OCU LAW today donated 32 Dell desktop computers and monitors to Peavine Elementary School in Stilwell, Oklahoma. OCU LAW’s director of techology, K.R. Vineyard, organized the donation, after the law school’s library computer labs were recenlty upgraded thanks to a generous donation from the Clyde Evans Charitable Trust. The donated Dell computers will be used for a computer lab at Peavine.

Last week members of the OCU LAW family gathered to wish a fond farewell and a happy retirement to Jim Gettys, who has served as Daytime Circulation Supervisor in the law library since 1997, and in OCU’s Dulaney-Browne library before that. Among those wishing Jim well were OCU LAW Dean Lawrence K. Hellman, OCU LAW Professor Emeritus Richard Coulson, Associate Professor of Law Library Science Lee Peoples and law library Director Judith Morgan, as well as a number of members of the OCU LAW faculty, OCU LAW students and staff members from the Dulaney-Browne Library. 

A slide show of photos from Jim’s retirement party is available at Flickr.

Lee Peoples, Associate Professor of Law Library Science at OCU LAW, spoke at a Georgetown symposium titled "The Future of Today’s Legal Scholarship" held in honor of the late Robert Oakley, former Director of the Georgetown Law Library and a well respected law librarian. Peoples discussed the use of blogs in judicial opinions and litigation.

Peoples also spoke  at the American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting in a session titled "Law Librarians Abroad: Is a Foreign Study Program for You?" Darla Jackson, Head of Reference and Access Services at the OCU Law Library, coordinated and moderated a program at  the AALL Annual Meeting titled "Understanding the Mean: How the Average Law Librarian Can Encourage Empirical Research Initiatives."

Peoples designed the Law Library’s new online repository earlier this year, allowing the public to search and access important scholarly works by the law school’s 35 faculty members. Peoples also was a guest on the August 2008 edition of the OCU LAW News Podcast, discussing OCU LAW’s study abroad programs and its summer 2008 Certificate in American Law program.

At 3 p.m. Saturday, May 16, OCU LAW will award the juris doctor degree to the 146 members of the class of 2009. The ceremony will be held in the Grand Hall on the second floor of the Cox Business Services Convention Center in downtown Oklahoma City. 

Monday, May 18, OCU LAW begins its new summer hours. The OCU LAW library will be open Monday-Thursday 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday noon to 9 p.m. The law library will be closed on Saturday, and on Monday, May 25 for Memorial Day; Friday, July 3 for Independence Day; and Friday, July 31 through Sunday, August 2 for an end-of-summer holiday. The library will be open on Saturday, July 11 and Saturday, July 18 for bar exam preparation. Law library fall semester hours will be posted in July. For more information please see the Law Library’s Blog, The Gavel.

Beginning Monday, May 18, Sarkeys Law Center will be closed on Friday-Sunday and open 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday. 

OCU LAW’s law library has launched a new online repository that allows the public to search and access important scholarly works by the law school’s 35 faculty members.

“It is a vital part of our law school’s mission to contribute to the improvement and development of law and legal institutions,” said OCU LAW dean Lawrence K. Hellman.  “We do this through the careful and creative research and scholarship of our faculty.  This new on-line repository will enhance the accessibility and impact of this important body of work.”

"The repository has several unique features that set it apart from other similar online ventures," said Lee Peoples, OCU LAW’s associate law library director, who designed the program. "We’re offering the majority of articles by our faculty members as free downloads in PDF document form. This means OCU LAW alumni, students, the local legal community, policy makers and scholars around the world, and the general public will have nearly complete access to scholarly articles by our faculty members in the repository. It’s an incredible research tool that opens the doors to scholarly cross-pollination in a way that just wasn’t possible a few short years ago." 

The open-access feature is modeled after Duke Law and Harvard Law School. Both schools recently unveiled open access scholarly repositories. 

Publications in the new repository may be viewed by author, date and type. Titles may be searched by keyword.  Links to the faculty’s works in progress and forthcoming works are provided at the repository’s homepage.

Items not available for free download are still accessible through links to Westlaw or LexisNexis. Links are provided for books and book chapters that are accessible on LexisNexis or Westlaw.  Other books and book chapters are made accessible using links to WorldCat, a catalog that provides access to the collections of thousands of libraries.

Simply by entering a zip code WorldCat will link users to a nearby library, including the OCU Law Library, that holds the book or book chapter.  Links to books and book chapters available through the Google Book Project and Amazon.com are also provided.

Peoples credited OCU LAW webmaster David Lodge and administrative assistant Lorraine Morrison for their invaluable assistance in creating the repository. Peoples said W.S. Hein & Company generously provided the full text images of many articles included in the database.

OCU LAW’s Law Library Director and Professor of Law Library Science Judith A. Morgan has announced that she will retire effective June 30, 2010, at the end of what will be her 23rd year with OCU LAW. OCU LAW Dean Lawrence K. Hellman announced that effective July 1, 2010, Law Library Associate Director, Director of International Programs and Associate Professor of Law Library Science Lee Peoples will succeed Morgan as Director of the Law Library.

Before joining the faculty of OCU LAW, Professor Morgan practiced law in Oklahoma City and was law library director for the Oklahoma City firm of Kornfeld, Franklin & Phillips. She has served as president of the Mid-America Association of Law Libraries and as treasurer of the Mid-America Law School Libraries Consortium. She is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Law Library Microform Consortium. 

"During her tenure at OCU LAW, Judy Morgan has provided conscientious and stable leadership to the development of the law library," said OCU LAW Dean Lawrence K. Hellman. "Under her guidance, the library’s collection has more than doubled. The library staff, too, has grown - both in numbers and professional accomplishments. The library’s level of customer service is outstanding, and the staff who work under Professor Morgan’s direction are praised for their competence, friendliness, and professionalism. Professor Morgan has managed many changes in the library over the years, from personnel, to space allocation, to technological advances, to adjusting to shifting accreditation standards. She has handled all of these developments with grace and imagination, earning the respect of students, faculty, staff and professional law librarians throughout the region.

"Our law school is fortunate to have enjoyed the leadership of Judy Morgan for more than two decades and to have attracted such a capable successor whom we hope will guide the law library for years to come."

Lee Peoples joined OCU LAW in June 2002 as Head of Reference Services and was named Associate Director of the Law Library in 2006 and appointed to Associate Professor of Law Library Science in 2007. He also serves as Director of International Programs for OCU LAW and is immediate past-president of the Midwest Association of Law Libraries. He is founder and co-editor of the Legal Information & Technology Journal, an SSRN eJournal, as well as founder and editor of the OCU LAW Faculty Scholarship Repository. With Barbara Bintliff he co-edited the book Public Services in Law Libraries: Evolution and Innovation in the 21st Century, and has been invited to speak at a number of national and international conferences. Professor Peoples earned his B.A., M.I.L.S. and J.D. from the University of Oklahoma.