Internet Reviews

Joni R. Roberts and Carol Drost

Joni R. Roberts is associate university librarian for public services and collection development at Willamette University, email: jroberts@willamette.edu, and Carol A. Drost is associate university librarian for technical services at Willamette University, email: cdrost@willamette.edu.

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Access: https://www.nacdl.org/.

Founded in 1958, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) is a non-governmental organization of private lawyers, law faculty, public defenders, and other legal entities. The NACDL advocates for the rights of the accused. In the image of other civil rights organizations like the ACLU, the “NACDL is committed to enhancing the capacity of the criminal defense bar to safeguard fundamental constitutional rights.” Their website is a robust and versatile repository of information despite the large amount of proprietary content. Volumes of legal guides and encyclopedias are available for purchase through the NACDL Press. Practice resources are provided for members and cannot be accessed by the public. These resources cover concepts like postconviction litigation, microscopic evidence, forensics, and other topics that a practicing defense lawyer might find useful. “Policy priorities” are featured for free to non-members and address current legal debates and policy recommendations.

Membership in the NACDL provides access to The Champion, the NACDL’s trade journal. The Champion provides in-depth legal analysis of civil and criminal defense cases. Most of the trade journal’s content is behind a membership wall. However, some of the articles can be accessed through the organization’s Fourth Amendment Center, which focuses on case scenarios and arguments concerning search and seizure rights. These articles could be very helpful for academic opinion papers or for members of the public looking to research Fourth Amendment issues.

One of the more useful components of the Fourth Amendment Center website focuses on technology’s impact on criminal investigations and the right to privacy. Issues like facial recognition, body cameras, digital location tracking, and predictive policing are addressed in documentation that is freely available. YouTube videos of webinars on these issues are available without membership. This content could be very informative to a paralegal or law student, a defense lawyer, or a private citizen conducting informal research.

A newsletter announcing recent additions to content is published online monthly. Podcasts are publicly available that address legal issues. The episodes typically feature legal professionals, law professors, and other juridical experts examining important legal scenarios. Several episodes have a “true crime” tone. They are concise, informative, and professionally produced. Any patron with interests in the law would find these interesting and relevant.

Finally, NACDL provides an excellent directory of defense lawyers. This directory is searchable by name, city, and state. More useful is the radius and practice area search. A user can enter a zip code, a preferred mileage radius, and select a practice area for a defense attorney. There are several practice areas to select from that patrons could find useful if contacting a librarian to locate legal counsel.

Despite operating as a professional membership organization, NACDL provides valuable and relevant access to information that both academic and public librarians would find useful and accessible.—Christopher M. Hulsman, SUNY Buffalo State University, hulsmacm@buffalostate.edu

Yiddish Book Center. Access: https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/.

When Aaron Lansky was a graduate student at McGill University in the 1970s, he encountered difficulty locating the books he needed for the courses he was taking in Yiddish literature. He decided to take a leave of absence from his studies and began collecting Yiddish books. Lansky went on to gather approximately 1.5 million books. This large collection later became the Yiddish Book Center, now housed on the campus of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. The center preserves and teaches Yiddish literature and culture to provide a fuller understanding of Jewish history and identity.

The toolbar on the center’s homepage provides access to the Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library, a collection of approximately 11,000 Yiddish titles available to read online or download. Readily available are works by well-known authors such as Mondel Mocher Sforim, the grandfather of Yiddish literature, Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer, as well as Sholem Aleichem’s complete works.

The “Digital Library and Collections” link also provides access to the Wexler Oral History Project, a collection of more than 300 interviews (in English) about Yiddish language and culture. Here, the singer Anthony Russell reflects on his experience as an African American Jew, and Henry Robak remembers living in the Warsaw ghetto and recounts his escape from its horrors. Further, students of world music will find dozens of interviews on klezmer, which includes Yiddish folk music as well as music from Yiddish theater. Patrons can also purchase books at the Yiddish Book Center Store. A recent addition from the Yiddish Book Center’s White Goat Press is the comprehensive and award-winning Yiddish textbook In eynem (2020).

Public librarians or academic libraries sponsoring reading groups will discover a wealth of material at the Yiddish Book Center. Under the “Discover” tab on the homepage, librarians and patrons can find “Stories of Exile” Reading Groups for Public Libraries 2023, which is meant to introduce the reading public to Yiddish literature and prompt discussion about displacement within the context of war and political upheaval, two vital contemporary topics.

Researchers interested in Yiddish and Jewish history and culture will find this site valuable.—Wendell. G. Johnson, Northern Illinois University, wjohnso1@niu.edu