Events

Join CBI's 2023-2024 Tomash Fellow Alex Reiss-Sorokin, Ph.D. Candidate in History, Anthropology, Science, Technology, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), presenting her paper From Research to Search: Legal Research Technologies, 1964-1994.

This virtual event is free and open to the public.

Registration closes at 12 CST on Monday, April 29.

Register

Abstract: This talk interrogates how lawyers who traditionally relied on books came to use and trust computers for their work. I focus on the evolution of the Ohio Bar Automated Research (OBAR) System, a local legal research system developed for small Ohio firms, into LexisNexis, a national service better suitable for Big Law's needs (and pockets). As early plans for automating legal practice emerged in the 1960s United States, lawyers’ work became an object of empirical and technical interest. It was not long before the interest in lawyers’ traditional legal research practices waned, and the emphasis moved to the many systems developed in the 1960s to “automate” legal research. In the process of developing the OBAR system, normative disagreements were recast as technical decisions in the process of developing OBAR/Lexis. Legal research was stripped of its social and political implications and remade as legal “search,” a stand-alone, general skill. In particular, the talk focuses on the developers' and users' competing notions of trust and credibility, tracing the “techniques of trust” that enabled the spread and ascent of OBAR/Lexis.

Correspondence, letters, notes, messages, mail – there are many words for these materials that comprise the backbone of the archives. This year we will uplift the humble letters that pepper our collections. 

Please register to attend in person or online. ASL interpreters will be present for all First Fridays events.

Light buffet lunch at 11:30 a.m. | Presentations begin at noon | A tour of the archival caverns will follow the presentation. 

Please register to attend in person or online. (Registration for the May event opens on March 1.) ASL interpreters will be present for all First Fridays events.

How to Handle Hate Mail (rescheduled from Dec. 1)

Presented by Kate Dietrick, Archivist, Upper Midwest Jewish Archives

The Jewish community has dealt with various types of antisemitism for decades. But what do you do if you’ve received hate through the post? We’ll dive into the materials of the Jewish Community Relations Council and learn how they have historically handled hate mail, and why we would want to preserve these hate-filled documents in the archives.

Thank You for Your Contributions!

Presented by Tim Johnson, Curator, Sherlock Holmes Collections

2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the Sherlock Holmes Collections, a “collection of collections” developed over the years by many contributions from members of the Sherlockian community. This presentation will explore some of the letters which paint a picture of how the Holmes collections grew over the last five decades.

About

First Fridays is made possible by a generous gift from Governor Elmer L. Andersen and Mrs. Eleanor Andersen in honor of former University Librarian Dr. Edward B. Stanford.