Langdell Library

The Harvard Law School Library Blog, “Et Seq.,” frequently publishes historical documents and images from the law school’s archives. For a recent post, they showcased a historical image of the editorial board of Volume 51 of the Harvard Law Review celebrating a successful year outside of Austin Hall.

Originally bound for Russian Emperor Nicholas II, a book covered in blue velvet with its title stamped in gold is now on public display as part of the HLS exhibit “Law Books in Fancy Dress: Beautiful Bindings from the Harvard Law School Library’s Historical & Special Collections.”

Harvard University was recognized as one of the world’s top three open-access institutions of the year by BioMed Central, an international publisher of journals in science, technology, and medicine and a pioneer in open-access publishing. Harvard Law School was given special recognition for being one of four schools at Harvard to introduce its own open-access mandates.

In Ruthenberg v. Michigan, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis LL.B. 1877 first formulated the principles surrounding the exercise of free speech that would appear in his later opinion in Whitney v. California (1927). The Louis D. Brandeis Papers held by the Harvard Law School Library include seven folders of drafts written by Brandeis for Ruthenberg, which have now been digitized and are available on the law school website.

HLS Professor John Palfrey was appointed vice dean for library and information resources in 2008. A cyberspace visionary, his task is to meld the old, the new and the emerging digital-era library.

John G. Palfrey '01 has been appointed associate dean of library and information resources and a tenured professor of law, Dean Elena Kagan '86 announced today.

Surviving a journey of centuries, about 1,000 volumes of rare English law books spanning 400 years of legal writing were delivered to Langdell Library this…

Among the Law School’s collection of letters, manuscripts, and published works of Justice Joseph Story, Dane Professor of Law from 1829 to 1845, is a letter written March 26, 1832, from Story to Charles C. Convers, who graduated the year before.