Law Librarian Blog

Deal Struck to Reinstate Pakistan Judges

The Washington Post is reporting that the coalition government of Pakistan has agreed to reinstate the country's chief justice and 60 other judges through a parliamentary resolution scheduled for May 12, 2008. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani is expected to sign an executive order completing the arrangement.  Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry and the other judges were deposed last year under a controversial order by President Pervez Musharraf. [JH]

UNHCR and Google Earth Unveil Program for Humanitarian Operations

From the press release:

"Representatives of the UN refugee agency and Google on Tuesday unveiled a powerful new online mapping programme that provides an up-close and multifaceted view of some of the world's major displacement crises and the humanitarian efforts aimed at helping the victims.

The "Google Earth Outreach" programme gives UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies the ability to use Google Earth and Maps to highlight their work on behalf of millions of refugees and other populations of concern in some of the world's most remote and difficult areas." 

Very cool.  [RJ]

Lincoln and his Circle

Digital Collection from the University of Rochester Libraries: "The project seeks to digitize and make available the letters to, from, and about Abraham Lincoln that are held in the collections of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of Rochester."  You can browse the collection or search by keyword, writer, recipient and date range.  [RJ]

ABA's SafeBorrowing.com

From the site:

"Consumer credit can be complicated. From the unusual legal terms to the complex mathematical formulas, understanding how credit works can be a big task. The Committee on Consumer Financial Services of the Section on Business Law of the American Bar Association has created this website to provide you with the tools to help you on your way to financial success. This website covers the four basic types of consumer credit: financing your home, financing your car, financing your education, and credit cards. At some point in your life you will be faced with decisions about most, if not all, of these types of credit. By reading through this website and others that we point you to, you will be able to get a grasp on understanding these types of credit and how to use them safely and wisely."

Topics include:

• Mortgage loans
• Buying or Leasing a car
• Student loans
• Credit Cards

[RJ]

Friday Fun: Wrapped Up in Books

A soothing video for you from Belle and Sebastian filmed in a library with a very bookish theme. Please enjoy and try not get distracted like I did thinking, "Who is going to re-shelve all those books?" [BB]

Friday Fun: Law School Men of Genius

This video, a production of the Illinois Law Revue, highlights the unsung contributions of law school administrators.

Hat tip to Cincinnati Law's own real law school man of genius, Paul Caron (Associate Dean of Faculty), TaxProf Blog. [JH]

Fair Use Blog Used in Legal Writing Class

The Chronicle of Higher Education profiles a blog created by Peter Friedman to supplement his legal writing class at Case Western. Check out What Is Fair Use?, an interesting topical blog for a legal writing course.

Hat tip to Adjunct Law Prof Blog. [JH]

Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society

Well worth reading. Make no mistake: this is no run-of-the-mill exposé of media bias, but a sophisticated analysis of the ways and means by which lies and distortions do so well in today's fractured, cynical media world. —Todd Gitlin, Professor of Journalism and Sociology, Columbia University

True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society
by Farhad Manjoo

List Price: $25.95 
Publisher: Wiley (March 17, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0470050101
ISBN-13: 978-0470050101

Book Description: In True Enough, Manjoo presents findings from psychology, sociology, political science, and economics to show how new technologies are prompting the cultural ascendancy of belief over fact. In an age of talk radio, cable TV, and the Internet—the blog- and YouTube-addled million-channel media universe—it is no longer necessary for any of us to confront notions that contradict what we "know" to be true. Stephen Colbert calls this "truthiness"—when something feels true without any evidence that it is. Here Manjoo probes the cognitive basis of truthiness, exploring how biases push both liberals and conservatives to select and interpret news in a way that accords with their personal versions of "reality."

Why has punditry lately overtaken news, with so many media outlets pushing partisan agendas instead of information? Why do lies seem to linger so long in the cultural subconscious even after they've been thoroughly discredited? And why, when more people than ever before are documenting the truth with laptops and digital cameras, does fact-free spin and propagandaseem to work so well? True Enough explores leading controversies of national politics, foreign affairs, science, and business, explaining how Americans have begun to organize themselves into echo chambers that harbor diametrically different facts—not merely opinions—from those of the larger culture. We meet people who espouse far-out interpretations of reality—about everything from the history of John Kerry's time in Vietnam to the integrity of the 2004 election to the truth about 9/11—and dig into the mechanism by which they came to hold those beliefs.

Seven Tips for Making the Most of Your RSS Reader

Great article by Marshall Kirkpatrick from ReadWriteWeb:

"RSS is a big deal, as anyone who's subscribed to even a few feeds probably knows. Once you get past just a few feeds, though, it can quickly get overwhelming. RSS can leave you feeling inadequate, brain-dead and uninspired.

I was feeling frustrated yesterday when switching from one feed reader to another on a new computer. Then I remembered how wonderful RSS really is - and I decided to write this post. I hope you'll find it interesting and useful."  [RJ]

New Research Shows Teachers, Like Students, Are Re-segregating

In Desegregating Teachers (SSRN), Wendy Parker (Wake Forest) reports that based on the results of her empirical study of 157 school districts, public schools are more segregated than is commonly recognized. From the abstract of her article:

[T]his Article uncovers that teachers are re-segregating, just as students are. Many educators, policy makers, and legal scholars would find no fault with this resegregation because they disconnect integration from quality of education. The consequences of teacher segregation, however, remain uncharted territory in this debate over the value of integration. The resegregation of teachers exposes the truth of segregation - it continues to impede structural equality and helps to perpetuate white supremacy. Segregated teaching staffs, which put inexperienced white teachers in minority schools, are but one aspect of the inequality of segregation. Yet, this past term the Supreme Court legitimated the current segregation in our public schools in its landmark opinion, Parents Involved. Our society's refusal to recognize the transformative potential of integration is, however, more of an obstacle to equality than the Supreme Court. That is, until we identify integration with quality of education, the Supreme Court's refusal to do so is unimportant.

Hat tip to Workplace Prof Blog. [JH]

Pace Law School Receives $1 Million Grant for ADR Center on Environmental Interest Disputes

From the press release:

"The Pace University School of Law ... announced establishment of the Kheel Center on Resolution of Environmental Interest Disputes. The Center will provide educational programs for law students and lawyers in the techniques of discovery, fact-finding and other means of alternative dispute resolution to resolve environmental “interest disputes,” those that do not lend themselves to resolution by litigation.

The Center is being established with a $1 million grant to Pace Law School from Theodore W. Kheel, the famed mediator, through the Nurture Nature Foundation that he established and chairs. The grant will be supplemented by additional funding obtained through a fund raising campaign.

The Center will have a focus on using alternative dispute resolution techniques to resolve the many issues surrounding global warming. The Center also plans to assist law firms in establishing legal practices in this field."  [RJ]

2007 Wiretap Report Released

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has released the 2007 Wiretap Report which reports that state and federal judges issued a total of 2,208 orders authorizing the interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications -- a 20% increase over the previous year.  The top three states for applications approved by state court judges are California, New York, and New Jersey.
[gvd] 

Law Day USA at 50

Fifty years ago President Eisenhower proclaimed the first Law Day a "day of national dedication to the principle of government under law" [text] following up on a suggestion by ABA President Charles S. Rhyne. See The Original Creation and Future Impact of Law Day: Law Empowering People to Be Free from 1958 to the New  Millennium, Address by Charles S. Rhyne at Law Library of Congress Law Day Celebration, May 1, 2000.

From the Address:

... I drafted a U.S. Presidential Proclamation, which made its way from John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, to Sherman Adams, Chief of Staff to President Eisenhower, and stopped there.

It had seemed such a sure thing that Dulles had affixed his signature, authenticating the President's signature, before the Proclamation was presented to Eisenhower. Dulles then left on a trip. Because Dulles was so respected, not only by Eisenhower but by the world, I wanted his signature on the Proclamation rather than some assistant's.

Time passed. May 1 was fast approaching and I had heard nothing, so I went to see Governor Adams. He pulled the Proclamation out of his desk and gave it back to me saying "the President will not sign a proclamation praising lawyers."

I strode down to the Oval Office and handed it to President Eisenhower himself. As he stood there reading it, Adams burst in yelling "Do not sign that paper praising lawyers!"

The President held his hand up for silence until he had read the entire document. Then he said "Sherm, this Proclamation does not contain one word praising lawyers. It praises our constitutional system of government, our great heritage under the rule of law, and asks our people to stand up and praise what they have created. I like it and I am going to sign it." And he did.

Resources: ABA 2008 Law Day | Law Library of Congress

Endnote. On April 17, 2008, the Canadian Bar Association marked Law Day [Canadian Bar Association Law Day]. The date corresponds to the signing of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Hat tip to Library Boy. [JH]

Human Rights Watch Releases Report Detailing Government Harassment of Chinese Lawyers

From the press release:

The 142-page report, Walking on Thin Ice: Control, Intimidation and Harassment of Lawyers in China, details consistent patterns of abuses against legal practitioners. These include intimidation, harassment, suspension of professional licenses, disbarment, physical assaults, and even arrest and prosecution when lawyers take politically sensitive cases, seek redress for abuses of power and wrongdoings by party or government agents, or challenge local power-holders.

Human Rights Watch also said that restrictions on lawyers risk exacerbating widespread social unrest as citizens are denied meaningful legal avenues to solve disputes. China has witnessed an explosion of social unrest in recent years, fueled by rising economic disparities and endemic abuses by unaccountable local officials. Issues such as illegal land seizures, forced evictions, relocations from dam areas, environmental pollution, unpaid social entitlements and administrative malfeasance have become burning social issues.   

Key Recommendations. Human Rights Watch urges the Chinese government to address the plight of lawyers and the legal profession by:

• Immediately releasing all lawyers arrested, detained, or under supervision as a result of their professional activities, including as human rights defenders;
• Ending all officially sponsored attacks on lawyers and holding the perpetrators of such attacks accountable under the law;
• Making lawyers associations fully independent, insulated from interference by Party officials, security officials, and the Ministry of Justice;
• Repealing aspects of annual bar registration for lawyers which allow judicial system authorities to put pressure on and arbitrarily retaliate against lawyers for political and other reasons;
• Revising key laws and regulations governing the legal profession to bring them into accordance with international standards;
• Ensuring that arbitrary restrictions are not placed on the press in the coverage of politically sensitive cases; and
• Ensuring that lawyers, like other citizens, are able to exercise their rights to freedom of expression, belief, association, and assembly.

[JH]

Professional Reading: Search Engines, Link Analysis, and User's Web Behavior

Search Engines, Link Analysis, and User's Web Behavior: A Unifying Web Mining Approach
by George Meghabghab & Abraham Kandel

List Price: $169.00
Hardcover: 341 pages
Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (May 2008)
ISBN-10: 3540774688
ISBN-13: 978-3540774686

Book Description: This book presents a specific and unified approach framework to three major components: Search Engines Performance, Link Analysis, and Users Web Behavior. The explosive growth and the widespread accessibility of the WWW has led to a surge of research activity in the area of information retrieval on the WWW. The book can be used by researchers in the fields of information sciences, engineering (especially software), computer science, statistics and management, who are looking for a unified theoretical approach to finding relevant information on the WWW and a way of interpreting it from a data perspective to a user perspective. It specifically stresses the importance of the involvement of the user looking for information to the relevance of information sought to the performance of the medium used to find information on the WWW.

New Law & Public Policy Titles from MIT Press

Details below the fold. [JH]

Antitrust

• Handbook of Antitrust Economics, edited by Paolo Buccirossi

Current Affairs

• The Road to Democracy in Iran, by Akbar Ganji
• Why Nuclear Disarmament Matters, by Hans Blix
• The Epicenter of Crisis: The New Middle East, edited by Alexander T. J. Lennon

Environment

• American Environmental Policy, 1990-2006: Beyond Gridlock, by Christopher McGrory Klyza and David Sousa
• Environmental Law, Policy, and Economics: Reclaiming the Environmental Agenda, by Nicholas A. Ashford and Charles C. Caldart

Taxation

• Fundamental Tax Reform: Issues, Choices, and Implications, edited by John W. Diamond and George R. Zodrow
• Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen's Guide to the Debate over Taxes, 4th ed., by Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija

Technology

• Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times, edited by Megan Boler
• The Privacy Advocates: Resisting the Spread of Surveillance, by Colin J. Bennett (forthcoming, October 2008)

Antitrust

Handbook of Antitrust Economics
Edited by Paolo Buccirossi

Cloth: $95.00
MIT Press, April 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-02627-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-02627-7

Book Description: Over the past twenty years, economic theory has begun to play a central role in antitrust matters. In earlier days, the application of antitrust rules was viewed almost entirely in formal terms; now it is widely accepted that the proper interpretation of these rules requires an understanding of how markets work and how firms can alter their efficient functioning. The Handbook of Antitrust Economics offers scholars, students, administrators, courts, companies, and lawyers the economist’s view of the subject, describing the application of newly developed theoretical models and improved empirical methods to antitrust and competition law in both the United States and the European Union. (The book uses the U.S. term "antitrust law" and the European "competition law" interchangeably, emphasizing the commonalities between the two jurisdictions.)

After a general discussion of the use of empirical methods in antitrust cases, the Handbook covers mergers, agreements, abuses of dominance (or unilateral conducts), and market features that affect the way firms compete. Chapters examine such topics as analyzing the competitive effects of both horizontal and vertical mergers, detecting and preventing cartels, theoretical and empirical analysis of vertical restraints, state aids, the relationship of competition law to the defense of intellectual property, and the application of antitrust law to "bidding markets," network industries, and two-sided markets.

Current Affairs

The Road to Democracy in Iran
Akbar Ganji

Cloth: $14.95
MIT Press, April 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-07295-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-07295-3

Book Description: Akbar Ganji, called by some "Iran's most famous dissident," was a commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. But, troubled by the regime's repressive nature, he became an investigative journalist in the 1990s, writing for Iran's pro-democracy newspapers. Most notably, he traced the murders of dissident intellectuals to Iran's secret service. In 2000 Ganji was arrested, sentenced to six years in prison, and banned from working as a journalist. His eighty-day hunger strike during his last year in prison mobilized the international human rights community.

The Road to Democracy in Iran, Ganji's first book in English, demonstrates his lifelong commitment to human rights and democracy. A passionate call for universal human rights and the right to democracy from a Muslim perspective, it lays out the goals and means of Iran's democracy movement, why women's rights trump some interpretations of Islamic law, and how the West can help promote democracy in Iran (he strongly opposes U.S. intervention) and other Islamic countries.

Throughout the book Ganji argues consistently for universal rights based on our common humanity (and he believes the world's religions support that idea). But his arguments never veer into abstraction; they are rooted deeply in the realities of life in Islamic countries, and offer a clear picture of the possibilities for and obstacles to improving human rights and promoting democracy in the Muslim world.

About the Author: Since his release from prison in March 2006, Akbar Ganji has been traveling outside Iran, meeting with intellectuals and activists in the international human rights community. He is currently living in the United States.

Why Nuclear Disarmament Matters
Hans Blix

Cloth: $14.95
MIT Press, April 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-02644-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-02644-4

Book Description: In 2002 Dr. Hans Blix, then chief United Nations weapons inspector, lead his team on a search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Before the United States went to war with Iraq the next March, he maintained there were no WMD in Iraq. History proved him right.

For more than forty years Dr. Blix has worked on global disarmament, and with this new book he renews the call for nuclear nonproliferation. His interests, though, go beyond stemming the threat of nuclear attack from rogue states and terrorists. It is not, he argues, a recipe for success for nuclear states to tell the rest of the world that it must stay away from the very weapons that nuclear states claim are indispensable. We will never be able to convince rogue states to halt the pursuit of nuclear weapons programs unless we take the lead in a new nonproliferation and disarmament movement.

Looking back at the UN post-World War II efforts against the use of nuclear weapons, Blix documents the retreat from early commitments by nuclear powers, most alarmingly from pledges against first use and toward programs to develop new types of nuclear weapons. He urges us to revive these efforts, and that the world's powers also look at issues of global disarmament and security as pieces of the same puzzle. Why Nuclear Disarmament Matters includes specific suggestions--how the UN can set the stage for a credible multilateral disarmament and nonproliferation process; what kind of treaties would be most helpful--and recommendations for regional policy, including providing the Middle East with enriched uranium for civilian nuclear power production but not allowing uranium enrichment there.

About the Author: From March 2000 to June 2003 Hans Blix was Executive Chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). Dr. Blix, author of Disarming Iraq, is Chair of the Swedish government's Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The Epicenter of Crisis
The New Middle East
Edited by Alexander T. J. Lennon

Paper: $25.00
MIT Press, March 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-62216-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-62216-5

Book Description: The Epicenter of Crisis argues that six contiguous states epitomize the security challenges of a post-9/11, globalized world: Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Characterized by a dramatically transforming Islam, ethnic conflict, civil war, failed states, and terrorism, this "new Middle East" is the epicenter of what some call an arc of crisis, stretching from the Balkans into Southeast Asia. The Epicenter of Crisis examines this geopolitically dynamic region, analyzing the changing role of Islam in these six critical countries, the dangers posed by potential failed states, and the evolving terrorist threat

The contributors, all specialists in Middle East or foreign policy, address such crucial issues as the relationship between the Saudi royal family and Al Quaeda, Syria's waning influence over Hizbollah, media coverage of the war in Iraq, a new U.S. strategy for dealing with Iran, Afghanistan's opium industry, and the effectiveness of U.S. multi-billion-dollar assistance to Pakistan. The Epicenter of Crisis challenges readers to reconceptualize the boundaries of the Middle East in a changed world.

Environment

American Environmental Policy, 1990-2006
Beyond Gridlock
Christopher McGrory Klyza and David Sousa

Cloth: $69.00
MIT Press, January 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-11313-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-11313-7

Book Description: The "golden era" of American environmental lawmaking, between 1964 and 1980, saw twenty-two pieces of major environmental legislation (including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act) passed by bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed into law by presidents of both parties. But since then environmental issues have divided the parties and engendered bitter interest-group politics, with most new proposals blocked by legislative gridlock. In this book, Christopher McGrory Klyza and David Sousa argue that this longstanding legislative stalemate at the national level has forced environmental policymaking onto other pathways, both inside and outside government. Despite the congressional impasse, they write, environmental policymaking today is vibrant and complex--although the results fall short of what is needed in the years ahead.

Klyza and Sousa identify and analyze five alternative policy paths, which they illustrate with case studies: "appropriations politics" in Congress; executive authority, including the rulemaking process; the role of the courts, whose role in environmental policymaking has grown in the era of legislative gridlock; “next-generation” collaborative experiments (which, the authors argue, should be seen as an important approach but not a panacea); and policymaking at the state level. Their comprehensive analysis of the state of environmental policymaking since 1990 shows that although legislative gridlock is unlikely to dissipate anytime soon, the nation continues to move in the direction favored by environmentalists, largely because of the policy legacies of the 1960s and 1970s that have created an enduring 'green state" rooted in statutes, bureaucratic routines, and public expectations.

About the Authors: Christopher McGrory Klyza is Robert '35 and Helen '38 Stafford Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Political Science and Environmental Studies at Middlebury College. David Sousa is Professor in the Department of Politics and Government at the University of Puget Sound.

Environmental Law, Policy, and Economics
Reclaiming the Environmental Agenda
Nicholas A. Ashford and Charles C. Caldart

Cloth: $90.00
MIT Press, May 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-01238-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-01238-6

Book Description: The past twenty-five years have seen a significant evolution in environmental policy, with new environmental legislation and substantive amendments to earlier laws, significant advances in environmental science, and changes in the treatment of science (and scientific uncertainty) by the courts. This book offers a detailed discussion of the important issues in environmental law, policy, and economics, tracing their development over the past few decades through an examination of environmental law cases and commentaries by leading scholars. The authors focus on pollution, addressing both pollution control and prevention, but also emphasize the evaluation, design, and use of the law to stimulate technical change and industrial transformation, arguing that there is a need to address broader issues of sustainable development.

Environmental Law, Policy, and Economics, which grew out of courses taught by the authors at MIT, treats the traditional topics covered in most classes in environmental law and policy, including common law and administrative law concepts and the primary federal legislation. But it goes beyond these to address topics not often found in a single volume: the information-based obligations of industry, enforcement of environmental law, market-based and voluntary alternatives to traditional regulation, risk assessment, environmental economics, and technological innovation and diffusion. Countering arguments found in other texts that government should play a reduced role in environmental protection, this book argues that clear, stringent legal requirements--coupled with flexible means for meeting them--and meaningful stakeholder participation are necessary for bringing about environmental improvements and technological transformations.

About the Authors: Nicholas A. Ashford is Professor of Technology and Director of the Technology and Law Program at MIT. Charles C. Caldart is Director of Litigation of the National Environmental Law Center and a Lecturer in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT.

Taxation

Fundamental Tax Reform
Issues, Choices, and Implications
Edited by John W. Diamond and George R. Zodrow

Cloth: $45.00
MIT Press, April 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-04247-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-04247-5

Book Description: Reform of the federal income tax system has become a perennial item on the domestic policy agenda of the United States, although there is considerable uncertainty over specifics. Indeed the recent report of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform recommended not one but two divergent policy directions (and included extensive discussion of a third). In Fundamental Tax Reform, top experts in tax policy discuss a wide range of issues raised by the prospect of significant tax reform, identifying the most critical questions and considering whether the answers are known, unknown--or unknowable.

The debates over tax reform usually concern the advantages and disadvantages of income-based taxation as opposed to any of the several alternative forms of consumption-based taxation. The book opens with chapters that discuss the strengths, weaknesses, and political feasibility of these options. Other chapters consider the effects of tax reforms on businesses, especially their investment behavior, and include a discussion of possible problems in any transition to a consumption-based tax; international taxation issues arising in an era of globalization; and individual behavioral response to tax reform, including a view of the topic from the perspective of the relatively new field of behavioral economics.

Taxing Ourselves, 4th Edition
A Citizen's Guide to the Debate over Taxes
Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija

Cloth: $60.00
MIT Press, April 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-19573-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-19573-7

Book Description: As Albert Einstein may or may not have said, "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." Indeed, to follow the debate over tax reform, the interested citizen is forced to choose between misleading sound bites and academic treatises. Taxing Ourselves bridges the gap between the two by discussing the key issues clearly and without a political agenda: Should the federal income tax be replaced with a flat tax or sales tax? Should it be left in place and reformed? Can tax cuts stimulate the economy, or will higher deficits undermine any economic benefit? Tax policy experts Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija lay out in accessible language what is known and not known about how taxes affect the economy, offer guidelines for evaluating tax systems, and provide enough information to assess both the current income tax system and the leading proposals to reform or replace it (including the flat tax and the consumption tax).

The fourth edition of this popular guide has been extensively revised to incorporate the latest information, covering such recent developments as the Bush administration's tax cuts (which expire in 2011) and the alternatives proposed by the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform. Slemrod and Bakija provide us with the knowledge and the tools--including an invaluable voter's guide to the tax policy debate--to make our own informed choices about how we should tax ourselves.

About the Authors: Joel Slemrod is Paul W. McCracken Collegiate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy and Director of the Office of Tax Policy Research at the University of Michigan. Jon Bakija is Associate Professor of Economics at Williams College and Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Cornell University Law School, 2007-2008.

Technology

Digital Media and Democracy
Tactics in Hard Times
Edited by Megan Boler

Cloth: $40.00
MIT Press, May 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-02642-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-02642-0

Book Description: In an age of proliferating media and news sources, who has the power to define reality? When the dominant media declared the existence of WMDs in Iraq, did that make it a fact? Today, the "Social web" (sometimes known as Web 2.0, groupware, or the participatory Web)--epitomized by blogs, viral videos, and YouTube--creates new pathways for truths to emerge and makes possible new tactics for media activism. In Digital Media and Democracy, leading scholars in media and communication studies, media activists, journalists, and artists explore the contradiction at the heart of the relationship between truth and power today: the fact that the radical democratization of knowledge and multiplication of sources and voices made possible by digital media coexists with the blatant falsification of information by political and corporate powers.

The book maps a new digital media landscape that features citizen journalism, The Daily Show, blogging, and alternative media. The contributors discuss broad questions of media and politics, offer nuanced analyses of change in journalism, and undertake detailed examinations of the use of Web-based media in shaping political and social movements. The chapters include not only essays by noted media scholars but also interviews with such journalists and media activists as Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Media Matters host Robert McChesney, and Hassan Ibrahim of Al Jazeera.

The Privacy Advocates
Resisting the Spread of Surveillance
Colin J. Bennett

Cloth: $28.00
MIT Press, October 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-02638-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-02638-3

Book Description: Today, personal information is captured, processed, and disseminated in a bewildering variety of ways, and through increasingly sophisticated, miniaturized, and distributed technologies: identity cards, biometrics, video surveillance, the use of cookies and spyware by Web sites, data mining and profiling, and many others. In The Privacy Advocates, Colin Bennett analyzes the people and groups around the world who have risen to challenge the most intrusive surveillance practices by both government and corporations. Bennett describes a network of self-identified privacy advocates who have emerged from civil society--without official sanction and with few resources, but surprisingly influential.

A number of high-profile conflicts in recent years have brought this international advocacy movement more sharply into focus. Bennett is the first to examine privacy and surveillance not from a legal, political, or technical perspective but from the viewpoint of these independent activists who have found creative ways to affect policy and practice. Drawing on extensive interviews with key informants in the movement, he examines how they frame the issue and how they organize, who they are and what strategies they use. He also presents a series of case studies that illustrate how effective their efforts have been, including conflicts over key-escrow encryption (which allows the government to read encrypted messages), online advertising through third-party cookies that track users across different Web sites, and online authentication mechanisms such as the short-lived Microsoft Passport. Finally, Bennett considers how the loose coalitions of the privacy network could develop into a more cohesive international social movement.

About the Author: Colin Bennett is Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. He is the coauthor (with Charles Raab) of The Governance of Privacy: Policy Instruments in Global Perspective (updated paperback edition, MIT Press, 2006).

Parenthood and Productivity in Law Firms

In Parenthood and Productivity: A Study of Demands, Resources and Family-Friendly Firms, 72 J. Vocational Behavior 110 (Feb. 2008), sociologists Jean Wallace & Marisa Young (Calgary) find that childless female lawyers billed more hours than childless male lawyers (and male and female lawyers with children) The study also finds we little support for the benefits of family resources or working in a family-friendly firm for women. Here's the abstract:

We examine how the presence of children is related to women’s and men’s productivity. We hypothesize family demands, family resources, and family-friendly workplaces are also related to productivity. Productivity for 670 Alberta law firm lawyers is analyzed using a standardized measure of productivity referred to as billable hours. The results suggest that mothers with school-aged children are less productive than non-mothers, whereas fathers with preschool-aged children are more productive than non-fathers. While time spent on household and childcare tasks significantly reduces women’s productivity, we find little support for the benefits of family resources or working in a family-friendly firm for women. Rather, fathers seem to benefit more: family resources are positively related to their productivity and family-friendly benefits allow them more time for leisure. These results support the assumption that having children is negatively related to women’s productivity but challenges the belief that family-friendly policies are primarily beneficial only to mothers trying to balancing work and family.

Hat tip to TaxProf Blog. [JH]

Investor and Industry Perspectives on Investment Advisers and Broker-Dealers

New report from the RAND Corporation:

"In theory, financial professionals are relatively distinct: A broker conducts transactions in securities on behalf of others; a dealer buys and sells securities for his or her own accounts; and an investment adviser provides advice to others regarding securities. Broker-dealers and investment advisers are subject to different regulatory structures. But trends in the financial services market since the early 1990s have blurred the boundaries between them. Regulatory reform requires a clearer understanding of the industry’s complexities. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission asked RAND to conduct this study to examine the professionals’ current business practices and whether investors understand differences between and relationships among them. The report describes a heterogeneous industry, with firms taking many different forms and offering a multitude of services and products and with investors failing to distinguish broker-dealers and investment advisers along regul! atory lines. Despite this, investors express high levels of satisfaction with the services they receive from their own financial service providers. This satisfaction was much more frequently reported to arise from the personal attention the investor receives than from the actual financial returns arising from this relationship."  [RJ]

2008 Essential Reference Tools Surveys

Check out Diane Kovacs' on-going reference tool surveys, including surveys for Law and Government Documents, both hosted by SurveyMonkey. Kovacs is author of The Virtual Reference Handbook (2007)(Details below the fold). [JH]

The Virtual Reference Handbook
Interview and Information Delivery Techniques for the Chat and E-Mail Environment
by Diane K. Kovacs

List Price: $65.00
150 pp
Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2007
ISBN: 9781555705985

Book Description: IM, e-mail, and chat reference is already here, but have you adapted your traditional reference interview and information provision skills to these new formats? ACRL online trainer and popular Internet workshop leader Diane Kovacs has assembled this handbook to help reference librarians develop the communication skills and resources they need to work effectively in the virtual reference environment. The handbook shows how to adapt traditional face-to-face reference interview skills to the virtual interview—and how to interpret and use new cues (chat slang, IM shorthand, emoticons, etc.) to better serve your users. For both chat and e-mail transactions, Kovacs outlines strategies for analyzing the question, conducting the interview, developing a search strategy, and delivering sources. There is guidance for selecting the best information format for users and delivering content in a timely and valuable manner. This practical guide offers everything reference librarians need to move from the face-to-face to virtual transaction with ease.

Managing Web 2.0 Deployments for e-Discovery Compliance

Pretty much all digital information is vulnerable when it comes to e-discovery requests. That includes content stored in-house on servers and local drives, plus mobile devices. IT departments can readily deal with these discovery requests but what about Web 2.0 apps like blogs and wikis not hosted in-house but used for business purposes? Covered by e-discovery requests? Yup.

As discussed in an Information Week story Holy Web 2.0 Herding Nightmare, employees are flocking to online collaboration tools that are not always supported by in-house IT departments. In Web 2.0 And Legal Discovery, Information Week reviews the need to develop an enterprise-level policy for the use of collaboration tools, one that gives companies and law firms the right to access any online tools that contain corporate data but are not hosted in-house, retrieve that data, and shut down the employee's access to the site if necessary.

As a first step, KM managers should conduct an audit to identify the use of Web 2.0 apps hosted off-site by service providers and consider bringing them in-house to provide users with the capabilities they need to do their jobs. Holy Web 2.0 Herding Nightmare reviews some IT options for doing so.

For Web 2.0 deployments that remain hosted off-site, a registry of blogs, wikis and other collaboration tools used for business purposes is absolutely essential for e-discovery purposes. Courts will not look kindly on "we didn't know" responses. [JH] 

Impact of CAFA Study Finds 72 Percent Increase in Class Actions

The Impact of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 on the Federal Courts, Fourth Interim Report to the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rules (April 2008) (pdf) found a 72 percent increase in class action cases for comparable periods in 2001 and 2007 in 88 federal district courts. Much of that increase was in federal question cases, especially labor class actions and class actions filed under federal consumer protection statutes. Since CAFA’s effective date in February 2005, however, the Federal Judicial Center study also observed an increase in the number of class actions initiated in the federal courts on the basis of diversity of citizenship jurisdiction.

From the summary of key findings:

• There has been a dramatic increase in the number of diversity class actions filed as original proceedings in the federal courts in the post-CAFA period. The pre-CAFA average of such filings per month was 11.9; the post-CAFA average was 34.5 per month.
• Diversity class action removals increased in the immediate post-CAFA period over their 2004 levels but have been trending downward since 2005. In the last months of the study period, diversity removals were at levels similar to those in the pre-CAFA period.
• The increase in diversity class action original proceedings was widespread. Diversity class action original proceedings increased overall in the districts in eleven of the twelve circuits, when we compared filings for calendar years 2002 and 2003 with those for the last two years of the study period, July 1, 2005–June 30, 2007. Diversity class action original proceedings also increased between the two time periods in all but one of the districts with substantial numbers of diversity class actions during the study period.
• The results we found for diversity class action removals were more varied. When we compared removals in calendar years 2002 and 2003 with those in the last two years of the study period, we found that they decreased in the last two years of the study period in five circuits. However, when we analyzed the districts separately, we found that most of the districts with substantial numbers of diversity class actions experienced some increase in diversity removals.
• The increase in diversity class actions is due largely to increases in the numbers of contracts, consumer protection/fraud, and torts-property damage class actions being filed in or removed to federal court in the post-CAFA period. Tortspersonal injury cases have not increased in the post-CAFA period.

[JH]

Nussbaum's Liberty of Conscience

Nussbaum’s contribution is to show vividly how the equality tradition leads the court, and the rest of us, to ask the right questions. As she understands, this is what we can ask of the law. -- Emily Bazelon, Good Faith, New York Times Book Review (March 23, 2008).

Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality
by Martha C. Nussbaum

List Price: $28.95
Hardcover: 406 pages
Publisher: Basic Books (February 4, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0465051642
ISBN-13: 978-0465051649

Related New Titles (featured below the fold)

Steven Goldberg's Bleached Faith: The Tragic Cost When Religion Is Forced into the Public Square Forrest Church's So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle over Church and State Garry Wills' Head and Heart: American Christianities Mark Lilla's The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West, named one of the 100 "Notable Books of 2007" by The New York Times.

Book Description: From one of America's most distinguished moral philosophers, a sweeping historically based argument that equal respect for all citizens is the bedrock of America's tradition of religious freedom. In one of the great triumphs of the colonial and Revolutionary periods, the founders of the future United States overcame religious intolerance in favor of a constitutional order dedicated to fair treatment for people's deeply held conscientious beliefs. It granted equal liberty of conscience to all and took a firm stand against religious establishment. This respect for religious difference, acclaimed scholar Martha Nussbaum writes, formed our democracy.

Yet today there are signs that this legacy is misunderstood. The prominence of a particular type of Christianity in our public life suggests the unequal worth of citizens who hold different religious beliefs, or no beliefs. Other people, meanwhile, seek to curtail the influence of religion in public life in a way that is itself unbalanced and unfair. Such partisan efforts, Nussbaum argues, violate the spirit of our Constitution.

Liberty of Conscience is a historical and conceptual study of the American tradition of religious freedom. Weaving together political history, philosophical ideas, and key constitutional cases, this is a rich chronicle of an ideal of equality that has always been central to our history but is now in serious danger.

About the Author: Martha C. Nussbaum holds appointments in the Philosophy Department, Law School, and Divinity School at the University of Chicago. She is the author of thirteen previous books. Her Cultivating Humanity won the 2002 Grawemeyer Award for Education.

Bleached Faith:The Tragic Cost When Religion Is Forced into the Public Square
by Steven Goldberg

List Price: $24.95
Cloth: 176 pages
Publisher: Stanford UP, 2008
ISBN-10: 0804758611
ISBN-13: 9780804758611

Book Description: Along the lines of other incredulous "neo-Enlightenment" books, Bleached Faith makes a forceful case that the gravest threat to real faith comes from those who would water down religion in order to win the dubious honor of forcing it into public buildings and classrooms.

The freedom of religion we enjoy in the United States, both as a matter of law and practice, is extraordinary by any measure. However, when American courts allow the government to insert religious symbolism in public spaces, real religion is the loser. Goldberg argues that people on both sides of this debate should resist this corruption of religion. The book provides a survey of the legal and political environment in which battles over the public display of the Ten Commandments, the teaching of intelligent design in our schools, and the celebration of religious holidays take place.

Goldberg firmly maintains that, "if American religion becomes a watered-down broth that is indistinguishable from consumerism and science, we will have no one to blame but ourselves. My opposition to pushing religion into the courthouse and the biology classroom does not stem from hostility to religion. I am opposed to bleached faith—the empty symbolism that diminishes the power of real belief."

So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle over Church and State
by Forrest Church

List Price: $28.00 
Hardcover: 544 pages
Publisher: Harcourt; 1 edition (September 10, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0151011850
ISBN-13: 978-0151011858

Book Description: Today’s dispute over the line between church and state (or the lack thereof) is neither the first nor the fiercest in our history. In a powerful retelling of the birth of the American body politic, religious historian Forrest Church describes our first great culture war—a tumultuous yet nearly forgotten conflict that raged from George Washington’s presidency to James Monroe’s. On one side of the battle, the proponents of order—Federalists, Congregationalists, New Englanders—believed that the only legitimate ruler of men is God. On the other side, the defenders of liberty—republicans, Baptists, Virginians—cheered the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and believed that only the separation of church and state would preserve man’s freedom. Would we be a nation under God, or with liberty for all? In this vigorous history, Forrest Church offers a new vision of our earliest presidents’ beliefs, reshaping assumptions about the debates that still reverberate across our land.

About the Author: Forrest Church is minister of All Souls Church in Manhattan. He earned his doctorate in church history at Harvard and has written or edited twenty-two books, including The Separation of Church and State.

Head and Heart: American Christianities
by Garry Wills

List Price: $29.95
Hardcover: 640 pages
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (October 4, 2007)
ISBN-10: 1594201463
ISBN-13: 978-1594201462

Book Description: A landmark examination of Christianity's place in American life across the broad sweep of this country's history, from the Puritans to the presidential administration of George W. Bush.

The struggle within American Christianity, Garry Wills argues, now and throughout our country's history, is between the head and the heart: between reason and emotion, Enlightenment and Evangelism. Why has this been so? How has the tension between the two poles played out, and with what consequences, over the past 400 years? How "Christian" is America, after all? Garry Wills brings a lifetime's worth of thought about these questions to bear on a magnificent historical reckoning that offers much needed perspective on some of the most contentious issues of our time.

A religious revolution occurred in America in the 18th century, one that saw the emergence of an Enlightenment religious culture whose hallmarks were tolerance for other faiths and a belief that religion was a matter best divorced from political institutions-the proverbial "separation of church and state." Wills shows us just how incredibly radical a departure this separation was: there was simply no precedent for it. To put this leap in perspective, Wills provides a grounding in the pre-Enlightenment religion that preceded it, beginning with the early Puritans. He then provides a thrillingly clear unpacking of the steps, particularly Madison's and Jefferson's, by which church-state separation was enshrined in the Constitution, and reveals the great irony of the efforts of today's Religious Right to blur the lines between the two. In fact, it is precisely that separation that has allowed religion in America to flourish since the disestablishment of religion created a free market, as it were, and competition for souls led to the profusion of denominations across the length and breadth of the land.

As Wills examines the key movements and personalities that have transformed America's religious landscape, we see again and again the same pattern emerge: a cooling of popular religious fervor followed by a grassroots explosion in evangelical activity, generally at a time of great social transformation and anxiety. But such forces inevitably go too far, provoking a backlash as is happening right now with the forces of Creationism and the anti-abortion fundamentalists.

About the Author: Garry Wills has written many acclaimed works, on religion and on American history, including Lincoln at Gettysburg, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment, What Jesus Meant, and What Paul Meant. His works have received many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize. He is professor of history emeritus at Northwestern University.

The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West
by Mark Lilla

List Price: $26.00
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (September 11, 2007)
ISBN-10: 1400043670
ISBN-13: 978-1400043675

Book Description: Religious passions are again driving world politics. The quest to bring political life under God’s authority has been revived, confounding expectations of a secular future. In this major book, Mark Lilla reveals the sources of this age-old quest—and its surprising role in shaping Western thought.

The story could not be more timely. Most civilizations in history have been organized on the basis of a political theology – a myth or revelation about the correct ordering of society. Yet due to a crisis in Western Christendom nearly five hundred years ago, a novel intellectual challenge to political theology arose in Europe. By portraying religion as an expression of human nature, not a divine gift, modern Western thinkers found a way to free politics from God’s authority and build barriers against destructive religious passions.

But the temptations of political theology are always present, even in the West. As Lilla vividly shows, the urge to reconnect politics to religion remained strong and took novel forms in modern European thought. By the Second World War a forceful political messianism had arisen, justifying the most deadly ideologies of the age. Making us question what we thought we knew about religion, politics, and the fate of civilizations, Lilla reminds us of the modern West’s unique trajectory and what is required to remain on it.

About the Author: Mark Lilla is Professor of Humanities and Religion at Columbia University. He was previously Professor at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

EPA Publishes Annual National Greenhouse Gas Inventory

From the press release: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released the national greenhouse gas inventory, which finds that overall emissions during 2006 decreased by 1.1 percent from the previous year. The report, Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2006, is the latest in an annual set of reports that the United States submits to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which sets an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge posed by climate change." 

See also: New United Nations Environmental Program: "The UNEP Year Book 2008 (formerly the GEO Year Book) is the fifth annual report on the changing environment produced by the United Nations Environment Programme in collaboration with many world environmental experts. The UNEP Year Book 2008 highlights the increasing complexity and interconnections of climate change, ecosystem integrity, human well-being, and economic development. It examines the emergence and influence of economic mechanisms and market driven approaches for addressing environmental degradation, and it describes recent research findings and policy decisions that affect our awareness of and response to changes in our global climate and environment."

[RJ]

Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the April 21st, 2008 issue of InSITE:

• IANSA: International Action Network on Small Arms
• Secrecy News
• Small Arms Survey
• Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society
• UC Berkeley Library's Congressional Research Tutorials

[RJ]

IANSA: International Action Network on Small Arms
http://www.iansa.org/

The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) is a network of 800 organizations in 120 countries, seeking "stronger regulation of guns in society and better controls on arms exports." The website provides coverage of the activities of the member organizations and tracks current developments and news items related to small arms and light weapons (SALW) including the manufacture, licit and illicit trade, use, control and destruction of these weapons. The site seems very much "by and for" activists and advocates of arms control; the global breadth of the organization and its nature as a consortium of independent partners makes for some unevenness in content. The pages for some regions or specific campaigns are updated much more frequently than others. The site features a Google-based search engine which helps to locate specific content but also suffers from the usual problems of Google's algorithms. Multiple "rolls" of links and feeds along with minimal editorship make for a somewhat overwhelming feel. IANSA's website seems best used as an aggregation site for news items and links to member organizations and as a general survey of arms control issues. Users seeking in-depth, specialist coverage of specific issues on small arms control would do better to consult the Small Arms Survey (also reviewed in this issue of InSITE). [JPC]

Secrecy News
http://fas.org/blog/secrecy/

Secrecy News is the website of the Federation of American Scientists (“FAS”) Project on Government Secrecy.  FAS’s mission is to provide the public with timely, non-partisan analyses of global issues which involve science and technology.  The Secrecy News website is a subsidiary FAS project, written by Steven Aftergood, a senior research analyst at FAS.  The site is a blog, whose entries contain information and updates on government secrecy.  There are links to most documents cited in the blog postings.  Most of these documents are hosted on FAS website (www.fas.org), but are not created by FAS.  They are generally PDFs of publicly available documents, such as legal complaints, government investigation reports, and press releases.  The blog may also link to FAS web pages that index publicly available documents on specific topics, such as the State Secrets Privilege.  Secrecy News only contains links for blog entries, organized by date of posting; it is not indexed by topic areas or specific issues.  Users can run a simple search of the blog through a search box at the top of the page.  Secrecy News’ coverage begins in mid-January 2006 and is ongoing.  Users can receive security news updates from Secrecy News via email, or sign up for its RSS feed. [LB]

Small Arms Survey
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/

The Small Arms Survey is a research project of the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. As a research project, the Survey seeks "to act as a resource for governments, policy-makers, researchers, and activists in terms of information and research on small arms issues." The site has a functioning search engine and many of the links in the site map are only to brief, introductory descriptions of the topics listed. However the Survey is worthwhile for the reports available in the "Spotlight" and "Publications" sections. These documents (in PDF) include regional and annual reports on the trade, use and control of small arms, with foci on specific countries, campaigns, and economic and social aspects. For example, the 2006 annual report included a section on reduction for demand of small arms. The site is clearly intended for specialists and researchers, with possible secondary use by policymakers and advocates. As a whole, the site is more tightly focused on provision of in-depth information than is the more activist-oriented IANSA website. [JPC]

Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/

Housed at Stanford Law School, the Center for Internet and Society (CIS) is a part of the Stanford Program in Law, Science and Technology.  As a public interest technology law and policy center, CIS brings together academics, legislators, scientists, and others “to study the interaction of new technologies and the law and to examine ... how the two can either promote or harm public goods like free speech, privacy, ... and scientific inquiry.”  The website highlights the resources and activities of the Center, including the Cyberlaw Clinic and the Fair Use Project.  Designed to give students practical experience, the Clinic represents various litigants who are pursuing cases that affect the public interest and technological development.  The Clinic’s cases are listed with links to opinions, petitions, and other documents when these are available online.  The Fair Use Project has been active since 2006 working to expand creative freedom by clarifying and expanding the boundaries of fair use.  The content here, as with much of the site, is presented in blog format.  Also available on the site is Packets, the CIS newsletter.  Packets provides a concise digest of recently decided cyberlaw cases. [MM]

UC Berkeley Library's Congressional Research Tutorials
http://sunsite3.berkeley.edu/wikis/congresearch/

The tutorials on this site are the work of Jesse Silva, Federal Documents and Political Science Librarian, and Karen Munro, E-Learning Librarian at the University of California, Berkeley. They have created five videos covering the basics of Congressional research using the resource noted in parentheses:  how to find bills from 1989 to present, (Thomas), how to find a report (LexisNexis Congressional), how to find debates from 1873 to present in print (Congressional Record), how to find debates from 1989 to present online (Thomas), and how to contact your federal representatives (Senate and House web pages). The running time for each is noted at the beginning of the tutorial and times vary between two and five minutes. A pause button lets users go at their own pace and practice before moving on.  Each tutorial begins with a statement about what you will learn and concludes with a summary of what you learned. The tutorials use an actual research problem, such as finding a hearing on the 1979 nuclear reactor incident at Three Mile Island and finding debates on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Instruction is given via brief explanatory inserts highlighting relevant parts of the search pages.  The videos automatically click and type on web pages to demonstrate searches. However, a live web page that mirrors the lesson page is at the bottom of each screen if you want to point and click yourself. The tutorial dealing with the print Congressional Record features inserts over print pages and highlights where the debates are found on the page.  All of the tutorials are succinct and can be easily understood by the public as well as by law students and legal professionals. The tutorials give the viewer an appreciation of the scope of information available from each of the resources.  For more experienced researchers, the site features U.S. Congressional Search, a Google application by UC Berkeley that searches selected databases: Thomas, U.S. House, U.S. Senate, Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Government Accountability Office (GAO), Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Washington Post, and several others.  [JC]

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

InSITE contributors: L. Buechner, J. Callihan, J. Cusker, M. Morrison, J. Pajerek (editor)

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. This information can be accessed via the channels below, in addition to this mailing list:

1. Searchable database or by browsing current and archived issues on the web:

        InSITE home page ( http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/insiteasp/)

2. RSS feed ( http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/insiteasp/public/rss.asp )

3. Print format for the Cornell Law School community.

***A note to our readers: The InSITE website has been revamped and now features a quick search on the home page, in addition to the advanced search previously available.  We've also added a great new feature that allows anyone to search all the websites ever annotated by InSITE with a single click.   It's updated with each new issue of InSITE.  We hope you enjoy these new features of InSITE.
The contents of this publication and any recommendations therein are the opinions of the authors and do not reflect the views of Cornell University.

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

Professional Reading: The Future of the Web

The theme of the January 2008 issue of ERCIM News is the future of the web. You can download the entire issue (pdf) or view most of the articles online from links provided on the TOC page. In general, the articles are brief but packed with information about Web research. While working through the issue, I found the following articles especially helpful:

Understanding the Hidden Web by Pierre Senellart, Serge Abiteboul and Rémi Gilleron

A large part of the Web is hidden to present-day search engines, because it lies behind forms. Here we present current research (centred around the PhD thesis of the first author) on the fully automatic understanding and use of the services of the so-called hidden Web.

Discovery and Selection of Service