Biddleblog

Presidents and Their Justices, by Douglas Clouatre (Lanham, MD: University Press of America Inc., 2010).

Reviewed by Joe Parsio, Head of Access Services.

The book is based on a 2005 survey of historians, lawyers, and political scientists.   Clouatre is a political science and history instructor at Mid Plains Community College, who writes on the Supreme Court and the American presidency.   Biddle also owns his Ph.D. thesis on the Burger and Rehnquist Courts.

By Emily Jane Schreiber, Biddle Research Associate

Here's an overview of what's available on the shelves and online for the visual arts enthusiast at Penn Law.

At Biddle, you'll find treatises--like the seminal three-volume Art Law: The Guide for Collectors, Investors, Dealers and Artists or Law, Ethics and the Visual Art  -- as well as casebooks, practitioner guides and works on copyright and droit de suite, museum law, international art trade and loan agreements, and cultural heritage law. The Fisher Fine Arts Library offers a number of titles for the legal scholar, on subjects such as art business and dealing, art crime, public works, and censorship. Stay up to date on art world developments with the library's collection of periodicals. Recent articles of interest include a discussion of the lawsuits and scandal surrounding Warhol's posthumous Brillo boxes in ARTnews and highlights from the 2011 ALI/ABA Legal Issues in Museum Administration conference in the Art Newspaper.  Fisher Fine Arts is also a great place to study or you can take a break from your books to stop by the Arthur Ross Gallery on the main floor and catch a show for free.  "An American Odyssey:  The Warner Collection of American Art" is currently on view. 

If you're interested in cultural heritage and the law (or are just a nerd for museums, like me), it's well worth the trip to the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology's library. The collection of law books is small, but varied and interesting. Thinking About the Elgin Marbles: Critical Essays on Cultural Property, Art and Law, is one title that caught my eye. You'll also find books and resources on museum law and relevant publications, such Museum Anthropology, a journal of the Council for Museum Anthropology (a recent issue contained multiple articles on NAGPRA, the North American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act). 

On the web, art law blogs abound and here is the cream of the crop:

o The Art Law Blog, written by Donn Zaretsky of John Silberman Associates.

o Clancco, by artist, lawyer and Associate Director of Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento.

o The Cardozo School of Law Art Law Society's blog.

o Spencer's Art Law Journal, written by Ronald D. Spencer of Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP, published several times per year on artnet.

Law journals related to the arts, such as the UCLA Entertainment Law Review and the Columbia Journal for Law and the Arts, are available to students through Lexis, Westlaw or HeinOnline. WestlawNext additionally allows you to sort for and browse through intellectual Property journals and their most recent articles, or you can navigate right to the journal of your choice. If you're working on a cross-disciplinary project, remember that you can access e-journals and article databases organized by subject (including art and art history) via Penn Libraries.

Looking for even more information? Check out a comprehensive list of art law resources compiled by the Georgetown Law Library.

Photo: Some rights reserved by SnapsterMax

Jennifer Huck is the Systems and Emerging Technologies Librarian at Biddle.  She supports the online library system and leverages new and existing technologies in support of library services. She recently obtained her Masters of Library and Information Science (’11) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she also earned a MS in Sociology (’06).  Additionally, she earned a BA from Macalester College ('04) in St. Paul.  Jenn enjoys yoga, knitting, and reading, especially popular science, food writing, and Scandinavian crime fiction.

Leslie O'Neill is the Archivist at Biddle. She received her Masters in Library and Information Science from Drexel University, and her Bachelors in Fine Art Photography from Temple University's Tyler School of Art. Leslie previously worked in the Philadelphia area in the archives of institutions such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Mutter Museum, the City Archives of Philadelphia, and Bryn Mawr College. When she is not rummaging through record cartons, Leslie works in animal rescue and can found both fostering and photographing homeless animals. She also enjoys traveling, and counts Argentina and Greece as two of her favorite destinations.