Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Cohen on Researching Legal History in a Digital Age

Researching Legal History in the Digital Age, by Morris L. Cohen, Yale Law School, has just appeared in the Law Library Journal. Thanks to Paul Moorman, USC Law Library, for the tip. This article, which includes links in the notes and an appendix to resources for on-line research, is invaluable. Here's the abstract:
The renaissance of interest in American legal history has been greatly aided by a variety of developments in the materials and methods of legal research. Legal history has become a new center of attention in American legal education and scholarship and has attracted similarly enhanced interest in university history
departments. Fortunately, this comes at a time when increasingly sophisticated research techniques and sources are gaining wide acceptance in both the academic and legal communities. Professor Cohen surveys the effects of these advances on research in American legal history.
Cohen noted in the piece, written before the Legal History Blog was launched, that he knew of no blogs in legal history, but that there is "an ever-expanding universe of new forms of communication to explore." And here we are.

It would be a great service if someone (the Yale Law Library?) were to create a webpage with descriptions and links to Cohen's sources.