Law Librarian Blog

Law Librarian Blog Ranks as Genius

This site ranks the readability of blogs.  I'm happy to report, LLB and our readers are geniuses.  Congratulations everyone!   [JJ]

Historians on America

New publication from the U.S. Department of State: "Historians on America is a series of individual essays that selects specific moments, decisions, and intellectual or legislative or legal developments and explains how they altered the course of U.S. history. The book consists of 11 separate essays by major historians, ranging from The Trial of John Peter Zenger in 1735 to The Immigration Act of 1965."  [RJ]

Librarians Protest Science's Departure From JSTOR, Fearing a Trend

From the Chronicle: "In the wake of the journal Science's flight from the nonprofit archive JSTOR, librarians are sounding an alarm. Such moves, they say, may increase revenue for scholarly societies but will limit readership."  [RJ]

The 2007 Weblog Award Winners

Over 500,000 votes cast in 49 categories over six days of voting, here are the winners of the of The 2007 Weblog Awards. The Best Law Blog for 2007 goes to Above the Law. [JH]

Friday Fun: Curious Lives of Law Students

This is a "documentary" by students at the University of South Carolina School of Law parodying the lives of law students.

Young Librarians Discuss the Future of Their Profession

From the Chronicle:

• Joe Sanchez, U. of Texas at Austin
  Libraries in virtual worlds will join physical libraries.
• Susan Gibbons, U. of Rochester
  Library schools need to update their curricula.
• Nick Baker, Williams College
  Companies like Google will bring "new blood" to libraries.
• Casey Bisson, Plymouth State U.
  Libraries need to be more than community centers.
• Jessamyn C. West, Librarian.net
  Librarians are not very "change oriented" as a culture.
• Sarah Kostelecky, Institute of American Indian Arts
  Diversity is important to the library profession.
• Char Booth, Ohio U.
  There will always be a need for librarians.
• Brian Mathews, Georgia Institute of Technology
  There's too much "bandwagon jumping" with new technology.

[RJ]

Ceremony Celebrating Relocation of the Butte County Law Library to Oroville's Historic Carnegie Library Today

Read more about it: City of Oroville to host ribbon cutting for Law Library. [JH]

Litigation clues are found on Facebook

Interesting article from the National Law Journal:

"Lawyers in civil and criminal cases are increasingly finding that social networking sites can contain treasure chests of information for their cases. Armed with printouts from sites such as Facebook and MySpace, attorneys have used pictures, comments and connections from these sites as powerful evidence in the courtroom."  (sub. req.)  [RJ]

5 More States May Curb Use of Race in Hiring and Admissions

From the Chronicle:

"Political analysts say Ward Connerly has a very good chance of prevailing in his effort to get five additional states to vote to ban the use of racial preferences by colleges and other state agencies."  [RJ]

Vote for the 2007 Weblog Awards

Voting for The 2007 Weblog Awards is underway. There are 49 categories includeing one for Best Law Blog. You can vote once a day in each category. Polls close Thursday November 8, 2007 at 10:00 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which is 5:00 p.m. (EST) and 2:00 p.m. (PST).

Finalists in the Best Law Blog category are:

Above the Law
How Appealing
Volokh Conspiracy
Sui Generis
Balkinization
Simple Justice
Wall Street Journal Law Blog
SCOTUS Blog
Likelihood Of Confusion
Ms JD Changing the Face of the Legal Profession

[JH]

Federal Dataveillance: Implications for Constitutional Privacy Protections

Federal Dataveillance: Implications for Constitutional Privacy Protections
by Martin Kuhn

List Price: $65.00
Hardcover: 236 pages
Publisher: Lfb Scholarly Pub Llc (September 15, 2007)
ISBN-10: 1593322305
ISBN-13: 978-1593322304

Book Description: Kuhn explains how new data technologies, particularly knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) applications, will force courts to reconceptualize constitutional privacy rights. Privacy conceptualizations in the First and Fourth Amendments and information privacy jurisprudence (privacy as space, privacy as secrecy, and privacy as information control) offer inadequate protection against federal dataveillance programs. Utilizing a theoretical perspective from which privacy law functions to balance personal privacy and national security by limiting the government's ability to access, manipulate, and control personal information, Kuhn introduces two new conceptualizations of constitutional privacy. The privacy-as-confidentiality conceptualization is now emerging from circuit court information privacy cases, and the privacy-as-knowledge-control conceptualization is needed to provide protection for federally created knowledge about specific individuals. Kuhn also suggests an information privacy calculus that will assist future courts when balancing individual privacy interests against the government's interests in disclosure.

New on LLRX

LRRX.com October features include:

Cultural Challenges in Cross Border Mediation
Vikrant Singh Negi discusses how the role of cultural differences are crucial in cross border mediation. Although an individual's nationality does not necessarily determine the attitudes and behavior brought to the table, it can provide valuable guidelines as to which negotiation strategies are likely to work and which are likely to end in failure.

Persuading Judges in Writing: Tips for Lawyers (And how technology can help)
Troy Simpson explains how good written advocacy can help lawyers in England, Australia and America to persuade judges, and providers readers with some practical tips to accomplish this challenging task.

Competitive Intelligence on a Shoestring
Susan Armstrong succinctly outlines key techniques and processes used by successful CI experts. Sabrina I. Pacifici's quick guide focuses on a selected range of strategic CI information and services available from key sources that faciliate an effective CI research process, both in the U.S. and Canada.

Visit LRRX.com for links to all articles published last month. [JH]

Is SSRN Listening?

Dan Solove and Stephen Bainbridge have been posting their wish list of SSRN improvements. Check out Solove's Improving SSRN and Bainbridge's Fixing SSRN. [JH]

U.S. First in World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index

The United States tops the overall ranking in World Economic Forum's The Global Competitiveness Report 2007-2008. Switzerland is in second position followed by Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Finland and Singapore, respectively. Chile is the highest ranked country in Latin America, followed by Mexico and Costa Rica. China and India continue to lead the way among large developing economies. Several countries in the Middle East and North Africa region are in the upper half of the rankings, led by Israel, Kuwait, Qatar, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In sub-Saharan Africa, only South Africa and Mauritius feature in the top half of the rankings, with several countries from the region positioned at the very bottom. [JH]

Mersky and Jayasuriya's Litigation Documents: Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger

Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger
Litigation Documents: A Documentary History of Affirmative Action in Higher Education
Edited and Compiled by Roy Mersky & Kumar Percy Jayasuriya

5 volumes...$525.00
ISBN: 978-0-8377-1411-0 Item: 62629
Published: Buffalo; William S. Hein & Co., Inc.; 2007

Mersky and Jayasuriya's work catalogs the history of affirmative action in the higher education realm, focusing primarily on the cases of Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. Affirmative action has long been and continues to be a hot topic in the United States. This book contains a collection of all briefs submitted to the Supreme Court, the transcripts of the two Supreme Court oral arguments; the lower court opinions and the final decisions of the two cases. According to the preface, this compilation is intended as a learning tool as well as a historical record.

To place an order, simply contact Hein's Marketing Department:

William S. Hein & Co., Inc.
1285 Main Street
Buffalo, NY 14209
Toll Free: 800-828-7571
Fax:716-883-8100
Email: marketing@wshein.com
Website: www.wshein.com

Opening: Reference/Electronic Services Librarian, Nova Southeastern

Nova Southeastern University, Shepard Broad Law Center, Law Library and Technology Center invites applications for the position of Reference/Electronic Services Librarian.

The primary purpose of this position is to provide legal research instruction, training, and reference assistance to all Law Center library patrons, as well as to manage  Westlaw and Lexis accounts, passwords, and lab access. The position will also handle CALI (computer assisted legal instruction) accounts and passwords. This position supports the curricular, teaching, and research needs of the faculty, coordinating all faculty liaison services. This position works as part of a reference team to ensure the smooth, seamless delivery of legal information resources to Law Center faculty, staff, and students, as well as to alumni and the practicing Bar. The successful candidate will serve on several Law Library committees, including the Collection Development and Information Professionals Committees.

For additional information and application instructions, go to www.nsujobs.com, and search for position number 998634.

Yahoo Executives Grilled by House Foreign Affairs Committee

George Washington University Law law professor Donald Clark reports on Yahoo executives testimony about the company's role in the prosecution of Shi Toa on Chinese Law Prof Blog.

See also Tech Law Prof Blog's coverage. [JH]

The Unknown Energy Costs of Servers

Today's New York Times has an interesting article on the amount of money and energy needed to fuel and cool servers. 

“The amount of energy spent on data centers is huge, and it’s not really very well understood,” said Brian Brouillette, a vice president of Hewlett-Packard, one of several companies that supply data centers with energy-efficient equipment and information.

Companies tend to be secretive about how much it costs to run their servers, but several experts said that energy costs can be 40 percent of the cost of operating a data center. In three years, the cost of running a server can top its purchase price.

[JJ]

Professional Reading: Building a Nation's Image on the World Wide Web

Building a Nation's Image on the World Wide Web: A Study of the Head of State Web Sites of Developing Countries by T. Kenn Gaither

List Price: $89.95
Hardcover: 312 pages
Publisher: Cambria Press (September 2007)
ISBN-10: 1934043567
ISBN-13: 978-1934043561

Book Description: This is a rich theoretical and empirical study concerning international public relations on the web for head of state English web sites for developing countries. There is no other research in this area that comes close to the depth with which this topic is addressed in this study. In this regard, its contribution is very significant. Highly original, this study breaks new ground and may very well contribute to a new field in international public relations on the internet.

2007 Global Faculty E-book Survey

From the introduction: 

"In Fall 2007, ebrary worked with more than 200 librarians from around the world to develop an informal survey to better understand faculty experience with e-resources and print materials. The survey focused on the higher education community, and key learning objectives included the following:

• Usage for research and instruction
• Attitudes
• Perceived strengths and weaknesses
• Instruction experience and preferences

Check out the results of the survey.  [RJ]