Law Librarian Blog

iPad Hacked! An LLB PSA for TR CEO Tom Glocer and Other iPad Users

A security breach has exposed iPad owners including dozens of CEOs, military officials, and top politicians. "They—and every other buyer of the cellular-enabled tablet—could be vulnerable to spam marketing and malicious hacking" according to Apple's Worst Security Breach: 114,000 iPad Owners Exposed. Michael Bloomberg's account was listed as one affected so maybe TR CEO Tom Glocer's was too.

If ever there was a time, Tom, to FedEx your used iPad to a TR Legal invoice-paying county law librarian as hinted here, seize the moment to do so now! Unless, of course, my goodies bag at AALL will be containing a TR Legal-branded iPad. [JH}

White House, DHS, Proposed National Cyber Identity

Remember Microsoft's Passport?  Microsoft's idea was to create a secure online ID that could be used as credentials for a variety of sites:  Internet access, banking, shopping, and other services.  The reaction was negative, not because it was necessarily a bad idea, but because Microsoft would federate these IDs through its servers.  Microsoft, in theory, would know everything about everybody.  So that project died, more or less.  Microsoft now uses Live ID, or whatever it's called these days, as a way for people to access its services.  Other initiatives such as the Liberty Alliance Projectand OpenID grew out of the concept.  

Last Friday the White House and the Department of Homeland Security issued the draft proposal called "National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace."  The document essentially suggests the same type of program, but with the federal government doing the federating for public and private business using these IDs.  The program is envisioned as voluntary.  Allow me to put on my tin foil hat for a moment and wonder if it was so bad for Microsoft to run such a system, why is it better for the government to do so?  Imagine a society where the only way to get social security benefits, pay taxes online, or other vital interaction with the government was via a Trusted Identity?  Want to get on a plane, validate your identify first.  That would be some "voluntary" adoption by the public.  But, I'm getting ahead of myself here.  Consider the goals and aims of the project.

From the Executive Summary:

The Identity Ecosystem enables:

• Security, by making it more difficult for adversaries to compromise online transactions;
• Efficiency based on convenience for individuals who may choose to manage fewer passwords or accounts than they do today, and for the private sector, which stands to benefit from a reduction in paper-based and account management processes;
• Ease-of-use by automating identity solutions whenever possible and basing them on technology that is easy to operate with minimal training;
• Confidence that digital identities are adequately protected, thereby increasing the use of the Internet for various types of online transactions;
• Increased privacy for individuals, who rely on their data being handled responsibly and who are routinely informed about those who are collecting their data and the purposes for which it is being used;
• Greater choice, as identity credentials and devices are offered by providers using interoperable platforms; and
• Opportunities for innovation, as service providers develop or expand the services offered online, particularly those services that are inherently higher in risk;

Privacy protection and voluntary participation are pillars of the Identity Ecosystem. The Identity Ecosystem protects anonymous parties by keeping their identity a secret and sharing only the information necessary to complete the transaction. For example, the Identity Ecosystem allows an individual to provide age without releasing birth date, name, address, or other identifying data. At the other end of the spectrum, the Identity Ecosystem supports transactions that require high assurance of a participant’s identity. The Identity Ecosystem reduces the risk of exploitation of information by unauthorized access through more robust access control techniques. Finally, participation in the Identity Ecosystem is voluntary for both organizations and individuals.

One of the examples in the full document is the ability to use the ID to make anonymous blog postings.  The question, though, is whether one can truly be anonymous under such a centralized system if it's controlled by the government.  Or anyone for that matter.  The RIAA and rest of the copyright police would be delighted to exploit such a system.  It's not that they shouldn't protect their intellectual property.  Their track record shows a regular disregard for investigating claims before bringing suits against individuals.  If Google and the rest pass along information requested through a subpoena, how can the government resist?

Then there is the prospect of an individual compromising identification from such a system.  Look at the recent controversy when a U.S. Army Intelligence Officer was arrestedfor leaking confidential diplomatic and war related information to Wikileaks.  That system was allegedly secure.  Could hackers or other interested parties compromise someone who helps run the system?  The document seems more concerned with enhancing privacy while using the system rather than maintaining it.  Of course, it's still in the draft proposal stage.  It's no wonder that these concerns aren't addressed.  Nonetheless, anyone who isn't forced to participate in the system would want to know how their vital information isn't protected from third parties. 

Congress passed the RealID Act in 2005, which amounted to a national identity cardin all but name only.  The states are balking at the prospect of implementing he program, at least due to the costs they have to assume.  That program has a lot of sticks associated with it, such as access to certain government services and facilities.  The idea of a government managed electronic identity may be the way to accomplish the same goals without the resistance raised against the RealID Act.  It may be voluntary in proposal, but the practical implementation may mean a choice that can't be refused.  I can turn down Microsoft, but the feds have more power than a software manufacturer. 

The White House blog posting is here.  The draft document is here. [MG]

WikiLeaks: From Whistleblowing to Information Vandalism

WikiLeaks instructs journalists that “WikiLeaks should be described, depending on context, as the ‘open government group’, ‘anti-corruption group’, ‘transparency group’ or ‘whistleblower’s site’.” "From one perspective, WikiLeaks is a creative response to a real problem afflicting the U.S. and many other countries, namely the over-control of government information to the detriment of public policy," writes Secrecy News' Steven Aftergood. "But on closer inspection that is not quite the case.  In fact, WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals." See Aftergood's Wikileaks Fails “Due Diligence” Review for an analysis of WikiLeaks activities. [JH]

Sign of the Times: Michigan Law Posting Job Ads for Indian Legal Outsourcing Company

The University of Michigan Law School, ranked 9th in US News, is now posting job opportunities from India. Details on ALT. In the story Elie Mystal writes "If you go to a top ten law school and end up having to go to India to find work, your law school shouldn’t just forgive all of your debts — it should forgive all your debts and furnish you with a public apology." [JH]

The Perfect Business Model for Digital Repositories of Legal Scholarship: Make Materials Available While Providing Download Counts to Stroke Law Prof Egos

Unfortunately, the biggest obstacle to implementation of the well-intended Durham Statement may very well be SSRN's asinine download stats. Here's a snip for the 2010 Mid-Year President's Letter.

2010 is our 16th year and it is off to a great start. Our eLibrary (http://ssrn.com/search) has delivered over 37.4 million downloads to date and grown to 290,000 documents and 138,000 authors - increases over the last year of 53,000 and 22,000 respectively. Our CiteReader technology, developed with ITX Corp, has captured over 6 million references, 5.7 million footnotes, and close to 3.9 million citation links. We believe this growth in multi-disciplinary, open access content is exciting and contributing to innovative scholarly research in social science and humanities.

...

Thank you again for your continued support of SSRN!

Gregg Gordon
President
Social Science Research Network

[JH]

Dell Alleged to Hide Mass Computer Failure From Customers

There is a fascinating story out there that may be interesting to anyone who bought a Dell Optiplex computer between 2003 and 2005, especially if it failed.  The New York Times is reporting about a lawsuit brought against Dell in North Carolina because of faulty Optiplex computers.  Dell apparently knew that they would fail 97% of the time with three years and hid the problem.  Customer Service representatives were instructed to emphasize uncertainty about why a customer's computer had failed.  The failure was caused by faulty capacitors on the motherboards or power supplies which would leak, explode, or cause fires.  For some detail on how the bad capacitor situation came about, read the story in the Guardian U.K. about Chinese industrial espionage gone wrong.

How bad did it get for Dell?  The company wound up replacing bad machines with more bad machines, compounding the problem.  Dell told the University of Texas Math Department the failures were caused by trying to run complex mathematical formulas on the machines.  I understand that complex mathematical formulas may cause a machine to run slow, but I didn't think they caused the machine to get a headache.  Even the law firm representing Dell had experienced computer failure.  Dell refused to fix the problem.

The suit came about when Dell customer Advanced Internet Technologies filed suit over the issue in 2007.  The Court released documents used in the New York Times report earlier this week.  It doesn't look pretty for Dell, which spent millions on replacing bad machines.  The company also set aside cash for a possible settlement with the SEC on possible fraud charges relating to accounting issues for the failures. Dell was once known as a company with a solid product and solid customer service.  The middle part of the decade saw a general decline in both, but not enough to discourage buyers.  I expect the this news to cause other businesses to pile on once they realize what actually happened to the machines they bought.  Class action anyone?  [MG]

A Second Westlaw Outage Leads to a Quick Question: Where's the Communication?

Late yesterday afternoon I learned that for the second time in a week, Westlaw access was unavailable. This by way of a ORALL listserv query from a county law librarian -- can you login? In this case the problem apparently was only affecting Westlaw Patron Access accounts. Had this query not been posted to the listserv, we might have left our after-hours patrons staring at a blank Westlaw display wondering what's up.

Now, I know systems crash and the IT folks in the Westlaw bunker are some of the best in the business who will fix them but, perhaps, they should wake up someone in the TR Legal Librarian (Marketing) Relations program to blast AALL listservs with a message informing everyone that "Hal" is misbehaving but is being worked on. It's not like the Librarian (Marketing) Relations folks don't know how to use our listservs. Even better -- got an email distribution list? Could use the one that sends us 20%-off offers. A simple but prompt explanation of the problem and its scope will suffice. We know you can't say exactly when the problem will be fixed.

Twice in One Week. I wonder how many law librarian hours were spent in the Tech Support telephone queue. [JH]

The Shed West Era in Execution

Over 97,000 pounds of print were sent off to the recycling center from our little county law library in recent weeks and that doesn't include several thousands of pounds of recycled loose-leaf pages and books removed earlier this year. Easily 110,000-plus pounds in total. The bulk of the work is now completed. The results are displayed in the below images. Missing from the snapshots are an entire large room emptied of its "archival" contents and a second smaller space half-emptied of the same sort of materials. The images below are from our open stacks.

The Shed West Era in Pictures

For a little context, we are downsizing our footprint and print collection to save on print spend and leasing costs. Now that we are an official county agency that is acquiring legal resources for in-house use by county offices, county and municipal courts, and municipal law department, plus paying all library employment costs from our statutory fines and forfeiture revenues cost-saving measures had to be taken. However, the Shed West Era at our little county law library wasn't entirely driven by financial necessity.

Our Objectives. Our existing facility covers 7,000 square feet on one floor with 8,400 linear feet of shelving and and our occupied shelving was 96%. Now we all know as a rule of thumb that when 80% of shelving is occupied by print materials, the library is for all practical purposes “full.” My most immediate predecessor apologized profusely for not weeding the collection. Apology accepted; her plate was full with other more pressing issues. However, regular weeding should have been practiced long before she arrived on the scene.

So we started with something like 45-50,000 volumes and a downsizing plan that called for reducing our footprint from 7,000 to 5,000 square feet, our linear feet of shelving from 8,400 to 3,500 and our occupied shelving from the whopping 96% to 80-85%. We shredded the de facto collection development policy that purchased multiple secondary sources in most every legal specialty in order to answer about any legal question that just might come in the door for one that more appropriately focused on serving county and court needs and the more common practice areas of our local bar. We also shredded the de facto retention policy which tended toward the archival for one that more squarely focused on maintaining a law library to serve practitioners’ everyday needs in our county. This isn’t a criticism of prior administrators but the times they are a-changing (actually they already have), and the mission of this library has changed to reflect the era we have been living in for some time and the new statutory mandate we operate under.

And Their Execution. There were a lot of no-brainer decisions. Gone are 50 years worth of Martindale’s (full sets mind you, not just the law digest volumes), superseded editions of current treatises on the shelves, 10 year runs of annual Ohio practitioner desk books, CLEs older than five years, PLI course books dating way back, CCH and BNA back files, case reporters, etc., for services previously cancelled, West specialty reporters, most previously cancelled but still on the shelves, the last one and its digest cancelled about six months ago.

Also gone, all regional reporters. They had been cancelled a few years ago.  USCA, SCT and the Supreme Court Digest (!), cancelled and discarded because, well, Matthew Bender’s alternatives are one hellva lot less expensive and we had both. All decennial digests from the Century Digest to the current edition and that one cancelled and discarded. All Sheppard’s in print gone (most cancelled a few years ago but sitting on shelves, the remaining ones now history too). Several little as in almost never used West legal encyclopedic titles including two form sets cancelled and gone, more once they are off the WestPack Print plan. Several remaining ones now on print volume-only, no more pocket-parts, thank you very much. All ALRs, including ALR Fed gone. All law reviews, bar journals, etc. gone. Current issues of Ohio law reviews and ABA journals only and only the last 12 months. All supplemented secondary sources in the treatise collection that had been cancelled in 2003 and 2006 but were left on the shelves now gone.

None of the above made for difficult decisions. It’s the 21st Century after all. We have Lexis and Westlaw although we might be down to just Lexis with the addition of AmJur, ALR and OHJur to our license because, based on usage and costs, we’re going to cut back our Westlaw plan or just shed Westlaw and reconsider WestlawNext when it is ready for prime time and after evaluating “New Lexis.” We have HeinOnline with several à la carte libraries. We have BNA Online for specialty areas where they excel in providing primary and secondary sources. Alas, we still have a couple of CCH loose-leaf services where they excel because IntelliConnect’s UI isn’t ready for our patrons yet. And then there’s that whatca call it thing, the Internet, for reliable if not yet authenticated web-accessible resources.

We’ve also pared back our treatise collection substantially based on usage, costs and our revised collection development objectives. My colleagues provided me with usage stats (circulation and in-house use) upon request, a lot of requests. I checked circ cards too – got to love a title that hadn’t been check out in 50 years, titles in hot topic areas some quarter of a century ago that are now well-settled areas of law, supplemented works that look like they were acquired 10-15-more (?) years ago because a patron asked for them and after being used for the project-at-hand, never needed again but nonetheless were updated year after year after year. These were not, unfortunately, uncommon discoveries.

I climbed up and down and around the stacks in our treatise collection like some 57-year old monkey to physically inspect every damn title, many of which had only been touched by human hands when my colleagues had to update them. Physically, this was a tad demanding for this aging and decrepit Baby Boomer director, so much so, I started warning my staffers that I had just taken a Percocet (bad knee needing replacement) so don’t allow me to make any “executive decisions” unrelated to the damn print collection this afternoon. They really work better with a beer but this was a pain meds only process.

Multiple supplemented secondary sources are history in many areas. One and only one remains and those decisions rested on usage patterns, editorial quality and annual upkeep costs. In most instances, West lost out to Matthew Bender or another publisher. The one exception being UCC. OMG, has TR Legal let the editorial quality of some of the titles they gobbled up decline. In some areas, no supplemented secondary sources remain whatsoever and that gap is being filled in by a single volume comprehensive treatise and/or practitioner’s handbook but only when warranted. A few illustrations in areas that are not exactly hot beds of legal practice in our little county:

• About 21 linear feet of patent law materials containing about a half dozen mostly multi-volume, all supplemented titles plus more linear feet and titles on copyright law, trademarks, etc., going, going, gone. These resources are being replaced with a couple of BNA comprehensive single volume supplemented works and, maybe but only maybe, a general practitioner's handbook or two.
• The hodgepodge that was the labor and employment law collection of little used single and multiple volume titles of varying quality. The garbage that is Employment Coordinator and Employment Discrimination Coordinator, for example, to be going, going, gone when they off the WestPack plan. Simply not used but even if they were I would slap them out of a patron’s hands and put them in front a workstation to use BNA Online. BNA supplemented treatises and a couple of Apsen titles will remain on the shelves.
• The bankruptcy collection once included West’s Bankruptcy Reporter and its digest – gone. Still includes Collier’s but not the case reporter service any longer, still includes Norton’s and West’s Bankruptcy Service, Lawyers Ed. but at least one if not both will be going, going, gone when they are off the WestPack plan. The shelves still hold some recently cancelled West practitioner titles, one may be purchased new in a couple of years, emphasis on "may" because they all were little used. In a nutshell, based on usage, cost and editorial quality, Collier's fulfills our patrons' needs, meaning the print spend for the bankruptcy law collection will be reduced about no less than 75%.

And the Results. The bottom line is this. Our resources will be able to address the usual questions that walk in the door but not the atypical ones. Issues may be researched by way of electronic resources instead of print in some instances so some patrons' research preferences will have to adapt to the change but our collection of print and online resources generally remains adequate to fulfill our statutory mandate to provide library services. In the most common practice areas, our resources remain fairly strong Those areas are criminal law and procedure, family law, commercial litigation, wills, trusts, estates and probate, civil practice and procedure, tax, plus more than enough encyclopedic legal form sets for transactions and pleadings and a comprehensive Ohio state law collection of primary and secondary sources, although several multiple copies will be gone, yes, once they are off the WestPack plan.

To put this in context, due note that our little county law library is not located in a major metropolitan area. Our county government is relatively small. Our two largest "law firms" of any note are the County Prosecutor's Office and one firm with less than 20 attorneys. Our county bar association membership is in the 300s. Our county law library association before it disbanded had about 130 members. We have a state appellate court in our county but no federal courts whatsoever. The local bar's practice is primarily state litigation focused with some wills and estate planning, tax, and a very small amount of corporate transactional activity. 

Cost savings? Well over $250,000 annually based on 2009 print spend. West print spend cut 50%, Matthew Bender print cut about 25%. CCH loose-leaf print cut around 40%, BNA print about 20% (but we had already gone to BNA Online for everything we needed except for some of their supplemented labor and employment law treatises and tax portfolios which we are keeping in print). All PLI supplemented treatises history because their target audience is not our patrons. Ditto for many Aspen titles.

And more cuts to come. At least half the current cost of WestPack Print titles will be gone. Probably more if we do not keep Westlaw, plus some additional West titles as we give the entire collection a second look-see. Probably 20% in current Matthew Bender print spend will also be cut.

Any tough calls? One or two and a few, a very few, cancelled West titles may be resurrected in a couple of years. With West's annual supplementation costs running in the 70%-plus range of buying new, well, I think you know where I am heading. Of course, when resurrected, no supplementation, thank you very much. Plus some more current West continuations will be going the just-new-bound-volumes route too.

Did I lose any sleep over this? Nope. Do note, I am not one of those wild-eyed “let’s do it all online” legal researchers. For 30-years, I’ve had one foot firmly planted in print, the other in online. That’s not going to change and hasn’t changed by the Shed West Era as executed in our county law library. Also note, we are one of the three best financed from mandated court fines and foreitures revenue county law libraries in the state so while we needed to reduce print spent to redirect funds elsewhere, many of our executed Shed West Era decisions were made to stop wasting public monies on maintaining print materials rarely being used and/or readily available electronically.

It Takes a Hard Working Library Staff in the Shed West Era. This project took no small amount of work and most of it was performed by my colleagues, Julie, Dan and Angie. They worked hard generating circ stats from our OPAC at my beck-and-call, updating our catalog and serials records to reflect changes made to the print collection, stamping “Discarded” on volumes, labeling "Cancelled Effective..." on the spines of print continuations, shifting the soon-to-be discarded materials around to make for convenient disposal, stripping loose-leaf and compression-bound volumes so we could recycle the paper because we couldn’t toss metal into the recycling bins all the while keeping the law library up and running without disruption to our patrons while also adapting how we once transacted business to our county's way of doing business. More work to come as we reclassify some of the collection to improve browsability after I personally shift the treatise collection. More Percocet afternoons ahead.

We started the print continuation cancellation process in late 2009. The discarding process started in early 2010 and was dialed up to “11” when our Board called for completing the project as expeditiously as possible in March. The recycling crew at our local university, Miami University, offered to do the heavy lifting by pulling the materials off the shelves, taking them to the recycling center, and crediting the County with recycled paper tonnage. Because the crew was going to be more readily available once the academic year ended, we completed the project by late May and they hauled everything out by mid-June.

Shedding Westlaw? Well, the Miami crew didn’t haul out everything. Yes, in the above right photo, that is Words & Phrases! Now, there's a valuable 21st Century research tool! Yup, another unneeded, unwanted, unused  WestPack title; 50% off, such a deal! I might help my West rep carry the volumes to the trunk of his car after we have discussed the possibility of keeping or shedding Westlaw and after taking a Percocet.

Please note that while critical of the bloated Westlaw licenses with WestPact titles I inherited upon arriving on the scene, this criticism in not directed at the former occupant of my office. Her law library association board was "wowed" be the alleged cost savings offered by TR Legal and the misguided notion that Lexis and Westlaw were "duplicative." Professionals, that would be law librarians, ought never let amateurs negotiate with duopolists. Lesson learned.

Hello, TR Legal, my Board chair suggested months ago that we save staff time by simply tossing updates to WestPack titles that will be cancelled at the end of the current three-year license in December. That should tell you where we may be heading with Westlaw. And obviously, an LMA or any other multi-year print committment in our County is out of the question considering (1) the current economy and (2) TR Legal's refusal to allow the Spokane County Law Library out of its Westlaw license. [JH]

Now This is What AALL's "Denver Experience" Is Really About: Karaoke Night!

While some like Caren Biberman, Mark Gediman and others (see comment trail to Caren's LLB's post) address AALL's annual meeting abysmal programming that may benefit CVs for academic law librarians but possibly no one else, what really matters is Karaoke Night! Let's dream big, really, really big. See Cincinnati law library director Ken Hirsh's blog post for details. Call me Stream-o-Consciousness-Joe, but "what has Paris Hilton been up to lately?" Who is bringing the boom-box to the Convention Center 'cause I'm pretty damn sure  I'll be busy Monday night. Note to self -- there are no scheduled sessions Monday night and that's a "good thing." 

TR Legal on "We Can't Do That". Did you get an unsolicited call from some TR Legal "voice" who refused to email you dates/times for TR Legal "special" meetings in Denver with invoicing paying law librarians recently? Apparently, waste-my-time telephone calls is part of the "we love you, we really, really do" campaign. If you want me to attend a TR Legal event, send me an email identifying the opportunities  to do so. Do not expect me to drop whatever I am doing to listen to you rattle on and then say "we can't do that." Hell, mail me an opt-out postcard. [JH]

Supreme Court Ends Term With Four Opinions

The Supreme Court ended its 2009-2010 term today by issuing opinions in the last four argued cases left on the docket.  The cases were controversial and highly anticipated. 

The case that was likely anticipated the most is McDonald v. Chicago.  The case involved gun restriction laws running counter to the Second Amendment.  The Court decided two years ago in District of Columbia v. Heller that citizens could bear arms for purpose of self defense under the Amendment.  The McDonald case extended the principle to state and municipal jurisdictions. The question for most of the case was the methodology to apply the Second Amendment to the states.  The plurality judgment of the Court was §1 of the Fourteenth Amendment made the Second Amendment applicable to the states.  Justice Thomas argued in favor of using the Privileges of Immunities Clause instead.  The Court flatly rejected that approach.  Justices Stevens and Breyer dissented, with Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor joinng the latter opinion.  The case goes back to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Those in the academic law business were particularly interested in the case of Christian Legal Society Chapter of University of California, Hastings College of Law v. Martinez.  That case considered whether a religious groups could be denied student group recognition and funding at a public school when its membership requirements clashed with university policies.  Hastings required Registered Student Organizations to abide by the university's Nondiscrimination Policy, which barred discrimination for religion and sexual orientation.  The Christian Legal Society wanted recognition, but sincere religious beliefs could not allow them to accept within the group individuals with whose sexual behavior or religious views they disagreed. 

The Court considered whether a public institution's "all comers" policy, essentially that of Hastings, violated the Constitution.  The Court ruled that it does not.  The Court analyzed which line of cases it applied to the situation and chose the limited-forum decisions.  As such, a government entity could impose reasonable restrictions on speech in certain places and circumstances in light of the purpose of the form and the restrictions were viewpoint neutral.  Some arguments were not available to the Christian Legal Society due to stipulations made at the lower level proceedings.  Some of these may arise on remand.

The ability to patent a business process was the issue in Bilski v. Kappos.  The case was significant because it could have affected the subjects software patents.  Bilski wanted to patent a business method that described how traders in the energy market could protect themselves against price changes.  The patent described a series of steps and reduced them to a mathematical formula.  The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overruled its prior caselaw in denying the patentability of the subject.  The mistake it made, however, was stating that the sole test for patentability was whether the invention or process could transform states or be tied to a machine. 

The Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeals that Bilski's process could not be patentable, but disagreed that the machine or transformation test was the sole standard.  The net effect is that some business processes are patentable.  Bilski did not qualify because his process identified abstract ideas which are not subject to patent.  Later court challenges will have to define the contours of patentability for these kinds of concepts.

The last case of the term involved the Separation of Powers Doctrine.  The case is Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.  The petitioner is an entity regulated by the Board.  One of the challenges to the authority of the Board is the way it was created and how its membership was populated.  Congress created the Board when it passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.  The Board was placed under the Securities and Exchange Commission with members appointed by the SEC.  The Constitution places the control of these boards ultimately in the Executive.  The President could remove individuals such as board members of the various agencies for good cause.  The PCAOB, however, was not accountable to the President.  As such the provision in the Act for appointing the Board was declared unconstitutional.  The Court allowed the Board to continue and said that the members could be removed by the SEC at will.  This conforms appointment and removal policy to that of other departments, casting the Commission as a department head.  [MG]

Dream Big or Comments on "A "Modest Proposal on Programming at AALL" and the Report of the AALL Annual Meeting Review Special Committee

I read with great interest the recent blog post "A "Modest Proposal" on Programming at AALL". In that post Mark Gediman suggested that the PLL Summit be folded into the Annual Meeting.  I agree that would be good.  However, that was tried this year. The organizers of the Summit proposed it as an AALL Workshop.  It was turned down by the Annual Meeting Program Committee.  So it was organized as an independent preconference event.  Despite the two extra hotel days, the additional time off from work and the $195 cost I, and almost 100 other PLL members, have chosen to attend the Summit.  How many more would have attended if the Annual Meeting Program Committee would have made it a part of the conference?  By the way, there is still time to sign up by contacting the PLL President, Kate Martin.

The PLL Special Interest Section ("PLL SIS") has 1445 members.  We are the largest SIS.  Yet many of our programs are rejected as official AALL programs and we are forced to schedule them as SIS programs in competition with other events and programs.

In the April 2010 AALL Spectrum, in a column entitled "A New Look at the AALL Annual Meeting", Catherine Lemann, President of AALL stated "I've asked the AMRSC to dream big and come up with ideas for ways to transform the meeting."  Ms. Lemann also stated "We strive to provide educational programming that is relevant to particular audiences and programming that has universal appeal."

So did the Annual Meeting Review Special Committee ("AMRSC") dream big? NO!

Here is some of what they proposed regarding programming:

1. Annual Meeting Program Committee (AMPC) should remain as is with current charge and selection process.

2. Special interest sections should continue ranking their programs.

3. They endorsed the concept of identifying programs by "tracks" which should encompass the competencies of law librarianship.

4. Continue to allow and encourage un-conferences.

5. Make known existing options available re Special Interest Section programming including, but not limited to, the possibility of ticketed programs to help defray costs.

In other words, nothing is changing and if you want relevant and out of the box programming you have to go outside the AALL Conference to get it and/or you may have to pay extra for it.

I do like Mark Gediman's suggestion of a series of program tracks for each SIS with an extra track for cross-disciplinary programs.  However, I am concerned that will lead to isolation from the other Special Interest Sections.  I, for one, think we need more collaboration, not less.  But if the joint programs were not scheduled against other programs it could work.  I also reiterate my call to expand our focus to the world around us and not limit our programming to traditional skills.  We really do need to dream big.

Caren Biberman

ResultsPlus on Steroids: TR's Chief Scientist and VP of Technology on WestSearch

Recently Jason Wilson interviewed Peter Jackson, Chief Scientist and Vice President of Technology at Thomson Reuters for Slaw. The interview focused on WLN's search engine. One way to over-simplify WestSearch in the WLN context is to view it as ResultsPlus on steroids. That's my, not Jackson's or Wilson's characterization. Jackson states

you can look at ResultsPlus as being a bit of WestlawNext that was sort of smuggled into Westlaw.com in the sense that ResultsPlus was a glimpse into the future of what we could do when we started using these new technologies. But there are certainly now ResultsPlus-style processes that are now first-class members of WestlawNext, meaning sort of the best of ResultsPlus is now baked into to WestlawNext, along with other stuff.

A couple of snips from this interesting interview:

PJ: ... I think we really baked two important new sources of knowledge into WestSearch. One was taking our editorial value addition and really all the metadata we generate around legal documents, whether by human editors or whether by some computational process. We took that metadata and baked it into the search algorithm itself. Previously, all that metadata was there, but it was really there for navigational purposes. It was there for the searcher to consume but it wasn’t actually informing the search engine.

JW: So all of the tagged data on Westlaw.com, specifically before WestSearch, was principally used for navigating through documents on the screen? That’s it?

PJ: Yes. So that was one important knowledge source that wasn’t available to the search engine. The second one was the aggregate user behavior, which obviously includes click-throughs, and includes more than that because we offer the user a pretty rich experience on Westlaw. They can print documents, mail them to themselves, and they can run KeyCite over them. There’s a lot of different things they can do that indicate they are interested in a document. And of course, we have for many years, collected queries and saved them in query logs. We’ve done that in the past primarily for quality control purposes and for helping people who call in with search problems, but we’ve never before used that query log for anything computational. Whereas now, given the aggregated user behavior, we’re able to get a pretty good grasp of what kinds of things users are searching for and what kinds of things users find and regard as valuable in that search context.

...

JW: How do you define, in the context of WestSearch, relevancy? Is it just that at some point relevancy is determined by the fewest number of iterations to arrive at an answer, as determined by the user of course?

PJ: Not really. We try to do two things at the same time. There is relevancy and then there is importance. I think relevancy is really a textual thing. It’s really sort of a computation that says out of all the documents that are invoked by a combination of this language and all the metadata we have associated with the documents in our store, these documents appear to be the ones about the same legal issue. And so, early in the Westlaw search process we do actually try and identify the legal issue or issues behind the query. And this is our first kind of step away from keyword approach. So relevancy is now relevant not to the query but to the issues that we think are associated with that query. And once you’ve gotten away from those keywords, you can have a much richer notion of relevancy.

Check out the complete interview on Slaw here. [JH]

Round-up of Law Practitioner Blogs

Miami Real Estate Attorney Blog
http://www.miamirealestateattorneyblog.com
http://www.miamirealestateattorneyblog.com/index.xml
Reports on real estate news, opinions and matters in Florida. Published by Alvarez & Barbara, LLP.
 
Boston Personal Injury Attorney Blog
http://www.bostonpersonalinjuryattorneyblog.com
http://www.bostonpersonalinjuryattorneyblog.com/index.xml
Reviews injury law cases, news and reports in Massachusetts. Published by the Law Offices of Jeffrey S. Glassman, LLC.
 
Illinois and Missouri Injury Lawyer Blog
http://www.illinoismissouriinjurylawyer.com
http://www.illinoismissouriinjurylawyer.com/index.xml
Covers injury law cases, opinions and news in Illinois and Missouri. Published by the Law Offices of David N. Damick.
 
Car Accident Lawyer Blog
http://www.boston-car-accident-lawyer-blog.com
http://www.boston-car-accident-lawyer-blog.com
Provides opinions on car accident news, reports and cases in Massachusetts. Published by the Law Offices of Jeffrey S. Glassman, LLC.

Pennsylvania DUI Lawyer Blog
http://www.pennsylvaniaduilawyerblog.com
http://www.pennsylvaniaduilawyerblog.com/index.xml
Discusses DUI law cases, reports and opinions in Pennsylvania. Published by Jason R. Antoine.

How Long Does It Take to Write a Blog Post?

Ten minutes according to Scott Greenfield. "I average about ten minutes a post, often interrupted with important things like refilling my coffee mug, talking to my kids or listening to Dr. SJ's instructions on what I shouldn't screw up that day." That remark got Bob Ambrogi's attention. While it might take Greenfield only 10 minutes to draft a post, Ambrogi writes

Many bloggers will tell you that writing is only the half of it. Equally, if not more, time consuming is finding something to write about. For many who blog, the routine involves some combination of these steps:

• Review your usual news sources, blogs, RSS feeds, court opinions or whatever.
• Read some or all of the items that strike your fancy.
• Choose an item or theme to write about.
• Mentally compose your thoughts.
• Put those thoughts in writing.
• Give it a second read to see if it makes any sense.
• Hit that “publish” button.

That takes time. Blogging is not just writing. It is reading and digesting and selecting and composing and editing. Even a brief post rarely consumes just 10 minutes... .

If only it took a mere 10 minutes! [JH]

Grade Inflation in Law Schools

A June 22 New York Times article reports that grade inflation in law schools is being justified by the competitive edge it provides for students in this challenging economy.  Try to reconcile the preamble of the ABA Standards with this practice:

" . . . law schools should continuously seek to . . . improve the quality of legal education and to promote high standards of professional responsibility and conduct."

Also consider the typical academic integrity code. Most codes place the burden of academic integrity on students and do not explicitly address the duty of the institution to maintain academic integrity. Apparently the Golden Rule doesn't apply here . . . [BA]

iPhone Failure Rate: 26% Within 2 Years, 35% to 40% Within 3 Years (with PSA on How to Hold the iPhone 4)

The two-year failure rate for iPhones is reportedly better than the industry average and only 7.5% of the reported failures were due to a hardware malfunction according to SquareTrade, the warranty provider for the iPhone. See the full report here. Last year, a similar SquareTrade analysis found that 31% of all iPhones failed during the first 24 months of ownership so the iPhone's reliability rating is improving. The latest report makes for interesting reading. For example, iPhone 3GS owners have reported almost 50% more power issues than users of the older iPhone 3G. Do note that SquareTrade forecasts that three-year-old iPhones will experience a failure rate of 35% to 40%. Hat tip to Computerworld and Mashable. Well, by then iPhone folks will have bought an iPhone 4.

iPhone 4 -- a "Hands Free" iPad Nano?  EE Times reports that "You could call the new Apple iPhone 4 an iPad Nano because it uses at least seven chips from the popular Apple tablet, according to analysts from UBM TechInsights that have done a teardown of the new smartphone." See First look inside iPhone 4 reveals high reuse. SquareTrade is concerned about the iPhone 4's glass back, which apparently is being used to improve voice and data reception. iPhone reception problems have been problematic especially in high-density cities. However, iPhone 4 reception remains a bit of a problem. "Hold it the wrong way and you can completely lose your signal," quoted from Mashable's How Did Apple Miss the iPhone 4’s Reception Issue? Maybe It Didn’t. See also Steve Jobs to iPhone 4 Owners: Stop Holding the Phone Wrong and the below video. [JH]

Friday Fun: LOST Re-enacted by Cats in 1 Minute

I know plenty of cat loving law librarians so today's Friday Fun video feature is for them with a big hat tip to LLB's co-editor Mark Giangrande. [JH]

A Wishlist for eBooks

Think make them more "social." Hat tip to LISNews. [JH]

Law of the Land Trumps Law of God: God's Not Going to be Happy with This Faculty Salary Survey Results

The College and University Professional Association for Human Resources has released its 2009-2010 academic year survey results for average faculty salaries by field and rank at four-year public and private colleges and universities. The data are based on reports covering 215,309 faculty members and 4,031 researchers at 822 colleges and universities. The figures cover full-time faculty members on 9- or 10-month contracts. God will not be happy to hear that theologians are the lowest paid. Guess who is the highest paid (and by a fairly immodest premium)? [JH]

Top Three in Salaries
Field	Professor	Associate professor	Assistant professor	New assistant professor	Instructor
Legal professions and studies	$134,146	$101,045	$83,991	$92,033	$64,292
Engineering	$112,679	$86,031	$75,226	$75,450	$56,974
Business, management, marketing, and related support services	$109,919	$92,573	$85,996	$95,822	$57,192
Selected Fields
Computer and information sciences and support services	$101,219	$82,230	$70,791	$72,199	$51,854
Health professions and related clinical sciences	$94,610	$74,162	$62,704	$64,296	$52,279
Natural resources and conservation	$91,420	$68,653	$58,170	$59,361	$47,029
Biological and biomedical sciences	$91,184	$68,294	$57,545	$57,021	$44,193
Physical sciences	$88,147	$66,898	$56,720	$56,483	$43,084
Library science	$87,336	$67,716	$54,741	$55,175	$46,191
Theology and religious vocations	$71,473	$59,979	$51,605	$50,535	$42,752
Source: The Chronicle's Average Faculty Salaries by Field and Rank at 4-Year Colleges and Universities, 2009-10

Opening: Reference Librarian, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego

JOB TITLE: REFERENCE LIBRARIAN
REPORTS TO: ASSOCIATE LIBRARY DIRECTOR
SUPERVISES WHOM: CIRCULATION ASSISTANTS (in absence of Circulation librarians)
CLASSIFICATION: EXEMPT (PROFESSIONAL)
 
SUMMARY DESCRIPTION: The Reference Librarian serves as a member of the Library’s Reference Department, providing a wide range of reference and research services to the law school community.
 
MINIMUM LEVEL OF EDUCATION AND/OR EXPERIENCE: Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science and J.D.
 
ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS:

• Provides reference and research services to faculty in support of their teaching and scholarship;
• Provides current awareness services relating to faculty research and teaching interests;
• Manages or participates in creation and maintenance of course research guides using LibGuides;
• Provides reference services and instruction to non-faculty patrons;
• Teaches Advanced Legal Research course on regular basis;
• Teaches electronic and print legal research classes to students, faculty and alumni;
• Coordinates or participates in library social media presence, including blog, Facebook and Twitter;
• Manages or participates in maintenance and troubleshooting of subscription databases, to include online LLM databases;
• Coordinates or participates in vendor relations with LexisNexis, Westlaw and CALI to ensure proper ID distribution, timely patron training, and the highest level of vendor services for our community;
• Serves as liaison to student-edited law review and provides training as necessary;
• Manages or participates in maintenance of study aids collection;
• Participates in collection development;
• Supervises circulation desk student workers when Circulation/Reserve Librarians are absent;
• Other duties as assigned.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES:

• Excellent interpersonal and communications skills;
• Demonstrated interest and proficiency in computer applications for legal research;
• Demonstrated ability and desire to teach the Advanced Legal Research course;
• Demonstrated competence in delivering legal research services;
• Solid knowledge of legal bibliography;
• Firm commitment to law librarianship and to a high level of outreach services;
• Ability to work cooperatively with staff, fostering team building so as to constantly improve service;
• Ability to work with initiative and flexibility in order to respond to changing information needs;
• Ability to exhibit grace under pressure while performing multiple tasks and helping demanding patrons;
• Knowledge of Millennium Circulation Module.

SPECIALIZED TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT USED: Millennium Integrated Library System (Innovative Interfaces, Inc.) – primarily the Circulation module; Microforms reader-printer.
 
PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:

• Able to sit and work at a computer workstation.
• Able to lift 20 pounds and reach and move books from 90 inch high library shelving.
• Able to load book trucks and maneuver loaded book trucks alone or with assistance from another library staff member.

WORK SCHEDULE: Eight hours, five days a week. May be asked to work regular night and weekend shifts.
 
TO APPLY: Please send your resume and the names and e-mail addresses of three references to hr(at)tjsl.edu.