be enacted until 1889. The commentaries provided during the drafting of the Spanish civil code, many of which referred to the code already in place in Louisiana, also heavily influenced the development of the civil law in Latin American countries.Latin American lawmakers turned to the Louisiana civil code not only because of the Spanish language translations and commentaries, but also because it was the first civil code to be drafted in the New World and could therefore serve as a model for Latin American countries that had been fighting for their own independence and that sought to express that independence through their own civil codes. Similarities between the Louisiana and French codes during this period were also significant, as the French code, which captured the spirit of post-Revolutionary France, had also captured the imagination of Latin America. As scholarship on Latin American civil law points out, the first Latin American codes were nearly word for word translations of the French civil code and its corresponding Louisiana code provisions, with departures only where the Latin American codes made reference to much older Spanish laws.
This program will explore the historical influences on Latin American civil law, which are invaluable in helping us to understand and research the modern laws. Speakers will consist of law librarians and civil law scholars who have researched extensively the development of Latin American civil law.
BOK Content Area: Research & Analysis
Recent Reforms in the French Law of Obligations
Adapted from a symposium recently held at the Louisiana Supreme Court, this panel will address recent reforms to the French Law of Obligations and what they mean both for France and for French-influenced jurisdictions like Louisiana. Speakers will discuss the need for reforms to adapt the law to modern economic and social environments and to make French law more attractive to international markets. Specific changes to the law, as well as how they are playing out in practice, will be discussed in detail depending upon the available speakers’ expertise. We will round out the panel with a brief discussion of how the reforms in France could eventually affect the law of Louisiana and of other French-influenced jurisdictions.
Speakers would include scholars of French law, Louisiana law, and potential additional jurisdictions’ law, depending on availability. This program could be condensed into a short form program and/or proposed as a half workshop or symposium.
BOK Content Area: Research & Analysis
Through the Codes Darkly: Slave Law and Civil Law in Louisiana
In his 2012 book, “Through the Codes Darkly: Slave Law and Civil Law in Louisiana” (https://www.lawbookexchange.com/pages/books/59912/vernon-valentine-palmer/through-the-codes-darkly-slave-law-and-civil-law-in-louisiana), Tulane Law Professor Vernon Palmer challenged the prevailing argument that Louisiana’s slave laws were more permissive or protective than those of the other states. The differences between Louisiana’s slave laws and those of the other states have been attributed largely to the alleged adoption of ancient Roman slave laws during the drafting of Louisiana’s Code Noir, or “Black Code.” Because the Romans owned slaves of all races, some scholars have argued that the Roman laws were “color-blind” and that their incorporation into the Code Noir laid the groundwork for a more permissive body of slave law in the French territories. These scholars contrast the civil slave laws to the body of case law that developed to govern slavery in the other states, and argue that, while the common law developed specifically within a racial system, the civil law did not develop from the intent to oppress any particular race.
In “Through the Codes Darkly,” Palmer breaks with the earlier scholarship claiming that the Code Noir was based on Roman law. He instead relies on archival research, examining the Code Noir drafters’ backgrounds, the instructions they received from France, and the notes they generated during the course of their work. Palmer argues that the Code Noir was in fact based on the drafters’ own experiences in the New World, and that the Roman slave laws, which would have been largely irrelevant to slavery in the Americas, did not, in fact, form the substantive basis of the Code Noir. In breaking with Romanist scholarship, Palmer owns that the drafters of the Code Noir created a “profoundly racial document embodying the prejudices of their own white supremacist society.”
This program would explore Palmer’s trailblazing research into the law of slavery in Louisiana. The speaker would ideally be Professor Palmer himself, although other local law professors would also be qualified to speak on this topic if Professor Palmer were not available.
BOK Content Area: Research & Analysis
French, Spanish, African and Jewish influences in US Law
New Orleans and Louisiana in general with its rich city and legal history is the perfect set for this panel. Legal experts and historical experts will shed some light on the French, Spanish, African and Jewish influences which might have been present and even created in Louisiana or New Orleans and then made it to US law. Potential speakers include historical and legal experts on the topic, local history experts, and a local legal history expert or just legal history expert.
BOK Content Area: Research & Analysis
Legal information from U.S. Territories
Legal information from and on the current U.S. territories is a nightmare to find. Most major commercial vendors do not include this information and local institutions do not have the resources to digitize and make this information more accessible. What should we do?
Potential speakers include law librarians from different U.S. territories, law librarian specializing in this area, perhaps a government/court librarian from the territories.
BOK Content Area: Research & Analysis
Is Google Translate the only option?
The legal document or any material you are working on has a few sentences on Spanish, Estonian, Swahili or Vietnamese. What do you do? If you’re under some pressing time constraints locating and hiring a translator might not be an option. Is Google Translate the only and best option we have? Are there any other options out there either free or not?
Potential speakers include: a FCIL librarian with experience using materials in foreign languages, a certified legal translator, a rep from Google Translate or someone working in one of the other translation sites or apps such as Linguee or Lingvo.
BOK Content Area: Research & Analysis
Over the past several years, the FCIL-SIS Book Discussion Group, 
DipLawMatic Dialogues 