Wisconsin State Law Library

What's New - Kristina Martinez

Summer Tours

The Wisconsin State Law Library will host a number of tours this June. If you're interested in learning more about the services that WSLL provides, please contact Kristina Martinez, Outreach Services Librarian. Both WSLL and MCLL are offering classes throughout the summer. Visit the Classes page for more information and registration.

Staff News

Lynne Gehrke

On May 6th, the Milwaukee County Law Library said goodbye to Lynne Gehrke, Reference Librarian. Lynne has worked at MCLL for six years and accomplished a number of things, such as: starting the CLE program, establishing lasting relationships between the Clerk of Courts, the Justice Center, and Milwaukee Public Library, moving the library to its new location, and hiring and training a great staff at MCLL. Thank you, Lynne!

Congratulations graduates! Megan Gundelfinger and Christina Nowak from WSLL and Emma Fechner from DCLL have reason to celebrate. Megan graduated from UW-Madison with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Christina graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Geography. Emma has graduated from the paralegal program from Madison College.

MCLL welcomes Shanna Elias and WSLL welcomes Emma Fisher as new library associates. Shanna graduated from Milwaukee Area Technical College with a Legal Administrative Professional Associate degree. Emma finished her second year at UW - Madison where she is majoring in Art History. We are happy to welcome Shanna and Emma!

Law Day 2016 @ DCLL

The Dane County Law Library celebrated Law Day on Friday, April 29th in the Dane County Courthouse. This year the American Bar Association chose the theme “Miranda: More Than Words” in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Miranda decision. Robert Lopez, DCLL Librarian, organized several events in cooperation with the Dane County Bar Association’s Courthouse Committee. Most notably, the Dane County Law Library hosted volunteer attorneys (English and Spanish-speaking) who provided free pro se legal consultations for most of the day. With more than 30 people coming in for legal assistance and dozens more taking part in Law Day activities, this year marked another successful effort to create awareness and promote education about our legal system.

4th of July Library Closures

The Wisconsin State Law Library, and Milwaukee and Dane County Law Libraries will be closed on Monday, July 4th. We will respond to questions and requests on Tuesday, July 5th.

To submit a question to the Wisconsin State Law Library while we are closed, you may call us at 608-267-9696 or Ask a Librarian online.

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This Just In - Pete Boll

New Edition!
Practical Guide to Software Licensing For Licensees and Licensors, 6th edition, by H. Ward Claassen
American Bar Association, 2016
Call Number: KF 3024.C6 C56 2016

Updated and expanded for lawyers who work with clients and conduct business transactions in the area of software licensing. The latest edition includes new chapters on types of licenses, software development agreements, and software development kits and application program interfaces. With the trend toward vendor-hosted delivery models, commonly referred to as cloud computing, Chapter 9 discusses several of the most common alternative delivery methods and the principle issues associated with each, as well as licenses arising from the marketing and distribution of software through third parties.

New Edition!
Wisconsin Judicial Benchbook, Volume 1 and 1A Criminal and Traffic, 5th edition
State Bar of Wisconsin, 2015-16
Call Number: KFW 2915 .W5 J85

Written mainly for judges to aid in conducting trials in Wisconsin, Judicial Benchbooks also provide attorneys with a comprehensive guide and distillation of the law drawing on the experiences of many outstanding Wisconsin judges.

The outline format provides a step by step guide to the processes in criminal and traffic cases along with relevant statute and case law references for each step. The new 5th edition also features:

• References to recent Wisconsin appellate court and U.S. Supreme Court decisions involving criminal and traffic related matters such as venue, pleas and plea withdrawals, challenges to the complaint, competency of defendants, search and seizure, custodial interrogations, expert testimony, and sentencing
• Incorporates recent legislation on topics such as search warrants, John Doe proceedings, and commercial driver licenses
• Adds new information on procedures for the return of property seized by law enforcement
• Updates figures for the federal poverty guidelines for 2016, for use in making indigency determinations

See our latest New Titles list for a list of new books and other resources.

For assistance in accessing these or other resources, please contact our Reference Desk.

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Tech Tip - Heidi Yelk

Use Read Later Tools to Collect and Organize Client, Marketing News and Research

"Read later" services, such as Pocket and Readability, are often billed as ways to save information to read at your leisure, away from work, when you actually have time to sit and take in an in-depth article. However, these services are also great tools to use at work, particularly if you are a marketing professional or librarian. They offer the ability to easily save web-based news (and video), then archive and/or share with others. Read later services are useful for saving news articles on clients, high profile projects, and developing issues. Articles are easily saved on the cloud so they won't disappear if a website removes the content. You can organize web-based news clippings using tags or folders.

The "big three" read later services (at the moment) are Readability, Pocket, and Instapaper. All three require some set up (signing up with a user name and adding bookmarklets to your browser). Firefox recently added a Pocket button to the menu bar, eliminating the need to add a bookmarklet.

Articles abound as to which service is the best. In the end, it comes down to personal preference and how well the service matches your technology. I found Instapaper to be the easiest to use. The notes feature allows you to annotate and highlight sections of text. I also like the Instapaper Text feature which works to remove advertising and other "noise" from a webpage, leaving just the article.

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WSLL Recommends: Art Law Books on Display

An alcove in the reading room of the library regularly features rotating book displays on a variety of topics. Our recent installation is on art law.

If you're an art entrepreneur, museum professional, or represent artists, check out these books for information about the legal aspects of making and preserving music, visual art, and performing arts. If you can't make it in to the library, check out the display online. Check one out in the library or by mail with your library card.

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Odds 'n' Endings - Carol Hassler

Access Newspaper ARCHIVE

A few years ago I attended a family reunion where one of the assignments was to bring memorabilia or interesting facts from around the time my grandparents married. I knew immediately where to turn.

Access Newspaper ARCHIVE is an extensive archive of newspapers throughout the United States and abroad. The archive dates back to the 1700s for some news sources. Using this resource, I was able to find my grandparents' wedding announcement from a 1948 issue of a small town Ohio newspaper.

Access Newspaper ARCHIVE and other BadgerLink newspaper sources aren't just good for genealogical research, however. At the library we've used this database to research old circuit court cases, biographical profiles of attorneys and judges, published ordinances, and other legal notices.

BadgerLink Info Sheets

BadgerLink is a statewide collection of magazines, newspapers, and scholarly articles available to all Wisconsin residents. Several of these are linked through our website and catalog and can be accessed with your library card.

Because your time is valuable, BadgerLink created several quick start Info Sheets for those who need a quick introduction to a website. Get Info Sheets, videos, and more on BadgerLink's training page.

Access NewspaperARCHIVE info sheet

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