Law Librarian Blog

Founders Online: National Archives and UVA Press to Create Website of Founding Fathers' Annotated Published Papers

From the press announcement:

The NHPRC [National Historical Publications and Records Commission] and UVA Press will create a new web site which provides access to the fully annotated published papers of key figures in the nation’s Founding era. The project is designed to include the papers of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin. The National Historical Publications and Records Commission will provide funding in the amount of up to $2 million for the UVA Press to undertake the work on the published papers.

Through this web resource, users will be able to read, browse, and search tens of thousands of documents from the Founding Era. A prototype web site including the contents of 154 volumes drawn from print editions of the papers of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison will be prepared by October 2011. The fully public version will be launched by June 2012 and will also include the 27 volumes of the Papers of Alexander Hamilton. By June 2013, the Founders Online expects to add the 39 published volumes of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin. The new resource will include the complete contents of 242 printed volumes, including all of the existing document transcriptions and the editors’ explanatory notes.

Hat tip to former LLB co-editor Ron Jones. [JH]

A New Model for Case Briefs

One of our students at LMU, Christian Stadler, has developed a new model for briefing cases.  Below is his "case brief" for the Property Law case of Pierson v. Post - it has a certain Dr. Suess flair to it.

                Pierson v. Post

Whilst out hunting, I did come upon a noxious beast,
I knew by these tracks it was close at hand
And with delight I dreamed of a noxious feast!
But Wait! That jerk carried it to his land!
 
You must look back to this definition, to say the least,
"Ferae Naturae cannot be intercepted," said Puffendorf!
And I was in pursuit of that little noxious beast.
To disagree would be to walk off a shortened wharf.

What! You say he gets to keep my noxious beast!
Then next time I shall use a trap,
So I may enjoy my favorite noxious feast.
Because your ruling, well… That’s Crap!

Thanks for sharing, Christian (DCW)

Friday Fun: For Your Inner Old School

A big hat tip to LLB's former co-editor Ron Jones (Cincinnati Law) for this one. He writes "Gotta get this for my dad!!!" My inner old school likes it too as long as I can get one with a touch interface to play Tiger Woods PGA Tour. I just won 10 of the 15 tour events and was the year's leading money winner with a little over $1 million in earnings. Check please. Oh wait ... not real.

My inner old school is calling out. Back in the early 1990s there was a Mac audio add-on that made keyboarding sound like a manual typewriter called Tappy Type. Current LLB co-editor, Mark Giangrande, inherited the Mac I install it one. It took his IT expertise to make the Mac "see" the $1K IBM Lexmark laser printer I bought for it back then before "plug 'n play" was really that even for the Mac.

OMG I still miss Tappy Type, the audio, not the Mac IIci. Loved the carriage return sound it made back in the early 1990s when you hit the "enter" button. If anyone knows of a similar audio add-on for a Win7 64-bit PC, please send me the download link! [JH]

Embrace Anxiety: What would you do to help prepare law grads for the real world?

It's a good question and good answers from a number of perspectives are provided in this 3 Geeks blog post.

• Solo / Small Firm Perspective: You'll Have Enough Debt From Law School, Don't Add To It! By Jim Calloway
• Client Services Perspective: Solve A Real Person's Problem. By Ayelette Robinson
• Business Development Perspective: How You Develop Relationships Will Determine How Well You Do as a Lawyer. By Toby Brown
• The Human Resources Perspective: If You Want To Know How Your Doing... Then Just Ask! By Greg Lambert
• Information Technology Perspective: Embrace Law Firm Culture, It Will be Noticed. By Scott Preston
• Internet Marketing Perspective: You're Already Marketing Yourself - So Think Before You Update Your Status! By Lisa Salazar
• Library Perspective: Did You Know... By Mark Gediman

And my answer to the question would be: "Take a deep breath and embrace anxiety as a good thing because it is a normal reaction to stress. Law school may not have prepared you for practicing law but it has prepared you for dealing with anxiety. Remember being a 1L?"

Ask for advice. In a comment to the 3 Geeks post, Jason Wilson wrote:

While I agree that associates should not be afraid to ask how they are doing, I suspect that many partners won't really be prepared to give them adequate feedback because they were never trained to give it and (obviously) aren't in the habit of doing so.

So true. Also true, too many young associates, after handed an assignment, particularly a research assignment, are oftentimes afraid of looking "stupid" by asking the assigning more senior associate or partner for clarification. They simply are too new at the game to know the issues because of their unfamiliarity with the current state of the law and/or what the assigning attorney's expectations are.

My advice -- head straight to one of the firm's law librarians if it is a research assignment (and to one of the firm's more experienced paralegals if it is not and, don't forget those legal secretaries who are old enough to be your parents, assuming there are still some working at your firm!) Not only are these folks likely to know the assigning attorney's work product preferences but some can provide face-saving cover. Back in the day, I certainly did by going to the assigning attorney to say, "I'm helping so-and-so out, but I need more specificity to get the job done efficiently." Law librarians, and not just firm librarians, have plenty of experience with getting clarification for the vague, open-ended research assignment. [JH]

Let's Crown the Bluebook Champion of 2011! A call to Bluebook geeks to organize a "Cite-Check Battle" one evening at Philly 2011

Having long since, as in decades long since, given up any real hope for interesting AALL annual meeting programming, I stated that I would not make any suggestions on how to reform this mess:

This rapidly aging and decrepit Baby Boomer director will not be participating by making suggestions on how to reform our annual programming. My generation is probably responsible, to paraphrase Greg Lambert, for screwing up our association by letting this state of affairs go on far too long. If there is one thing I have learned in the last 30 years, it is that those who create the problem are less likely to be the ones who come up with an innovative solution to it. Problem-creators tend to tweak the existing state of affairs; wiping the slate clean is what is needed here to fix this mess. I do, however, think everyone should chime in while handing over this mess to the Gen X-Yers to solve.

Other than campaigning for the so-called "Vendor Colloquium" being conducted as an open meeting in Philly and suggesting that Dick Spinelli conduct a master class for vendor rep training there ("perhaps AALL will allow CRIV-Lite to put on a session for vendor rep training moderated by Dick next year."), I'm not going to start rattling off a list of ideas about what I think would be "good" sessions at Philly (Cream Cheese or Cheesesteak) 2011.

However after reading Journal Editors Chosen Through Cite-Check Battles, I will offer up the following post-session evening entertainment suggestion in Philly: cite-checking battles! From the article:

Initially, the [Houston] Urban Law Journal functioned like most other law journals, choosing its editors through a rigorous tryout, complete with Bluebook exercises and interviews. With time, however, the character of the journal has taken a more unconventional turn, emphasizing what has been called “street editing” and students’ “underground” cite-checking skills.

This has resulted in the newest innovative practice at the journal: Selection of new editors through what is called “cite-checking battles.” Those vying to join the journal’s editing staff match up one-on-one against one another, taking stage for improvisational cite-checking before an audience and putting their source-verifying abilities to the test through intense, often entertaining, contests. Often held late at night in abandoned buildings in the city’s Fifth Ward, these cite-checking battles earn victors places on the journal’s editing board, but, more importantly, immense respect from their peers.

So Bluebook geeks -- and I know you are out there -- why not organize an event like this at a local Philly bar. If you include questions requiring answers based on a specific Bluebook edition, I will pick up the first $100 of the bar tab. [JH]

FYI: RIPS Blog Has Moved

About a week ago, AALL's Research Instruction & Patron Services SIS announced that its blog has moved to here. As folks say, "please update your feeds accordingly." [JH]

BC Student Wants Tuition Back Because of Bad Job Market

In one of the more imaginative reactions to the lack of jobs for law graduates, an unnamed third year law student at Boston College wrote an open letter to the Dean asking for his or her  money back.  Keep the degree, the student says, as the the current job market is one of the worst in the history of the profession.  Welcome to buyer's remorse, except that getting the money back isn't one of the options here.  I have to believe this is really a stunt rather than a serious attempt to confront that harsh reality called the competitive job market.  The student, otherwise, didn't seem to learn much in two semesters of contract law.

The school said in response that while concerned about graduate job prospects, it can't guarantee placement.  I think that's how it works in education generally, whether it's law school or clown college.  One pays their money and takes their chances, as the saying goes.  The story in the Boston Herald notes that Boston College claims on its web site that 97.6% of the class of 2009 have jobs.  The latest (2011) ABA LSAC Official Guide pegs those with jobs after nine months out of school at 96.4%.  Not much difference. 

The Guide shows that 68.5% are employed in law firms, with breakdowns for business and other categories.  The stats don't speak to the quality of that employment, but in these economic circumstances a job is a job.  The Guide notes graduates found employment spread over 24 states.  If the expectation is a nice firm job conveniently available via a short ride on The T, then I think that expectation is misplaced.  That's not the fault of Boston College.

The article has drawn 181 comments as I view it.  Most of them are relatively scathing to the student's perspective and the legal profession generally.  The moral seems to be when other people are suffering in a down economy, they tend not to be sympathetic to a law student's whining complaints about life after law school.  [MG]

Blue and Red Brands: The Most Powerful Corporate Colors on the Web; Law Schools, Too (?)

"The web landscape is dominated by a large number of blue brands... but Red occupies a large amount of space as well" writes COLOURlover in The Most Powerful Colors in the World (Image right, click to enlarge, but due check out the complete graphic).

What's driving this? You might want to say that carefully organized branding research and market tests were done to choose the perfect colors to make you spend your money, but a lot of the brands that have grown to be global web powerhouses, started as small web startups... and while large corporate giants with branding departments spend quite a lot on market research, user testing, branding, etc. Lots of the sites ... got started with brands created by the founders themselves with little to no research into the impact their color choice would have.

Back in the early days of law school website design, think 1995-2000, some poor, usually library or IT techie got tasked with creating the early generations of law school websites. Pick a color. Some defaulted to law maroon if the home university's "team colors" or official color just didn't convert well in HTML. Remember, in those very early days, one only had 256-web friendly colors (and could easily tell if the coder was working on a Mac or a PC). Luckily for some, law maroon was close enough to the university offical color, e.g., crimson in the case of Harvard; remember HLS' first splash of color website circa 2000? Thanks to the Wayback Machine, one can view the evolution of HLS' website designs. See below. It reflects what most everyone was doing and when they were doing it although HLS may have been a bit ahead of many law schools with its more polished circa 2004 design.

Universities jumped into web branding in the early-mid 2000s. College departments, schools, etc., had launched their own sites. Most were a choatic mess with no corporate, that is to say, university-wide identity. Many IHEs insisted on uniformity around the "team color" or official univeristy color theme. Some, however, hired professional design firms for a more comprehensive print and online branding approach, oftentimes doing away with the whole team color-offical university color ideas. (Many football and basketball teams were moving to more modernized color schemes for their uniforms.) Some universities were moving in the direction of strict conformity in color and page layout design at the undergrad department level, less so for graduate schools because of marketing objectives. Red as in blood is not as good as green as in money for attaching applicants to med schools.

When I was at the University of Cincinnati, the University -- not the law school -- spent $450K to hire a nationally recognized branding company to redesign what was a truely terrible logo and craft a color palette for all official University publications, print and online. Using the color scheme and the authorized fonts were the order of the day. Two of the more creative arts oriented schools rebelled but not for long. How you applied the official brand and designed page layouts still produced variety but it was better focused on the intended market, prospective students while accomodating, well, professorial egos. Law schools also started spending thousands and thousands of dollars to hire outside web designers to create their then latest next generation websites. Legal education is a business. To attract applicants, one has to market the school even if the content that is folded into the marketing scheme is full of "law porn."

Since the professionalization of university branding is well established now, I began to wonder what color schemes are dominating the legal academy webspace. I looked at NYC, Washington, D.C. and Chicago law schools because I can remember them off the top of my head (read, hope I didn't miss any). Someone more bored than I am at the moment can do a more comprehensive study. But based on this one, just like blue and red brands are the most powerful corporate colors on the web, so too are they in this little sample. In many cases, do not that red really means law maroon.

Blue (9): AU Washington, Cardozo, Columbia, DePaul, GW Law, Georgetown, Howard, New York Law School, Northwestern

Red (7): Brooklyn, Chicago, Chicago-Kent, Fordham, John Marshall-Chicago, Loyola-Chicago, UDC Clarke John Marshall

Two exceptions: NYU Law (Black & White?) and CUNY, some OMG yellowish-green, yikes!. [JH]

Snapshots of Harvard Law School's Website Designs
Circa 1997	Circa 2000
Circa 2004	Today

"Consumer Surplus" Can Make You Happy: High Annual Print Upkeep Increases as the Selling Point for Long-term Print Commitments

So the Blog Widow went back to complete her BA after a 23 year break in large part because she had two children to bring up while working full-time. Not so now. Add my advancing mental decriptitude made her realize that if she waited any longer her capacity to assimilate all the scientific stuff she needed to learn wouldn't be up to the task if her neural net started functioning like my now does. This semester the Blog Widow is taking an Intro to Microeconomics course. It's required although it may have limited applicability to her major which is "zoology" a very old school categorization for her enviormental science degree. She wasn't looking forward to the course but is finding it interesting.

The Blog Widow brought up an microeconomic concept called "consumer surplus." She explained "consumer surplus can make you happy," pointing to a recent 50% off list price purchase she made for a pair of jeans. A more specific definition for consumer surplus is "the amount a buyer is willing to pay for a good minus the amount the buyer actually pays for it." Of course, if the amount a buyer is willing to pay for a good is lower that the amount a buyer actually pays for it, one might be very unhappy. Applying this consumer surplus state of mind concept to WEXIS print, well... .

New Multi-Year Print Commitments from TR Legal. You can except TR Legal to continue it's 13-14% annual upkeep pricing trend because it is a selling point for switching to some sort of multi-year print plan commitment with lower annual price increases. Ask your rep about, well let's just call it, "West Complete Version 2.0." But when you hear the word "discount," don't get too excited. This is a pretty obvious attempt by TR Legal to get law libraries to re-acquire titles libraries have cancelled since the beginning of the Shed West Era. You are not required to add cancelled titles, but you will be required to apply your "discount" by acquiring new titles. In other word, this is not the sort of "discount" where consumer surplus will make you very happy.

It is clear that the objective here is to stop the print revenue bleeding by guaranteeing a short-term multi-year print revenue stream. Who know what will happen when renewal is up. Will it take the sort of blow-up increase demonstrated in renewing TR Legal's "Assured Pricing" plan for individual titles. See LLB's TR Legal's New Panacea for the Shed West Era: Marketing Pushes Multi-Year Print Commitments and Not Just to Law Libraries. Don't know; neither does TR Legal Marketing and Pricing gurus. They are flying be the seat of their collective pants to such an extent that "West Complete Version 3.0" might be launched, oh I don't know, after the 2010 FY financial report is released to shareholders. 

And Also from LexisNexis. MB is also launching mult-year print plans. Starting with academic libraries earlier this year, it is now filtering down to other market segments. I haven't even wasted my time comparing the terms of their plan to the now largely held in disfavored TR Legal MLAs because (1) we are still downsizing; (2) the dust has to settle on our new collection development practices; and (3) the economy has to stabilize first. My hunch is many other institutional buyers across all market segments are a similar state of mind. About MB's new multi-year plan, Cornell's Pat Court explained why she was not even going to attend a MB meeting in Denver intended to introduce MB's new multi-year plan, ""our cuts really preclude getting us locked into a multi-year agreement." Quoted from the above LLP post. While MB substantially reduced its annual print upkeep increase from the benchmark 8% to 4% for 2010 subscription titles in response to market conditions, I think many libraries view the future as just too uncertain for making multi-year commitments right now.

In a couple of years, I might be interested in some limited in scope and duration commitments covering parts of our most secure areas of our collection, but not now. Of course by then, I expect WEXIS will have new terms and conditions for multi-year plans. [JH]

Sign of the Times: State Digests for the Cost of Postage

Tuesday the below offer was posted on law-lib. I doubt even a start-up law school library like Belmont needs any of the listed state digests including TN Digest 2d. Considering the upkeep costs for West's Ohio Digest (and Ohio Jurisprudence, etc.), change in research preferences to something called keyword searching online and the connection between the two in terms of print pricing increases, I'm thinking our state digest (and other below listed 19th Century publication types) may not be updated any longer and will eventually find their way to the recycling center just like our Decennials and Federal Practice digests did earlier this year whether or not we retain Westlaw. Why not already? Tied to our Westlaw license. The below graphic is posted on our little county law library's bulletin board as an FYI for our patrons. [JH]

Jenkins Law Library has the following State Digests available for the cost of postage and shipping materials:

All sets have 2009 pocket parts
 
Alabama digest 2d
West's Alaska digest 2d
Arkansas digest
West's California digest, 2d
West's Colorado digest. 2d
West's Connecticut digest
District of Columbia digest
West's Florida digest 2d
West's Georgia digest 2d
Hawaii digest
West's Idaho digest
West's Illinois digest 2d
West's Indiana digest 2d
Iowa digest
Kansas digest 2d
West's Kentucky digest 2d
West's Louisiana digest 2d
Maine key number digest
Maryland digest 2d
West's Massachusetts digest, 2d
West's Michigan digest 2d
West's Minnesota digest, 2d
Mississippi digest
West's Missouri digest, 2d
Montana digest
West's Nebraska digest 2d
West's New Hampshire digest
West's New Jersey digest, 2d
New Mexico digest
West's New York digest, 4th
West's Dakota digest
Ohio digest
West's Oklahoma digest 2d
Oregon digest 2d
West's Rhode Island digest
West's South Carolina digest 2d
West's Tennessee digest, 2d
West's Texas digest, 2d
Vermont digest
Virginia and West Virginia digest
West's Washington digest 2d
West's Wisconsin digest
Virgin Islands digest

If interested, please contact:

Ida Weingram
Assistant Director of Business Services
Jenkins Law Library

Blinded by the Light - New Lexis, New Coke?

I work in a building that many people believe is haunted. It was once a civil war hospital. I've never seen a ghost here, though I've heard some strange things late at night. Today, however, when I logged onto Lexis, I thought I saw a ghost and was simultaneously blinded by the light. Apparently, as a part of a select group, I was provided a chance to review Lexis's new interface; and I've been told that it will be available to the students and faculty at LMU Law in January. I hope they change it around some by then. If not, buy stock in pharmaceutical companies as there will be a significant rise in both frequency and number of law students and legal professionals who need pain relief for headaches. It hurts my eyes; it burns - this new Lexis interface. Let me try and tell you about it without looking back. There's an all white background with the words in a small, blue font. The major tabs are in red. Okay, I need to look away. One of the nice features is a "Quick Tools" bar to the right allowing one to get a doc, shepardize, or find a source with greater ease. It also directs the user to Lexis Web, which I will tell you more about when I have sufficiently played with it, but I will tell you that Lexis Web doesn't hurt my eyes quite as much as the Lexis interface. There's also a drop down menu to help one quickly find a topic or headnote to search by on the right hand-side under the Quick Tools bar. I like it. That's all for now though. I need to make an appointment with my optometrist. (DCW)

Class Notes Site Under Fire in California

CNET is reporting that state universities in California have sent a cease and desist letter to the NoteUtopia web site, a place where students can buy, sell, or share class notes with others.  The legal basis of the demand is section 66450 of the California Education Code which specifically prohibits dissemination of the content of any lecture for "commercial" purposes.

 NoteUtopia does allow students to put up class notes as a saleable item.  Students also have the option to offer them for free.  The free option, in theory, would not violate the California code.  The site acts as a formalized clearinghouse for such content and sets up a market where the quality of the notes are rated by other participants.  There are some elements of social networking where classmates or others taking the same subject can discuss or collaborate on class work as well as rate faculty.

Schools have ethical rules that address this problem to varying degrees, though they affect the student's conduct and not that of external sites.  Irrespective of whether NoteUtopia is violating the law in California, is this something that should be referred to the State Attorney General's Office for prosecution rather than coming through an angry letter from the Cal State University Chancellor's Office?  This issue seems a perfectly ripe for prosecution.  Or perhaps the university system would not want to create a precedent where non-commercial note sharing, or student First Amendment rights may come into play?

While we're on the subject of non-commercial sharing of class notes, this happens all the time over the Internet.  Those of us who work with legal writing programs tell students that they can't Google everything.  True enough, but class notes are something they can Google.  The results vary, but are substantial at times.  Try entering the search "Torts Contracts Class Notes."  There are notes for specific faculty members and schools, with notes liked to case summaries, class PowerPoints, exams, and a host of other class related items.  Some of these put Gilberts to shame.  I'm not advocating for NoteUtopia as a business, or questioning the reach of California's law.  NoteUtopia seems to be formalizing a process that has gone on since the Internet was invented.  There's a difference between what's proscribed and what's possible.  The CNET article has links to related documents.  [MG]

Michelle Wu Appointed Georgetown Law's Library Director

We all know the untimely passing of Georgetown's Bob Oakley of cardiac arrest on Sept. 29, 2007 at the age of 61, was an irreplaceable loss to the law library community generally and to the Georgetown Law community specificaly. Recently Georgetown Law announced that Michelle Wu has been appointed Professor of Law and Law Library Director. Michelle Wu comes to Georgetown from Hofstra University School of Law, where she was Associate Dean for Information Services since 2008 and Director and Professor of Law since 2006. No one can be expected to fill the shoes of Bob Oakley but his legacy, with the help of Georgetown's law library staff, is in good hands. Congratulations and best wishes. [JH]

To Be Avoided: The Biases Over-Reliance on Expensive Commercial Online Services Can Create When They Dominate Access to Public Information

In Bloomberg Plans a Data Service on the Business of Government (NYT Oct. 10, 2010), Jeremy W. Peters reports that Bloomberg aims to make Bloomberg Government "an indispensable tool for lobbyists, Capitol Hill staff members and government contractors" by basing it on "the same guiding principle that spawned the original Bloomberg financial data machine: people need an aggregator and filter for information, and they will pay a lot of money for that convenience."

The Sunlight Foundation's John Wonderlich observes "The problem with these services, though, is their exclusiveness. If these services’ advertising pitches are to be believed, then there’s a serious advocacy advantage for sale to those who can afford it." More from Wonderlich's The Price of Access:

If those with money are the only ones that have game-changing access to the workings of government, then our vital legislative and regulatory processes become skewed in their favor. Insofar as these services are worth the price of admission, they reinforce disparities in privilege and access.

This criticism is not unique to Bloomberg LP. The control and sale of information about government have always flourished — West, Lexis, CQ, National Journal, and even the Congressional Globe all come to mind. But that doesn’t mean that we have to accept as inevitable a two-tiered system for working with the government. That also doesn’t mean that we begrudge commercial publishers their work. Business is business, and commercial publishers provide extremely useful services, many of which Sunlight even subscribes to.

But a world where expensive commercial services dominate public access is one we should avoid. Our government already relies heavily on third parties just to access their own information. The GAO uses West to access its own legislative histories, Congress still doesn’t provide useful central access to committee schedules, and commercial legal publishers completely eclipse services provided by the courts.  When government officials accept cost-prohibitive information services as the norm for even basic transparency, then they’re far less likely to invest in the public facing alternatives that can serve everyone.

Do note Wonderlich's warning:

The House (Rule XV) explicitly permits Member offices to accept free subscriptions to news sources — not just daily newspapers, but also expensive subscriptions like the Bloomberg service, routinely offered for free or at deep discounts. If these information gifts are to be accepted by Member offices, then we need to also understand the biases that over-reliance on exclusive information sources can create.

While the cost for Bloomberg Government is pegged at $5,700 per year per user, Peters reports discounts will be available for government users. [JH]

Zimmerman's Research Guide: Subscribe to The ZRG Blog's RSS Feed for Legal Research Alerts

Everyone knows Zimmerman's Research Guide: An Online Encyclopedia for Legal Researchers right? For the past couple of months Andy Zimmerman has been alerting legal researchers to new resouces he has uncovered that will be added to Guide by way of The ZRG Blog. Here's a recent example posted on Andy's blog: the IRS telephone directory which can be useful to identify tax analysts by IRC code and subject. It's called Chart 5425. Andy writes "I added a link to Chart 5425 in the Internal Revenue Service entry, plus a reference to The Tax Directory, Tax Analysts’ complete listing of all tax-related phone numbers" in Zimmerman's Research Guide. [JH]

The Bluebook (be)comes Standard on WLN.

Almost six months ago, one of our Westlaw reps provided me with a quick demonstration on Westlawnext (WLN). I had lukewarm feelings about it at the time, but the more I use it, the more I seem to like it. West still has a number of kinks to work out. And one of them was something I asked about when I was first introduced to WLN, that fine Spring day; it was what West intends to do about the dates for statutes and regulations? I No normal personl likes the Bluebook. It confuses people - and it seems to confuse West as well.

Westlaw next offers a "Copy with Reference" feature, allowing users to cut text and paste it in a document with the citation attached. Users are given a choice of ten citation formats from which to choose: (1) ALWD; (2) California; (3) New York; (4) Florida; (5) Texas; (6) Illinois; (7) Kentucky; (8) Michigan; (9) Westlaw; and (10) Standard. Two weeks ago "Standard" was "Bluebook." I know this because two weeks ago I taught two classes on Westlawnext and the citation format option was not "Standard" but "Bluebook.". Yesterday, I gave a presentation on WLN to our evening 2Ls. The option changed from "Bluebook" to "Standard." And caught me off guard for a second (but I survived). "Standard," which was "Bluebook," seemed to follow the 18th edition of the Bluebook. (We adopted the 19th at LMU as soon as it was released in June. LMU law librarians had access to WLN in May.)

What’s nice about the feature is that it provides parallel, pinpoint citations to every case and even provides subsequent history if the case had direct, subsequent history. Thus, if a case was reversed or affirmed by a higher court, the citation would indicate that as required under Rule 10.7. It even abbreviates words in accordance with Table 6 (of the 18th edition). For example, I copied and pasted the following:

Even when viewed independently, these two prongs of Microsoft's campaign threatened to "forestall the corrective forces of competition" and thereby perpetuate Microsoft's monopoly power in the relevant market

United States v. Microsoft Corp., 87 F. Supp. 2d 30, 42 (D.D.C. 2000) aff'd in part, rev'd in part, 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001)

WLN properly abbreviated "Corporation," gave a pinpoint citation, and provided the subsequent history of the case. What it failed to do, however, is provide a parenthetical citation to Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Services, Inc., 504 U.S. 451 (1992) in conformance with Rule 10.6.2 as Microsoft did quote language from Eastman Kodak. Okay, I will accept the fact that it isn’t perfect. We all have flaws (some less than others).

What bothers me most though is the "Copy with Reference" feature as it applies to statutes. For statutory citations, it fails to provide a pincite, and moreover, completely ignores the date requirements of either Rule 12 or Rule 18 altogether. When citing to a statutory code provision in print, Rule 12.3.2 states (in pertinent part), "provide parenthetically the year that appears on the spine of the volume, the year that appears on the title page, or the latest copyright year – in that order of preference. However, Rule 18.3.2 provides that when citing to a statutory code provision contained in an electronic database, "give parenthetically the name of the database and the information regarding the currency of the database as provided by database itself." Thus, a citation to the federal statute providing punishment for manslaughter should look this:

18 U.S.C.A. § 1112(b) (West, Westlawnext through PL 111-255 (excluding P.L. 111-203 and 111-240)).

However, WLN’s Copy with Reference feature cites the statute as such:

18 U.S.C.A. § 1112 (West)

Notice what is missing? There is no pinpoint citation to the sub-section. WLN ignores the date altogether. And it fails to properly identify the electronic database. It actually provides the citation to the print version, save the date. (Now, I happen to think that Rule 18.3.2 is the dumbest rule in all of the Bluebook. The Bluebook editors really need to amend it, but that is a whole other issue.) So WLN’s citation to the statute (or any statute) it is not in proper Bluebook format. And Westlaw probably realized that and, as a result, what used to be the option to "Copy with Reference in Bluebook" form is now "Copy with Reference in Standard" form; but that doesn’t work for me. They shouldn’t be able to cover their failings by changing the name of the option. They meant "Standard" to be "Bluebook" and they should just call it what it is – after they fix their mistakes! How hard could it be to provide the correct information as required in Rule 18.3.2? And the fact that they found a way to provide pinpoint citations in cases makes me believe that it shouldn’t be quite so difficult to provide the same for statutes. In the end, Bluebook comes standard on WLN, even if it’s not really Bluebook. I do commend them for making strides when it comes to citing cases, articles and treatises. Now fix it. [DCW]

SSRN To Offer Hard Copy Services

The Social Science Research Network sent out an email announcement today that it will soon make available a "Purchase Bound Hard Copy" feature.  This will not replace free PDF downloads as much as be another option to acquire the text.  For authors, a hard bound print copy will count as a download for statistical counts.

My first reaction to this development was "Vanity, thy name is faculty member."  Those of us who work in support of faculty research knew that already.  I have to believe, however, that SSRN isn't doing this simply to appeal to faculty egos.  In this digital age the idea that the information is more important than the container, here PDF no less, seems to be taking a step backwards.  So here's one for the print is dead crowd to ponder:  why would a substantial online archive of scholarly works offer a print on demand service?  SSRN must have done some marketing research to justify this move.  The announcement does say that the new service is in response to author and reader requests.  There must have been enough of them to justify a $9.99 plus shipping and handling cost.  Look for this soon for most papers unless individual author(s) decide to opt out. 

I can see that in some circumstances.  One is when an author submits multiple versions of the same paper and leaves them all online.  The later, or more definitive work might be best for preservation.  A faculty member might say print them all.  Why not?  Will schools buy their own faculty submissions?  Then it will be up to the catalogers to sort that one out should they wind up in a library collection, and the cite checkers if in a law review.  In a world where individuals can download PDF copies of scholarly papers, upload them to a Kindle or another electronic device, or print them out themselves, there is still a demand for a formal hard copy of an item of this type.  Amazing.  [MG]

Review of Web-based OCR Services

In The Best OCR Tools for Converting Images to Text, Digital Inspiration's Amit Agarwal reviews three free and three relatively low cost web-based OCR services for converting common images formats like scanned PDFs into text. The article provides brief descriptions, identifies unique features, and evaluates each for recognition accurarcy and format retention.

Free web-based OCR services reviewed:

• Google Docs
• FreeOCR.com
• OCR Online

Fee web-based services reviewed:

• Abbyy FineReader
• OnlineOCR.net
• OCR Terminal

By checking out the article, you might find one that suits your needs for that quick text conversion job. [JH]

Who Is the Most Scandalous Graduate of the No. 1 Ranked Law School?

See David Lat's Who Is Yale Law School’s Most Disgraceful Graduate? A gallery of seven rogues and a poll on Above the Law. [JH]

Cambridge Books Online, a Law eBooks Model for WEXIS?

With its new interface design and features, one has to ask, will we see anything similar to Cambridge Books Online from WEXIS for library acquisition of eBook content with IP authentication for access by library patrons? If so, in which formats? Library-acquired Cambridge Books Online edition titles are available in PDF for saving and printing at the chapter level.

The site, itself, serves multiple purposes including licensed access to acquired title by institutional users, sales to individuals and as platform for institutional holdings and account management with consortia and multi-site licence options available. Libraries can obtain MARC records with I believecan be linked to each acquired eBook for their online catalog, while patrons can also search all Cambridge Books Online editions via the site, click-thru to licensed titles, and when not an acquired title, recommend purchasing the title to the library or the searcher can purchase the title in hardcopy of  Adobe eBook Reader format for personal use. With a big hat tip to No Shelf Required, here's a description of this feature-rich service

Cambridge Books Online contains Cambridge University Press's frontlist of 10,000 works in Humanities, Social Science, Science and Medicine. The Press is undergoing a thorough review of rights and will be adding thousands more books from its backlist, as well as most forward-going academic books. Cambridge UP will be migrating their existing and new reference titles in early 2011 but not its textbooks

Access to Cambridge Books Online eBook (and journal article) content is via institutional purchase and allows unlimited concurrent users. Users with institutional access will be able to view the general features and contents of the site by IP authentication. Guest users with IP access may register on the site to use features such as recommend books, save queries, and receive citation email alerts. See the FAQ for details.

The search engine simultaneously search eBooks and journal articles. Note the advance search feature option for searching by author, title, ISBN, keyword, etc. Researchers can also browse subject areas by subject tree navigation. Go here for Law.

Each book landing page includes the book cover image, bibliographic information and a tabbed display for the book description, table of contents, and references which are linked to Google Scholar searches. The Table of Contents links to front and back matter, the index, and each chapter, with pagination provided. Click on chapter titles for a tree-display of sections. Each chapter in the Cambridge Books Online edition of an eBook (but not each section within a chapter) is a separate PDF file that opens in a new window for saving and printing. For an example of a book landing page, see The Law and Ethics of Restitution by Hanoch Dagan.

While access to eBook content via Cambridge Books Online is based on institutional purchase, anyone can search Cambridge Books Online and at the book display level, can search library holdings via WorldCat and purchase the title in print or in Adobe eBook Reader format.

Sounds to me like a fairly feature-rich eBook delivery system for a not insignificant Campbridge UP inventory of frontlist titles that just might be the direction WEXIS should consider taking to serve individual and institutional buyers of eBooks. While I wouldn't expect WEXIS to be eBooking large multi-volume works this way, many single volume and small set doctrinal treatises, and general and state practice-oriented handbooks and desk-books could be. It would be one approach that solves the nasty problem of not wanting to share their subscriber base with Amazon and Apple. [JH]