Time for LAW.GOV and AALL to Better Coordinate National Inventory of Legal Materials Efforts: LAW.GOV Launches Legal Bug Tracker

The purpose of LAW.GOV's Legal Bug Tracker is to alert the Project when someone finds primary legal materials that violate one of LAW.GOV's 10 core principles. One might say this is a crowdsourcing activity that complements AALL's National Inventory of Legal Materials work. Some may object but I think this is a great idea; the more folks working on the project the better. Let's call it fact-checking.

Let's also hope the resulting LAW.GOV communications based on bug reports, identified below, are coordinated. The same should be the case with AALL's NILM State Working Groups communications. A little closer liasioning between LAW.GOV and AALL's NILM project couldn't hurt.

From Carl Malamud's announcement:

We're now calling on the legal community to help us figure out which jurisdictions need help. Erika V. Wayne of Stanford Law School, who has led the National Inventory of Legal Materials effort and helped us test the initial software, has already entered in an initial set of bugs. The venerable American Association of Law Libraries has played a key role in the National Inventory and we're hoping their active and committed membership participate in this bug tracker.

Once bugs are entered, we're trying accomplish two followon actions:

• Provide reports on the bug tracker so the media and relevant officials can see how many bugs their in their area and neighboring areas. We think if we can demonstrate that one state does much better than another, that will be newsworthy and a motivator.
• As bugs get entered and developed, we're going to send letters to the relevant jurisdiction calling to their attention the violation of Best Current Practices and any Recommended Corrective Actions. If no response is received, Second Notices and then Third and Final Notices will be transmitted in the hope of providing motivation. Needless to say, we will followup with phone calls and offers to come in and chat and help the clerks and reporters understand how they can make their systems more relevant to the publics they serve.

[JH]