Public Services Issues with Rare and Archival Law Materials

205 Pages·2001·10.58 MB·English

by  Michael Widener

Public Services Issues
with Rare and Archival
Law Materials
Public Services Issues with Rare and Archival Law Materials has
been co-published simultaneously as Legal Reference Services
Quarterly, Volume 20, Numbers 1/2 2001.
Public Services Issues
with Rare and Archival
Law Materials
Michael Widener
Editor
Public Services Issues with Rare and Archival Law Materials has
been co-published simultaneously as Legal Reference Services
Quarterly, Volume 20, Numbers 1/2 2001.
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NEW YORK AND LONDON
First published by The Haworth Information Press
This edition is published 2013 by
Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Public Services Issues with Rare and Archival Law Materials has
been co-published simultaneously as Legal Reference Services
QuarterlyTM, Volume 20, Numbers 1/2 2001.
© 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm
and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publisher.
Cover design by Thomas J. Mayshock Jr.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Public services issues with rare and archival law materials / Michael Widener, editor.
p. cm.
Co-published simultaneously as Legal reference services quarterly. v. 20, no. 1/2, 2001.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7890-1407-6 (alk. paper) – ISBN 0-7890-1408-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Law libraries–Special collections–Rare books. 2. Law libraries–Special collections–Archival
materials. 3. Law–Information resources. I. Widener, Michael. II. Legal reference services quarterly.
Z675.L2 P795 2001
026.34–dc21 2001039007
Public Services Issues
with Rare and Archival
Law Materials
CONTENTS
Public Services Issues with Rare and Archival Law Materials:
An Introduction 1
Michael Widener
GENERAL
A Portrait of Research in Legal History 5
Ann D. Gordon
Helping Historians Write Legal History “From Below”:
Collecting New Sources, Teaching New Strategies 17
David Warrington
Training Law Librarians in the Use of Rare Legal Materials 29
Morris L. Cohen
Rare and Archival Law Materials: Exhibits and Outreach,
Traditional and Electronic 41
Mark W. Lambert
Rare and Archival Law Materials on the World Wide Web:
An Evaluation of Selected Sites 67
Carole Prietto
Bibliography on Rare and Archival Law Materials 79
Mark W. Lambert
Michael Widener
RARE BOOKS
The Role of Rare Books in Law Libraries 85
Joel Silver
Rediscovering Rare Books in an Electronic Age 93
Claire M. Germain
Roman and Canon Law Research 99
Lucia Diamond
ARCHIVES
Lawyers, Archivists and Librarians: United or Divided
in the Pursuit of Justice? 113
Menzi L. Behrnd-Klodt
Using the Tom Clark Papers for a Seminar: A Faculty
Member’s Perspective 135
Michael J. Churgin
Access to the Working Papers of State Supreme Court
Justices: A Case Study from Texas 139
Michael Widener
Providing Access to Lawyers’ Papers:
The Perils ... and The Rewards 151
Akiba J. Covitz
Lawyer-Client Files: A Historical Source, But Can We
See Them? 181
Victor Tunkel
Index 191
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Michael Widener, BJ, MLIS, has been the Archivist/Rare Books Li--
brarian at the Tarlton Law Library, University of Texas at Austin, since
1991. In 1994 he was named a Joseph D. Jamail Fellow in Law Librari--
anship. He holds a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science
from the University of Texas at Austin. Mr. Widener serves on the
Board of Trustees of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society and
the Editorial Board of H-LAW, the legal history listserv sponsored by
the American Society for Legal History. He is active in the Society of
American Archivists and has served on its publications board and com--
mittee on legal and legislative affairs. Mr. Widener’s publications in--
clude a number of articles. He edited four published oral history
interviews and bibliography of the current faculty of the University of
Texas School of Law. In addition, Mr. Widener was a consultant on the
cataloging, housing, and public services for the rare book collection at
the law school of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.
Public Services Issues with Rare
and Archival Law Materials:
An Introduction
Michael Widener
In the past few years I have perceived a modest but definite growth in
rare book and archival collections in academic law libraries in the U.S. In
addition, legal history remains a vital field of study, not only within law
schools but also in the legal profession as a whole and outside the legal
community. I thus think it’s timely to devote a special volume to the topic
of public services for rare books and archives. I am grateful for the invita­
tion to edit this volume.
I have always felt that the primary value of these special collections
lie in their use, both actual and potential. Rare books and archives come
alive when consulted by readers and researchers.
In the administrative and budgetary environment of law librarian-
ship, outstanding reference service is crucial to the survival and growth
of special collections in law libraries. Rare book collections and ar­
chives must demonstrate that they are pulling their weight and contrib­
uting to the mission of their libraries and parent institutions. I hope that
this special volume will demonstrate the importance of these contribu­
tions to law librarians in general, and in particular to our colleagues in
public services and our library directors. In addition, the following arti-
1
2 Public Services Issues with Rare and Archival Law Materials
cles provide examples of best practice and solutions to common prob --
lems.
This volume focuses on those aspects of public services that are pe--
culiar to rare book and archival collections with a legal focus, particu--
larly those in academic law libraries and other repositories maintained
by the legal profession. With three notable exceptions, the authors of
the following articles also come from the world of law librarianship.
The contributions fall into three sections: an opening set of articles that
span both rare books and archives, followed by those dealing more spe--
cifically with rare law books and law-related archives.
The “General” section begins with a focus on a primary clientele for
rare and archival legal materials, legal historians. Ann D. Gordon pre--
sents the only detailed survey in existence of the research habits of legal
historians, extracted from a nationwide study that Gordon prepared for
the National Historical Publications and Records Commission in 1992.
Both legal historians and law librarians have remained largely unaware
of this study, which will help law librarians and archivists to better
serve their users. Harvard Law Library’s David Warrington follows
with an overview of current trends, methodology, and guides to the lit--
erature of legal history.
Morris L. Cohen of Yale, the leading authority on special collec--
tions in law libraries, provides a model curriculum for training law li--
brarians in the care and use of rare legal materials. In the absence of
formal training programs, his article is a virtual “do-it-yourself’
course for archivists and rare book librarians in law libraries. In his
discussion of exhibits and outreach activities, Mark W. Lambert of
South Texas College of Law views these activities as not just teaching
tools, but as important assets in marketing a special collections depart--
ment and in furthering institutional goals. Today, exhibits and out--
reach make increasing use of the Internet. I called on a legal
“outsider,” Carole Prietto (university archivist at Washington Univer--
sity) to evaluate some of the online efforts of involving law-related
collections. Prietto has been a frequent speaker on the World Wide
Web at meetings of the Society of American Archivists and related or--
ganizations. The “General” section closes with a bibliography on
law-related archives and rare book librarianship.
Joel Silver, curator of rare books at the Lilly Library, is well-known
in the rare book world as a lecturer and as a columnist in the now-de--
funct trade journal, AB Bookman’s Weekly. He opens the “Rare Books”
Michael Widener 3
section with a vigorous argument for the role of rare books in law librar --
ies and legal education. Claire M. Germain, director of Cornell’s law li--
brary, shows how rare books have contributed to the curriculum at her law
school. Early books on Roman and canon law are found in many law li--
braries, but librarians are often not equipped to understand or make use of
them. Lucia Diamond of Berkeley’s Robbins Collection guides the reader
through the literature of this fascinating field of legal research.
The final section, on “Archives,” leads off with an article that will be
useful for any archivist whose patrons include attorneys. Menzi L.
Behrnd-Klodt, herself both an attorney and corporate archivist, explains
how archives can be used in litigation and suggests ways in which archi--
vists and attorneys can learn to work with each other. Michael J.
Churgin describes how the personal papers of U.S. Supreme Court Jus--
tice Tom C. Clark bring constitutional law to life for his students at the
University of Texas School of Law.
One aspect of law-related archives that set them apart is the question of
access to papers that document judicial decision-making or communica--
tions between attorneys and their clients. These records are among the
best evidence for the inner workings of our legal system, but they raise
difficult issues for archival public services. The archivist must strike a
balance between research needs, on the one hand, and the requirements of
the judiciary and attorneys to protect the confidentiality of their delibera--
tions.
The three concluding articles address these access issues. I describe
how my library worked with the Texas Supreme Court and the Texas
State Archives on access to the case files retained by justices when
they leave the court. Regarding the attorney-client privilege and its
implications, we have both U.S. and British perspectives. Akiba J.
Covitz (now a professor at the University of Richmond) explains the
background of the attorney-client privilege in U.S. law, and the guide--
lines that Yale University developed to deal with privileged materials
in its archival collections. Victor Tunkel, the secretary of the Selden
Society, traces the development of the attorney-client privilege in
British law, and proposes a model act that would protect both the his--
torical record and lawyers’ confidentiality.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank Publisher Bill Cohen, Editor-in-Chief Sul Lee, and all
the staff of The Haworth Information Press for their support, assistance