Legal Research

New Use for Discarded Books

Posted on March 04, 2010
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is highlighting law librarian Kathy Kelly, who works at Knox, McLaughlin, Cornall & Sennett, in an article in the February 28, 2010 edition. Kelly's firm discards many books every year. She uses them to create purses and laptop computer cases that she has dubbed BookBags...

Back from Tunisia

Posted on March 04, 2010
We went to Tunisia over winter break. We wanted to go to someplace exotic that would be unlike any place we had visited before. Tunisia fit the bill. Many (most?) visitors visit Tunisia for its Mediterranean shoreline (over 800 miles long) and stunning beaches, but we wanted to see Tunisia's fabulous collection of Roman ruins, which turned out to be the best of any we had seen outside of Italy...

End of Don't Ask/Don't Tell in the Military?

Posted on March 02, 2010
The Chronicle of Higher Education, dated Feb. 26, 2010 has a feature story about the possible end of the military's "don't ask don't tell" policy, which began in 1993, during the Clinton administration. As an attempt to deal with gays in the military, the policy has been a disaster...

RIAA News Roundup

Posted on February 26, 2010
Joel Tenenbaum filed a final brief on Feb. 18, 2010 in Sony BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The link is to his attorneys' thoughtfully posted PDF of the brief. In sum, the lawyers are arguing for relief from the statutory damages of $150,000, stating that the company's lost profit is about 35 cents...

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Clarification on Spectrum Article

Posted on February 26, 2010
Dear OOTJ Readers, Betsy has an article that just came out the the AALL Spectrum, Tracking Research Scents in the Wilderness. The article may inadvertently have caused some confusion, and this blog post is meant to clarify. I mention that Westlaw modified their tabs in response to an article by Julie Jones in AALL Law Library Journal, Not Just Key Numbers and Keywords Anymore: How User Interface Design Affects Legal Research...

Mass Attorney General files Motion for Judgement in DOMA Challenge

Posted on February 21, 2010
The Massachusetts General filed a pre-trial motion for judgement on the complaint in the constitutional challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act in the Federal District Court in Eastern Massachusetts. The case is known as Commonwealth v. Sebelius, et al...

DOJ decision on Torture Memo: not misconduct

Posted on February 20, 2010
The Department of Justice has spent five years investigating and carrying on an internal debate over the torture memos: was it professional misconduct for John Yoo and Jay Bybee to write and sign the memos that permitted the CIA to conduct waterboarding and other torture at Abu Ghraib and other "black ops" interrogation sites? From today's article in the New York Times, by Eric Lichtblau and Scott Shane, The ethics lawyers, in the Office of Professional Responsibility, concluded that two department lawyers involved in analyzing and justifying waterboarding and other interrogation tactics - Jay S...

My Life as a Librarian

Posted on February 19, 2010
My Life as a Librarianhas consisted more of throwing books away than I ever thought it could...has consisted more of budget disasters and red ink than I ever thought it might...has had more personnel awfulness than I ever hoped...and yet...it's still been the best thing that ever happened to me...

Grab Bag of Goodies from Librarians

Posted on February 16, 2010
A couple of sources that are good to bookmark and check back with periodically:ResourceShelf - "A daily newsletter with resources of interest to information professionals, educators and journalists." I'd call it a grab bag of goodies from the web from librarians for librarians...

This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All

Posted on February 10, 2010
This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All, by Marilyn Johnson (Harper 2010) 272 pp. $24.99. The Boston Globe includes a very nice book review of this book today, which brought it to my attention. If you follow the link to Amazon, you can see that the cover features a superhero librarian, which is always a nice change...

Stay! an essay against suicide

Posted on February 07, 2010
The Boston Globe Ideas section today included a very moving essay by poet Jennifer Michael Hecht, adapted from a blog post she wrote at The Best American Poetry (The Lion and The Honey Comb). The Globe article in more polished and easier to read than the original blog post, though, so I recommend you go there...

iPad and E-Textbooks?

Posted on February 05, 2010
The Chronicle of Higher Education, in its Feb. 5, 2010 Technology section (or front page of the print edition), has a story "Tablet May Help E-Textbook Market, Publisher Hope," by Jeffrey R. Young. The story is careful to note as wrong previous rumors that Apple has made agreements with textbook publishers surrounding the new iPad tablet...

More on Westlaw Next: some other voices

Posted on February 05, 2010
Paula Hane, of Information Today, sent me the link to her post on Westlaw Next, dated Feb. 4, 2010. Paula was at the Minnesota "press" early showing that I attended with other librarians and law bloggers. She does a very nice job of adding some depth to the descriptions I have tried to give here, so I recommend you trot over there...

Again, with the Westlaw Next

Posted on February 03, 2010
Pricing don't mean thing if it don't got that Algorithm: As it was explained at this meeting in Eagan (though they may change it, I suppose!), there is no charge at all until you look at a result from the list. So the charge is not based in the Westlaw Next model on the size of the database searched, unlike the model we are used to...

More About Westlaw Next

Posted on February 02, 2010
OK. Well, I?ve had a little time to digest and grieve and generally process the big news that is Westlaw Next. I?m ready to talk a bit more about it.It?s not the end of librarianship or quality in research. While it really does a lot to shore up sloppy queries, by doing away with selection of databases and by constructing much better queries based on ?behind the scenes? searches of West?s indexes, key number system, etc...

Apple iPad adds to e-book platform confusion

Posted on February 01, 2010
The Boston Globe ran a piece today about the new Apple iPad's insistence on its own platform that will not be compatible with other electronic readers. The Associate Press article by Peter Svensson is a nice analysis of the problem that is cropping up, with Amazon's Kindle, and now the Apple iPad insisting on their own independent systems that will not allow users who buy an e-book for one reader to import that book to another reader...

Trial by Ordeal

Posted on January 31, 2010
Today's Boston Globe includes a provocative article entitled, "Justice, medieval style." As history, it is extremely interesting; as public policy, it is questionable. During the medieval era, "Europe's legal systems decided difficult criminal cases in a most peculiar way...

Westlaw Next

Posted on January 27, 2010
Ashlee Vance, Jan. 24, 2010: NY Times Legal Sites Plan Revamps at Rivals Undercut Price Sees the new Westlaw Next as part of the longtime rivalry with Lexis and a new reaction against competition from Google and Microsoft. Jill Schachner Chanen, ABA Journal Exclusive Inside the New Westlaw, Lexis & Bloomberg Platforms pretty much sees the new development the same way, as a reaction against Google and Bloomberg eating at the Westlaw - Lexis "duopoly...

Thirty-five Subscribers

Posted on January 26, 2010
We have blogged recently about the decision by The New York Times and other newspapers to put their content behind pay walls. The justification for this move is to generate revenue that will pay for high-quality news operations; the newspaper management states that they cannot afford to give away their content...

Kindle Experiment in New York

Posted on January 25, 2010
The New York Law Journal ran a first-page story today (unfortunately, I cannot link to it because it requires a subscription) about an experiment unfolding in New York's appellate courts. The Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department, Gail Prudenti, purchased two Kindle DXs to be tested by the court's judges...

Sweet-Tooth-Fairies

Posted on January 24, 2010
Oh Boy, word lovers! Erin McKean, in today's Boston Globe's Ideas "Word" column writes about a new word trick, "Sweet-Tooth-Fairies." Like Mondegreens (a mis-heard word, like "Lady Mondegreen" for "laid him on the green," which is what gave the term its name), or palindromes (which spell the same back and forth, like RACECAR) or Spoonerisms (named for Dr...

E-government Portal!

Posted on January 22, 2010
Tip of the OOTJ hat to BeSpacific: UK Guardian Launches World Government Data Gateway"Search the world?s government data here . Governments around the globe are opening up their data vaults ? allowing you to check out, visualise and analyse the numbers for yourself...

More On Closing Connecticut State Libraries

Posted on January 19, 2010
The Connecticut Superior Court Libraries continue to close! If you are a citizen of Connecticut, please consider signing the petitions! It does not help, alas, if non-citizens sign, so don't clog up the petitions. Here is the latest from our Connecticut colleagues: We wanted to bring to your attention that the Law Libraries at Bridgeport, Litchfield, Hartford, Milford, Norwich and Willimantic in Connecticut are scheduled to close due to budgetary constraints...

The Times to Erect a Pay Wall

Posted on January 18, 2010
In 2007, The New York Times dropped a pay wall after failing to realize expected revenues. Many online readers breathed a sigh of relief, and continued to enjoy the free online content. Now, however, The Times is planning to "announce the introduction of a so-called 'pay wall' before the much-rumoured launch of Apple's new tablet computer, which is thought to be specially designed for easy newspaper reading, on January 27...

Learning Styles Questioned

Posted on January 14, 2010
It is almost an article of faith among educators today that law students have different learning styles that should be accommodated in the classrom in order to maximize engagement and learning. A leading article on this subject is Robin A. Doyle and Rita Dunn, Teaching Law Students Through Individual Learning Styles, 62 Albany Law Review 213 (1998), which is available through SSRN...

A Visit to the Morgan

Posted on January 14, 2010
Yesterday, I visited the Morgan Library in New York City and spent a couple of pleasant hours viewing the exhibit on Jane Austen, my favorite author. The exhibit contained a number of treasures, such as the letter describing Jane's death written by Cassandra Austen to a niece...

Police hide behind privacy statutes

Posted on January 13, 2010
The Boston Globe yesterday had an article about Boston police using a Massachusetts privacy law (Mass. Gen. Law 272 section 99) that requires both parties' consent to audio or video-recording. The statute, similar to those in eleven other states, makes it illegal to record another without their consent...

Save Connecticut State Libraries! Act now!

Posted on January 13, 2010
As you may have already heard, Connecticut's Executive Branch has cut $12.9 million in the budget for the Judicial Branch, forcing the proposed closure of six law libraries across the state. The American Association of Law Libraries and the Southern New England Law Librarians Association are urging residents of Connecticut to join efforts in saving the law libraries of Bridgeport, Litchfield, Milford and Norwich...

Gay Marriage in California - Law Suit Challenging Prop. 8

Posted on January 12, 2010
Two gay couples in California filed suit May, 2009 in federal court in the Northern District of California challenging Proposition 8, the voter-approved ban on gay marriage in that state. Originally, the California court had allowed the proceedings to be viewed over YouTube...

Blio E-reader update

Posted on January 12, 2010
Blio e-reader from Ray Kurzweil caused a lot of buzz before it has been released. It still is not here, though their own website is up and you can sign up for alerts and to be told when it's available. Blio is platform-neutral software that will allow you to read e-books in PDF format on any internet accessible electronic device from your I-pod or cell phone or PDA to your computer or netbook...

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