Law Librarian Blog

Real-time Stock Quotes on Google

From Google Blog:

"We're very excited to tell you that real-time quotes on NASDAQ securities are now available on Google Finance. This is an important (and way overdue) development for everyone who consumes financial information. Historically, real-time stock data was not freely and widely accessible. Either buried behind subscription walls or brokerage sites, consumers typically had to live with 15 or 20 minute price delays. In the world of finance, time is indeed money, and it's critical to have timely and accurate data.

Providing free real-time stock quotes is consistent with our mission, and we'll continue to work hard to offer tools, features and more real-time data so investors can make informed and timely financial decisions."  [RJ]

From Wikinomics to Government 2.0

Interesting Web 2.0 article from WSJ.com:

"You don't need to have a Facebook account, or to have edited a Wikipedia entry, to understand that the Web is in another highly disruptive period. Online tools under the rubric Web 2.0 are changing how information flows, with social networks letting people communicate directly with one another. This is reversing the top-down, one-way approach to communications that began with Gutenberg, challenging everything from how bosses try to manage to how consumers make or break products with instant mass feedback.

The institution that has most resisted new ways of doing things is the biggest one of all: government. This is about to change, with public-sector bureaucracies the new target for Web innovators."  (reg. req.)  [RJ]

Library of Congress Country Studies: Iran

New report from the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress: "The profiles offer brief, summarized information on a country’s historical background, geography, society, economy, transportation and telecommunications, government and politics, and national security. In addition to being featured in the front matter of published Country Studies, they are now being prepared as stand-alone reference aides for all countries in the series, as well as for a number of additional countries of interest. The profiles offer reasonably current country information independent of the existence of a recently published Country Study and will be updated annually or more frequently as events warrant."  [RJ]

Blogs and Wikis and 3D, Oh My!

Interesting article from Inside Higher Ed: Are academic blogs worthwhile or a waste of time? Is Second Life worthwhile or a waste of bandwidth?  [RJ]

Friday Fun: Poofy Judges

A classic from Monty Python. [JH]

Google's Joe Kraus on How to Make the Web More Social

Wharton legal studies professor Kevin Werbach interviewed Joe Kraus, director of product management at Google, recently about the increasing socialization of the Internet. Here's the transcript (or launch the podcast from the provided link). [JH]

Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse Revisited

The Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse is a web repository of information and documents relating to civil rights cases, particularly injunctive and class-action cases.  Sponsored by The Center for Empirical Research in the Law at the Washington University School of Law, St Louis, the database has grown substantially since LLB's 2006 post.

Currently, the categories include: Child Welfare, Criminal Justice (Other), Disability Rights-Pub. Accom., Education, Election/Voting Rights, Equal Employment, Fair Housing/Lending/Insurance, Immigration, Jail Conditions, Juvenile Institution, Mental Health Facility, Mental Retardation Facility, Nursing Home Conditions, Policing, Prison Conditions, Public Accommodations, Public Benefits, Public Defenders, Public Housing, School Desegregation, Speech and Religious Freedom.

For each included case, litigation documents include the docket sheet, the complaint, any decrees issued by courts or agreed to by parties, and any published opinions. Cases are indexed by court and issue, and are summarized. Check out the Clearinghouse search engine. Well done! [JH]

2008 Country Reports on Advancing Freedom and Democracy

New report from the U.S. Department of State:

"As President Bush has said: “Freedom can be resisted, and freedom can be delayed, but freedom cannot be denied.” As long as men and women in countries around the globe cannot fully exercise their most fundamental freedoms of belief, speech, association and assembly, we who live in liberty must work to defend and advance human rights and other democratic values across the globe.

Pursuant to the Advancing Democratic Values Act of 2007, the Department of State has prepared this report on U.S. efforts to promote democracy and human rights in nondemocratic countries and countries undergoing democratic transitions worldwide. The Act further specifies that we continue our cooperation with nongovernmental groups and individuals to advance human rights and democratic principles. Indeed, partnerships with NGOs-–indigenous and international--are essential to the development and success of free societies and play a vital role in ensuring accountable government and democratic change.

Upon consultation with NGOs, and in keeping with the Act’s definition of nondemocratic and democratic transition countries, we have reported on our priority efforts in 106 countries. The specific activities we highlighted in this report--bilateral programs, public diplomacy, multilateral initiatives, cooperation with international and indigenous organizations, and assistance programs--are meant to be illustrative, not exhaustive, of the full range of U.S. undertakings in the human rights and democracy fields.

As the report shows, we have concentrated our efforts on practical ways to strengthen the core elements that must be present in countries around the globe if human rights and democratic principles are to be exercised and protected effectively: (1) free and fair electoral processes, with a level playing field to ensure genuine competition; (2) good governance, with representative, transparent, and accountable institutions operating under the rule of law, including independent legislatures and judiciaries; and (3) robust civil societies, including human rights and democracy defenders, independent media, and labor unions.

Our objective is to expand the circle of democratic, well governed states that enshrine liberty under the rule of law, respect the rights and provide for the needs of their people, and act responsibly in the international system. The United States cannot do this for other countries. Nor should we. It must be their choice and their initiative. We can help, however, and we must help. This is partnership, not paternalism. The partnerships for democratic change that we are forging with governments, NGOs, and courageous men and women across the globe are helping to build a freer, safer world for all."  [RJ]

New Bookmarking Service Somewhat Better Than Most Currently Available Services

Check out LaterLoop, a new bookmarking service. What makes LaterLoop stand out from other bookmarking services is that LaterLoop has a desktop version that allows you to view saved websites offline, and the mobile version that provides mobile access to your saved websites. LaterLoop also lets you share your saved sites with public profile options and RSS feeds. 

What's missing? Mashable calls attention to two features that would be great additions to the service, namely search capabilities and organization options for saved items. See also Web Worker Daily's review. [JH]

Bankruptcy Filings Up in March

From the US Courts:

"Bankruptcy filings in the federal courts for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2008, exceeded 900,000, according to statistics released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The 901,927 bankruptcy cases filed represent a 30 percent increase over the 695,575 cases filed in the 12-month period ending March 31, 2007.

After an initial drop in bankruptcy filings following the October 17, 2005, implementation date of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA), filings have risen gradually. Calendar year 2007 filings saw a 38 percent increase. September 2007 filings were the highest of any previous 12-month period since December 2006." 

Per Capita Filings 2008 (pdf) (excel).  [RJ]

Opening: Circulation Librarian, Pacific McGeorge School of Law Library

The Gordon D. Schaber Law Library seeks an enthusiastic candidate with an attention to detail to be our next Circulation Librarian. The Circulation Librarian provides outstanding customer service while supervising all aspects of the Circulation Department and related functions: circulation, reserves, interlibrary loan, and stacks maintenance. This person reports to the Assistant Director for Public Services and participates in all professional activities of the library.

Compensation: Commensurate with experience, $50,000 minimum with a full benefits package.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Essential job functions include: managing all aspects of the department; documenting and implementing departmental policies and procedures, including best practices; enforcing access policies; coordinating the opening & closing of the library; scheduling circulation & reserve desk staff.
• Supervises and trains three (3) full-time support staff and 15 to 20 students.
• Provides expertise in the application of the Innovative Millennium circulation module.
• Serves as a primary point of customer service; communicates in a businesslike and effective manner with all constituents.
• Develops, reviews, and enforces circulation and access policies and procedures, in conjunction with the Assistant Director for Public Services.
• Participates in rotation at the library’s reference desk, including some evenings and weekends.
• Participates in library collection development and faculty liaison program.
• Compiles statistics and creates reports.
• Other duties as assigned to ensure the smooth operation of the Library and the provision of excellent customer service.

Minimum Qualifications:

• MLS (or equivalent) degree from an ALA-accredited institution required. 
• Knowledge of library environment and basic library operations.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• General knowledge of computers and standard applications.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience supervising, including experience with delegating work, scheduling, evaluating performances, and maintaining good morale.
• Circulation experience preferred, and experience with the Millennium circulation module and OCLC Worldcat desired.

To Apply: Send a letter of application, resume, and the names, addresses, and phone numbers of three references to Human Resources, Pacific McGeorge School of Law, 3200 Fifth Ave., Sacramento, CA 95817. Electronic applications may be sent to: mcgeorgehr@pacific.edu.

Career Alternatives for Attorneys

Above the Law is publishing a series of posts on career alternatives for attorneys including this one on law librarianship. [JH]

Just Released, Wittes' Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror

Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror
by Benjamin Wittes

List Price: $25.95
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (June 19, 2008)
ISBN-10: 159420179X
ISBN-13: 978-1594201790

Description: Six years after the September 11 attacks, America is losing a crucial front in the ongoing war on terror. It is losing not to Al Qaeda but to its own failure to construct a set of laws that will protect the American people—its military and executive branch, as well as its citizens—in the midst of a conflict unlike any it has faced in the past. Now, in the twilight of President Bush’s administration, Brookings Institution fellow Benjamin Wittes offers a vigorous analysis of the troubling legal legacy of the Bush administration as well as that of the U.S. Congress and the Supreme Court. Law and the Long War tells as no book has before the story of how America came to its current impasse in the debate over liberty, human rights, and counterterrorism and draws a road map for how the country and the next president might move forward.

Moving beyond the stale debate between those fixated on the executive branch as the key architect of counterterrorism policy and those who see the judiciary as the essential guarantor of liberty against governmental abuses, Wittes argues that the essential problem is that the Bush administration did not seek—and Congress did not write—new laws to authorize and regulate the tough presidential actions this war would require. In a line of argument that is sure to spark controversy, Wittes reveals an administration whose most significant failure was not that it was too aggressive in the substance of its action, but rather that it tried to shoulder the burden of aggressiveness on its own without seeking the support of other branches of government. Using startling new empirical research on the detainee population at Guantánamo Bay, Wittes avers that many of the administration’s actions were far more defensible than its many critics believed and actually warranted congressional support. Yet by resisting both congressional and judicial involvement in its controversial decisions, the executive branch ironically prevented both of those branches from sharing in the political accountability for necessary actions that challenged traditional American notions of due process and humane treatment.

Boldly offering a new way forward, Wittes concludes that the path toward fairer, more accountable rules for a conflict without end lies in the development of new bodies of law covering detention, interrogation, trial, and surveillance. Sure to discomfort and ignite debate, Law and the Long War is the first nonideological argument about a controversial issue of vital importance to all Americans.

About the Author: Benjamin Wittes is a Fellow and Research Director in Public Law at the Brookings Institution. A former editorial writer for The Washington Post specializing in legal affairs, he currently writes a column for The New Republic Online and is a contributing editor for The Atlantic Monthly. He is a member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law.

Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the June 2nd, 2008 issue of InSITE:

• Alger Hiss Story
• Center for Health, Environment & Justice
• Podcasting Legal Guide
• Stop Violence Against Women
• Tax Foundation

[RJ]

Alger Hiss Story
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/home.html

Edited by historian Jeff Kisseloff, this site is supported by the Nation Institute's Alger Hiss Research and Publication Project, and seeks to recreate "one of the most important legal cases in this country's history, often cited as a turning point in 20th century American thinking." The site offers regular updates of new primary and secondary material on the infamous Cold War-era case. The site specifically seeks to make materials on the case ubiquitously available, removing the necessity of traveling to view the physical archives in Washington, D.C., the Harvard Law Library, or to archives in the former Soviet Union. The site has a noticeable editorial bias in favor of Hiss. However, it also makes available those documents most commonly cited by Hiss' accusers and detractors as evidence of his guilt. The Alger Hiss Story has a site map but suffers from the lack of a search engine or separate, centralized list of documents on offer (although there is a specific section for photographs and another of audio and video segments). Additionally, the site does not make an organizational distinction between primary materials related to the case and secondary materials such as news articles, speeches, and books which comment upon it. Overall, the Alger Hiss Story seems intended to be a cohesive introduction to the case and its historical background for younger researchers who may be unfamiliar with it but also furnishes new insights for more knowledgeable individuals, particularly as more materials are made public. [JPC]

Center for Health, Environment & Justice
http://www.chej.org/

The Center for Health, Education and Social Justice (CHEJ) is an outgrowth of the activism of Lois Gibbs and the families affected by the pollution in Love Canal. Today, the CHEJ "[w]orks to build healthy communities, with social justice, economic well-being, and democratic governance." The CHEJ uses "training, coalition-building and one-on-one technical and organizing assistance...to level the playing field so that people can have a say in the environmental policies and decisions that affect their health..." Among the achievements of the CHEJ are the creation of the Superfund program, the Community Right-to-Know law regarding toxic exposure, and McDonald's 1990 decision to stop using styrofoam packaging. The CHEJ has numerous ongoing campaigns, some focused on specific environmental and health issues, others on particular states. It is primarily in the sites for these separate campaigns that most of the information content of CHEJ lies. The "Media Center" aggregates press releases from all campaigns and sub-groups. Certain campaign sub-pages offer reports in PDF format, including several regarding past campaigns and successes that could be of value in researching environmental history. There is no search engine available, however. [JPC]

Podcasting Legal Guide
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Podcasting_Legal_Guide   

The Podcasting Legal Guide is hosted by Creative Commons, the nonprofit geared toward helping creators balance innovation with protection of their works.  The guide was written by Colette Vogele and Mia Garlick in cooperation with the Stanford Center for Internet and Society and the Berkman Center at Harvard University.  The Guide offers users “a general roadmap of some of the legal issues specific to podcasting.”  The Guide is organized into six major components, including an introduction and components that address the legal issues involved with creating and distributing podcasts.  The issues associated with podcast creation focus on copyright, publicity rights, and trademark.  The Guide specifically notes special rules for teachers and librarians.  As to distribution, podcasters must be concerned with implied licenses, express licenses, and the use of a distribution service.  The Guide also explains podcasting and its history, and provides a listing of many helpful resources. [MM]

Stop Violence Against Women
http://www.amnestyusa.org/stopviolence/

Stop Violence Against Women (SVAW) is an Amnesty International USA campaign, a part of the organization’s work for women's human rights.  The action center (“Actions”) urges readers to engage in political activity, and informs visitors about Amnesty International’s current activities.  The information pages (“News” and "Reports") provides a news feed, promotes upcoming events, and lists the many topics and issues in which Amnesty International is involved. This section also covers topics such as “Rape as a Tool of War,” “Sexual Violence,” and “HIV/AIDS, Women and Human Rights.”  Visitors are encouraged to download the site’s fact sheets and access the organization’s many country-specific reports on violence against women. [JPC/BWK]

Tax Foundation
http://www.taxfoundation.org/

Since 1937, the Tax Foundation has been on a mission to educate taxpayers about tax policy and the total tax burden borne by Americans at all levels of government. The Tax Foundation serves as a national clearinghouse, providing Americans with a better understanding of their tax system and the effects of tax policy.  The Tax Foundation’s website offers "Data" and "Publications" sections with information on a wide variety of taxes, such as "Cigarette Taxes," "Gasoline Taxes," and "Property Taxes." The sections vary in the frequency of their updates. The data and commentary are generally objective, but a moderate anti-tax viewpoint pervades throughout.  The “Commentary” section publishes recent op-eds, articles and other short pieces.  The “State Finance” section provides “Tax Facts” sheets on all 50 states, covering the state’s business tax climate, its individual income tax and property tax systems, and its sales taxes. “Fiscal Facts” are brief Tax Foundation analyses of current tax issues.  The design of the site is problematic in some parts; certain links lead to what appear to be blank pages but which have attached documents if one scrolls down far enough to see them. The Tax Foundation website is searchable. [JPC/BWK]

Trial Lawyers Inc.'s Asbestos Litigation Report, 2008

New report from the The Manhattan Institute:

"When the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Legal Policy released its first Trial Lawyers, Inc. report, in 2003, we called asbestos litigation the “longest-running mass tort in U.S. history and arguably the most unjust.”  Even as the incidence of new cases of the serious lung cancers caused by asbestos remained constant— for mesothelioma, at 2,000 to 4,000 per year—new asbestos claims exploded, nearing 100,000 in 2001.

This report describes Trial Lawyers, Inc.’s asbestos litigation business line in more detail. A flame retardant originally thought to be a “magic mineral,” asbestos ended up causing the death of thousands of individuals; likewise, litigation that originally sought redress for the truly injured metastasized into a big business that in too many cases recruited sham victims to beef up the plaintiffs’ bar’s bottom line.

The business model underlying such abusive litigation uses sophisticated marketing to attract thousands of claimants, generates cases with flimsy medical diagnoses, and packages claims together to overwhelm defendants and courts. Ultimately, the attorneys bully besieged defendants into settlements that enrich Trial Lawyers, Inc., while leaving genuinely injured claimants high and dry."  [RJ]

Library Volunteers Wanted for GPO Web Harvesting Demonstration Project

From the announcement:

The Federal depository library community has expressed interest in participating in GPO's efforts to process Web harvested publications. In order to determine how best to utilize the depository libraries offer of assistance, GPO will undertake a demonstration project with 10 depositories. The volunteer depositories will be asked to either assist in locating the missing sections of partially harvested publications or by creating brief bibliographic records for publications in the Special Materials category, which includes press releases, transmittals, notices, and forms.

GPO is now seeking volunteers to participate in the second part of the demonstration project to assist in creating brief bibliographic records for publications in the "special materials" category, which will last three months beginning in July. Publications in the "special materials" category include news releases, errata sheets and forms.

Five depositories will be selected to take part in this part of the project. Applications are being accepted through Monday, June 23, 2008. The specific bibliographic requirements and the timeline for this demonstration project as well as the volunteer form are available at Special Materials Project.

GPO will notify the libraries that are selected to participate no later than Friday, June 27, 2008. [JH]

Web Visions from the Past

Really interesting article in today's NYT about Belgian librarian Paul Otlet and his 1934 vision for something like the Internet. 

In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or “electric telescopes,” as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a “réseau,” which might be translated as “network” — or arguably, “web.”

Historians typically trace the origins of the World Wide Web through a lineage of Anglo-American inventors like Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart and Ted Nelson. But more than half a century before Tim Berners-Lee released the first Web browser in 1991, Otlet (pronounced ot-LAY) described a networked world where “anyone in his armchair would be able to contemplate the whole of creation.”

Although Otlet’s proto-Web relied on a patchwork of analog technologies like index cards and telegraph machines, it nonetheless anticipated the hyperlinked structure of today’s Web. “This was a Steampunk version of hypertext,” said Kevin Kelly, former editor of Wired, who is writing a book about the future of technology.

Crazy graphics, too.  [JJ]

Impact of E-discovery on Legal Support Staffing

E-discovery is not just raising havoc with trial strategies, risk management, and litigation budgets, it’s also uprooting traditional support staff job descriptions in law firms and corporate legal departments. Legal Technology News Editor Monica Bay explores the ramifications in Can You Adapt? [JH]

Professional Reading: Government Data and the Invisible Hand

What should be the primary online publishing responsibility of the federal government? In Government Data and the Invisible Hand (SSRN), David Robinson, Harlan Yu, William Zeller and Edward Felten (all with the Princton University's Center for Information Technology Policy) argue that the federal government should be creating open infrastructures that delivers public information in reusable formats for commercial and non-profits because they are better suited than the federal government to respond to consumer demand by creating tools for the delivery of government information. Here's the abstract for this very interesting article (forthcoming, 18 Yale Journal of Law & Technology __ (2008):

If the next Presidential administration really wants to embrace the potential of Internet-enabled government transparency, it should follow a counter-intuitive but ultimately compelling strategy: reduce the federal role in presenting important government information to citizens. Today, government bodies consider their own websites to be a higher priority than technical infrastructures that open up their data for others to use. We argue that this understanding is a mistake. It would be preferable for government to understand providing reusable data, rather than providing websites, as the core of its online publishing responsibility.

Rather than struggling, as it currently does, to design sites that meet each end-user need, we argue that the executive branch should focus on creating a simple, reliable and publicly accessible infrastructure that exposes the underlying data. Private actors, either nonpro
t or commercial, are better suited to deliver government information to citizens and can constantly create and reshape the tools individuals use to find and leverage public data. The best way to ensure that the government allows private parties to compete on equal terms in the provision of government data is to require that federal websites themselves use the same open systems for accessing the underlying data as they make available to the public at large.

New Law Titles from OUP

Details below the fold. [JH]

• The New Corporate Governance in Theory and Practice by Stephen Bainbridge
• The Business of Intellectual Property by Christopher M. Arena and Eduardo M. Carreras
• Socially Responsible Investment Law Regulating the Unseen Polluters by Benjamin J. Richardson
• Common Law Marriage: A Legal Institution for Cohabitation by Goran Lind (forthcoming July 2008)

The New Corporate Governance in Theory and Practice
By Stephen Bainbridge

ISBN13: 9780195337501
ISBN10: 0195337506
Hardback, 264 pages, June 2008
Price: $60.00

Description: The New Corporate Governance in Theory and Practice offers an interdisciplinary analysis of the emerging board-centered system of corporate governance. It draws on doctrinal legal analysis, behavioral economic insights into how individuals and groups make decisions, the work of new institutional economics on organizational structure, and management studies of corporate governance. Using those tools, Stephen Bainbridge traces the process by which this new corporate governance system emerged, and explores whether such changes are desirable or effective.

The Business of Intellectual Property
By Christopher M. Arena and Eduardo M. Carreras

ISBN13: 9780195338386
ISBN10: 0195338383
Paper, 412 pages, May 2008
Price: $185.00

Description: No longer solely the domain of the legal department, strong intellectual property practices are an integral part of company operations, and require that lawyers understand the fundamentals of business practice and that business executives understand the law. In The Business of Intellectual Property, Chris Arena and Ed Carreras explain the growing importance of intellectual property assets from both legal and business perspectives, and offer strategic advice on how to manage IP assets for competitive advantage, profitability and return on investment.

Focusing on the intersection of law and business, The Business of Intellectual Property combines statutory frameworks, case law, business and legal principles of accounting and valuation, and-most impressively- multiple case studies of successful companies, to give readers the strategic vision and practical advice they need to integrate such processes into their company's operations.

Socially Responsible Investment Law
Regulating the Unseen Polluters
By Benjamin J Richardson

ISBN13: 9780195333459
ISBN10: 0195333454
Hardback, 624 pages, June 2008
Price:$65.00

Description: Environmental harm is commonly associated with companies that extract, consume, and pollute our shared natural resources. Rarely are the 'unseen polluters,' the financiers that sponsor and profit from eco-damaging corporations, placed at the forefront of the environmental debate.

By focusing on these unseen polluters, Benjamin Richardson provides a comprehensive examination of socially responsible investment (SRI), and offers a guide to possible reform. Richardson proposes that greater regulatory supervision of SRI will help ensure that the financial sector prioritizes ethically-based investments. In Socially Responsible Investment Law, he suggests that new governmental reforms should encourage companies to participate in socially responsible investments by providing a better mix of standards and incentives for SRI through measures that include redefining the fiduciary responsibilities of institutional investors to incorporate environmental concerns. By doing so, Richardson posits that corporate financiers, including banks, hedge funds, and pension plans, will become more accountable to the goals of ensuring sustainable development.

Common Law Marriage
A Legal Institution for Cohabitation
By Goran Lind

ISBN13: 9780195366815
ISBN10: 0195366816
Hardback, 1,264 pages, July 2008
Price: $125.00

Description: The current law surrounding common law marriage is extremely complex. Professor Goran Lind has undertaken the demanding task of writing the most well-researched text on this topic to date. Separated into three Parts, Common Law Marriage covers the origins of the doctrine, its legal aspects in modern America, and the future of cohabitation law across the globe and in the 11 American jurisdictions that currently recognize common law marriage. It provides a cultural and historical history of the subject, from Ancient Roman Law to Medieval Canon Law, and analyzes over 2,000 American cases which have utilized the doctrine. This timely book is an excellent resource for scholars, legislators, and policymakers who are interested in the complex legalities of common law marriage.

State Handbook of Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Indicators 2008

New report from the AARP's Public Policy Institute:

"As state and local economic conditions and demographic patterns change, policymakers may consider adjusting their policies on taxes and spending programs. These adjustments become more difficult when economic and demographic changes depart from historical trends.

Policymakers, public officials, policy analysts and others concerned about such issues will find useful state-level data on population, poverty rates, per capita state personal income, state and local revenues, expenditures, tax rates, and property tax relief programs in this seventh edition of the AARP Public Policy Institute's biennial databook by David Baer. Since 1993, the reference book has been contributing to more informed public policy decisions by providing economic, demographic, and fiscal information.

The handbook facilitates state-by-state and state-national comparisons, featuring economic, demographic, and fiscal summaries of the entire United States, each state, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. Gender and age comparisons are provided for some of the data. Tables and maps of selected data are included."  [RJ]

Tenure Bibliography for the Legal Academy's Second Class Citizens

At many law schools, legal writing instructors belong to that caste know as contract employees. The same is true for many other skills-oriented instructors such as clinicians. With the hue-and-cry getting ever louder over the failure of law schools to produce qualified students, these second class citizens of the legal academy are striving to improve the plight of their programs by acquiring greater status by means of converting their contract-term jobs into tenure-track positions. Towards this end, Sue Liemer has posted a useful bibliography covering recent literature about the topic on Legal Writing Prof Blog.

Langdellian Marginalization. The problem, of course, is the marginalization of skills programs in the law school curriculum and an over-emphasis on "scholarly" publications as the primary means for acquiring status in the legal academy. The antidote for these long-institutionalized effects of the Langdellian school of legal pedagogy is to integrate practice and theory in the study of law.  See, for example, Laurie C. Kadoch, The Third Paradigm: Bringing Legal Writing "Out of the Box" and into the Mainstream: A Marriage of Doctrinal Subject Matter and Legal Writing Doctrine, 13 Legal Writing 55 (2007)(pdf), Susan E. Thrower, Teaching Legal Writing Through Subject-Matter Specialties: A Reconception of Writing Across the Curriculum, 13 Legal Writing 3 (2007)(pdf), and Stefano Moscato, Teaching Foundational Clinical Lawyering Skills to First-Year Students, 13 Legal Writing 207 (2007)(pdf).

But Is Tenure the Answer? Doubtful, but not because legal writing instructors and clinicians don't need some measure of academic freedom protection. Rather, some would argue that if there was ever a time when it made sense for professors to be given tenure, that time has surely passed. (parsing Levitt, citation below). I bet there are plenty of law school deans who would be interested in converting tenure law prof positions into at-will or contract-term employment as one means towards advancing the cause of law school reform. See our early post: Get Rid of Lazy Old Farts! Law Deans' Association Fights Tenure Requirement as Counterproductive to Educational Needs of Law Students. See also the Wall Street Journal's Should Law Schools Abolish Tenure? and University of Chicago economics professor Steven Levitt's Freakonomics blog post, Let's just get rid of tenure (including mine).

On Concurring Opinions, George Washington law prof Dan Solove brings Levitt's post into the context of law school employment decision-making. The result, a Gordian Knot of Distrust: giving the dean the authority to decide law prof employment matters makes the dean too powerful; leaving the decision up to the faculty assumes the faculty will make rational employment decisions instead of ones based on petty politics.

Academic Freedom. There must be a way to provide some measure of protection for the academic freedom of legal writing instructors and clinicians (and law librarians) in their teaching and research interests. Perhaps there is: check out the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar Special Comittee on Security of Position Report in our earlier post: Proposals Outlined in ABA Special Committee Reports on Accreditation Standards Could Lead to Significant Reforms in Legal Education. [JH]

Opening: Reference Librarian, University of Pennsyvlania Law School Library

Biddle Law Library is searching for a talented Reference Librarian to join its Public Services team in providing outstanding reference, research, and teaching support at a law school that prides itself on cross-disciplinary studies.  This is a new position reflecting the growth in the Library’s services to faculty and the school.

Penn Law School has approximately 750 JD, 90 LLM, 2 LLCM and 10 SJD students.  A permanent faculty of 50+, half of whom have a PhD in addition to a JD, is deeply committed to interdisciplinary research and teaching.  The School has close ties with the Wharton School, the Annenberg School for Communications, the Center for Bioethics and graduate departments such as history, philosophy and sociology.  It offers several joint-degree programs.   Biddle Law Library is one of the major law collections in the nation and has more than 850,500 volumes in numerous areas of American law, legal history and foreign and international law.  It is the official website for drafts of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws.  The American Law Institute was founded at Penn in 1923, and Biddle is a repository for its archives.  The library has an annual budget of $4.5 million, 15 professional librarians and 17 support staff members.  Philadelphia is rich in legal history, the home of the new National Constitution Center and a city of many cultural opportunities.   

Requirements:

• ABA-accredited JD and ALA-accredited MLS degrees.
• A thorough knowledge of basic legal sources and skill in using print and electronic materials.
• A strong service orientation toward all library patrons with special attention to law faculty and students.
• Excellent organizational, communication and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work with initiative and flexibility in order to respond effectively to changing information needs.
• Ability to work with grace under pressure while performing several tasks and helping demanding patrons.
• Collegiality which fosters team building among librarians and staff so as to constantly improve service.
• Active participation in the intellectual and administrative life of the Law School.

Preferred: Additional degrees or training in non-legal fields; instructional experience; facility with webpage development software (Dreamweaver, for example) and web 2.0 technologies (blogs, wikis, social tagging).    

Responsibilities: Under the general direction of the Head of Reference Services, the Reference Librarian will be expected to do the following:

• Participate in Reference Desk rotation, helping patrons in a wide variety of ways such as: identifying possible research sources in all formats, suggesting research strategies, giving “over the shoulder” guidance in the use of online databases, assisting in the use of library equipment, exercising discretion and tact in representing the library in the best possible light to the walk-in or call-in patron.
• Participate in Biddle’s Faculty Liaison Program by meeting regularly with assigned faculty about their research interests, attending their “working paper” presentations, developing faculty course portal materials, making recommendations on their behalf to the Collection Development Committee, bringing new acquisitions to their attention with their research interests in mind, doing everything possible to make faculty feel that librarians  support them proactively.
• Teach legal research in formal and informal settings, including but not limited to, first year legal research instruction, upper-level law students in classes and tutorials, LLM classes in an intensive August program, “one-on-one” consultations with students writing research papers and with non-law university patrons.
• Enhance the library’s contribution to the mission of the Law School by producing bibliographies for the Faculty Appointments Committee, supplying specialized information for administrators, giving webpage assistance to units such as Career Planning and Placement.
• Write library guides, handouts, bibliographies, etc., and contribute to webpage projects.
• Participate in library collection development in light of faculty research interests, changing technology, space considerations and preservation.
• Be the library’s contact person with Lexis and Westlaw, making sure that commercial representatives provide the highest level of service to the Law School.
• Contribute to the Library’s teams and strategic initiatives, including identifying innovative outreach efforts and applying new technologies to Reference and the Library’s work.
• Serve on various university teams dedicated to improving information technology and library service.
• Foster contacts with other professionals and libraries by participating in the activities of professional organizations.

Salary and Benefits: Highly competitive and dependant upon qualifications and experience.  Benefits include TIAA/CREF retirement program, medical insurance, disability benefits, life insurance, tuition remission, among others. 

Diversity:  The University values diversity and is an equal opportunity employer.  It is committed to non-discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, marital status, status as a Vietnam Era Veteran, or any other trait or status protected by applicable law.

To Apply: Please send by email or regular mail an introductory letter, resume, and names with contact information of three references to:

Paul M. George
Director
Biddle Law Library
University of Pennsylvania Law School
3460 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-3406
pmgeorge@law.upenn.edu

Sally Holterhoff Appointed to Depository Library Council

Public Printer Robert C. Tapella named five new DLC members for the October 1, 2008 - September 30, 2011 term including AALL immediate past president and 1987-90 DLC member, Sally Holterhoff, Associate Professor of Law Librarianship and Government Information/Reference Librarian at Valparaiso University Law Library.

The other new appointees are

• David Cismowski,Regional Depository Librarian at California State Library.
• Carlene Engstrom, Library Director for D'Arcy McNickle Library, Salish Kootenai College.
• Justin Otto, Social Sciences and Government Documents Reference Librarian at Eastern Washington University, John F. Kennedy Library.
• Suzanne Sears, Head of the Government Documents Department, University of North Texas Willis Library.

Congratulations to all! [JH]

Research Library International Benchmarks

Primary Research Group has published Research Library International Benchmarks (ISBN: 1-57440-101-3; Price: $95.00). Based on a survey of 45 major research libraries from the U.S., Australia, Canada, Spain, the U.K., Japan and elsewhere, the 200-page report provides data on trends in discount margins from vendors, relations with consortiums, information literacy efforts, workstation, laptop and learning space development, use of scanners and digital cameras, use of RFID technology, federated search and many other pressing issues for major research libraries, university and otherwise. Data is presented separately for university, government/non-profit and corporate/legal libraries, and for US and non-U.S. libraries, as well as by size of library and type of library, corporate/legal, university and government. Findings include the following:

Workforce

• For 27.45% of the libraries in the sample, spending on salaries and benefits had declined in real terms over the past two years (from staff reductions, pay reductions in real terms or a combination of these factors).
• Nearly 21% of the libraries in the sample have decreased their overall number of subject specialists over the past three years, while about 11.5% have increased this number. Nearly 31% of the largest libraries have decreased their total number of subject specialists.

Collection Development

• Mean spending on materials/content by the libraries in the sample was approximately $4.25 million, with a median of $1.91 million. Mean spending for the university libraries in the sample was $5.47 million. The nominal increase in materials spending this year for the libraries in the sample was 4.46%.
• Spending on e-books by the libraries in the sample was a mean of $150,086 in 2007 with a range of "0" to $2 million. More than 60% of the libraries in the sample plan to increase spending on e-books over the next two years, while less than 7% plan to decrease e-book spending.
• 53% of libraries in the sample said that they would be not be digitizing much of their general collection of out-of-copyright books, and nearly 35% said that they had no plans to extensively digitize any of their collections.

Information Technology & Services

• Nearly 37% of the libraries in the sample increased spending somewhat on maintenance of IT equipment stock, while only 12.24% reduced such spending. A shade more than half held such spending constant over the past three years.
• Far more libraries in the sample plan to increase than decrease spending on PCs and workstations, suggesting the hope that increases in spending on laptops by libraries, and by their patrons, might lead to lower investment levels in traditional workstation technology.
• 44% of large research libraries plan to increase spending on outside or outsourced Web design, evaluation and consulting, but most smaller research libraries plan to hold such spending constant.

[JH]

Professional Reading: What Federal Judges Really Think about the Way Lawyers Write

Kristen Robbins-Tiscione, Legal Research and Writing Professor, Georgetown University Law Center, has deposited The Inside Scoop: What Federal Judges Really Think About the Way Lawyers Write in SSRN.  Here's the abstract:

A recent survey indicates that what troubles federal judges most is not what lawyers say but what they fail to say when writing briefs. Although lawyers do a good job articulating legal issues and citing controlling, relevant legal authority, they are not doing enough with the law itself. Only fifty-six percent of the judges surveyed said that lawyers "always" or "usually" make their client‘s best arguments. Fifty-eight percent of the judges rated the quality of the legal analysis as just "good," as opposed to "excellent" or "very good." The problem seems to be that briefs lack rigorous analysis, and the bulk of the work is left to busy judges. Many judges also indicated that lawyers often make redundant or weak arguments that detract from the good ones. What judges really want is shorter, harder hitting briefs." 

See also the National Law Journal's Lawyers' Writing Skills Need Improvements. [RJ]

Internet Use During the 2008 Presidential Primary Campaigns

A recent poll conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project reveals an estimated “46% of all Americans have used the Internet, email or cell phone text messaging to get news about the campaign, share their views and mobilize others.” According to the results published in The Internet and the 2008 Election (pdf), three online activities were especially prominent as the presidential primary campaigns progressed:

• 35% of Americans say they have watched online political videos--a figure that nearly triples the reading the Pew Internet Project got in the 2004 race.
• 10% say they have used social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace to gather information or become involved. Social networking is particularly popular with younger voters: Two-thirds of Internet users under the age of 30 have a social networking profile, and half of these use social networking sites to get or share information about politics or the campaigns.
• 6% of Americans have made political contributions online, compared with 2% who did that during the entire 2004 campaign.

The poll also found that 28% of Americans say that the Internet makes them feel more personally connected to the campaign, and 22% say that they would not be as involved in the campaign if not for the Internet. [JH]

Compilation of International Documents on the Rights of Older Persons

The Rights of Older Persons
Collection of International Documents
Edited by Israel Doron & Kate Mewhinney

Order from the International Federation on Ageing

Description: Over the past few decades, many diverse documents concerning the rights and status of the aged have been prepared at the international level.  Each of the various bodies and organizations has regarded the subject from a slightly different angle.  This has resulted in the preparation of an extensive set of international documents that cover a wide spectrum of subjects and issues relevant to older persons all over the world.

This book provides a unique collection of all the main, important international documents relating, at the international level, to the status of the aged and the phenomenon of ageing.  For the first time, readers, the aged and professionals all over the world can obtain a comprehensive picture of the worldwide activities in the field of international law and ageing.

About the Editors: The editors of this collection of documents are active and known international elder law scholars.  Dr. Israel Doron teaches elder law at Haifa University and has published and presented various papers regarding international dimensions of elder law and older persons' rights.  Prof. Kate Mewhinney is a Clinical Law Professor and the Managing Attorney of the Elder Law Clinic of Wake Forest University School of Law. She is certified as an Elder Law Attorney by the National Elder Law Foundation, edited a special international issue of the NAELA Quarterly, and has organized and moderated programs on international law.

Hat tip to Gerry W. Beyer (Texas Tech), Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog. [JH]

Opening: Director of Public Services, IIT/Chicago-Kent

The Illinois Institute of Technology Downtown Campus Library (which serves Chicago-Kent College of Law, Stuart School of Business, and other graduate programs at the IIT Downtown Campus) is seeking a Director of Public Services.

Description: Under the general direction of the Library Director, the Director of Public Services is responsible for conveying a vision of the Downtown Campus Library as an integral part of the academic life of the Downtown Campus and supporting the library staff as they design high-quality services and methods of information delivery.  The Director of Public Services must collaborate and coordinate activities with the Library Director and the Director of Bibliographic Services to assist in policy formation and the allocation of library resources. 

The primary mission of the IIT Downtown Campus Library is to support the information needs of current faculty, students, and staff of the programs taught at the Downtown Campus, including Chicago-Kent College of Law, the graduate program of the Stuart School of Business, and IIT’s public administration program. The Library’s complete mission statement is online at: http://library.kentlaw.edu/services/mission.htm.    

Responsibilities:  The Director of Public Services manages all public service functions of the Library, including access, reference and research services, collection development and maintenance, subscriber services, interlibrary loan, circulation, the documents center, and all other public service activities.  This position supervises 11 professional and paraprofessional staff members from the Library’s Circulation, Electronic Resources, and Reference Departments. 
   
Qualifications:   Education & Experience:  MLS degree from an ALA accredited graduate program. At least five years of progressively responsible library experience or equivalent combination of education and experience required.  Supervisory and teaching experience is required. The ability to lead and to work effectively with faculty and with all levels of staff and excellent interpersonal, oral, and written communication skills are critical.  The successful candidate will be one who can manage diverse assignments in a rapidly-changing environment.

Preferred: Second graduate degree in business and/or law; experience in business and/or legal materials; experience with Voyager, the library's integrated library system.   

Salary: Negotiable and competitive.
 
For additional information and to apply for this position, please visit the IIT employment website, https://www.iitri.iit.edu/ and click “search listings”.  This position’s requisition number is 0600481.  If you have any questions, please contact Keith Ann Stiverson, Director of the Library, 565 West Adams St., Chicago, IL 60661; phone 312-906-5610; kstivers@kentlaw.edu.

Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity in Employment Statement:
It is and shall continue to be the policy of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and job applicants. This policy insures that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, color, religion, gender, age, marital status, national origin, veteran status, sexual orientation or physical or mental disability. Such action shall include, but not be limited to, the following employment practices: locating sources of qualified applicants; recruitment or recruitment advertising; hiring; upgrading, demotion or transfer; layoff or termination; rates of pay or other forms of compensation; and selection for training, including apprenticeship. In addition, reasonable accommodations will be provided to qualified individuals with physical or mental disabilities. For more information, see: http://www.iit.edu/policies/personnel/a1.htm.

How we read online

This Slate Article gives a look into reading habits of web users. This can provide some tips that may help all of us who are in charge of a law library's web content create and maintain a more user friendly website.

I have heard of several of these things before but it is a nice refresher and a good compilations of things a web designer can do to improve their site. Among my favorite pieces of advice is short, one-idea paragraphs and pages that do not require scrolling in any direction as even scrolling down causes page viewers to start tuning out.

If you have any further tips that you believe in or have experienced please share these in the comments.{BB}

SLA's Annual Conference Is Underway

SLA's Annual Conference in Seattle started on June 15 and continues to June 18. You can follow developments at the SLA Blog, download contributed papers and search for handouts on the Conference website. [JH]

On Archiving Blogs

On Information Wants To Be Free, Meredith Farkas asks, "is anyone else thinking about [academic libraries] archiving student and faculty blog posts?" Follow the comment trail for answers. [JH]