Explore the controversial legal history of the formation of the United States Prestatehood Legal Materials is your one-stop guide to the history and development of law in the U.S. and the change from territory to statehood. Unprecedented in its coverage of territorial government, this book identifies a wide range of available resources from each state to reveal the underlying legal principles that helped form the United States. In this unique publication, a state expert compiles each chapter using his or her own style, culminating in a diverse sourcebook that is interesting as well as informative. In Prestatehood Legal Materials, you will find bibliographies, references, and discussion on a varied list of source materials, including: state codes drafted by Congress county, state, and national archives journals and digests state and federal reports, citations, surveys, and studies books, manuscripts, papers, speeches, and theses town and city records and documents Web sites to help your search for more information and more Prestatehood Legal Materials provides you with brief overviews of state histories from colonization to acceptance into the United States. In this book, you will see how foreign countries controlled the laws of these territories and how these states eventually broke away to govern themselves. The text also covers the legal issues with Native Americans, inter-state and the Mexico and Canadian borders, and the development of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of state government. This guide focuses on materials that are readily available to historians, political scientists, legal scholars, and researchers. Resources that assist in locating not-so-easily accessible materials are also covered. Special sections focus on the legal resources of colonial New York City and Washington, DC—which is still technically in its prestatehood stage. Due to the enormity of this project, the editor of Prestatehood Legal Materials created a Web page where updates, corrections, additions and more will be posted.

Around the world, legal information managers, law librarians and other legal information specialists work in many settings: law schools, private law firms, courts, government, and public law libraries of various types. They are characterized by their expertise in working with legal information in its many forms, and by their work supporting legal professionals, scholars, or students training to become lawyers. In an ever-shrinking world and a time of unprecedented technological change, the work of legal information managers is challenging and exciting, calling on specialized knowledge and skills, regardless of where in the world they practice their profession. Their role within legal systems contributes substantially to the administration of justice and the rule of law. This International Handbook addresses the policy and strategic issues with which legal information managers and law librarians need to engage in the context of the diverse legal environments in which they work. It provides resources, analysis, and considered studies on an international basis for seasoned professionals, those about to enter the field, and anyone interested in the evolution of legal information in the twenty-first century.

Law librarians in any setting will find The Legal Bibliography useful in developing, purchasing, and using bibliographies in the future. Practicing law librarians and bibliographers share their views on the evolving state of the legal bibliography. The rapidly changing world of librarianship presents the information specialist with new methods of accessing bibliographic information. These changes also have implications for the future of the printed bibliography. Some librarians have abandoned--or do not even know of--titles that were once familiar to every member of a reference staff in favor of databases and CD-ROM products. Yet printed bibliographies, some of questionable value, continue to be published and compete for a place on the acquisitions list of many libraries. The law librarian is affected by this change as much, if not more, than other members of the profession. A researcher seeking legal information is usually concerned with the very latest references, bringing into question the adequacy of traditional printed compilations, or compilations produced simply by conducting a database search. Concentrating on their own areas of expertise, the contributors describe their use or creation of legal bibliographies and consider the ways in which technology might be changing their work. Some of the contributors emphasize classic bibliographies of the past, while others look at how the legal bibliography is used by the legal information specialist today and how the changing nature of access to bibliographic information affects their work. Still others speak to the future in discussing projected publications or ideas for alternative methods of creating and distributing bibliographies. The chapters describing some of the major bibliographies of the past will also be valuable. Several of the chapters will be helpful to authors of bibliographies--both legal and non-legal--who should be considering the methods used to produce and distribute their product. This volume will also be essential to those interested in the topic of bibliography for purposes of comparison with other areas of specialization. Ideal for law librarians, library school collections, and anyone interested in the topic of bibliography in general.