Public Services Issues With Rare and Archival Law Materials

This helpful book gives practical advice and information on providing access to rare and archival law collections and promoting their use by scholars, teachers, and students. Public Services Issues with Rare and Archival Law Materials offers detailed instructions for the care and use of rare legal materials, ideas for creating exhibits and outreach activities (including Web sites), suggestions for working with early books on Roman and canon law, practical techniques for using archives in litigation, and a bibliography of law-related archives and rare-book librarianship. In addition, it discusses the ethical implications of using archives and the research habits of legal scholars. An essential reference for law librarians and archivists.

Michael Widener, BJ, MLIS, has been the Archivist/Rare Books Librarian at the Tarlton Law Library, University of Texas at Austin, since 1991. In 1994, he was named a Joseph D. Jamail Fellow in Law Librarianship. 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 committee on legal and legislative affairs. Mr. Widener's publications include 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.