Monday, January 25, 2010

346 - 349


This is the last of the 340's and it is a large section. A number of items I just discarded because they had already been updated by something else. And, as in the previous section, there are a number of things, particularly the Nolo books, that need to be updated.
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Some new additions here. When we discontinued the WestLaw NJ database, we got new printed materials from the New Jersey Practice Series that will be updated on a regular basis. This set includes the 8 volume Wills & Administration, the 3 volume Landlord Tenant, the 3 volume Family Practice (all with forms), and the 7 volume Legal Forms. Our WestLaw rep said this would replace the green New Jersey Forms Legal and Business, which we are no longer updating. It costs about $550 per year. The rep said that we would no longer need it with the new stuff. but I'm willing to reconsider if you think we need it as well. Otherwise this will be discarded.
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A couple of items that came automatically with our new WestLaw package: Neighboring Property Owners and West's New Jersey Law Finder, which is like the 3 volume NJSA index, only not as good.
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As you know, we are discontinuing the USCA, but are continuing the NJSA and NJAC. So we need to get rid of the entire USCA, because it is of little use without the updating service. It is also useless to offer it to another library, because the great expense and value of this is the updating service. So it goes.
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The other sets on that back wall that are probably of little use to us are West's New Jersey Digest (brown set, covers cases pre 1954) and the 2nd edition (red set, covers cases since 1954 to 2004 when the updating stopped). They were donated to us by a law firm in 2004 without the updating service. They actually do have some value, although I have never used them, nor have I been asked for them. They give specific cases that have been decided on various topics, for example, under "Eviction" Chelsea Hotel Corp v Gelles, 1942 ruled that an eviction of a tenant by the landlord suspends the obligation of tenant to pay rent..." and so on. Hmmm....what do you think?
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Take a look at the Supreme Court material on the middle shelf. Should we get rid of any of it? I couldn't decide--I thought each had value.
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Getting rid of the USCA, and relocating the NYT index and the Book Review Digests will make a lot of room on that back wall for our new legal reference section. Specific sections would be immigration, wills and estates, family law, landlord tenant. Let me know of other possible sections. Sections will be color coded rather than recataloged. Also, I'm going to be checking catalogs for face out shelves, etc.
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Any ideas here also would be appreciated. Since we are through the 330s and 340s I think we can go right ahead with our plans for those two areas.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

343-345

This is a pretty simple section, and the decisions seem to be pretty clear cut to me--update all the Nolo and code stuff to the latest editions. Discard anything that is outdated that has no new edition (all those are on bottom shelf of the cart).
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The tax stuff (Federal Tax Compliance Guide, Lassers) are also in this section, but shelved over with the tax forms.
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Just a couple of notes: I am trying to add websites where publications can be accessed online to catalog records, for example the New Jersey Driver Manual, and Domestic Violence. I also did this for Martindale-Hubbel even though we discarded the actual volumes.
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As we go further into this section, we are finding titles that we would like grouped together that have different call numbers, for example Social Security Explained is here, but other social security stuff is in 368.4; there is more living will stuff in 346, etc. We will find more of this in the next section. Rather than recatalog, I am leaning heavily toward shelving together by color coding. Many libraries are doing this--it also makes changing our minds about how things are displayed much easier. Janice is in full agreement.
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Your comments, please.