AALL 2015 Recap: Customary and Religious Law Interest Group Meeting

By Susan Gualtier

Front page of informational flyer distributed at the FCIL-SIS Exhibit Hall table.

The Customary and Religious Law Interest Group (CARLIG) met on July 19 at 11:30 as part of the FCIL-SIS Jurisdictions Interest Groups Joint Meeting. The group briefly discussed the year’s progress, which included acquiring approximately 35 members in My Communities, developing several programming proposals for the 2015 conference, and publishing an article in AALL Spectrum describing the group’s formation, purpose, and goals. The majority of the discussion then focused on 1) improving communication with the group’s membership in order to generate better response to the My Communities posts; 2) increasing the number of blogging and book review opportunities on customary and religious law topics and soliciting participation by the group’s members; and 3) developing and prioritizing additional projects for the coming year.

CARLIG intends to continue proposing conference programming, and brainstormed a few ideas for the 2016 conference. The group discussed the possibility of putting together a panel of librarians and researchers who are currently working on comprehensive online portals or printed bibliographies of religious law resources. Kelly Buchanan, of the Library of Congress, also shared some preliminary information relating to an Islamic law program to be held at the Library of Congress in December. The group discussed potential opportunities for collaboration between CARLIG and the Library of Congress staff, which has been working on increasing the number of available customary law and religious law resources.

In addition to planning substantive programming, the group decided that CARLIG’s primary focus over the upcoming year should be to create teaching/research toolkits for customary law and for each of the major religious law systems. The purpose of these toolkits will be to encourage more librarians to incorporate customary and religious law research into their FCIL research classes or their presentations in substantive law classes. CARLIG will also work on some of the ideas proposed at the 2014 conference, including creating bibliographies of core resources for use in collection development, and identifying the major library collections in customary law and in each of the major religious law systems.

Two Views of Runnymede: Magna Carta at the Library of Congress and the British Library

By: Gabriela Femenia 

As has been widely noted, 2015 is the 800^th anniversary of Magna Carta, the revolutionary charter between King John I and his barons often cited as the foundation of basic Anglo-American concepts of protected liberties, rule of law, and good government.  There have been many events planned to commemorate its importance this year, and I was fortunate enough to be able to see two of the best: the traveling Lincoln Cathedral manuscript and related exhibit at the Library of Congress in December, and the magnificent display of multiple manuscripts at the British Library last month.

Magna Carta: Muse and Mentor, at the Library of Congress November 2014 – January 2015, was a ten-week exhibit sponsored by the Federalist Society, and therefore strongly focused on tracing the arc between Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights. In addition to displays explaining Magna Carta’s history and featuring one of the four surviving original copies, parts of the exhibit specifically connected Magna Carta to our constitutional rights to due process, trial by jury, and habeas corpus.  A very interesting additional section on Magna Carta in popular culture demonstrated how this medieval document of limited impact in its own century has nonetheless managed to resonate deeply and broadly in the popular imagination in more recent times.

Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy, at the British Library until September 1, 2015, was naturally much larger in scope, as many more manuscripts and objects were available for display within the United Kingdom than could travel to the U.S.  Among the highlights, the exhibit features all four surviving 1215 manuscripts, copies of the 1225 reissue, one of Thomas Jefferson’s two drafts of the Declaration of Independence, and, delightfully, a map of William Penn’s Pennsylvania detailed enough for me to identify approximately where my house is. In addition to the richness of the collection, the exhibit featured wonderfully-executed video and multimedia enhancements to assist the visitor in following Magna Carta’s evolution from its critical reissue under Henry III, through its role in the growth of the common law on both sides of the Atlantic, and down to the modern development of international human rights law.

Even if you can’t make it to London, much of this additional content is available at the British Library’s website, asare high-quality images of most of the items, making it possible to experience some of the outstanding curation and to glean fun ideas for your FCIL reference and teaching activities.  If this really piques your interest in Magna Carta and its contributions to the development of both the common law and international law, you may even consider signing up for the University of London’s upcoming MOOC, Freedom and Protest:Magna Carta and its Legacies, beginning June 15.