Thursday, November 15, 2012

Prince's Bieber Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations - Collection Highlight

Todays collection highlight is treatise on a subject or a reporter full of cases but a finding tool name "Prince's Beiber Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations". Amazon Link / Lawcat Link

Biebers, as most people call it, is the go to resource when you are having difficulty determining what an abbreviation means that you have found in a case or a law review OR what the abbreviation should be if you are trying to properly shorten something in a product you are creating. This second scenario obviously also implicates the Bluebook or ALWD manual but Biebers can also help.

Basically the way the main function of Biebers works is through what is what they term a forward dictionary and a reverse dictionary. The forward dictionary allows the user to look up an abbreviation, e.g. "Benn." The notation with "Benn." is Bennett's Reports (1 California), Bennett's Reports (1 Dakota), Bennett's Reports (16-21 Missouri). Biebers is clarifying for you that "Benn." stands for Bennetts and and is providing a few examples to show this.

The reverse dictionary portion can also be very useful, e.g. if you do not know the proper abbreviation for "Alexander's Texas Digest" you simply look it up in the reverse dictionary and it provides "Alex. Dig." is the proper abbreviation.

The most recent copy of Prince's Bieber Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations can be found at the Reference Desk on the 2nd floor of the Law Library. Also, a quick note about the quirky name is that Mary Miles Prince is the editor that puts together what was previously just referred to as Biebers Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations.

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