Law Librarian Blog

Who Will Rule the New Internet?

Google, Facebook or Apple. Apple? Read more about it in Time. [JH]

Commission on Growth and Development Releases Landmark Study of World's 13 Fastest-Growing Economies

The Commission on Growth and Development has released its final report, The Growth Report: Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Development (pdf) which looks at how developing countries can achieve fast sustained and equitable growth.

According to the Commission, fast sustained growth is not a miracle; it is attainable for developing countries with the "right mix of ingredients." Countries need leaders who are committed to achieving growth and who can take advantage of opportunities from the global economy. They also need to know about the levels of incentives and public investments that are necessary for private investment to take off and ensure the long-term diversification of the economy and its integration in the global economy. More on the Report's website.

Foreign Policy interviews Michael Spence about the Report in Seven Questions: How Countries Get Rich. [JH]

Do We Need 10 More Law Schools?

Read more about it in the National Law Journal article A Deluge of Law Schools. [JH]

Friday Fun: It's Only a TV Court!

Ouch, Judge Milian gives a University of Miami law student a piece of her mind on the People's Court. [JH]

Course Project Produces Privacy Complaint Against Facebook

The law students at the University of Ottawa’s Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic analyzed Facebook’s policies and practices in a course last winter, identifying specific practices that may violate the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. They have now filed a privacy complaint (pdf) against Facebook with Canada’s federal privacy commissioner.

Hat tip to Christine Corcos (LSU), Media Law Prof Blog. [JH]

The Role of Blogs in Public Debate: A Case Study of the Alito Nomination

Check out New Mediated Deliberation: Blog and Press Coverage of the Alito Nomination by Michael Xenos 13 Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 485 (2008). Here's the abstract:

This study explores the implications of political weblogs for theories of mediated public deliberation. Guided by contemporary questions surrounding the internet and the public sphere, we examine blog and newspaper coverage of the nomination and confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court of Samuel Alito with an eye toward further development of theories of mass deliberation. Specifically, we pursue questions concerning volume of coverage, ideological polarization, and interactive features in the blogosphere, using newspaper coverage as a point of reference. Data come from content analyses of newspaper stories mentioning Alito in the headline or lead paragraphs from the initial nomination announcement through final confirmation, as well as archival impressions of blog posts featuring hyperlinks to the newspaper stories. Our analysis suggests that blogs may enhance as well as complicate processes of mediated deliberation. We conclude by discussing empirical and conceptual implications of these findings for future research on the role of blogs in the contemporary public sphere.

[JH]

Lipton's Personality Rights Paradigm for Personal Domain Name Disputes

Jacqueline Lipton (Case Western Reserve Law School) has posted Celebrity in Cyberspace: A Personality Rights Paradigm for Personal Domain Name Disputes, forthcoming in the Washington & Lee Law Review, in SSRN. Here is the abstract.

When the Oscar-winning actress, Julia Roberts, fought for control of the domain name, what was her aim? Did she want to reap economic benefits from the name? Probably not, as she has not used the name since it was transferred to her. Or did she want to prevent others from using it on either an unjust enrichment or a privacy basis? Was she, in fact, protecting a trademark interest in her name? Personal domain name disputes, particularly those in the space, implicate unique aspects of an individual's persona in cyberspace. Nevertheless, most of the legal rules developed for these disputes are based on trademark law. Although a number of individuals have successfully used these rules in practice, the focus on trademark law has led to inconsistent and often arbitrary results. Additionally, commentators have questioned recent expansions of trademark law in the Internet context. This Article suggests that if personal names merit legal protection in cyberspace, it should be under an appropriate set of legal rules, rather than through further expansion of trademarks. This Article develops a new framework for personal domain name disputes based on the theories underlying the right of publicity tort. Unlike trademark law, this tort is aimed at the protection of individual names and likenesses. It has not been utilized much in cyberspace largely because of time, cost, and jurisdictional disadvantages of litigation as opposed to the quicker and cheaper, but trademark-based, Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy ("UDRP"). This article suggests the creation of a new personal domain name dispute resolution policy ("PDRP") that combines the procedural advantages of the UDRP with the theory underlying the right of publicity tort.

Hat tip to Media Law Prof Blog. [JH]

Litigation Could Redefine "Business Methods" Software Patents

Interesting story from CNet.com:

"About a decade ago, a federal appeals court issued a ruling that prompted thousands of new applications for patents on so-called "business methods," ranging from Amazon.com's "1-click" ordering system to Priceline's auction technique for selling tickets.

But at what point are such processes too "abstract" to be worthy of patent protection? That's one of the key questions that was set to be argued before an atypical 12-judge "en banc" panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington.

Called In re Bilski, the case involves an application for a patent on a process for managing the risks of bad weather in commodities trades. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected the petition from applicants Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw because it decided the process described was not confined to a particular machine and amounted to patenting a "mental step" or an "abstract idea"--something the Supreme Court has ruled is not worthy of a patent, the Patent Office held. The Federal Circuit agreed to have a special panel hear what's widely viewed as a momentous appeal." 

See also, Ex Parte Bilski: On the Briefs, Patent Law Blog  [RJ]

Opening: Senior Cataloging Librarian, Washington University School of Law Library

Washington University School of Law Library is searching for a candidate to fill the position of Senior Cataloging Librarian. The following is a short description for this position:

JOB TITLE:    Assistant Law Librarian/Senior Cataloging Librarian at Washington University School of Law Library

I. SHORT JOB DESCRIPTION

Manage and ensure the efficient and productive operation of the Cataloging Department of the Law Library.

Oversee the Law Library’s use of the OCLC as cataloging utility and the INNOPAC as the local OPAC system and ensure consistency and accuracy as relates to bibliographic records.

Lead the Law Library in the application of technological advancements in the area of access to bibliographic information.

Participate in the Library Reference Service at the Reference Desk

II. MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

M.A. or M.L.S. or M.S. in Library or Information Science from A.L.A. accredited library/information school.

III.    PREFERRED REQUIREMENTS:

Law Library experience.

Substantial experience using AACR2, the MARC bibliographic format; Library of Congress: Rules Interpretations, and Subject Headings required; experience in law schedules.

Experience with INNOPAC library system in a law library and OCLC.

Cataloging experience in an automated environment.

Working knowledge of one or more foreign languages.

Experience using Windows XP and the Internet.

IV. MORE INFORMATION AND HOW TO APPLY:

The detail information about this position is posted on the Website of Washington University’s Career Opportunities at https://www.wustlcareers.com/applicants/jsp/shared/frameset/Frameset.jsp?time=1210772486400. You must apply for this position online if you are interested in it. When you are at the page of Washington University's Online Application System, click on Search all Danforth Campus Postings, chose "view" of Senior Cataloging Librarian, view the full job description, and click the button of "Apply for this Position".

Abbie Mulvihill Launches Law Librarians LinkedIn Group

From Abbie's blog, AbsTracked: "I have just set up a Law Librarians group at LinkedIn. If you are a law librarian with a LinkedIn profile, all you have to do is click on this link to join."

Great! [JH]

New Law Library planned for Barkley Law

Alben W. Barkley School of Law, formerly called American Justice School of Law, whose troubles this blog mentioned here and here attempts to stabilize itself and as part of its future plans to build a new $3.8M law library. Hopefully, this points to positive signs for this institution and its faculty, staff and students. We can only hope the construction goes smoothly unlike the stories at UConn Law Library and the Mississippi Supreme Court and State Law Library who sustained rather extensive water damage after sprinkler system issues less than five months after moving into their new building.

As an outsider to this situation I hope these plans are more than just lip service to attempt and keep the school afloat and in the running for ABA accreditation as several reports say the school is severely strapped for capital and lack of funding was one of the major issues with the previous lawsuits filed by students and faculty against the school. {BB}

Professional Reading: Alberto Manguel's The Library at Night

The starting point is a question. Outside theology and fantastic literature, few can doubt that the main features of our universe are its dearth of meaning and lack of discernible purpose. And yet, with bewildering optimism, we continue to assemble whatever scraps of information we can gather in scrolls and books and computer chips, on shelf after library shelf, whether material, virtual or otherwise, pathetically intent on lending the world a semblance of sense and order, while knowing perfectly well that, however much we’d like to believe the contrary, our pursuits are sadly doomed to failure. Why then do we do it? Though I knew from the start that the question would most likely remain unanswered, the quest seemed worthwhile for its own sake. This book is the story of that quest. Why then do we do it? Though I knew from the start that the question would most likely remain unanswered, the quest seemed worthwhile for its own sake. This book is the story of that quest. -- from The Library at Night

In the wake of Jorge Luis Borges, perhaps, Alberto Manguel celebrates the power of the library over the creative imagination. For some it is a place of order, where the co-ordinates of scholarship are drawn up and displayed. For others the library attests to the incipient chaos of all recorded expression. The reader may go from book to book, like a butterfly, and extract a phrase before dipping into another and another volume. -- Peter Ackroyd's Review of Alberto Manguel's The Library at Night, The Times (March 8, 2008).

Remember the serendipity of discovery experienced so long time ago by browsing the stacks? Manguel's The Library at Night is best approached in a similar fashion. Buy the book and place it near your favorite chair. Then pick it up to read its fifteen essays in no particular order when you have quiet moments this summer to pause for a question (see sidebar). The essays posit the library “as myth,” “as shape,” “as island,” etc., and my favorite, the library "as chance." [JH]

The Library at Night
Alberto Manguel

Yale UP, Mar 17, 2008
384 p., 5 1/2 x 9
ISBN: 9780300139143
ISBN-10: 0300139144
Cloth: $27.50 

Description. Inspired by the process of creating a library for his fifteenth-century home near the Loire, in France, Alberto Manguel, the acclaimed writer on books and reading, has taken up the subject of libraries. “Libraries,” he says, “have always seemed to me pleasantly mad places, and for as long as I can remember I’ve been seduced by their labyrinthine logic.” In this personal, deliberately unsystematic, and wide-ranging book, he offers a captivating meditation on the meaning of libraries.

Manguel, a guide of irrepressible enthusiasm, conducts a unique library tour that extends from his childhood bookshelves to the “complete” libraries of the Internet, from Ancient Egypt and Greece to the Arab world, from China and Rome to Google. He ponders the doomed library of Alexandria as well as the personal libraries of Charles Dickens, Jorge Luis Borges, and others. He recounts stories of people who have struggled against tyranny to preserve freedom of thought—the Polish librarian who smuggled books to safety as the Nazis began their destruction of Jewish libraries; the Afghani bookseller who kept his store open through decades of unrest. Oral “memory libraries” kept alive by prisoners, libraries of banned books, the imaginary library of Count Dracula, the library of books never written—Manguel illuminates the mysteries of libraries as no other writer could. With scores of wonderful images throughout, The Library at Night is a fascinating voyage through Manguel’s mind, memory, and vast knowledge of books and civilizations.

About the Author. Alberto Manguel is an internationally acclaimed anthologist, translator, essayist, novelist, and editor, and the author of several award-winning books, including A Dictionary of Imaginary Places and A History of Reading.

Recent Legislative Developments on Alien Smuggling

From CRS by way of OpenCRS: Alien Smuggling: Recent Legislative Developments (May 22, 2008)(pdf).

Summary: The primary statutory provision proscribing alien smuggling is §274 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). INA §274 proscribes a broad spectrum of activities that would aid aliens to enter and live within the United States without proper legal status. Recently in Congress, a flurry of proposed legislation has been introduced addressing alien smuggling. H.R. 4088/S. 2366/S. 2368 (the SAVE Act), the House-passed H.R. 2399, its companion bill S. 2463, and the House-passed H.R. 2830 all contain similar language that would amend both the INA and Title 18 of the U.S. Code. These bills would significantly alter the wording and structure of INA §274, expanding its scope. They would also add alien smuggling provisions in §2237 of Title 18, which would enhance sentencing for disobeying federal officials on the high seas while engaging in alien smuggling.

Chesapeake Project's Born-Digital Legal Information Archive Report

The Chesapeake Project has issued the first year evaluation (pdf) of the Project's two-year pilot program. From the executive summary:

Archiving Activity and Numbers

• 2,705 digital items were harvested and archived, along with their respective preservation metadata, in the OCLC Digital Archive, representing roughly 1,266 titles.
• Monthly archiving activity levels varied from 71 to 377 items archived per month. The mean number of items archived per month was 225.42 with a standard deviation of 96.53. The median number of items added per month was 221.

Access Statistics

• Items in The Chesapeake Project’s digital archive were accessed total of 5,317 times. Public (non-authenticated) users were responsible for 2,528 instances of access (47%). Libraries participating in The Chesapeake Project accessed their own materials as authenticated users as total of 2,267 times (43%). Authenticated libraries and institutions not participating in the project accessed archived items a total of 533 times (10%).
• Total monthly access figures ranged from a low of 206 instances of access in July 2007 to a high of 979 instances of access in September 2007.

Original URL Inactivity Levels

• Through a sample analysis of the original URLs of titles harvested from the Web and archived through February 29, 2008, it was determined that 8.3 percent of the original URLs had become inactive by March 2008.
• More than 90 percent of the top-level domains in the sample were state (state.[state code].us), organization (.org), and government (.gov) URLs, which represented approximately 41 percent, 32 percent, and 17 percent of the sample, respectively. 10.8 percent of state URLs, 10 percent of government URLs, and 8.3 percent of organization URLs were found to be inactive.
• More than 95 percent of the titles in the sample were in PDF format. Of these, 8.2 percent were found to have inactive original URLs. Four percent of the titles in the sample were in X/HTML formats; these items were found to have a similar inactivity rate of 8.7 percent.

See also the Project's Collection Plan (Sept. 2007)(pdf).

Hat tip to beSpacific. [JH]

Libraries Unleashed

Check out this supplement from the Guardian:

Topics include:

• Colleges, universities and the digital challenge
• Learning spaces
• Library 2.0
• New business models
• Digitisation
• The new user
• Librarians

See also:  Building the 21st century library, Joint Information Systems Committee [RJ]

Opening: Reference / Educational Technology Librarian, Syracuse University College of Law Library

The Syracuse University College of Law, H. Douglas Barclay Law Library invites applications for the position of Reference/Educational Technology Librarian.

Responsibilities:  As a member of the reference team, take a leading role in the instructional initiatives of the library.  Teach Westlaw, Lexis, and other traditional and emerging research sources.  Primary emphasis will be on planning, implementing and integrating social networking tools and other new educational technologies into the library’s instructional programs.  Develop subject specialties in conjunction with faculty liaison and collection development duties.  Provide reference and research assistance, including some evenings and weekends.  Other duties and projects as assigned. 

Required Qualifications:  Master's Degree from an accredited library and information science program, demonstrated knowledge of research techniques and demonstrated teaching skills.  Strong commitment to reference service and instruction in a complex educational environment.  Must possess a high degree of professionalism and the ability to both work independently and interact effectively with faculty, staff, students, and the public.  Excellent written and oral communication skills.  Preferred Qualifications: J.D. from an ABA-accredited law school and 2-5 years experience in a law school, court or law firm library.

Syracuse University, founded in 1870, is a private, not-for-profit university, identified by the Carnegie Foundation as a large university with high research activity.  It serves 10,000 undergraduates and 5,600 graduate students.  The H. Douglas Barclay Law Library, http://www.law.syr.edu/lawlibrary/, is independent of the University Library System.  It serves the College of Law's 700 students and 50+ faculty.  As a Federal Depository Library, it also serves the general public and members of the legal community.  The Law Library is a dynamic, collegial environment supporting a vibrant program of professional education.

The University's benefits package includes an 11% contribution to TIAA/CREF, health and dental plans, tuition remission, adoption assistance, insurance and other work/life options and benefits. The University offers a guaranteed mortgage-assistance program in targeted neighborhoods. For further information about benefits go to http://humanresources.syr.edu/benefits/.

This is an entry- to mid-level position.  Salary commensurate with qualifications and experience. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.  Review of applications will begin on June 20.  For more information and to apply for Job # 024071 go to: https://www.sujobopps.com.  Please attach a cover letter and resume, including the names of three references, with the application.

Syracuse University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK 13244-1030 ¨315-443-9560 ¨FAX 315-443-9567

Harvard UP Launches Open Access, Peer-Reviewed Legal Journal

Harvard University Press has unveiled its plan to publish the open access, peer-reviewed Journal of Legal Analysis. Hat tip to Geen Koo (CALI), Law School Innovation. [JH]

Thomson West Launches Redesigned Website

Check out Thomson West's redesigned website (home page image, left). Great new look, much easier to navigate.

• Home
• Sitemap
• Shop for Books & CD-ROMs
• Tools for Organizations
• Resources for Practice Centers
• Research & Technical Knowledge Base
• Librarian Resource Center

[JH]

LLB Poll: Why Go to AALL's Annual Meeting

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Free Citators Available from Public Domain Legal Search Engines

Check out Bonnie Shucha's (Wisconsin) review of new citators now available from AltLaw & PreCYdent. I agree with her assessment completely. These services "just aren't proven yet. What is the depth of coverage? Will it pick up all the important cases? One must feel a fair degree of trust in a citator. Are you ready to rely on a free one in preparing your brief?" In other words, not yet ready for prime time, that is to say, for use by legal professionals.

But of all the new open source legal search engines, the one to watch in my opinion is PreCYdent, not because of its new citator, but because of its very sophisticated search capabilities. See our earlier post: Law Prof as Toolmaker: An Interview with PreCYdent's Thomas A. Smith (San Diego) and the following brief video on how to use PreCYdent. [JH]