Legal Research

Judge allows webcam of high profile music case

Posted on January 15, 2009
Click on the title of this post to read an article in Boston Globe about Judge Nancy Gertner allowing a webcam in the courtroom for the high profile case of Boston University graduate student Joel Tennenbaum for illegally downloading music. Tennenbaum's attorney, Prof...

Follow-up on New Research Course

Posted on January 14, 2009
Back on December 10, I blogged about a new course that Pace Law Library was offering during the intersession between semesters. The two-credit course was entitled Advanced Research Skills for Health, Disability, and Elder Law, and was taught by Margaret Moreland, one of our reference librarians...

How mad am I?

Posted on January 13, 2009
What do we owe our profession? What do we owe those who follow after us? I happen to think we owe our profession a great deal. We owe those who follow after us a very great deal. We owe them at least as good a situation as we found, and preferrably, a better situation...

Interview with Professor Lessig

Posted on January 11, 2009
Click here for an interview with Professor Lawrence Lessig, currently a professor at Stanford Law School, where he has earned a reputation as a leading expert on intellectual property. Professor Lessig is moving to Harvard Law School where he will lead the University's Safra Foundation Center for Ethics...

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Update on Clickers in the Classroom

Posted on January 10, 2009
Reading the story reproduced below from the Chronicle of Higher Education reminded me that I was going to report on my experience with using clicker technology in my Advanced Legal Research class during the fall 2008 semester. According to the author of the article, Ruth Hammond, "College students who use wireless handheld devices called 'clickers' to register answer to instructors' questions

Tweeting versus Blogging

Posted on January 09, 2009
I've been pretty absent from OOTJ for a while. Some of that has been illness or family illness. And I am so grateful to Marie and other co-bloggers for soldiering on while I have just gone missing. But some of my recent absence has also been due to a time of experimenting with Twitter and Facebook and the new social media explosion that has been going on...

NY Times Meltdown at AALS

Posted on January 08, 2009
Wow! Anybody who has read the obituaries for print newspapers would have been as taken aback as I was to watch the hysteria at AALS this week. Law professors from across the country are having meltdowns when they cannot get their print New York Times here in San Diego! I happened to go down to the Marriott gift shop this morning and blundered into the anxious crowd waiting for the shop to open.

New blog on workplace issues

Posted on January 08, 2009
My Suffolk colleague, Prof. David Yamada has started up a fascinating blog on workplace issues. His core interest area is abusive and bullying behavior, but the blog extends beyond that. It is an excellent resource, and should be worth bookmarking for librarians, (quite aside from your own interests, which I hope are not personally involved!), since he includes links to helpful resources, legal

Discouraging News About Legal Writing

Posted on January 07, 2009
The 2008 results of the Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) were released today, according to an article in today's Inside Higher Ed. According to the article, "Law schools have to be responsive to the ever-changing legal world to keep their curriculums relevant and meaningful, but the latest findings of a national survey suggest that they should also be focusing more on the basics...

Bargain Hunting on the Internet

Posted on December 30, 2008
My husband pointed out to me this piece from Sunday's New York Times by David Streitfeld about the demise of traditional bookstores--new and secondhand--in the Internet age. Because books can be purchased extremely cheaply (in some cases) from online sellers, most of whom are individuals who are seeking to unload books they no longer want or need, there is less demand for bricks-and-mortar

E-Books Taking Off?

Posted on December 24, 2008
According to an article in today's New York Times, the answer is "yes." The Kindle device, which is sold by Amazon, is out of stock (not good holiday planning) and not expected to be available again until February. Amazon's failure to predict the demand for its e-book reader has created an opening for Sony, which is marketing a competitor, the Reader...

Merry Christmas

Posted on December 21, 2008
Long time OOTJ readers might recognize the drawing from a rant I posted in December, 2005, at the height of the "War on Christmas." As right-wing Christian pundits claimed that folks who asked for multi-cultural sensitivity were marginalizing Christians, I thought they missed the real war on Christmas -- the long-term siege by Mammon...

PS, Accel is Bailing Facebook?!

Posted on December 17, 2008
Tip of the OOTJ hat to Jo Giammattei for sending me to read the post at Fortune on CNN money online. Apparently Facebook's money squeeze is being relieved a bit by venture capitalist firm Accel Partners. Accel Partners helped Facebook start up and apparently is still willing to kick in a bit more...

CALI does the right thing

Posted on December 17, 2008
Kudos to CALI for stepping up and arranging for recycling of their leftover disks. For some years now, they have been shipping hundreds of CDs to all the schools in spite of the fact that most of the students I know strongly prefer to access CALI on the Web...

Sad Situation at the State Department

Posted on December 15, 2008
I was dismayed but not surprised to read this article from today's Inside Higher Ed. The article discussed the controversy surrounding the State Department's publication of the Foreign Relations of the United States, an indispensable series for those researching United States customary law...

Not too late for Finals & Just in time for the Bar!

Posted on December 14, 2008
It's LOLCats for the Bar Exam on Facebook! Yes! Longtime fans of LOLcats may not know that there is a Facebook group dedicated to those poor schmoes studying for the bar. To solace them, there are LOLcats ready to say, o hai, and bring their special brand of humor...

New Course

Posted on December 10, 2008
We are really excited at the Pace Law Library because this morning the faculty voted to approve a new course to be offered by one of the reference librarians during the upcoming intersession. This course is entitled "Advanced Research Skills: Health, Disability, and Elder Law," and will be taught by Margaret Moreland...

New Music Industry Muscle Ploy

Posted on December 09, 2008
Click on the title to this post to read a story from Techdirt about Warner Music's plan to charge universities (and I suppose, everybody) a blanket license fee to cover file sharing. It's another form of extortion if you want to think of it that way: you pay the "blanket license fee" and we won't sue you...

Librarians & new faculty services

Posted on December 08, 2008
AALL has been hosting discussions online about new faculty services. It has not really gone very far yet, but it should be interesting to watch. In the meantime, I was struck by an article that appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education recently, Nov...

Friday Fun

Posted on December 05, 2008
Law students are now in the depths of final exams at U.S. law schools. It's not a fun time for them. Just think, though. You could be a medical student, and be required to dismember a corpse as part of your schooling! Cheer up! Holidays are coming soon, and you'll have a break...

Twitter as a Power Marketing Tool

Posted on December 05, 2008
Click on the title to this post to visit a blog called "How to Change the World" for a post about using Twitter as a major marketing tool. The blogger is Guy Kawasaki and came to my attention as one of the people at the Social Media Museum. SoMeMe is a hoot, and I was alerted to the blog post by a post on Twitter, so it all goes in a circle, round and round...

The Law in the Books Isn't Always the Law

Posted on December 02, 2008
From PrawfsBlawg, a teachable moment about the limitations of traditional legal research, whether print or online: The Silent Constitutional Crisis? I recently wrapped up my Con Law II (civil liberties) course here at Georgia. We ended the semester by spending a couple of days discussing the religion in schools cases including Lee v...

Technology in Government -- the Dream

Posted on December 01, 2008
Quantum of Solace is great fun. The new Bond is edgier, haunted -- and has fewer gadgets! His cell phone tethers him to M! He still drives a fast car, but no nifty gadgets to avoid fights. He gets pummeled. M has the gadgets! She has a table top computer that has a beautiful display...

Thanksgiving Perspective!

Posted on November 25, 2008

Negative Effects of Online Research?

Posted on November 25, 2008

ABA Bricks and Bytes Conference Postponed; Nobody Can Afford to Travel

Posted on November 20, 2008

Rehnquist Papers Released by Hoover Institution

Posted on November 18, 2008

Brooklyn Supreme Court in the news

Posted on November 18, 2008

Don't Mess With My Laptop

Posted on November 17, 2008

Friday Fun

Posted on November 14, 2008

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