Law Librarian Blog

Recognizing America's 25 Million Living Veterans This Veterans Day

On June 1, 1954, President Eisenhower signed HR 7786 which officially changed Armistice Day to Veterans Day. See photo, left.

Here are several resources commemorating our veterans:

US Department of Veterans Affairs: Veterans Day Page

Library of Congress: Veterans History Project

Military.com Salutes America's 25 million living veterans

[JH]

Minority Enrollment Grew by More Than 50% From 1993 to 2003

Interesting article from the Chronicle:

"Minority-student enrollment at colleges and universities increased by 51 percent in the decade ending in 2003, an improvement driven by growth in the number of Hispanic and minority-female students, according to a report scheduled for release today by the American Council on Education."  (for subscribers).

[RJ]

Wisconsin's Library Reading Room Rededicated

A major gift from the firm of Habush Habush & Rottier has led to a new name in the Law School: the Law Library’s Grand Reading Room was officially rededicated as the Habush Habush & Rottier Reading Room. See the school's press release for details. [JH]

Quote It! On Independence

"Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty." -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 377 (1927).

Long Awaited New Edition of The Legal Research Dictionary Now Available

The Legal Research Dictionary:
from Advance Sheets to Pocket Parts
2nd ed. 2006; 1st ed. 1987

100 pages, coil bound
Price: $26.00
Publisher: Legal Information Services
ISBN: 0-941991-02-4

With ths work one can find the definitions of hundreds of terms used in legal research and bibliography. The dictionary coverage includes the judicial, legislative and executive branches of federal, state, and local government. This handy reference work is useful for law librarians, paralegals, public librarians, law review staff, and law students during first year legal research and writing, and advanced legal research courses. [JH]

Suicide Terrorism and Democracy: What We’ve Learned Since 9/11

New policy report from the Cato Institute:

"Over the past two decades, terrorist organizations have increasingly relied on suicide attacks to achieve political objectives. The specific goal sought in almost all suicide terrorist campaigns in modern history is the same: to compel a democratic state to withdraw combat forces from territory prized by the terrorists. This holds true for al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization of greatest concern to most Americans. Al-Qaeda's efforts to mobilize people to kill Americans are driven principally by a simple strategic goal: to drive the United States and its Western allies from the Arabian Peninsula and other Muslim countries."

[RJ]

Opening: Director of Library Services & Training for Nevada Law Firm

Director of Library Services and Training
Lionel Sawyer & Collins
Las Vegas, Nevada

Description:  The Director of Library Services and Training provides overall management of the Library in Las Vegas and Reno.  The Director provides research and reference services to attorneys and staff in legal and non-legal fields using Westlaw, Lexis, PACER, Dun & Bradstreet, AutotrackXP and other databases.  The Director provides Library training to attorneys and staff and, in consultation with the IT Manager, plans and directs the Firm training program.  Regular travel to Reno is required.

Required Qualifications:  ALA accredited Master of Library Science or equivalent degree, excellent oral and written communication skills, experience with Westlaw, Lexis, PACER, Dun & Bradstreet and AutotrackXP, training experience, ability to prioritize multiple tasks in a fast-paced environment.

Preferred Qualifications:  Law firm experience, familiarity with electronic court filing, familiarity with electronic discovery and records management.

To apply, send resume, cover letter and names of three references to:

Rebecca Pamias-Sellers
Director of Human Resources
Lionel Sawyer & Collins
300 S. 4th Street, Suite 1700
Las Vegas, NV 89101
rpamias-sellers@lionelsawyer.com

What if ... Democrats Control the Senate Judiciary Committee?

In Democrats to Usher in Change in Judicial Nominations, Investigations, T.R. Goldman (Legal Times) speculates on the implications of a Democratic Senate victory for federal judicial nominations and a possible Supreme Court replacement if, for example, 86-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens were to retire. [JH]

Meet Ms. Dewey

For those of you who are tired of Google...check out Ms. Dewey!  [RJ]

Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the October 30, 2006 issue of InSITE:

• Follow the Money: Institute on Money in State Politics
• IFES (International Foundation for Election Systems)
• Legal Action Project, Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence
• National Priorities Project
• NCSL 50-State Legislative Tracking Web Resources

Follow the Money: Institute on Money in State Politics 
“The Institute on Money in State Politics is a national nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to accurate, comprehensive and unbiased documentation and research on campaign finance at the state level.”  Their Follow the Money website provides users with access to state-by-state campaign contribution information organized by election year, candidate, contributor, or special interest.  The “Power Search” allows multi-state multi-year searches.  Attractive layout, colorful graphics, and interconnected links make search results easy to read and understand.  Additionally, the Institute makes available numerous research reports on current topics of interest, and provides links to other sites dealing with money in politics.  E-mail updates are available to those who are interested.  This is an excellent site for tracking money in state elections. [JJ]

IFES (International Foundation for Election Systems)
IFES, the International Foundation for Election Systems, is a nonprofit “that supports the building of democratic societies.”  The IFES professional staff provides technical assistance to developing democracies across the globe.  The organization operates in more than twenty countries and works in conjunction with the U.S. Agency for International Development, the United Nations, and other entities.  The website provides information about the group’s programs, projects, and publications.  The IFES programs address several areas including elections, governance, and building civil societies and these are described on the site.  Several of the organization’s publications are available in PDF and include a survey of the cost of voter registration and elections, and a handbook on political finance in post-conflict societies.  IFES also publishes a magazine, Democracy at Large, and they provide one article from each issue on the website; otherwise readers must subscribe to the print version.  The site also provides extensive coverage of the group’s work in specific regions so that users can learn about judicial system reform in Kosovo or the gender and law project in India. [MM]

Legal Action Project, Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence 
The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence (formerly the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence) is dedicated to the enactment and enforcement of sensible gun laws, regulations, and public policies; to the election of pro-gun control public officials; and to increasing public awareness of gun violence.  The Legal Action Project of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence provides information to the general public about this organization’s work in the courts.  This site offers special reports on issues relating to gun laws and regulations, written by staff attorneys and published in PDF.  Other published articles by Legal Action Project (LAP) attorneys are reprinted here.  Of interest to legal researchers, visitors to the site can see LAP’s entire litigation docket, which may be browsed by issues such as negligent gun distribution and assault weapons.  Researchers may also browse LAP’s research and materials through the “Gun Industry Reform” section, which covers topics such as unsafe gun designs and deceptive gun advertising. [BWK]

National Priorities Project 
The National Priorities Project (NPP) offers citizen and community groups tools and resources to shape federal budget and policy priorities which promote social and economic justice.  These tools include the "NPP Database," which provides state- and local-level data and statistics across a broad range of issues, including hunger, military, housing, income and poverty, health, education, labor and basic demographics.  The sections on "National Security" and "Economic Security" feature maps showing the distribution of U.S. economic and military aid around the world, graphs comparing the U.S. with other countries, and briefs explaining security policies and proposals for better national security.  "Budget Briefs" strives to make the annual federal budget process more understandable to the citizenry.  "NPP Publications" proffers extensive reports on topics such as veteran benefits and environmental issues.  One of the more compelling features of the site include the "Quick Report" and "Tradeoffs" databases, which allows users to quickly generate reports, charts, and other data snapshots. [BWK]

NCSL 50-State Legislative Tracking Web Resources 
The 50-State Legislative Tracking Web Resources (LTWR) site is part of the larger web presence of the National Conference of State Legislatures, which was annotated by InSITE in 2000.  The LTWR provides access to legislative and statutory databases, compilations, and state charts and maps covering a variety of issues throughout the fifty states.  The material is organized by topic and sub-topic.  Major topics include agriculture and rural development, budget and tax, education, immigrant policy, and more.  Many of the topics are sub-divided into sub-topics.  For example, the education topic includes state curriculum standards, education finance, and the No Child Left Behind Act.  For sub-topics that point to legislative databases, users can search for bills and resolutions, by state, within very specific issue areas.  Statute charts indicate the states that have legislated in a particular area with reference to the relevant code sections.  The 50-state charts and maps provide a comprehensive, comparative overview of the states in areas such as physical education requirements and budget calendars.  Overall, the LTWR is a useful bookmark for state legislative research. [MM]

InSITE contributors: Julie Jones, Research Attorney, Brandy Kreisler, J.D., M.L.S., Matt Morrison, Research Attorney, Jean Pajerek (editor), Head of Technical Services & Information Management, all current or former members of the professional staff at Cornell Law Library.

About InSITE: InSITE highlights selected law-related Web sites in two ways: as an annotated publication issued electronically and in print; and, as a keyword-searchable database. The law librarians at Cornell evaluate potentially useful Web sites, select the most valuable ones, and provide commentary and subject access to them.

Digital versions of this information can be accessed via:

1. Searchable database or by browsing current and archived issues on the web: Click InSITE at www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library

2. E-mail subscription. Send the following request: SUBSCRIBE InSITE-L <YourFirstName> <YourLastName> to: listproc@cornell.edu

3. Readers can subscribe to the new InSITE RSS feed at http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library/RESOURCES/insite.htm

The contents of InSITE and any recommendations therein are the opinions of the authors and do not reflect the views of Cornell University. InSITE is copyright protected by Cornell Law Library, © 2006 Cornell Law Library. Permission to republish InSITE issues on Law Librarian Blog has been granted. For permissions, contact Jean M. Pajerek [jmp8@cornell.edu].

Cornell Law Library URL: http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library

MLA's Electronic Textual Editing

Electronic Textual Editing
Editor(s): Lou Burnard, Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, John Unsworth

List Price: $28.00
Paperback: 265 pages
Publisher: Modern Language Association of America (September 30, 2006)
ISBN: 0873529715

Book Description: The long history of textual editing and scholarship has been intimately involved with the physique of the book, which set limits on the presentation and study of text. Increasingly, since the 1980s, the written word has taken on a digital form, and the shift from codex to computer, from print to electronic media, creates new opportunities--and new difficulties.

This volume offers an emerging consensus about the fundamental issues of electronic textual editing. It provides practical advice and faces theoretical questions. Its twenty-four essays deal with markup coding and procedures, electronic archive administration, use of standards (such as Unicode), rights and permissions, and the changing and challenging environment of the Internet. Some of the specific texts discussed are Greek and Latin inscriptions, the Gospel of John, the Canterbury Tales, William Blake's poems and art, Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Devil's Walk, Stijn Streuvels's De teleurgang van den Waterhoek, Ludwig Wittgenstein's Nachlass, and the papers of Thomas Edison.

The guidelines of the MLA's Committee on Scholarly Editions, recently revised to address electronic editions, are included in full.

Access for All: Five Years of Progress

From the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division:

A Report from the Department of Justice on Enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act. [RJ]

Political Views of Faculty Members at Odds With Most Americans

A Profile of American College Faculty
Volume I: Political Beliefs & Behavior
Gary A. Tobin and Aryeh K.Weinberg
San Francisco: The Institute for Jewish & Community Research, 2006

Book Description: The Institute for Jewish & Community Research’s study of American college faculty offers the reader a unique portrait of today’s academy.  It illustrates the existence of a dominant political ideology on campus that encompasses views of American foreign, domestic, and trade policies. The majority of faculty are bound by a set of beliefs that could compromise the core mission of the academy to provide unbiased teaching and scholarship.

“The Political Beliefs and Behavior of College Faculty” is an invaluable addition to the literature about higher education. The authors of this volume assert themselves as defenders of higher education, concerned less with the liberal bias on campus than with the existence of any ideology that diminishes the ability of the university to provide the highest caliber teaching and scholarship.

The authors call for the academy to embrace its own values and tenets. They urge all stakeholders in higher education to ensure that the truest purposes of the university are protected against the paralysis of an entrenched political monoculture.

This monograph is intended for anyone concerned with the future of higher education: students, faculty, parents, trustees, alumni, taxpayers and government. It is the first of three volumes and will be followed by reports on the religious beliefs of college faculty and faculty attitudes about Israel and the Middle East.

[RJ]

Opening: Head Reference Librarian, San Diego County Public Law Library

Head Reference Librarian (Librarian III - IV): The San Diego County Public Law Library has an immediate opening for an experienced law librarian to serve as head of the reference department. This is an exempt professional position, 40 hours per week, including some Saturdays. The position is based at the Main branch of the Law Library, with all reference librarians occasionally working at one of the three branch libraries located in the North County, East County, or South Bay regional courts.

Qualifications: Three to five years professional experience as a law librarian, including supervision of professional staff. MLS required, JD strongly preferred. Extensive knowledge of legal materials in all formats. Some experience working with government documents is also highly preferred. The successful applicant will have professional level aptitude and practical experience using legal databases and standard business software applications, including working with integrated library systems. The successful applicant must have a strong public service commitment, with the ability to multi-task.

Description of Representative Duties: Under the direction of the Assistant Director, Public Services, this position serves as head of the reference department team, participating  in all reference duties attendant to a busy public law library. Working with the members of the Reference Department, this person will develop and provide quality reference and outreach services to a diverse community of users, including attorneys, self-represented litigants, business persons, court staff, and others seeking legal information in a busy public law library. This position will supervise more junior members of the reference department and coordinate reference desk scheduling. The Head Reference Librarian also participates in collection development decision-making.
                        
Salary and Benefits: Commensurate with experience. The Law Library offers excellent health and retirement benefits through CALPERS, plus generous vacation (3 weeks/yr.), holidays, and sick leave benefits.

To Apply: Send a cover letter and resume, with the names of three recent professional references  to:

Personnel, San Diego County Public Law Library,
1105 Front Street, San Diego, CA 92101-3904

Cover letters and resumes may also faxed: (619) 239-1563, or e-mailed to: job2006-6@sdcpll.org

Priority Deadline: November 30, 2006, open until filled.  No phone calls please. EOE.

US Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud

Chirag Mehta's US Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud shows the popularity, frequency, and trends in the usages of words within speeches, official documents, declarations, and letters written by the US Presidents between 1776 - 2006. The dataset consists of over 360 documents. Move the slider forward or backward in time to see historical trends in word usage.

Brilliant! Can tag clouding court opinions and legal scholarship be far behind? [JH]

Fulbright's Third Annual Litigation Trend Survey Findings

Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P. has released its third annual survey of corporate litigation trends. Here's a sample of the findings:

• Large U.S. companies face an average of 305 pending lawsuits.
• For the largest U.S. companies, those with $1 billion or more in annual gross revenue, the number of lawsuits soared to 556 cases, with an average of 50 new disputes emerging each year for close to half of them.
• International disputes are growing in number; more than one-third of companies said that up to 20% of their dockets now originate in foreign venues.
• The average litigation expenditure for surveyed U.S. companies participating was $12 million, an amount that does not include ultimate case settlement or judgment payments.

[JH]

Brave New Ballot: Avi Rubin on Electronic Voting Insecurity

Avi Rubin has been at the forefront of researching and educating the public about the deficiencies of electronic voting systems for years. Check out his blog and his new work on electronic voting insecurity.

Brave New Ballot: The Battle to Safeguard Democracy in the Age of Electronic Voting
by Aviel David Rubin

List Price: $24.95
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Morgan Road Books (September 5, 2006)
ISBN: 0767922107

Book Description: In 2003, Computer Science Professor Avi Rubin touched off a national debate when he revealed that security glitches in the Diebold electronic voting machines could make it easier for election results to be compromised. Rubin himself became the center of the uproar: Diebold initiated a campaign to ruin his career; election officials in localities that had invested in the system dismissed his findings; and the media, misinterpreting his objections to specific weaknesses, cast him as a Luddite.

In Brave New Ballot, Rubin tells the story of his role as a whistle-blower (including the toll it took on his career and family) and recounts his observations as an election judge in Baltimore County, which gave him a full picture of electronic voting in action. Addressing both technical and legal problems, he shows how easy it is to rig an election. He describes the vulnerability of computerized systems to tampering, not only by insiders like poll workers but also by outsiders able to breach the system without detection.

The election process for millions of voters is being transformed as electronic voting machines replace older mechanical systems throughout the country and Internet voting becomes a reality. Brave New Ballot is the first book to describe the systemic imperfections that may have affected past elections and to spell out what must be done to assure fair elections in the future. [Emphasis added. JH]

Yale's Lillian Goldman Law Library Receives Significant Collection of Rare Books

From the press release:

The Association of the Bar of the City of New York recently transferred 1,641 books on Roman and canon law from its rare book collection to the Law School's Lillian Goldman Law Library.

The newly acquired books are now being restored, preserved, and catalogued by library staff, and will soon be made available to interested researchers, students, and faculty members. "Ensuring access to rare books is important for future generations of researchers," Librarian Blair Kauffman said.

Judge Mulls If Site Demoted By Google Was Defamed

From InformationWeek:

"A federal judge questioned whether Google Inc. defamed a small company by cutting it from its Web search ranking system or whether Google is free to choose which sites it features.

KinderStart.com, a parenting Web site, filed a lawsuit challenging the fairness of how Google calculates the relative popularity of Web sites."

[RJ]

Opening: Law Library of Congress Vacancy Accouncement (Reposted): Collection Development Specialist

Please note the following vacancy announcement excerpt (also at Library of Congress Current Jobs ). The previous announcement (#060154; Jul 31-Aug 28, 2006) has since been canceled. Questions should be addressed to the Library of Congress Employment Office at (202) 707-5627 voice, 202-707-1454 fax, jobhelp@loc.gov, or Library of Congress HR Contract.

Librarian (Collection Specialist) (Vacancy #: 060244)
GS-1410-13
Law Library (Directorate of Law Library Services, Collection Services Division)
$77,353.00 - $100,554.00
Opening Date: Oct 26, 2006
Closing Date: Nov 27, 2006

The Collection Development Specialist, working under general administrative direction of the Chief, Law Library Collection Services Division and the Director of Law Library Services, provides leadership, planning, and direction related to growth and development of the Law Library collections, which encompass holdings in all formats and in all languages. The incumbent must demonstrate the ability to analyze collection coverage and needs from a variety of perspectives, taking into consideration the long-term impact of such factors as publication patterns, availability, and budgetary concerns, as well as the needs of many constituencies, first and foremost of which is the United States Congress. The incumbent exercises experienced judgment and knowledge of the theories and principles of librarianship as developed and extended in the Library of Congress, with special emphasis on law librarianship, to formulate and execute policies and programs related to collection development and preservation. This position is located in the Law Library, Directorate of Law Library Services, Collection Services Division.

To view the entire announcement and for additional information, see USAJOBS Vacancy 060244 http://jsearch.usajobs.opm.gov/summary.asp?OPMControl=765948 and Library of Congress Applying for Jobs at the Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/hr/employment/index.php?action=cInstructions.showInstructionsFaq.