1993
The list which follows is not comprehensive but is intended as a sample of the kinds of unusual resources available in all areas of the Library.
American Civil Liberties Union records and publications,
1917 - 1975. (1976). Glen Rock, NJ: Microfilming
Corporation of America. [microfilm]. John Jay has
updates for 1978 & 1980.
(Special Collections KF 4742.3 .A5 1976)
The ACLU is a private, non-partisan organization dedicated to the protection of the Bill of Rights. Started in 1920, the ACLU provides legal council for cases involving civil liberties, issues public statements, testifies before legislative committees, conducts educational programs, and publishes numerous pamphlets and a monthly newsletter. It has fought many well- publicized battles to ensure individual rights and freedoms, including the Scopes trial, the Sacco-Vanzetti case, the Scottsboro case, Brown v. the Board of Education, and the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Over the years, the ACLU has been active in thousands of cases dealing with the issues of academic freedom, desegregation, separation of church and state, due process, capital punishment, labor unions, and McCarthyism.
Consisting of 90 reels of microfilm, this collection chronicles the development and history of the ACLU. The material is sorted into nine series: Minutes of the Board of Directors, Mailings to the Board of Directors, Biennial Conference Papers, Policy Guides, National Legal Dockets, Organizational Manuals, the Constitution and Bylaws, Legal Briefs, and Publications.
The Legal Briefs series includes partial records for over 1,600 court cases. Since the ACLU has been directly involved or has filed amicus curiae briefs in nearly every important civil rights case in the U.S. since 1920, these briefs could be an enlightening and exciting addition to student research. (Another valuable Library resource for this type of information is Landmark briefs and arguments of the Supreme Court of the United States: Constitutional law [Ref. Law KF 101.9 .K8]. This large set includes the briefs and arguments of selected cases from 1793 to the present in the field of constitutional law.)
User guides are available for the basic ACLU microfilm set, and for the 1978 update (Spec. Coll. KF 4742.3 .A5). The guides provide a brief history of the ACLU, a description of the collection arrangement, and a reel list for locating individual items. There are subject and chronological indexes for the Legal Briefs series.
American state trials: A collection of the important and
interesting criminal trials which have taken place in
the U.S., from the beginning of our government.
[1972]. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources.
(Reference Law KF 220 .L38 1972)
This 17-volume set presents important trials that have taken place in the United States from 1657 to 1920. Among the familiar cases included are: the Massachusetts witch trials, the Dred Scott trial, the trial of train robber Frank James, the prosecution of runaway slave Anthony Burns, the trials of the murderers of Presidents Garfield and McKinley, and the Susan B. Anthony case for women's voting.
A combination of sources was used to compile the information on each trial. No formally published records were kept of these cases since they were from the lower courts or legislative bodies. Cases which generated heavy public interest were usually reported at length in newspapers. Sometimes pamphlets were published on the more infamous cases. Court records, evidence and legal briefs were also used to create the accounts included. Cases presented are not only from ordinary courts of justice, but include courts martial, courts of impeachment and ecclesiastical tribunals.
A lengthy preface to each volume recounts the significance of each case. Each case is presented in sections: the narrative (facts of the case), the trial, witnesses for each side, speeches by each attorney, the verdict, and an account of the sentence.
There appears to be no logic to the arrangement of the set, but access to the trials is provided by An index to the American State trials (Ref. Law KF 220 .L382) which indexes the trials by date, state, crime and name. The Name Index includes defendants, judges, lawyers, witnesses, victims, and plaintiffs.
Complaints and arrests. (1972, 1975 - ).
New York: New York, (N.Y.). Police Dept.
(Reference HV 7597 .B32)
Complaints and arrests is a statistical report issued twice each year by the New York City Police Department. It presents data on the number of complaints and arrests logged citywide, by each command borough, and by precinct. Each issue has five sections: the Crime Index, Crime Complaints (organized by the time of day and the days of the week), Arrests, Summonses, and the Crime Comparison Report. Statistics reported include all police agencies within New York City (Transit, Housing, Port Authority, etc.).
Complaints and arrests uses the guidelines of the Uniform Crime Reporting Committee (FBI) and the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services in classifying and scoring offenses.
The Crime Index section cumulates statistics for seven of the most serious crimes which have a high likelihood of being reported. This serves as a basis for comparison between different locales. The offenses listed are: murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny theft, and motor vehicle theft. Data is presented for each borough command and for the entire city.
The Crime Comparison Report (Section V) is the most voluminous because it shows data for each precinct. Tables list offenses and provide data for complaints, arrests, and the total number of cases cleared. All tables provide statistics for the previous year as well as the current year.
Complete oral arguments of the Supreme Court of the
United States. Frederick, MD: University
Publications of America. [microfiche].
(Reference Law KF 101.9 .C65)
This is a microfiche collection of the official transcripts of all the oral arguments presented before the Supreme Court from 1969 to the present. The collection is arranged chronologically by year, and within each year by docket number. Printed indexes (Law Ref. KF 101.9 .C652) are available up to 1986/87 with access to case name and docket number. For subsequent years, a case name index is provided on index cards in the boxes preceding the fiche for that year. The collection is valuable as an additional source of information about Supreme Court cases.
Criminal justice / NCCD microfiche collection.
(Microfiche Cabinets AC 1 .C7)
The National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) is an independent, private, nonprofit organization focusing on juvenile and adult corrections. This organization develops and implements policies and programs that promote public safety by reducing crime and delinquency. NCCD has been responsible for developing public policy on criminal justice issues, publishing new ideas in these fields, setting performance standards, training volunteers and professionals, developing alternatives to traditional criminal justice system processes, and carrying out major research projects.
A special resource of the NCCD, the Library is housed at Rutgers University. Since its inception in 1909, NCCD has gathered material in many formats including periodicals, newspaper clippings, books, state and federal documents, dissertations, studies, and published and unpublished reports.
The Criminal justice / NCCD Microfiche collection consists of over 4,000 items selected from the NCCD Library. These are mainly documents and reports which were never formally published or were printed in very limited numbers. The full text of these documents is given and the collection is valued because many of the documents are unavailable elsewhere. The collection is now only being published every five years.
Records for these items have been entered into CUNY+, the Lloyd Sealy Library's online catalog. When searching for a topic by subject (s=) or keyword (k=), these NCCD reports will be retrieved along with other relevant items.
English criminal biographies, 1651 - 1722.
(Special Collections Room)
In the early 18th Century, criminal biography was a popular genre intended for the working class reader. The biographies were generally short, simple, and topical. Interest in these murderers, thieves and bigamists was rampant at that time and was inflamed by frequent public executions. Authors varied their portrayal of these criminals. Some biographies were laudatory, some ironic, some critical. Most were written in a comic tone. Dates and events were not always accurate but the names of people and places were carefully kept. The existence of the 32 criminal "heroes" included in this collection can be proven through historical documents. However, it is thought that fictitious events were added to each biography as well.
Robert R. Singleton donated his collection of 58 English criminal biographies and autobiographies to the Lloyd Sealy Library. He gathered this material from various libraries including the British Museum, the Library of Congress, and many public and university libraries for his dissertation, Defoe and criminal biography (John Jay Stacks PR 3408 .P6 S55 1969a).
The collection consists of both photocopies and microfilm. A chronological finding list and a helpful journal article are stored with the collection.
Students studying English history or literature, deviant behavior, forensic psychology, or the history of crime or criminology, and writers of fiction or mysteries would find this collection fascinating. Materials may be used in the Library Special Collections Room by appointment.
NCJRS microfiche collection. (1975- ).
Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Law Enforcement
Assistance Administration, National Criminal Justice Reference
Service. NCJRS CD-ROM (1975 - ) Updated quarterly.
(Microfiche Cabinets AC 1 .N2)
This collection consists of microfiche copies of the full text of selected reports and documents chosen from the library collection of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS). Many of the reports and documents included in the microfiche set are not available through conventional sources since they were never formally published. The obscure nature of much of this material makes the collection particularly valuable. To date, approximately 25,000 items have been released on microfiche.
NCJRS is a branch of the National Institute of Justice which acts as an international clearinghouse for the exchange of criminal justice information. Created in 1972, NCJRS collects, disseminates, and supplies research results worldwide on all aspects of crime and criminal justice. Subjects covered include child abuse, corrections, courts, crime prevention, dispute resolution, domestic violence, drugs and crime, juvenile justice, law enforcement, sexual assault, and victimization. Relevant foreign documents are also collected.
Access to the entire NCJRS collection is available through the NCJRS CD-ROM located in the John Jay Reference Area. Each record furnishes complete bibliographic information plus an abstract. John Jay owns paper copies of many of the indexed books, journals, and reports, and of course all documents included in the microfiche collection.
Check for John Jay's holding of books, journals and reports on the DPAC database in CUNY+, the Library's online catalog. Documents not owned by John Jay or part of the microfiche collection can be borrowed from NCJRS through interlibrary loan.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. papers. (1985).
Frederick, MD: University Publications of America.
[microfilm]. (Special Collections KF 8745 .H6 A4 1985)
The papers of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. were donated to Harvard Law School which has made them available on 72 reels of microfilm. The collection, which spans the years 1761 through 1935, consists of more than 29,000 items related to Holmes and his family. Most of the private, personal correspondence received by Justice Holmes was apparently destroyed, so this collection features mainly correspondence of a more general nature, and letters which he sent to others.
His correspondents included Presidents Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt and Taft; Supreme Court Justices Brandeis, Cardozo, Frankfurter, Hughes, and Stone as well as many other prominent individuals of the day. Items in the collection include letters, diaries, drafts of writings, autographs, photos, clippings, pamphlets, planograph copies, maps, memorabilia, notebooks, calendars, judicial papers, and Holmes' Supreme Court opinions from 1902 through 1931. A user guide shelved near the collection lists the items and their location on the microfilm.
Materials collected by Mark De Wolfe Howe and John G. Palfrey (the executor of Holmes' estate) are also part of this collection. They include materials from the death of Justice Holmes to the death of Mark De Wolfe Howe in 1967. The bulk of these papers consists of correspondence, biographical and family material, and Howe's research material. Howe, a legal historian, was a biographer of Justice Holmes as well as one of his last law secretaries, and collected material on Justice Holmes extensively.
Pamphlets in American history microfiche set - Civil
liberties. [1982]. Sanford, NC: Microfilming
Corp. of America. [microfiche].
(Special Collections E 178 .P25)
Pamphlets in American history gathers together pamphlets on subjects in United States social, political, and economic history dating from the Revolutionary War. Despite the historical significance of these pamphlets, access to materials of this type is often difficult. They were usually printed in limited runs and many end up in private collections or in historical society libraries. Others are in uncataloged vertical files in public or university libraries. This microfiche collection and accompanying print index, Pamphlets in American history: A bibliographic guide (Spec. Coll. E 178 .P252 1979), make these valuable materials accessible.
John Jay owns "Civil Liberties", a portion of the Pamphlets in American history. This section consists of 324 titles mostly from the 20th century. Pamphlets vary in length and contain mostly primary source material published by the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Civil Liberties Bureau, the National Council on Freedom from Censorship, the NAACP, and other organizations. Some topics of interest are conscientious objectors, political prisoners, deportation laws, motion picture censorship, electronic surveillance, capital punishment, labor strikes, and prisoners' rights.
This collection would be an interesting source for students of speech, literature and composition as well as those in American history, criminal justice, and legal studies.
Police blotters: New York City Police
Department. [1916 - 1935].
(Stacks Lower Level)
This collection of original police blotters was donated to the Library by the New York City Police Department. A blotter is the daily record of arrests and other occurrences kept by each precinct, usually by the desk officer. This collection is not comprehensive. All precincts are not represented or each year covered. However, researchers can get a feel for what policing was like at that time by browsing a sample of these blotters.
Raymond G. McCarthy memorial collection of the alcohol
literature. (1935- ). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
Center of Alcohol Studies. [microfiche].
(Microfiche Cabinets AC 1 .R3)
Early literature in alcohol studies was collected by the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies. From this collection the Center produced three tools to access the literature: the Classified abstract archive of the alcohol literature, the Journal of studies on alcohol (formerly known as the Quarterly journal of studies on alcohol), and the International bibliography of studies on alcohol (Ref. HV 5035 .I5).
The Raymond G. McCarthy Memorial Collection of the Alcohol Literature was also prepared by the Rutgers Center. Named for the Director of the Rutgers Summer School of Alcohol Studies, this microfiche collection consists of 19,000 full-text documents selected from the Classified abstract archive... mentioned above. The McCarthy collection consists predominantly of scholarly periodical literature from the period 1935 - 1976. The collection is broken into three sections: Section A includes the years 1935 - 1950, Section B covers 1951 - 1965, and Section C covers 1966 - 1976. Significant historical review articles which predate 1935 are included in Section A. International in scope, documents in other languages are preceded by abstracts in English. Prior to 1940, subject content was concentrated on the biological sciences, psychology, psychiatry and clinical medicine. After this date, the subject scope widened to include the social sciences.
The Raymond G. McCarthy memorial collection of the alcohol literature inventory/contents is a guide to the microfiche (Ref. HV 5035 .R392). It is alphabetically arranged by author and does not offer subject access. International bibliography of studies on alcohol is the easiest tool to use for subject access to the McCarthy collection. However, this bibliography only covers materials up to 1960. No good subject source for alcohol studies exists for the subsequent years. This is not an easy collection to use, but it is a rich resource for the serious researcher of alcohol addiction studies.
Selected research in microfiche (SRIM).
Springfield, VA: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, National Technical
Information Service. (Microfiche Cabinets AC 1 .S2)
This is a collection of reports issued by the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), a federal agency acting as a clearinghouse for technical report literature. NTIS gathers, stores, indexes, and markets technical reports produced or sponsored by the United States government. The SRIM collection consists of selected full-text technical reports in numerous subject fields customized to each institution. John Jay receives biweekly reports in fire science, drug and alcohol studies, disaster planning, criminal justice, emergency preparedness and hazardous materials.
A customized index is produced for each institution called the SRIM index (located near the CD-ROM Network in Reference Area). This cumulative index is issued quarterly, and includes subject, personal and corporate author, title, report number, and grant number indexes. Technical report literature, often overlooked by researchers, is a rich and valuable source of information.
Slavery. (1980). Sanford, NC: Microfilming
Corp. of America. [microfiche].
(Special Collections HT 861 .M5)
This collection gathers together primary source material consisting of pamphlets, parts of books, and periodicals, on slavery worldwide. John Jay has three of the 31 distinct subject series available: the Dred Scott Case, Slavery and the Constitution, and Slavery and the Law. The majority of this material is from the 19th century.
Slavery: a bibliographic guide to the microfiche collection (Ref. HT 861 .M52) is an alphabetical listing arranged by author, but with no subject access. Browsing through the fiche itself is easily done and more stimulating than using the guide. The complete set, Slavery, may be found at the New York Public Library.
Students in courses as varied as history, African American studies, sociology, legal studies and human rights will find these documents a fascinating picture of the real world of the 19th century.
Tuskegee Institute news clipping file. (1976).
Tuskegee, AL: Division of Behavioral Science Research,
Carver Research Foundation, Tuskegee Institute.
(Special Collections E 185.5 .T77)
The Tuskegee Institute was established in 1881 by Booker T. Washington as a training school for Black teachers. In 1908, a department within the Institute, Records and Research, was created to gather, organize, and disseminate information relating to Blacks in the United States, Africa, and other parts of the world, by maintaining a vertical file of news clippings and other materials. The file covers the years 1899 through 1966 but few items predate 1910. News clippings were selected from 300 to 500 publications which included the major national daily newspapers, the leading Southeastern dailies, the major Black newspapers and several less prominent ones, magazines, and religious and special interest publications. Clippings were not collected from all the Black newspapers but several from each region of the country were consistently searched. In some years a significant portion of the material was provided by clipping bureaus.
The collection consists of 252 reels of film divided into three sections or series; the Main File, the Miscellaneous File, and the Negro Yearbooks. The bulk of the collection (220 reels) is the Main File. It is arranged chronologically by year, and then alphabetically by subject. The Miscellaneous File includes the material on lynching, slavery, emancipation celebrations, the historical data file, and other topics. Series III contains 10 editions of the Negro yearbook.
The Guide to the microfilm edition of the Tuskegee Institute news clipping file (Spec. Coll. E 185.5 .T772 1978) describes the collection's history and arrangement, and includes a subject index.
The format of the material in this collection is easily read and understood. It has a chronological arrangement with subject access, making use easy for even inexperienced researchers. This collection is highly recommended for use in all levels of relevant courses at John Jay.
Urban documents collection. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press. [microfiche].
Microfiche Cabinets AC 1 .C82
This collection is a valuable source of information about the operation of major cities and counties in the U.S. It consists of selected full-text documents from local governments defined as municipalities, authorities, counties, special districts, regional councils, and other regional agencies. State documents may also be incorporated if they deal with cities or counties. Subject emphasis is on those publications concerned with public affairs, specifically on social, political, economic, or public administration issues. The types of material contained include: budgets, local planning documents, demographic statistics, environmental impact statements, annual reports, and zoning documents. Much of the material is based on SMSAs - Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas.
John Jay receives all New York City documents in the collection, plus documents related to criminal justice and fire science from all covered municipalities. Additional fiche can easily be obtained on request. Also, the New York Public Library has the entire collection at the Social Science division of the Research Library
The printed Index to current urban documents (Index Area AI 1 .I42) provides subject and geographic access to the microfiche documents. Entries in the geographic index are listed by city or county. This source enables researchers to gather local information on places from which the Library receives no newspapers.
For access to the collection, contact Prof. Ellen Belcher, Special Collections Librarian via e-mail at ebelcher@jjay.cuny.edu
or by mail at the Lloyd Sealy Library, John Jay College of Criminal Justice,
899 Tenth Avenue, New York, NY 10019.
Last updated 7/96.