Law Librarian Blog

Test Drive the New Google Search Interface

It takes some doing but Mashable's Stan Schroeder explains how. [JH]

More on Google Legal Research

I'd like to add a few thoughts to Victoria Szymczak's post last Wednesday, CSI:  Google Scholar.  I did something similar with a family law issue using Illinois case law.  Family law is mostly governed by statute with a rich collection of case law that interprets it.  I think the more direct approach would be to find the governing law in a copy of the annotated statutes and examine the notes of decisions.  However, starting by searching case law directly is not a "wrong" approach to a family law problem.

The example I used in my test was an analysis of whether non-marital property acquired before a marriage is converted into marital property when used to purchase a home held in joint tenancy by the parties during the marriage.  I chose this problem because I had researched this issue in the past and because it offered a broader perspective on the results Google would return.  There are general principles that govern the status of non-marital property (bank accounts, stock, a professional practice, for example) and there is the application to the specific type of property, a home. 

I started with broad terms, "illinois, non-Marital, property, transmute" entered as a standard Google search.  The first case that came up was In re Marriage of Smith, cited in the result list with it's official Illinois citation along with the Northeastern Reporter citation.  The text of the case was star paged to the Illinois pagination.  I'll note some inconsistencies here as other cases from Illinois appear in their Northeastern Reporter version, and that cases appearing within the coverage of the database were not hyperlinked to text.  It is hard to figure out how Google decides to link to other materials.  Sometimes it is to cases with one citation, sometimes not.  Similar observations appear when cases have parallel citations.  I also note that the search results for the same terms are different when placed in a different order.  The same cases mainly showed up, albeit in a different order.  The results variation became more pronounced further down, even on the first page.  Put Illinois between non-marital and property in the search and the results are also different. 

The Smith case is a significant case on issue of transmutation of non-marital property in Illinois, though it dates from 1981.  The general results list from Illinois and the how cited tended to cases from the 1980s.  This was no surprise in one sense as the marriage statutes were completely re-written in the 1970s with the bulk of litigation on the meaning taking place about that time.  At the same time, an examination of the annotated code showed relevant cases through the present.  Litigation did not stop in 1989.  More on this in a moment.  Smith did cite the appropriate section of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act, alerting a researcher to the fact that a statute existed.  No links to any version of the online code at the Illinois General Assembly's web site, though I didn't expect any.  The Illinois statutory compilation was completely renumbered and renamed in 1992, so a researcher would have to know that to find a current version of the text from a free source. 

With these cases and a clue as to what else existed I went to the annotated statutes at Westlaw and found notes of decisions that identified the standards of transmutation, that there was a rebuttable presumption of transmutation, and the evidentiary standards for overcoming the presumption.  I could conceivably use Google to ferret out this information, but I suspect it would take a bit of time to do so.  

So, what does this all mean in terms of the impact of Google Legal?  I would suggest that it's substantial enough to identify relevant materials to a problem if it's conducive to case research.  As any savvy researcher would, take that information in Google and develop it using other sources.  Some of these may be available on the web for free, which is a nice bonus.  Anyone could use a print copy of the annotated Illinois Compiled Statutes in a law library to find the other law applicable to the problem.  That would be a more efficient strategy than simply sticking with Google to locate the complete answer.  Anyone with pay access to Lexis and Westlaw may want to start here if for no other reason to get an overview of the case law and develop relevant search terms.  For example, using the term "convert" rather than transmute brings up vastly different results in Google Legal.  Google would be a good place to try out alternative terms before doing a contextual search in Lexis and Westlaw.

One last point is in working through the problem, I accidentally hit web search rather than opening a new tab.  In essence, I searched general Google for the same terms.  The fourth result was a DuPage County Bar Association Brief on Commingling and Transmutation of property under Illinois marital law.  It gave a broad overview of the legal landscape and acknowledged the Smith case as a starting point, though it did not go into enough detail to solve a research problem.  This process is another example of how information is interrelated but no one source will actually provide the answer.  Google is a source, but not the source. [MG]

Half Million or More HeinOnline Law Journal Library Articles Not in Google Scholar

In HeinOnline or Google Scholar? Why You Should Start Your Research in HeinOnline First, the HeinOnline Blog explains that the Company provided the metadata for and allowed Google Scholar to crawl more than 1 million documents in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. Magnanimous of the Company to do so but ...

Quoting from the post, of these one million plus documents Google crawled,

they opted to only include about 50% of the content in the Google Scholar index. The 50% of the documents that they chose to integrate with the Google Scholar index was chosen solely by the programming and/or processes put in place by Google Scholar. This means that there are potentially some well known, highly cited, scholarly articles in HeinOnline that are not searchable or available in Google Scholar!

The post explains in detail, with Google Scholar search comparisons, why you should start your research with HeinOnline, not Google Scholar, for access to the contents of 1,200 law and law related journals provided in its Law Journal Library. I'm convinced.

Endnote. In case you missed Vicki Szymczak's test drive of Google Scholar for researching New York state caselaw and its results compared to results for the same search using New York cases databases on Lexis and Westlaw last Wednesday, see her very interesting LLB post, CSI: Google Scholar. [JH]

Friday Fun on Monday: A Little Post-Thanksgiving Holiday Pilgrim History

Hat tip to LegalEase on CKUT 90.3FM, a group of McGill University law students whose public legal education initiative is trying to transform legal jargon into legal-ease. Their podcasts are available here. [JH]

Band's A Guide for the Perplexed Part III on the Amended Google Book Settlement Agreement

ALA and ACRL have released A Guide for the Perplexed Part III: The Amended Settlement Agreement by Jonathan Band The guide describes the major changes in the Amended Google Book Settlement Agreement submitted to the Court by Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers on November 13, 2009, with emphasis on those changes relevant to libraries.

For detailed discussions of the original settlement agreement and the subsequent modification to
the agreements between Google and its partner libraries, see Jonathan Band's early guides:

• A Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries and the Google Library Project Settlement (Nov. 13, 2008)
• A Guide for the Perplexed Part II: The Expanded Google-Michigan Agreement (June 12, 2009)

Hat tip to the Resource Shelf. [JH]

Solo by Choice or Necessity: Elefant's Much-Need Manual for the Solo Practitioner

When Carolyn Elefant's Solo by Choice was published in 2008, the employment market for lawyers was still is relatively good shape. The book was dedicated to showing firm lawyers that going solo was not career suicide. Times have changed. If Elefant were to publish the book now, the title could read "Solo by Choice or Necessity." Elefant's book is a 300-page manual filled with detailed information and practical advice on establishing and running an office, selecting practice areas, fees and billing procedures (including alternative fees), and marketing a solo law practice. It's about as comprehensive as it can get. The appendices cover such topics as writing a business plan to creating a forms library. For lawyers who want to or, because of firm downsizing, must go into solo practice but have taken the entire infrastructure of practicing law in a firm for granted, Elefant's Solo by Choice is a must-read. Needless to say, the book is also recommended for today's law school students. [JH]

2009-2010 Edition of The United States Government Manual Now Online

The United States Government Manual, 2009-2010 edition, is now available on GPO Access. [JH}

Where and What Do They Look Like Now: Popular Search Engines in the 90’s

Remember WebCrawler, HotBot, Excite, Dogpile, AltaVista, etc.? Check out Jacob Gube's post for screen shots of  "web designs of ubiquitous search engines of the past" and how they have evolved through time. [JH]

MrChiCity3's "YouTube is Dying (YouTube Exposed)" And a Couple of Video Responses to It

"MrChiCity3" on the State of YouTube:

And just a sample of responses to this interesting YouTube Community dialog:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUpdevJ_6lU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaoD-oOzw7o

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_6V7bnI8Es

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZamwFVcn30

[JH]

What If Marijuana Production Was Legalized: Projected Tax Revenues by State

Has the time finally arrived to decriminalize marijuana and tax the hell out of commercial sales of it for needed state revenue?

The AMA is urging the federal government to remove marijuana from Schedule One of the Controlled Substances Act. A Gallup poll in October found that 44 percent of Americans favor full legalization of marijuana. That's an increase of 13 percentage points since 2000. Gallup said that if public support continues growing at a rate of 1 to 2 percent per year, "the majority of Americans could favor legalization of the drug in as little as four years." See Karl Vick's Washington Post story, Support for legalizing marijuana grows rapidly around U.S. See also On Marijuana Prohibition and Protecting Young People posted by Alex Kreit on Concurring Opinions ("One thing that I think is clear, however, is that prohibition has not been effective at keeping marijuana out of the hands of young people and that there is certainly no reason to think it would be more effective than a well designed tax-and-regulate system.")

Check out Sloshspot's graphic, which illustrates the federal tax dollars spent to keep marijuana illegal, and the possible tax revenues that could be generated if marijuana production were legalized and taxed like any other agricultural product. [JH]

Round-Up of State Practitioner Blogs

Florida Criminal Attorney Blog
http://www.floridacriminalattorneyblog.com
http://www.floridacriminalattorneyblog.com/index.xml
Reviews criminal law cases, news and reports in Florida. Published by the Law Offices of Jason M. Melton, PA.

Jacksonville Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
http://www.jacksonvillecriminaldefenselawyerblog.com
http://www.jacksonvillecriminaldefenselawyerblog.com/index.xml
Analyzes criminal law news, matters and opinions in Florida. Published by the Apple Law Firm, PLLC.

Fort Lauderdale Injury Lawyer Blog
http://www.ftlauderdaleinjurylawyerblog.com
http://www.ftlauderdaleinjurylawyerblog.com/index.xml
Covers injury law cases, opinions and matters in Florida. Published by The Citron Law Firm, PA.

Alabama Car Accident Lawyer Blog
http://www.alabamacaraccidentlawyerblog.com
http://www.alabamacaraccidentlawyerblog.com/index.xml
Provides opinion on auto accident reports, cases and news in Alabama. Published by Martinson & Beason, PC.

Sports Agent and Sports Lawyer Blog
http://www.sportsagentlawyer.com
http://www.sportsagentlawyer.com/index.xml
Discusses sports law and management news, opinions and reports in Florida. Published by Wolf Sports Management and Sports Law Firm Koch & Trushin.

Tennessee Employment Lawyer Blog
http://www.tennesseeemploymentlawyerblog.com
http://www.tennesseeemploymentlawyerblog.com/index.xml
Provides insight on employment law news, cases and opinions in Tennessee. Published by The Higgins Firm.

New Jersey Criminal Defense Attorney Blog
http://www.newjerseycriminaldefenseattorneyblog.com
http://www.newjerseycriminaldefenseattorneyblog.com/index.xml
Examines criminal law cases, reports and news in New Jersey. Published by the Law Office of Anthony J. Vecchio, LLC.

Photographs of Vintage Computers and the Stories Behind Them

Time is featuring an annotated slideshow of Mark Richard's stunning photographs of vintage computers. Additional images on the photographer's website. See also Core Memory: A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers, text by John Alderman, photography by Mark Richard. From the book's product description:

Core Memory reveals modern technology's evolution through the world's most renowned computer collection, the Computer History Museum in the Silicon Valley. Vivid photos capture these historically important machines including the Eniac, Crays 1 3, Apple I and II while authoritative text profiles each, telling the stories of their innovations and peculiarities. Thirty-five machines are profiled in over 100 extraordinary color photographs.

While "a picture is worth a thousand words," the images fails to tell the complex story of the early days of coumputing and the computer research pioneers whose contributions have been largely overshadowed in the public mind by IT entrepreneurs. Core Memory, the book, provides some information but there are better resources. Severo Ornstein's Computing in the Middle Ages: A View From the Trenches 1955-1983 (Authorhouse, Nov. 15, 2002) is designed for the lay reader who wishes to understand some of the background of the computer revolution. He provides an account of what took place in computer research between the 1950s and the 1980s. From the book description:

[T]he author was 'in the trenches' where seminal experiments were taking place, first at MIT and later at other universities and research centers. His unassuming story ... a breezy and irreverent memoir enlivened by amusing anecdotes from his professional and personal experience ... gives a human dimension to the otherwise dry and often obscure process of scientific and engineering innovation. 

For a more technical history of early computing, see The First Computers--History and Architectures (MIT Press, Aug. 7, 2002). The book focuses on the actual architectures of the first machines that made electronic computing a practical reality. [JH]

Top Ten Book Covers of the '00s

As selected by the Ben Pieratt on The Book Cover Archive Blog. Hat tip to LISNews. [JH]

Historic Thanksgiving Proclamations

The First Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1676
 
Congressional Proclamation of Thanksgiving, 1782

President George Washington's General Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789
 
President Abraham Lincoln's Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day, 1863

[JH]

Thanksgiving at Plimmoth

Contemporary Accounts of the 1621 Thanksgiving at Plimmoth

Source Materials on the Plimmoth Plantation

[JH]

CSI: Google Scholar

Whether Google Scholar is going to seriously challenge the wexis's of the world is not my concern here.  Nor is its current lack of serious search functionality.  It is about what happens when you search Google Scholar because whether we like it or not,  if it is Google, "they" will use it.  Especially if Google decides to include case opinion results in the general Google search results.  So, in order to be prepared, I investigated how the new kid in town might influence or change someone's research results.

My test project:  Find cases in N.Y. courses on cosmetic surgery that didn't go so well.

My limits:  New York cases

My search terms:
I did what I imagine most law students would do.  This means my search was: cosmetic surgery

(Perhaps they might add negligence, but I'll keep it simple for the sake of the blog.)

So what happened?
I retrieved 50 cases from the three levels of court in N.Y. which included published and some unpublished decisions. Not so bad. However, four of the cases were listed twice.  First with its reporter citation and then further down in the list a slip opinion.  So the numerical result was really 46.  Note that one of these cases also had an appellate level opinion listed; however, you would need to know the publication patterns for N.Y. reporters to realize this as Google Scholar does not use their muscle to make the connection for you. 

The order that the cases were placed in remains a mystery.

Interestingly, two of the first four cases were fairly famous cases in N.Y., but not for torts centered around cosmetic surgery.  They are famous for parents raising religious objections to medical procedures performed on their child.  Neither of these cases, In re Siefirth nor Matter of Sampson, mention the phrase "cosmetic surgery." Seifirth was decided in 1955.  The term "cosmetic surgery" was not even being used. Sampson dealt with a blood transfusion and had nothing to do with cosmetic or plastic surgery  

So why are they in  my results list?

• Was Google adding odd metadata like they are doing with the book scanning project? 
• Was the search engine just sloppy? 

No, neither.

I learned the answer from Andrew Larick-Plumb's now infamous post on the Case Western law library blog. Apparently, Google scholar is not searching the text of the the cases.  It is searching the text of the documents listed in the "How Cited" tab that appears next to the case list and analyzes linking patterns to create a results list.  Sampson showed up in the hit list because in the literuture it is often linked with Seifirth. Both are early cases that discuss the parents' right to exercise their religious freedom in choosing health care for their children.

Comparing to Wexis:

I did not compare the case results from Google Scholar to other free resources because there are no other free resources that allow you to search across all three levels of NY courts.  I reran the same search in appropriate N.Y. cases databases on Lexis and Westlaw and limited my results to cases that were decided after 1949.  Of course nither Seifirth nor Sampson were in the results lists from either company because they do not contain the phrase "cosmetic surgery."  But neither were 10 other cases.

Westlaw gave me 45 hits and Lexis gave me 44 hits.  Between Westlaw and Lexis, there were three unique cases.  In Westlaw, three cases showed up that did not show up in Lexis though 2 of the 3 did show up in Google Scholar.  In Lexis, there was one case that was not reported in either Westlaw or Google Scholar, and one case that was reported in Google Scholar but was not reported in Westlaw.  The two cases on Lexis that were not reported on Westlaw were both reported only in the New York Law Journal which explains why it was not picked up in the case law database I chose on Westlaw (NY-CS).  That one case that was unique to Westlaw was an unpublished decision from a lower N.Y. civil court which helps explain why it was not picked up by either Lexis or Google Scholar.

With respect to Google Scholar as compared to wexis, there were a total of 10 cases picked up by Google Scholar that were not reported in either Westlaw or Lexis.  Only one of the nine seems to be relevant and I am not sure how to explain why the search in Westlaw and Lexis did not pick up that one case.  It was a 2008 slip opinion from the trial level that was about a cosmetic surgery gone bad.  None of the other 9 cases that were unique to Google Scholar had the sought-for phrase.  Considering the small set of results, this is rather a large subset to sift through.  I larger set of results would make it very annoying to work with.

From the other side, there were 12 cases reported on Westlaw and Lexis that should have been picked up by Google Scholar if it indexed its cases instead of creating linking patterns based on citations in literature, and had a full set.  In fairness, the missed cases were unpublished decisions that were mentioned only in an Appendix to the reporter or not published at all.  We are not going to miss them too much.

Conclusion:

Certainly, this method of case discovery has some interesting benefits.  It will, of course, pick up cases that are note worthy enough to deserve merit by an author.  From an academic perspective, this might be a way to jump start a note topic or seminar paper.  It isn't the best way to do so, but if we are looking for ways to use this new tools, this could be a good way.

Will I teach students about it?  Yes, of course.  And I will go through this same exercise with them so that they understand the process of the tool and where it fits in their tool bag.  I think once they run into snafus like what I found with Seifirth and Sampson, they may be more discriminatory about relying on it. (VS)

Friday Fun on Wednesday: A Little Thanksgiving Music Festival

Happy Thanksgiving! [JH]

Would Yesterday's Law Librarian Recognize Today's Law Librarian? Will Today's Law Librarian Recognize Tomorrow's Law Librarian?

Theodora Belniak's The Law Librarian of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: A Figuration in Flux appears in the currrent issue of LLJ. It's a revised version of a winning entry in the student division of the 2009 AALL/LexisNexis Call for Papers Competition [2010 call for papers] and clearly worthy of the award. Reviewing the professional literature, Belniak outlines how the archetypal law librarian has changed over the last one hundred years. This is the sort of article law librarians "of a certain age" read as they reflect upon their careers. From the article's conclusion:

The skills and knowledge of the archetypal law librarian have changed drastically over the course of the century. From local to national to international, legal sources have increased exponentially. From mail by post to e-mail, and from printed matter to electronic databases, technology has transformed the methods of information classification and dissemination. Self-education and collaborative learning have been replaced by accredited M.L.S. and J.D. degree programs. In short, everything has changed.

Despite this, the figuration of the law librarian retains some constants. In each exposition of this figure, from the early 1900s to today, the most important element in determining professional success was and is the ability to anticipate changes in the sources and methods of communication and to integrate unanticipated changes to better serve patrons. The law librarian is a figuration in and of flux, evolving in response to environmental changes and incorporating new information and technologies. The librarian is always a little uncomfortable and is never settled; the discovery of new legal landscapes ensures that complacency cannot be a characteristic of the figure in any time period. And, regardless of the particular knowledge or skills expected of the law librarian, it is this dynamic interaction with the legal and library environment that defines law librarianship as a profession.

There is nothing to suggest an end to the growth of legal information and sources, or an end to the creation of various classification or communication technologies. Whether working from an office in a law library or working remotely from home, the law librarian of the future will seem nothing like the librarian of present when comparing qualifications, skill sets, experience, and knowledge. However, when evaluating the future law librarian’s ability to adapt to change and to embrace unanticipated outcomes, it will be oddly similar to that of the twentieth century’s and today’s figurations.

[JH]

Tarlton Law Library Launches Blog

UT's Tarlton Law Library has launched its first blog, Tarlton Library News. [JH]

Keep an Eye Out for Lee Peoples' The Citation of Blogs in Judicial Opinions

The Citation of Blogs in Judicial Opinions [SSRN] by Lee Peoples (Oklahoma City University School of Law) reports the results of an exhaustive study examining the citation of blogs in judicial opinions. From the abstract of what appears to be a very interesting article. Unfortunately it is not yet available for downloading from SSRN:

The article begins with an exploration of opinions citing blogs for their discussion of substantive legal issues. The unique status enjoyed by several boutique blogs is examined including the importance of Douglas Berman’s Sentencing Law and Policy blog in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Blakely and Booker decisions. The citation of blogs for factual information is discussed and the impact of these citations on litigants’ constitutional and procedural rights, the law of evidence, judicial ethics, and the judicial role in the common law adversarial system are explored.

Serious questions about the preservation of blogs cited in judicial opinions have yet to be answered. They way that blogs are cited in judicial opinions varies widely. Some judges do not provide enough information to accurately retrieve the blog post viewed by the court. Blog entries frequently change after they are posted. Some blog entries and entire blogs disappear without warning. There is currently no uniform approach to archiving or preserving blogs. Detailed statistics on the completeness and accuracy of citations to blogs in judicial opinions are provided. A set of best practices detailing when and how blogs should be cited is proposed. The Judicial Conference’s recently released Guidelines on Citing To, Capturing, and Maintaining Internet Resources in Judicial Opinions are discussed and critiqued. Solutions explored at the Future of Today’s Legal Scholarship Symposium held at the Georgetown Law Center in July of 2009 are evaluated. The article concludes with a discussion of the impact of blogs on the future of the law.

See also The Citation of Wikipedia in Judicial Opinions by Lee Peoples, which can be downloaded from SSRN.  [JH]