Library Rules! – Pic of the Week

Bob switched offices recently.  As most people do when they move, he started combing through the items he accumulated over the years and came across a small booklet printed by the Government Printing Office in 1939: The Library of Congress: Rules and Practice Governing the Use and Issue of Books.

Thinking of the blog, he had me take a look.  I flipped through it and read on the first page:

Prior to 1897 the privileges of the Library were defined, in the earlier years by the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House in conference, and later by statute as interpreted by the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library.  By the Appropriations Act of 1897, the authority to “make rules and regulations for the government of the Library” was vested in the Librarian.

As you can see in the picture below, the booklet makes a specific mention of the Law Library and provides a glimpse into our past procedures and practices.  For that reason it has earned the right to be today’s Pic of the Week.

As someone who has only worked at the Law Library of Congress in the Madison Building, I can only dream about an office in the Jefferson Building or the Capitol Building.  It is fascinating to read about how the Law Library was located a floor below the old Supreme Court chamber in the Capitol.  I also enjoyed reading the last line of the page: “[i]ntensive legal research is, however, best conducted in the Law Library, northeast pavilion, second floor.” We just happen to still be on the northeast side of the Madison Building, second floor.  Stop by for some intensive legal research!

Language is…the instrument of domination and liberation

                  “Language is power, life and the instrument of culture, the instrument of domination and liberation.”—Angela Carter The following blog post was prepared in collaboration with Gustavo Guerra, Senior Foreign Law Specialist in the Global Legal Research Center (GLRC) at the Law Library of Congress. As March …

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John Hessler on the Corpus Agrimensorum, Roman Land Law, and Mathematical Approaches to Archeology

On February 15, the Law Library of Congress in cooperation with the John W. Kluge Center hosted John Hessler, Senior Cartographic Librarian in the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress, and a Kluge Staff Fellow, as a guest speaker for the Law Library’s Power Lunch series.  Mr. Hessler’s lecture, “Written in Stone: Roman Land …

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Shreddy: From the Office of the Law Librarian – Pic of the Week

The following is a guest post by David Mao, Law Librarian of Congress.  He has previously guest posted From the Desk of the Law Librarian, The Law Librarian in London, and Rebellious Children and Witches. In a previous post I mentioned keys belonging to former Law Librarian of Congress Carlton Kenyon. This Pic of the Week shows …

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States in the Senate

The following is a guest post by Megan Lulofs, a Legal Information Analyst in the Public Services Division.  Meg has previously posted on a variety of topics including House Committee Hearings Video, the Cardiff Giant, the Canadian Library of Parliament, football blackouts, and librarian services. The U.S. Senate has a new website to showcase the history and contributions of each …

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Jolande Goldberg on Tree Figures, Memorization and the Law of Blood Relations

Recently, the Law Library welcomed Ms. Jolande Goldberg, Law Classification Specialist at the Policy and Standards Division of the Library of Congress, as a guest lecturer for the Law Library’s Power Lunch series. A longtime employee of the Library of Congress, Jolande Goldberg is well known as the principle architect of the K schedule – …

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Bicentennial of the Promulgation of the Spanish Constitution of 1812

“The Spanish nation is the gathering of all Spaniards from both hemispheres.”–Chapter I, Title I, Article 1 You may recall that last month I posted a “pic of the week” titled “Banner Proclaiming the Spanish Constitution of 1812.”  Well, on that subject,  two hundred years ago today, on Thursday, March 19, 1812, the Constitution of …

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