Legal Research

Protecting Jobs in the Good Old AAUP Way

Posted on September 25, 2009
In the September/October 2009 edition of the Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors, John Buschman blasts the American Library Association for failing to protect the intellectual freedom of librarians. the ALA should defend librarians just as the American...

More Friday fun - Westlaw videos feature stress-toy abuse

Posted on September 25, 2009
Westlaw has a pair of promotional videos demonstrating how using its online research products can help reduce office-related stress. We must warn you, though, some of the images in these videos are very disturbing. You may not want to watch...

Putting West and LexisNexis Case Law Digesting Systems to the Relevancy Test

Posted on September 24, 2009
Susan Nevelow Mart's (Faculty Services Librarian, UC Hastings Law Library) has uploaded Reining in the Results: The Use of Human Indexing and Computer Algorithms in West?s Headnotes & Key Numbers and LexisNexis?s Headnotes & Topics as Tools for Finding Relevant...

What's Old is New Again: Reading by Flipping Pages Thumbnails Offered by Google Fast Flip

Posted on September 24, 2009
The Official Google Blog announced the launched of Google Fast Flip. Essentially, we're talking about navigating an aggregation of partnered newspapers and magazines by flipping through a series of thumbnail images of content organized by broad topics like sections of...

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CRS Report on Access to Government Information

Posted on September 24, 2009
Access to Government Information In the United States (Aug. 31, 2009) provides an overview of federal records and meeting access statutes, the Freedom of Information Act, the Privacy Act, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, and the Government in the Sunshine...

Extortion or Bad Joke: Make a Donation or RWU Law Will Interrupt Alums' Family Dinner Time with Phone Calls

Posted on September 24, 2009
Strange but true. Above the Law has republished this message from Rogers Williams School of Law: Subject: A quiet dinner - from RWU Law At Roger Williams University School of Law, we understand the importance of family time. Our fall...

Who Let the Marketing Dogs of War In? AALL Spectrum Article by West Defines Pragmatic, Competent Vendors

Posted on September 24, 2009
I didn't know there was a synergy between the library community and West until I read Leveraging the Synergy of the Librarian and the Vendor in the Sept./Oct. 2009 issue of AALL Spectrum. Written by Michael Orrick, VP of Law...

Pay-for-Publication: How Equitable is the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity?

Posted on September 23, 2009
The Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity supports "equity" of scholarly publishing business models by committing each university to "the timely establishment of durable mechanisms for underwriting reasonable publication charges for articles written by its faculty and published in fee-based open-access...

Balancing DMCA Take-Downs with Put-Backs Based on Fair Use

Posted on September 23, 2009
Looking for Fair Use in the DMCA's Safety Dance, 3 Akron Intellectual Property Journal 119 (2009) [SSRN] by Ira S. Nathenson offers a detailed analysis and argument for a "fair-use friendly" way of reading the DMCA to better protect users...

Internet Content Factoids

Posted on September 23, 2009
Slaw's David Canton writes "before you click on the link, take a guess at how long it would take you to read the entire internet if you printed it off, or how much area that paper would cover." And here's...

Felony Stupidity in Facebook Use

Posted on September 23, 2009
Jonathan G. Parker, 19, of Fort Loudoun, PA, was arraigned last week on one count of felony burglary for breaking into a home and stealing two diamond rings valued at more than $3,500. Not news, but how Parker was caught...

Google Book Settlement Hearing Likely Postponed

Posted on September 23, 2009
The parties in the Google Book Settlement proceedings have asked the Court to postpone the October 7th hearing while they work out details based on the objections raised by the Department of Justice and other parties. The brief notes 400...

Legal Research Instruction Must Extend Beyond the First Year

Posted on September 22, 2009
Kudos to Brooke Bowman, Assistant Professor of Legal Skills, Stetson, for reiterating the argument for advanced legal research instructions law librarians know all to well. In Researching Across the Curriculum: the Road Must Continue Beyond the First Year, 61 Okla...

Personalizing Search: On the Irreconcilable Differences Between Libraries and Commercial SE Providers

Posted on September 22, 2009
Does your public access workstations contain a Google search toolbar in the workstations' browsers? Do you delete the Google cookie on their hard drives? The answer to the first question problem probably is "yes" but probably should be "no" unless...

Google Book Settlement: Not Exactly Topic of the Nation but Featured Topic on NPR's Talk of the Nation

Posted on September 22, 2009
NPR's Talk of the Nation, hosted by Neal Conan, features a discussion about the Google Book Settlement with guests Daphne Keller, managing product counsel for Google Books, EFF staff attorney Fred Von Lohmann and WSJ staff reporter Jessica Vascellaro...

Get Your Punk On with Dirty Librarian Chains

Posted on September 22, 2009
When's the last time you read anything in Elle that strung the words "dirty" and "librarian" and "chains" together? Ah, well, perhaps quite regularly but then I don't read Elle because I've reduced my fashion choices to binary options: black...

A Bit More on the FCC's Net Neutrality Push

Posted on September 22, 2009
The ISP reactions are in. Ars Technica has a nice survey of the major company statements. They tend to be surprisingly positive about the FCC's proposals. And why not? Strategically this is too early to come out with a confrontational...

MIT students create "gaydar" program for Facebook - raises privacy concerns

Posted on September 22, 2009
As part of a class project for a course on Internet ethics and law, two MIT students created software that they say can predict whether a male is gay or straight based on who he has "friended" on Facebook. They...

Back Inside the Cave: Eyebrows Raised Over Shadows Presented in Boston College Law Prof's Anti-Gay Marriage Ad

Posted on September 21, 2009
In body language talk, raised eyebrows signal surprise and dismay and that's how BC law prof Scott Fitzgibbon punctuates his anti-gay marriage commercial attaching Maine's gay marriage ballot proposition after stating that "homosexual marriage will be taught in public schools...

Findings from Survey of Law School Legal Research Programs

Posted on September 21, 2009
First off, I'd like to thank Joe for this opportunity. Our library has recently been discussing the skills we'd like our students to have at different stages in their legal education. So, we decided to poll other law school libraries...

Securing the Federal Cloud

Posted on September 21, 2009
On September 15th, the federal government officially launched Apps.Gov, the "one-stop source for cloud services" for federal agencies to quickly browse and purchase cloud-based IT services in the hope of reducing the $75 billion a year the federal government spends...

Patry's Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars

Posted on September 21, 2009
About Google Senior Copyright Counsel William Patry's Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars (Oxford UP, Sept. 3, 2009), Carl Malamud writes "Patry makes real policy prescriptions and emphasizes hard economic data, combined with his characteristic morality, innovation, and learning...

Opening: Faculty Services and Outreach Librarian, Valparaiso Law Library

Posted on September 21, 2009
The Valparaiso University School of Law Library invites applications for the newly-created position of Faculty Services and Outreach Librarian. Responsibilities: The Faculty Services and Outreach Librarian will coordinate library services to the law faculty, develop continuing legal education programming and...

Kudos to Terry Martin, Kumar Jayasuriya and Erika Wayne

Posted on September 21, 2009
And to the 900-plus law librarians, legal scholars, government depository librarians and others who signed the Improve PACER Petition! Legal Research Plus is reporting that the petition was delivered to he Administrative Office of the United States Courts...

FCC Chair Promotes Net Neutrality Rules in Speech

Posted on September 21, 2009
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski gave a widely anticipated speech today at the Brookings Institution which announced his intention to formalize principles of net neutrality in the Commission rules. There are four principles the Commission adopted in 2005 which give it...

Free e-textbooks don't hurt online sales according to recent report

Posted on September 21, 2009
The Chronicle of Higher Ed is reporting that a recent British study found that the availability of free e-textbooks doesn't hurt hardcopy sales. Not surprisingly, one publisher is questions that conclusion arguing instead that print sales have in fact been...

Website that catalogs Texas executions including the last words of condemned prisoners

Posted on September 21, 2009
If this doesn't send a chill down your spine, nothing will. In a recent Op-Ed piece, the New York Times published excerpts from a Texas Department of Criminal Justice website that iincludes the last words of condemned prisoners. Here's the...

RiP! A Remix Manifesto

Posted on September 20, 2009
Brett Gaylor explores "issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers." That's the brief description provided for RiP! A Remix Manifesto on Hulu. The....

DOJ Opposes Google Book Settlement Terms, Not the Settlement

Posted on September 19, 2009
The Department of Justice has issued their brief in the Google Book Settlement case late Friday. The United States is opposed to the settlement in its present form. Compared to some of the commercial critics out there, the brief is...

Google Has Easter Eggs

Posted on September 19, 2009
We've come to love, or at least be amused by Easter eggs in DVD menus. These are hidden content on a disc that's displayed by following undocumented combinations of navigation steps using a DVD remote. Here's an Easter egg from...

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