Law Librarian Blog

UConn Law Library Lawsuit

In an event that would seem like a nightmare to many librarians, suit has been filed by the State of Connecticut over “shoddy and substandard” construction work on the “new” UConn Law Library, a $24 million project, here is a outside picture the gothic styled library. The construction resulted in a new library with leaks, mold and a stone facade that had to be reattached after it became loose in places. Many librarians have had to deal with moldy books on occasion from a burst pipe or derelict patrons but think of having to deal with it on a daily basis like the librarians and staff at UConn Law. May we all hope that UConn’s problems are resolved soon and those of us who get new libraries won’t have similar issues. [BB]

We Hold These Truths

Many would argue (and I am persuaded by them) that references to God in the Declaration of Independence were more rhetorical devices than faith-based expressions of conventional religious belief but that does not distract from DeSoto's very interest work. [JH]

We Hold These Truths
by Randall Norman DeSoto

List Price: $15.99
Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: Xulon Press (December 5, 2007)
ISBN-10: 1604772689
ISBN-13: 978-1604772685

Book Description: Two central beliefs in the Declaration of Independence have greatly shaped the United States and formed it into a country that is a beacon of liberty throughout the world. The first influential belief is that there is a providential God Who presides over the affairs of this world, and the second is that God has granted man inalienable rights. Leaders like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Franklin Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower have appealed to these beliefs during some of the nation's most trying and defining moments, including the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II. Unfortunately, these founding and sustaining visions are in danger of being lost today. This book delves into the issues that surround these beliefs, states the disastrous effects that losing these beliefs would bring, and presents solutions for a nation that is in peril due to a lack of vision.

About the Author: Randall DeSoto is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point with a degree in Political Science. He holds a juris doctorate from Regent University School of Law. Randy's many life experiences and travels make We Hold These Truths come to life. As a West Point cadet, he participated in battlefield tours of Normandy and Great Britain and following graduation served as an armor officer in the Army's 4th Infantry Division. He has worked on Capitol Hill, participated in a statewide political campaign, and written political articles for The Conservative Voice website. He has carefully researched all of the major locations found in the book, from Boston to Bastogne.

Admissions and Public Higher Education in California, Texas, and Florida: The Post-Affirmative Action Era

Interesting article from the UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies:

"1996 was a momentous year for higher education in the United States. In that year voters in California adopted Proposition 209, a ballot measure that amended the state constitution to prohibit public institutions from discriminating on the basis of race, sex, or ethnicity. That same year, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in "Hopwood v. Texas" that it was unconstitutional for Texas public colleges and universities to use race as a condition of admission. The decisions in the two states reversed the trend among the nation’s major public universities to use affirmative action as a factor in the freshman admissions process. Prior to 1996, every public university in the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization of the nation’s leading research universities, had employed affirmative action to ensure diversity among its entering freshmen classes.

Three years later, in November, 1999, Governor Jeb Bush joined Florida with California and Texas, announcing his “One Florida” initiative to eliminate affirmative action in university admissions at the state universities. With the implementation of “One Florida,” three of the four largest states in the nation and the three with the largest high school and college student populations had rescinded affirmative action for the purpose of achieving racial and ethnic diversity. Only New York’s public universities, of the nation’s four largest higher education systems, continued to use affirmative action in its admission decisions.

This essay examines the impact these developments had on diversity in freshmen enrollment in California, Texas, and Florida. Thomas Espenslade and Chang Chung argued in 2005, “[E]liminating affirmative action would reduce acceptance rates for African American and Hispanic applicants by as much as one-half to two-thirds and have an equivalent impact on the proportion of underrepresented minority students in the admitted class. White applicants would benefit very little by removing racial and ethnic preferences; the White acceptance rate would increase by roughly 0.5 percentage points. Asian applicants would gain the most. They would occupy four out of every five seats created by accepting fewer African American and Hispanic students (p. 303-304).” Was this, in fact, the case for California, Florida, and Texas?

To determine the results, we selected the five universities in these states that were members of the AAU in 1990 - the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), the University of Texas, Austin (UT Austin), and the University of Florida (UF) – and followed freshmen enrollment patterns from that period to the entering freshmen class of 2005. We also examined state high school graduation rates in these three states and added a control group of universities to compare these five universities with five others that did not eliminate Affirmative Action in admissions.

Our conclusions underscore much of what Espenshade and Chung (2005) and others have argued, but they also point out other serious and substantive developments that threaten the success of American higher education and its contribution to the success of American society."

See also:  Bans on Affirmative Action Help Asian Americans, Not Whites, Report Says, The Chronicle 

[RJ]

New: Public Library of Law

FastCase has just launched their Public Library of Law, a free resource (registration required for caselaw) that brings together all the available online caselaw, statutes, regulations, court rules and constitutions from the federal and state governments.  From the PLOL spiel:

Comprehensive: The Fastcase PLoL brings together all of the free legal resources that exist on the Internet and adds an additional 10 years of case law from all 50 states, eliminating the need to search hundreds of sites or pore through thousands of books to find answers to legal questions.  PLoL users have access to:

o   U.S. Reports: Vol. 1-546, inclusive (1757 to present)
o   F.2d Vol. 178-999, inclusive (1950 to 1995)
o   F.3d Vol. 1-491, inclusive (1995 to present)
o   State cases from 1997 to present
o   Statutes, regulations, court rules, and constitutions � federal and all 50 states
o   Commonly used legal forms

Easy to Use: The Fastcase PLoL features Fastcase�s patented search technology, an intuitive interface that works like popular Web search engines.  By sorting the most applicable cases first, PLoL puts the needles on top of the haystack, making even first-time legal research as easy as using Google.

Reliable: Fastcase updates the PLoL daily with new cases from court websites.  Additionally, when new law books are released, Fastcase keys them in and adds them to PLoL, adding cases that represent the final, official version of the law.  This makes the Fastcase PLoL more reliable than other destinations that simply aggregate draft decisions from different court Web sites. The library is also backstopped by the comprehensive Fastcase database; where cited cases don�t exist in PLoL, they link to those cases in Fastcase�s comprehensive subscription research service for lawyers.

A bit more competition for our two party system.  Check it out!  [JJ]

Bailout Possible at American Justice School of Law

The ABA Journal is reporting that the American Justice School of Law in Paducah, Ky. which last week had about 25% of its faculty resign in an attempt to ouster the Dean has been issued a loan by Dr. Meriwether , a retired surgeon, to cover immediate expenses and to receive a purchase option to be determined in the next two months. Meriweather says he plans to seek ABA accreditation if he does purchase the school. The buyout has even taken the rather unusual turn of Dr. Meriwether inviting American Justice students to his house to have a meeting to better understand how the students want their school to be run. In conjunction with this loan three top administrators have left the school in what appears to be the beginning of a reorganization of the for profit school. There is also , another prospective buyer in the wings as Paducah attorney, Tom Osborne, is also considering purchasing the law school. Osborne was formerly a director and chairman of the board of American Justice School of Law. [BB]

Editor's Note: With this post, I am delighted to announce that Brian Barnes has joined Law Librarian Blog as a contributing editor. Brian is the Research, Instructional Services & Circulation Librarian at the Mississippi College School of Law Library. He also contributes to the Mississippi Law Blog.

Brian's post is a follow-up to our February 11, 2008 post, More Trouble at the American Justice School of Law. On a personal note, I have worked with some of the present and former staff at AJSL. This is a very difficult time for the School and its students. I have no idea if any of the allegations are true but hopefully the situation will reach a resolution that benefits the student body, staff and law faculty. [JH]

Friday Fun: The Reasonable Man Exists!

Meet the Reasonable Man!

10 Non-Librarian Blogs Librarians Should Read in 2008

LISNews has followed up its 10 Librarian Blogs To Read in 2008 [our post] with a great list of 10 Non-Librarian Blogs Librarians Should Read in 2008. The blogs were selected from LISNews reader recommendations. Here's the list:

• Boing Boing
• The Bookslut Blog
• The Consumerist
• Lifehacker
• Open Access News
• Post Secret
• Read Write Web
• Seth Godin
• Slashdot
• Snopes

Some old favorites, some new to me, but one really stands out. ReadWriteWeb is a great blog!

Links with commentary for each selected blog as well as some runners-up discussed by Blake Carver here. [JH]

Librarians, Who Would Make the Best President?

Opinion Polls & Market Research

AALL FCIL-SIS Schaffer Grant Applications Due March 1

AALL's Foreign, Comparative and International Law Special Interest Section (FCIL) is now accepting applications for the 2008 FCIL Schaffer Grant. Details and Application. The application deadline is March 1, 2008.

The Grant provides a waiver of the 2008 AALL Annual Meeting full registration fee and a grant of a minimum $2,000 to assist with accommodations and travel costs for the Portland meeting.

Applicants must be law librarians or other professionals working in the legal information field currently employed in countries other than the United States with significant responsibility for the organization, preservation or provision of legal information. 

Books on Trial Adds Chapter to Cold War Violations of Civil Rights

Books on Trial: Red Scare in the Heartland
by Shirley A. Wiegand and Wayne A. Wiegand

List Price: $24.95
Hardcover: 286 pages
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press (October 1, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0806138688
ISBN-13: 978-0806138688

Book Description: Between the two major red scares of the twentieth century, a police raid on a Communist Party bookstore in Oklahoma City marked an important lesson in the history of American freedom. Shirley A. Wiegand and Wayne A. Wiegand share the compelling story of this important case for the first time. They reveal how state power--with support from local media and businesses--was used to trample individuals' civil rights during an era in which citizens were gripped by fear of foreign subversion.

Richly detailed and colorfully told, Books on Trial is a sobering story of innocent people swept up in the hysteria of their times. It marks a fascinating and unnerving chapter in the history of Oklahoma and of the First Amendment.

See also Heather Phillips' LRRX book review. [JH]

Opening: Instructional Services/Reference Librarian, Marquette Law

Marquette University Law Library is accepting applications for the position of  Instructional Services/Reference Librarian. 

Major responsibilities include: teaching 1 credit Advanced Legal Research course each semester and rotating summer sessions; collaborating with Legal Writing Professor to teach 1L research sessions; reference, collection development, and faculty liaison duties.

Required:  JD and MLS from ABA and ALA-accredited programs, though one of the degrees may still be in progress.  Salary is competitive and commensurate with years of experience.  Applications must be made online at the following site where you will also find the complete job description:  https://careers.marquette.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=51384

Review begins February 18, 2008 and will continue until two positions are filled.  Preferred start date is between May 15 – June 15.

If you have questions, please contact Professor Patricia Cervenka, Director at 414.288.5594 or  patricia.cervenka@marquette.edu

Professional Reading: Should Some Forms of Legislative History Be Excluded During Judicial Review?

In The Use of Committee Reports in Statutory Interpretation: A Suggested Framework for the Federal Judiciary, 60 Ark. L. Rev. 687-706 (2007) [Westlaw], Michael L. Culotta argues that (1) judges should look to legislative history when interpreting ambiguous statutory construction, and (2) only one form of legislative history -- committee reports and conference reports -- is reliable.

"Unlike individual statements of legislators and other types of legislative history, committee reports and conference reports are the products of bipartisan negotiation and more accurately illuminate the intent of the enacting legislature."

I'm not persuaded by the author's argument but several jurisdictions do limit statutory interpretation to select forms of legislative history which thereby eliminate other forms from consideration. I recommend reading this brief article. [JH]

Citizen Media Law Project Launches Legal Guide

Here's the Citizen Media Law Project's announcement about its Legal Guide project. While a work-in-progress, the Legal Guide already provides useful information in its fairly detailed articles. You can browse the Legal Guide section-by-section or search it. [JH]

New and Forthcoming ABA Titles

Essential Resources:

• Model Business Corporation Act 2007 including Official Text with Official Comments, Amendments, and Statutory Cross-References
• Model Business Corporation Act, Annotated 4th Ed (4 volumes)
• America Votes! A Guide to Modern Election Law and Voting Rights edited by Benjamin E. Griffith

Noteworthy New Publications:

• Analyzing Law's Reach: Empirical Research on Law and Society compiled by the American Bar Foundation
• e-Discovery: Current Trends and Cases by Ralph C. Losey
• Science for Lawyers edited by Eric Y. Drogin
• Preparing Legal Documents for a Lay Audience by Wayne Schiess
• Garner on Language and Writing by Bryan A. Garner
• Leadership for Lawyers, 2d ed. by Herb Rubenstein

Essential Resources:

Model Business Corporation Act 2007 including Official Text with Official Comments, Amendments, and Statutory Cross-References
ABA Section on Business Law, Committee on Corporate Laws under the direction of the Model Acts Reporter, Michael P. Dooley 

List Price: $295.95
Publication Date: February 2008

The Model Business Corporation Act, 2007 contains all amendments to the text of the Model Act and Official Comments through December, 2007. A detailed index and table of contents will be included.

Model Business Corporation Act, Annotated 4th Ed (4 volumes)
ABA Section on Business Law, Committee on Corporate Laws 

List Price: $685.95
Publication Date: January 2008
ISBN: 1-59031-810-2

The current Model Act is based on the 1984 Act with significant amendments published in supplements regularly thereafter, including, most recently, 2005. This Fourth Edition contains all amendments to the text of the Model Act and Official Comments through December, 2007, as well as relevant case summaries, law review and ALR citations and amendments to the corporation statutes of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Substantive changes to the Act since 1984 are described in the Introduction.

The Model Act is acknowledged and followed as a principal leading model of corporation statutes in the United States, having been adopted in whole or substantial part as the corporation statute of 30 states, while selected provisions of the Act have been adopted by many other states.

Additional information:

• A detailed table of contents, index, statutory cross-reference table and table of cases are included.
• An accompany CD-ROM will include the complete text of the Annotated Act in pdf form.
• The Committee plans annual supplements to the Model Business Corporation Act Annotated, Fourth Edition beginning January 2009.

America Votes! A Guide to Modern Election Law and Voting Rights
Edited by Benjamin E. Griffith

List Price: $59.95   
Publication Date: February 2008
ISBN: 1-59031-972-9

America Votes! provides a snapshot of America's voting and electoral practices, problems, and most current issues. The book was edited and written by widely knowledgable practitioners who explore a variety of fundamental areas concerning election law from a federal perspective such as:

• Lessons learned from the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections
• The Help America Vote Act of 2002
• Voter equality
• Language assistance provisions of the Voting Rights Act
• The role of election officials
• The legal aspects of voting technology
• Demographic and statistical experts in election litigation

The book is an invaluable resource for lawyers as well as law school professors, election officials, state and local government personnel involved in election administration, election workers and poll workers.

Noteworthy New Publications:

Analyzing Law's Reach: Empirical Research on Law and Society
Compiled by the American Bar Foundation

List Price: $89.95
Publication Date: January 2008
ISBN: 1-59031-896-6

The American Bar Foundation presents a collection of the finest, most important articles from ABF scholars spanning the last two decades. Featuring such noted authorities as Steven D. Levitt, co-author of the best-seller Freakonomics, readers will be fascinated with the wealth and depth of information contained in this volume. Presenting the best of empirical law research, this scholarly book presents information on such topics as, neighborhoods and violent crime; detecting discrimination; reconsidering the concept of white-collar crime; the transformation of the urban law practice; law, medicine and family in neonatal care; the behavior of the non-unanimous civil jury; and much more.

e-Discovery: Current Trends and Cases
By Ralph C. Losey 

List Price: $99.95
Publication Date: January 2008
ISBN: 1-59031-953-2

In seven chapters and fifty-eight separate articles, this book introduces the exciting new field of electronic discovery, explains the latest trends and cases in an interesting and easy-to-read manner, and outlines the new interdisciplinary team approach to solving the unique problems of e-discovery--where the talents of law, IT and management are combined.

The book is derived from a popular Internet blog on an e-discovery by a senior attorney at a large national law firm. As such, e-Discovery is the world's first legal "blook," where, for the first time, a legal book includes reader's comments on the materials in the book, and the author's replies straight from the authors Blog.

From the basics of e-discovery, to chapters on metadata, ESI, ethical standards, and the new federal rules of civil procedure, readers of all levels of expertise will find useful information. It includes in-depth, authoritative legal analysis and practical advice, not only explaining the legal issues, but also the technologies behind the issues. It is also the first book on e-discovery to include the opinions and analysis of many leading experts in the field, not just those of the author.

It is designed as a cover-to-cover read to learn more about the hot topics and latest case law in e-discovery. But after that, it can be used as a reference book, to look up cases and arguments to use in daily practice. The book also includes an Appendix of useful reference materials, such as the full text of the federal new rules on e-discovery and the Committee commentary, local rules, model states rules, and an index and a table of cases.

Science for Lawyers
Edited by Eric Y. Drogin 

List Price: $129.95
Publication Date: January 2008
ISBN: 1-59031-926-5

Science for Lawyers clearly explains and discusses 13 applied scientific disciplines in jargon-free language that is specifically geared toward lawyers. The book explores the definitions (what is science), the practice (what scientists do) and the professional roles (what ethical guidelines influence scientists) of 13 professional disciplines such as: Ballistics, Medicine, Physics, Statistics, Linguistics, Genetics and Chemistry.

Preparing Legal Documents for a Lay Audience
By Wayne Schiess

List Price: $69.95
Publication Date: January 2008
ISBN: 1-59031-964-8

Through the chapters in this book you'll find tips designed to improve legal writing for the lay audience as well as examples of poor legal writing, common errors, why they should be fixed, and how to fix them. Readers will find sentence structure advice as well as guidance on organization, tone, format, and document design. Using a short, clear, and easy-to-read format, this book is ideal for practicing lawyers or law students who want their material to be understood and not ignored.

Garner on Language and Writing
By Bryan A. Garner

List Price: $59.95 
Publication Date: February 2008
ISBN: 1-59031-588-0

Bryan Garner, the country's foremost expert on writing, style, legal drafting, and usage, has collected over a hundred of his finest essays on writing, language, and style in this substantial anthology.

The book includes sections on legal language and lexicography, how to write successfully as a professional, and concludes with chapters on what he calls "bizarreries" --entertaining descriptions of puns, curiosities, vocabulary use, and other hilarious writing escapades. Finally, Garner includes several tributes to great stylists, and concludes with recommendations for making oneself a great writer, grammarian, and stylist.

Leadership for Lawyers, 2d ed.
By Herb Rubenstein 

List Price: $39.95
Publication Date: January 2008
ISBN: 1-59031-844-7

Leadership for Lawyers is the first book of its kind written by a lawyer for lawyers, judges, law firm administrators, and others in the legal profession to help them become more effective leaders.

The book explains various theories of leadership, provides practical advice on how to become a better leader, and shows how increasing leadership development education and training could significantly improve the legal profession as a whole.

With one chapter specifically devoted to women and leadership in the legal profession, this book is designed to improve the ability of women to advance to leadership positions in the profession.

Rubenstein shows lawyers why leadership is so vital for every successful legal organization. He takes the reader on a guided tour of the leadership literature of the past fifty years. He identifies the various brands of leadership that authors and business men and women have been teaching and practicing, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of each. He shares success stories of leaders who have practiced leadership skills in order to steer their firms and companies to new heights. This book is a must for every partner in the firm, and every associate who strives to make partner.

Stanford’s Computer Science Department's Role in Search Technology

Some interesting snippets of search history can be found in Richard Brandt's 2004 Stanford Manazine article, Net Assets: How Stanford's computer science department changed the way we get information. The business plan for Yahoo! received a D-minus grade because the selection process was not automated. And according to Brandt, Google's PageRank system was "the first true innovation in search technology since the bibliography."

Regarding Google, see also Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page's The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine and Amy Langville and Carl Meyer, Google's PageRank and Beyond: The Science of Search Engine Rankings (Princeton University Press, 2006). {JH}

Zelinsky on the Defined Contribution Society

This is an extraordinarily important, very well-written and thoroughly researched book. It is probably also the most insightful pension book of the decade. -- Jonathan Barry Forman, Alfred P. Murrah Professor of Law, University of Oklahoma College of Law

The Origins of the Ownership Society: How the Defined Contribution Paradigm Changed America
by Edward A. Zelinsky

List Price: $55.00
Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (December 22, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0195339355
ISBN-13: 978-0195339352

Book Description: As Baby Boomers plan for their retirements, finance their children's educations, and provide for their families' medical expenses, they confront a fundamental reality: America today is a defined contribution society. We save for retirement, health care and educational savings through IRAs, 401(k) accounts, 529 programs, FSAs, HRAs, HSAs and other individual accounts which did not exist a generation ago. In its own way, the emergence of these accounts has been a revolution which has, step-by-step, without fanfare, cumulatively transformed tax and social policy in fundamental ways. The Origins of the Ownership Society describes the defined contribution revolution, its causes, and implications. For lawyers, the book provides useful insights into the network of individual accounts which are now central features of the U.S. income tax for retirement, medical, and health savings. For those concerned about public policy, the book provides useful guidance regarding our options in providing for the retirement of the mass numbers of Baby Boomers, and in preparing young Americans for the medical costs of their older years. The defined contribution format will, for good or for ill, be the framework governing the Baby Boomers' choices. For everyone else, including the Baby Boomers themselves, the book explains where we are, how and why we got there, and what our options are for the future.

President Signs the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008

President Bush signed the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 (H.R. 5140) today. The Act provides a rebate to individual tax filers who satisfy specific income requirements and special depreciation allowances to businesses. In addition, the act would raise the loan limit for the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA’s) single-family program.

According to the White House's fact sheet, the Act

• Is large enough to have an impact, amounting to more than $152 billion this year, or about one percent of GDP.
• Provides tax rebates to 128 million American households.

Payments will be sent through late spring and summer. Under the Act's rebate provisions:

• Individuals and families are eligible to receive up to $600 for individuals and $1,200 for couples. A minimum of $300 per person and $600 per couple would be available to those with at least $3,000 of earned income. This relief would be available to everyone with adjusted gross income less than $75,000 for singles and $150,000 for married couples filing jointly. It will be phased out for taxpayers above those income thresholds. Taxpayers may qualify by filing a tax return for 2007 and including a valid Social Security number on their tax return.
• Everyone eligible for this relief would also receive an additional $300 per child. For example, this would mean up to $1,800 of tax relief for an eligible couple with two children.
• Recipients of Social Security and certain veterans' benefits are also eligible for rebates. Those who receive at least $3,000 from any combination of benefits from these programs will receive rebates. The IRS and Treasury Department will be working closely with the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration, along with beneficiary organizations, to ensure that all eligible individuals are able to receive their payments.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 will:

• Decrease revenues by $114 billion in 2008 and by a net amount of $82 billion over the 2008-2018 period; and
• Increase direct spending by $38 billion in 2008 and $42 billion over the 2008-2009 period.

Resources: Legislative resources avalable on LC's Thomas plus a great collection of related materials on TaxProf Blog. [JH]

Harvard Faculty Adopts Open Access Requirement

The Chronicle  of Higher Education is reporting that Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences adopted a policy that requires faculty members to allow the university to make their scholarly articles available free online. I believe this is a first and it opens the door for other universities and colleges to adopt similar policies.

Here's the text, provided by Open Access News:

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible. In keeping with that commitment, the Faculty adopts the following policy: Each Faculty member grants to the President and Fellows of Harvard College permission to make available his or her scholarly articles and to exercise the copyright in those articles. In legal terms, the permission granted by each Faculty member is a nonexclusive, irrevocable, paid-up, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, and to authorize others to do the same, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit. The policy will apply to all scholarly articles written while the person is a member of the Faculty except for any articles completed before the adoption of this policy and any articles for which the Faculty member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy. The Dean or the Dean’s designate will waive application of the policy for a particular article upon written request by a Faculty member explaining the need.

To assist the University in distributing the articles, each Faculty member will provide an electronic copy of the final version of the article at no charge to the appropriate representative of the Provost’s Office in an appropriate format (such as PDF) specified by the Provost’s Office. The Provost’s Office may make the article available to the public in an open-access repository.

The Office of the Dean will be responsible for interpreting this policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application, and recommending changes to the Faculty from time to time. The policy will be reviewed after three years and a report presented to the Faculty.

Inside Higher Ed's coverage of the story: Harvard Opts In to ‘Opt Out’ Plan. See also Harvard University Librarian Robert Darnton's The Case for Open Access (Harvard Crimson). [JH]

Professional Reading: Review of Metric Services for Digital Libraries and Repositories

Chris Armbruster's (Research Associate, Max Planck Digital Library and Executive Director, Research Network 1989) Access, Usage and Citation Metrics: What Function for Digital Libraries and Repositories in Research Evaluation? is available from SSRN. Here's the abstract for this very interesting and helpful review article:

The growth and increasing complexity of global science poses a grand challenge to scientists: How to organise the worldwide evaluation of research programmes and peers? For the 21st century we need not just information on science, but also meta-level scientific information that is delivered to the digital workbench of every researcher. Access, usage and citation metrics will be one major information service that researchers will need on an everyday basis to handle the complexity of science.

Scientometrics has been built on centralised commercial databases of high functionality but restricted scope, mainly providing information that may be used for research assessment. Enter digital libraries and repositories: Can they collect reliable metadata at source, ensure universal metric coverage and defray costs?

This systematic appraisal of the future role of digital libraries and repositories for metric research evaluation proceeds by investigating the practical inadequacies of current metric evaluation before defining the scope for libraries and repositories as new players. Subsequently the notion of metrics as research information services is developed. Finally, the future relationship between a) libraries and repositories and b) metrics databases, commercial or non-commercial, is addressed.

Service reviewed include: Leiden Ranking, Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, COUNTER, MESUR, Harzing POP, CiteSeer, Citebase, RePEc LogEc and CitEc, Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar.

The Frankenstein of Book Digitalization Projects, Google Books

1,000,000th Book Scanned

On Feb. 2, 2008, the University of Michigan Library digitized its one millionth book, most of which was done as part of the Library's deal with Google. See Paul Courant's, Dean of Libraries, blog post and the Library's website page, which includes its mass digitalization processing flowchart (pdf).

Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of books are being added to Google Book Search every day, but writes Campus Technology's Dian Schaffhauser, "Once you get past the freakishly high numbers bandied about, the two-dozen-plus distinguished institutions that have signed on, the legal paranoia and the ultra-ultra-secret processes and technologies involved-you'll find that Book Search is simply another high-cost effort that is simultaneously visionary and crude." Schaffhauser adds, "[the project] doesn't even have to succeed in order to impact the transformation of scholarship activities."

In Google Book Search: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly, Schaffhauser provides an inside look at how one of Google's partners, the University of California, is meeting its six-year contractual commitment to feed 2.5 million volumes into the Google Book Search system.

In the article we learn that UC is obligated to delivery 3,000 books per day. How does UC meet this goal?

It isn't by being overly selective. And it doesn't involve rare materials that aren't part of the circulating collection. "All of the libraries are talking about that, in the sense of what might be the most interesting materials to scan," says [Robin] Chandler, [former director of data acquisitions for UC's California Digital Library]. "But I'll be very frank: There's a real balance point between volume and selection, especially when looking at these numbers. UC is trying to meet the needs of the contract it's signed."

If you remember your Hegel, Quantity becomes Quality when the number is large. OK, it's been about 35 years since I read Hegel but the idea is simple enough; one atom bomb is a threat; 10,000 nuclear weapons is MADness. The quantity of digitalized books that are and will be contained in the Google Book Search database may result in Google Book Search becoming the de facto standard for researching information contained in digital books. That too would be madness. I highly recommend this article (and accompanying podcast of Dian Schaffhauser's interview with Robin Chandler) to anyone interested in how the Frankenstein of book digitalization projects was and is being created.

Hat tip to LISNews. [JH]

New Widgets Available for PreCYdent

PreCYdent's Tom Smith (San Diego) reports that his PreCYdent legal research service now provides two search engine widgets, one adding the service's search box to your FireFox or IE7 browser and another for adding it to your website or blog.

In addition, he forecasts that the service's database of primary US resources will include the last 10 years of all states cases in a week or two.

For more about PreCYdent, see our recent interview with Tom. [JH]

Just Released Virtue Jurisprudence

Virtue Jurisprudence
Editors and Contributors: Colin Farrelly and Lawrence Solum

List Price: $74.95
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (February 5, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0230552897
ISBN-13: 978-0230552890

Available From: Amazon | Palgrave Macmillan (Sample Chapter Available)

Description: In moral theory, virtue ethics offers a third way - an alternative to the deontological and consequentialist approaches that dominated modern moral philosophy until very recently. What would happen if we transplanted virtue ethicsinto normative legal theory? The essays in this anthology are part of a growing body of work that answers that question. According to the advocates of virtue jurisprudence, the final end of law is to promote human flourishing - to enable humans to lead excellent lives. Can the virtue ethics tradition really help us address the fundamental concerns of legal theory-like judicial review, criminal and tort law? The authors of this volume believe it can. By shedding the constraints of consequentialist and deontological theories, these authors illustrate how thte virtue ethics tradition can enrich legal theory in distinctive and diverse ways.

Contents:

• An Introduction to Aretaic Theories of Law; C. Farrelly & L.B. Solum
• The Central Tradition; R.George
• Prudence, Benevolence, and Negligence: Virtue Ethics and Tort Law; H. Feldman
• Judges of Character; S. Sherry
• Civic LiIberalism and the 'Dialogical Model' of Judicial Review; C. Farrelly
• A Virtue-Centred Account of Equity and the Rule of Law; L.B. Solum
• Natural Justice; An Aretaic Account of Virtue of Lawfulness; L.B. Solum
• Virtue, Vice, and Criminal Liability; A. Duff
• On Aristotelian Criminal Law; A Reply to Duff; K. Huigens
• Two Ways of Doing the Right Thing; R. Hursthouse

[JH]

CEA's Annual Economic Report Released

From the Report's Overview:

The U.S. economy retains a solid foundation, even as it faces challenges ahead. Toward the end of 2007, there were increasingly mixed economic indicators (see Chapters 1 and 2). Economic growth is expected to continue in 2008. Most market forecasts suggest a slower pace in the first half of 2008, followed by strengthened growth in the second half of the year. The inherent resilience of our economy has enabled it to absorb multiple shocks in recent years, but the President does not take this growth for granted.

Download the Report (pdf) and related Council of Economic Advisers publications from the White House website. [JH]

How People Use the Internet, Libraries, and Government Agencies When They Need Help

In a national phone survey, respondents were asked by Pew/Interent whether they had encountered 10 possible problems in the previous two years, all of which had a potential connection to the government or government-provided information. Those who had dealt with the problems were asked where they went for help and the internet topped the list:

58% of those who had recently experienced one of those problems said they used the internet (at home, work, a public library or some other place) to get help.

53% said they turned to professionals such as doctors, lawyers or financial experts.

45% said they sought out friends and family members for advice and help.

36% said they consulted newspapers and magazines.

34% said they directly contacted a government office or agency.

16% said they consulted television and radio.

13% said they went to the public library.

For details, check out Pew/Internet's Information Searches That Solve Problems [Report (pdf)]. [JH}

Professional Reading: Apple, IBM and Their Business Models

Two recent papers available from SSRN:

Case Study of Apple, Inc.: How Apple Executes its Business Model to Control Digital Content through Legal and Technological Means, by Margo E.K. Reder (Boston College):

This article explores how Apple's business model makes use of content licensed from third-party music labels that is in digital format, and how it delivers the service to consumers over the internet. Control of content and profits are the two top goals of the music labels - yet the goals of the music labels' customers are in stark opposition to those goals, since users wish to use the content in different ways and formats, and they have become very averse to paying for content, which becomes easy when content is digital. Since the music labels have in effect conceded distribution of their products to Apple, for one, Apple has found itself in the middle, at once adhering to its contractual duties under agreements with the music labels, while enticing customers and profiting from its user-friendly interface and platform. Apple must both control content - to avoid lawsuits, and sell the content - to continue its iTunes service.

Pragmatism Not Ideology: IBM's Love Affair with Open Source Software by M. Campbell-Kelly (Warwick) and Daniel D. Garcia-Swartz (Law and Economics Consulting Group, LLC):

Today IBM is perceived as being in the vanguard of open source software and a leading participant in the free software community. Paradoxically, IBM is also the world's second largest vendor of proprietary software products. In this paper we argue that IBM's embrace of open source software comes not from a new-found ideology, but from its history of pragmatism. Simply put, IBM is a survivor. It has dominated the IT landscape for most of its history not because of any deep-seated ideology, but because it has been fleet-footed and practical. Its adoption of open source software is in exactly this spirit. In the half century that IBM has been making software, it has delivered all combinations of free vs. proprietary software and open vs. closed code, dictated entirely by the technological constraints, the political realities, and the business opportunities of the day.

Survey on AALL's Draft Guidelines for Evaluating a Legal Website Closes Feb. 19th

AALL's Access to Electronic Legal Information Committee would like some input of their draft Guidelines for Evaluating a Legal Website. The guidelines are designed for people without extensive legal research experiences, such as members of the general public, scholars in other disciplines, and first-year law students. To contribute to the Committee's project, please review the draft (pdf) and take the survey by Tuesday, February 19. [JH]

Should You Be Using DSpace?

DSpace is a centralized, electronic repository for the massive amounts of intellectual property created by research institutions. It can be used for a variety of digital archiving needs -- from institutional repositories to learning object repositories or electronic records management, and more.

Law schools tend to look to SSRN and bePress for their digial archiving needs but both are limited to scholarly text-based works in ADA non-complaint PDF formats and both leave much to be desired in metadata practices. DSpace can be used for all digital formats and may be either a viable alternative to SSRN and beSpace or an opportunity to create a more comprehensive institutional repository.

The DSpace engine is an open-source storage and retrieval system that individual repositories can customize and extend. Before attempting to reinvent the wheel, DSpace is worth checking out. It's well beyond the early adapter stage.

DSpace Home | FAQ | Project Wiki | The DSpace Architecture (pdf)

Jointly developed by HP and the MIT Libraries beginning in 2002, the DSpace project is now supported by the aptly named DSpace Foundation. According to DSpace, there are currently 261 DSpace instances registered on ROAR (Registry of Open Access Repositories). That's 26% of the 968 repositories registered on ROAR. See Who's Using DSpace. [JH]

Call for Contributions: 2008 RIPS-SIS Teach-In Kit (Deadline: Friday, February 22, 2008)

The RIPS Teach-In Kit is back!  Your kit contributions are currently being accepted for the 15th Annual RIPS-SIS Teach-In Kit.  The RIPS sponsored National Legal Research Teach-In campaign has provided the popular Teach-In Resource Kit for many years as a formerly print and now online publication designed to support the instructional activities of law librarians. It is published annually in conjunction with National Library Week each April.

You can send contributions as email attachments to any of the people listed below. Any document format that can be attached to email is acceptable.

We will accept most any instructional materials that you care to offer:

• course syllabi
• research guides
• lecture notes
• handouts
• assignments
• lesson plans
• PowerPoint shows
• basic instructional guides
• examinations and guided quizzes
• crossword puzzles and trivia quizzes

We welcome your ideas and suggestions and encourage you to contact us to discuss your contributions.

Send Teach-In Kit submissions to either:

Jennifer Murray

RIPS-SIS Teach-In Committee

Superior Court Law Library, Maricopa County

101 W. Jefferson

Phoenix, AZ 85003

Phone: 602-506-3464

e-mail: murrayj006@scll.maricopa.gov 

Gail Partin

RIPS Teach-In Committee

Dickinson School of Law Library of the Pennsylvania State University

150 S. College St.

Carlisle, PA 17013

Phone: (717) 240-5294

Email: gap6@dsl.psu.edu

For more information see: *National Legal Research Teach-In campaign web page:

http://www.aallnet.org/sis/ripssis/teach_in.html

Boxer's Anthology of Blogs

Sarah Boxer, formerly a critic and reporter at The New York Times and author of Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web, an anthology to be published in February, has published a jolly good little article in The New York Review of Books (February 14, 2008) aptly titled Blogs. Actually, it's more jolly than good, hardly up to the standards of the Review's typical think pieces but then it isn't intended to be a one. As for her book, it might be as Thomas Jones writes "an early the contender for most pointless book of the year." [JH]

Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web
by Sarah Boxer

List Price: $14.95
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Vintage (February 12, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0307278069
ISBN-13: 978-0307278067

See Thomas Jones' review of Boxer's book in the London Review of Books:

Publishing an anthology of blogs in book form ... would appear to make about as much sense as broadcasting Singin’ in the Rain on the wireless: you’d still get to hear Donald O’Connor singing 'Make ’em Laugh', but it’s not quite the same if you can’t see him walking along the piano keys, dancing with the headless dummy and running up the walls. But that hasn’t stopped Sarah Boxer, a former New York Times reporter, from putting together a collection called Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web  – on the face of it, an early contender for most pointless book of the year.

More Trouble at the American Justice School of Law

The ABA Journal is reporting that five professors at the American Justice School of Law in Paducah, Ky.—about one-fourth of the faculty—resigned effective Friday, saying they won’t come back until the dean of the for-profit school submits his resignation. Read more about it. [JH]

Surveying the Digital Future

New report from the Center for the Digital Future, USC Annenberg School:

"The Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School is pleased to present the results of the seventh year of our project, “Surveying the Digital Future.” The seven years of longitudinal research comprise an absolutely unique data base that completely captures broadband at home, the wireless Internet, on-line media, user-generated content and, now, social networking.

This year’s report contains a large module looking at on-line communities and social networking in great detail. Readers can compare the social networking data and correlate it to seven years of attitudes and behaviors on-line. As usual, the report continues to track off-line media use, purchasing both off-line and through e-commerce, social and political activity and a wealth of other data.

The Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School has been tracking a representative sample of the American population for over seven years, watching as people move on line and then move! from modems to broadband. The project also carefully tracks those who drop off the net each year and whether they return and if so, when and what brings them back. At the end of seven years, we also have an unparalleled view of the non-users who do not go on-line. We carefully examine why they are not users and whether they are likely to ever go on-line."  [RJ]

Professional Reading: Blinking on the Bench: How Judges Decide Cases

Chris Guthrie, Jeffrey Rachlinski, and Andrew J Wistrich's Blinking on the Bench: How Judges Decide Cases is now availabe from SSRN.  Here's the abstract:

"How do judges judge? Do they apply law to facts in a mechanical and deliberative way, as the formalists suggest they do, or do they rely on hunches and gut feelings, as the realists maintain? Debate has raged for decades, but researchers have offered little hard evidence in support of either model. Relying on empirical studies of judicial reasoning and decision making, we propose an entirely new model of judging that provides a more accurate explanation of judicial behavior. Our model accounts for the tendency of the human brain to make automatic, snap judgments, which are surprisingly accurate, but which can also lead to erroneous decisions. Equipped with a better understanding of judging, we then propose several reforms that should lead to more just and accurate outcomes." 

[RJ]