Law Librarian Blog

Today is World Naked Gardening Day!

Established in 2005, World Naked Gardening Day has become an annual tradition that celebrates weeding, planting flowers and trimming hedges in the buff. Ah, OK but I think I'll take a pass or at least wait until the sun goes down. Details at Not dirty to play in dirt on World Naked Gardening Day. [JH]

Legal Academy Launches New Gaming Tactic to Improve US News Rankings

"Meet Adrienne, a 22-year-old hottie from South Carolina — and a current student at Boston College Law School" writes David Lat in an appropriately titled ATL post, If BC Law Goes Up Five Spots in U.S. News Next Year, Here’s Why. Check out the post for the reason why. [JH]

Symantec Estimates Close to 100,000 Applications Leak Facebook Users' Account Info to Third Parties

From Symantec:

Symantec has discovered that in certain cases, Facebook IFRAME applications inadvertently leaked access tokens to third parties like advertisers or analytic platforms. We estimate that as of April 2011, close to 100,000 applications were enabling this leakage. We estimate that over the years, hundreds of thousands of applications may have inadvertently leaked millions of access tokens to third parties.

Symantec reports that third parties providers may not have realized they had ability to access Facebook users’ accounts including profiles, photographs, chat, and also had the ability to post messages and mine personal information. The issue has been reported to Facebook which has taken corrective action to help eliminate it. [JH]

Friday Fun: The Cats of War

Slate's Holly Allen and Christopher Beam reveal the Pentagon's top-secret feline special ops program. Article and Slide-Show Essay on the Cats of War. Hat tip to LLB co-editor Mark Giangrande for this gem. [JH]

Friday Fun, Part II: I Hate Law School

Welcome to the closing of the law school academic year. Hopefully the student in this video doesn't end up needing advice on how to deal with defaulting on student loans but if he does, there's an app a video clip ad for that. [JH]

Survey of Websites for State Legal Research

Wendy E. Moore's (Acquisitions Librarian, Univ. of Georgia School of Law Library) Fantastic Facts about the 50 States: Websites for State Legal Research (March 28, 2011) is a survey of websites intented to help researchers find legal information and resources at the state level. Check it out. [JH]

Is It "Just Me" or Have Your Noticed a Rise in the Number of Deadline Extensions for AALL-Sponsored Programs This Year?

From grant applications, to solicitations for recommendations for professional achievement awards, to scholarly contributions to be reviewed for AALL official recognition, to membership nudging to take surveys (even at the SIS-level), the frequency of extending previously announced deadlines to garner more member involvement appears to be substantially higher than last year (and earlier years, too). No, I'm not going to waste a second of my time to produce an empirical, statistically significant analysis (I'll leave that to some LIS student who wants to measure the value of AALL dues in the context of actual interest and widespread real participation in these oh so tradition-bound programmatic, if not institutionally problematic, activities).

One can speculate on why deadline extensions are bordering on becoming a de facto normal now. Could it be because

There is a smaller pool of candidates and/or publications because AALL officialdom and librarian-scholars and LIS students are still grapping with categories that don't necessarily fit the "New Normal" in the marketplace and its consequences, namely our very expensive commercial vendors who self-identify as professional legal services publications, not legal publishers anymore.

Or because award requirements oftentimes require AALL membership that movers, shakers and "opinion leaders" who write about in what is and has been happening for years now would never think of paying membership dues to AALL.

Or because law librarians who pay dues as a pro forma percieved-professional obligation don't see-- haven't seen for years -- any return on their investment of time spent responding to either the original or extended deadlines.

You decide.

And then there are the repeated calls at the Chapter level for "who wants to meet informally over lunch, etc., at Philly 2011: Cream Cheese, Cheesesteak or Karaoke. That could present a scheduling nightmare for the well-meaning organizers of such events if response rates were high. But the repetitous listserv calls I've read are more in the vein of --

Are you going to Philly? Are you intested in meeting if you will be there?

Far less about the mechanics of setting a date and time that is convenient for most whor espond "yes" to both questions; far more about about getting "to yes" about going to Philly on the lists. Hey, at least these well-meaning folks were trying to organize something. [JH]

11th Circuit Upholds Cut-And-Paste Electronic Evidence in a Criminal Case

The Evidence Prof Blog highlights a very interesting technology case in a recent post.  It is the 11th Circuit case of United States v. Lanzon, 2011 WL 1662901 (11th Cir. 2011).  In that case Lanzon was convicted of attempting to persuade, entice, or coerce a minor to engage in sexual activity, a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b).  Part of the evidence against Lanzon was the transcript of the various chats had with a detective who posed  an intermediary in setting up the meeting with the non-existent minor.

The issue is the form of the transcript, which came in the form of a Word document consisting of the cut and paste text from the original, unsaved chats.  The document was saved to a floppy disc, ostensibly to save "hard drive memory."  Lanzon argued that the Word document lacked authentication and violated the direct evidence rule.  The court turned these and other arguments about jury instructions aside, noting that the detective testified to their authenticity and Lanzon did not offer evidence to the contrary that the contents were inaccurate.

The appellate opinion didn't really say what method the detective used to memorialize the chat transcript other than to repeat his statements that he used standard methods to preserve electronic conversations learned at the police department.  I'm not disputing the logic of the Appellate Court in upholding Lanzon's conviction.  I do, however, wonder, anyone in the world is doing these days with floppy discs?  To save hard drive memory?  What?

I'll digress for a moment and head back to those days when I once managed technology in law schools.  Hard drives are not memory.  They are storage space, as in the file cabinet part of the desktop analogy.  I get rankled every time I hear this though I realize how widespread the conception or hard drive space as memory may be.  It's just how I am.  Moreover, hard drives today are huge, at least 500 Gb or more as a standard desktop or laptop capacity.  How is it possible that a police detective doesn't have a machine with a hard drive large enough to hold a Word document?  The machine he used for the chat must really be ancient to even have a floppy drive.  I haven't seen a machine sold with one in at least four years.

I'm not familiar with AOL, which is where these conversations took place.  Most chat clients these days have a facility to record or archive the chat.  Barring that, there are screen capture utilities out these that can record screen activity in real time.  Wouldn't that better than cut and paste?  I am happy that Lanzon's conviction was upheld.  I wonder though, that police, even in Miami-Dade where this incident took place, can't do better with their technology.  More details on the case are available at the Evidence Prof Blog link above.  [MG]

"I Love the Law": Kudos to BU Law for Winning ATL's 2011 Law Revue Video Contest

And BU Law's winning video won by a mere 47 votes out of nearly 11,000 cast. See ALT's post for details and to view the winning video.

The "I Love the Law" title remains me to mention that tomorrow's Friday Fun video feature on LLB is titled "I Hate Law School." Well, the academic year is coming to a close. [JH]

Can eGov Still Be Considered Non-Essential Services in the 21st Century?

Roads get so hazardous to drive in the winter that when our county sheriff issues a "Level 3" alert, my staff and I at our little county law library get the day off with pay because we are non-essential county employees. The Blog Widow has to go to work. She is an essential employee in a nearby city public works department. If she can't drive, the city provides portal-to-portal transportation. Is not e-Gov as essential as traditional public works? Is not maintaining access to eGov in the 21st century just as essential because it is a 21st century public work?

"[A] big difference between the {federal government] shutdowns in 1995 and 1996 and the one that could have occurred this year is the reliance—by both citizens and the government—on e-gov websites and technology for federal services and information that used to require in-person visits, mailed letters, or phone calls, writes Larry Freed, President and CEO, ForeSee Results, in Making the Case for E-Gov: ForeSee Results ACSI E-Government Satisfaction Index (Q1 2011) (download link, free registration required; press release here). Reliance by both citizens and the government could have been disrupted.

Why? Critical IT services could have been unavailable and equally critical e-Content might not have been maintained because the employees who power this form of public works are not considered "essential." Freed also calls attention to the fact that at the federal level, critical IT services and websites are treated like other non-essential government functions in the context of budgeting. Budget cutbacks will make it more difficult to provide essential eGov services and resources.

This wouldn't matter if citizens were so dissatisfied with eGov that they didn't use it. But ForeSee Results' latest quarterly report quantifies that user satisfaction with government websites is significantly high and can save federal spending over the long term:

[T]he American Customer Satisfaction Index’s (ACSI) E-Government Satisfaction Index ... indicates that good federal government websites save the government money and foster democracy. The research quantifies a direct cause-and-effect relationship between highly satisfied citizens and cost savings for the government. Highly satisfied visitors to federal government websites save the federal government money by using the web channel as their primary means to interact with the government as opposed to costlier channels like call centers, mail, and brick-and-mortar customer service centers. Some estimates indicate that the federal government could save hundreds of millions of dollars on postage alone by right-channeling citizens to websites.

User expectations are also on the rise.

As private sector sites continue to innovate and improve, user expectations will increase across the board, said Professor Claes Fornell, head of the ACSI and author of The Satisfied Customer. Satisfaction with e-gov is near an all-time high, but with trimmed resources it will be more difficult for government agencies to maintain a successful web presence.  Increased use of government web sites should be encouraged if for no other reason than because it brings down cost in just about everything government does. For this, high user satisfaction is going to be critical.

User satisfication of eGov has reacted a point in the 21st century new normal where it now starts with users expecting eGov will be accessible, that access will not be disrupted because of a government shutdown or some emergency and that eGov services will not be scaled back by budget cutbacks because eGov is not deemed to be essential. [JH]

La Verne College of Law on the Brink of ... Well, When the Odds of Passing the In-State Bar are a Coin Toss... .

NLJ's Karen Sloan is reporting that the University of La Verne College of Law could lose its provisional ABA accreditation.

Law school administrators have not yet been told the reason, but it likely has to do with the school's bar passage rate, said Dean Allen Easley.

Sloan reports that the accreditation committee initially recommended that the law school receive full accreditation in 2010 [well, of course the committee did].

[B]ut the [Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar] — which has the final say — extended the school's provisional accreditation for one year in order to gather more information about bar passage rates, admission decisions and related academic support.

About the school's bar passage track record, Sloan reports that in 2009, "34% of La Verne students passed the California bar examination on the first try, [editorial comment - YIKES!] although 73% of those students have since passed the test, Easley said. In 2010, the school's first-time bar passage rate bumped up to 53%." [editorial comment - was this before or after the accreditation committee recommended full accreditation?]

Granted the California bar exam is one of the hardest in the country to pass but flipping a coin on the odds of passing the bar after attending an in-state law school seems a bit much for earning ABA accreditation. For more, see Sloan's Low Bar Pass Rates Have Law School on Brink of Losing ABA Accreditation. [JH]

Opening: Assistant Director for Technical Services, Univ. of Maryland School of Law, Thurgood Marshall Law Library

The University of Maryland School of Law, Thurgood Marshall Law Library seeks a highly motivated, creative, entrepreneurial professional to serve on the library's administrative team and participate in the overall management and coordination of the Technical Services Department.   The Law Library, located on the campus of the University of Maryland Baltimore, is a vibrant institution dedicated to supporting the research and scholarship of the faculty and students of the School of Law.  The library staff is committed to exploring and implementing innovative technological solutions to promote and enhance library services to the law school community.
 
The staff of the Technical Services Department is responsible for a wide variety of activities ranging from those traditionally associated with technical services including acquisitions, serials, cataloging and metadata creation as well as an array of outreach services including copyright clearance, digital archiving, resource sharing, and scholarly communications.  The Department has developed and manages an extensive institutional repository featuring faculty publications, special digital collections, and online journals.
 
The position is a 12-month library faculty appointment. The successful candidate will be expected to meet library and university requirements for permanent status and promotion.

Responsibilities: The Assistant Director for Technical Services reports to the Associate Director for Technical Services &  Administration and collaborates on establishing policies, standards, and goals for the department; performs tasks that require advanced knowledge and technical proficiency; and in collaboration with members of the library faculty, provides a wide range of outreach and research services to the law school community.  
 
Essential Duties:

• Manages the day-to-day operations of acquisitions/serials, cataloging, processing, and metadata creation for library materials in multiple formats;
• Oversees the library's integrated library system which is hosted at the University of Maryland, College Park;
• Represents the library within the University System of Maryland and Affiliated Institutions on issues dealing with technical services and electronic resources;
• Performs complex cataloging functions (in all languages and in all formats) in accordance with accepted national standards;
• Coordinates the licensing, procurement, management and assessment of electronic resources;
• Develops and manages digital collections;
• Assists with the development of the institutional repository, including copyright clearance;
• Administers the federal depository program;
• Collaborates in enhancing the role of the library in scholarly communication;
• Provides reference services to faculty.

Minimum Qualifications: ALA accredited masters degree in library or information science or its equivalent.  Preferred  subject masters degree or JD; Minimum of 5 years of increasingly responsible library experience with a minimum of 3 years of experience in technical services.  Prefer experience in an academic law library environment.
 
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Knowledge of overall technical services operations;
• Familiarity with integrated library systems;
• Thorough knowledge of standard cataloging principles, metadata schemas, and strategies for implementation of RDA;
• Experience in managing and organizing electronic resources and in negotiating licenses;
• Excellent oral and written communication skills;
• Strong service orientation and outstanding interpersonal skills;
• Familiarity with vendors, publishers, and content providers;
• Familiarity with the Ex Libris suite of functions (Aleph, SFX, Metalib);
• Experience with collection management, special collections and archives, and preservation and conservation of library materials;
• Familiarity with network and consortial opportunities related to technical services;
• Understanding of current and emerging trends in library and information services;

Salary and Benefits: Salary is competitive and is commensurate with qualifications and experience. Comprehensive benefits package.

Application Deadline:  May 27, 2011

To Apply: Interested applicants should submit electronically a cover letter, resume and the name and phone number of three references to LAW-HR(at)law.umaryland.edu, with subject line: Asst Dir Technical Services, or mail to :

Mary Alice Hohing
Director, Administration & Operations
University of Maryland School of Law
500 West Baltimore Street
Baltimore, MD 21201-1786

The University of Maryland is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer.

Student Kindle DX Use for Academic Reading Gets Mixed Reviews

The Seattle Times reports on a study of a University of Washington pilot program of Kindle DX use for eTextbooks and other course texts involving first-year computer science and engineering graduate students. Seven months into the program, 60 percent of the students had stopped regularly using their Kindles for academic reading. Findings include

• The Kindle DX was more likely to replace students' paper-based reading than their computer-based reading.
• Of the students who continued to use the device, some read near a computer so they could look up references or do other tasks that were easier to do on a computer. Others tucked a sheet of paper into the case so they could write notes.
• With paper, three quarters of students marked up texts as they read. This included highlighting key passages, underlining, drawing pictures and writing notes in margins.
• A drawback of the Kindle DX was the difficulty of switching between reading techniques, such as skimming an article's illustrations or references just before reading the complete text. Students frequently made such switches as they read course material.
• The digital text also disrupted a technique called cognitive mapping, in which readers used physical cues, such as the location on the page and the position in the book to find a section of text or even to help retain and recall the information they had read.

For details, see the Seattle Times article, Kindle so-so for students, UW study concludes. Hat tip to Inside Higher Ed. [JH]

Some Thoughts on Internet Privacy Legislation

Yesterday's hearing on consumer privacy before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law did not merely highlight the concern of Congress on online data amassed by marketers.  It exposed the conflict within government over its own needs for most of the same information for criminal investigations and prosecutions.  This came in the form of testimony from Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the DOJ's Criminal Division.  While we can all argue about whether there is a need for Apple and Google (an others) to collect location data, the DOJ does like the idea.  It's evidence, after all.

Weinstein's testimony notes that 64% of Americans use smart phones.  I pointed out in this earlier post how Alexis Madrigal subjected his smart phone to forensic analysis and how the results yielded a lengthy virtual history of his online activities.  Think of it as a cautionary tale.  This is the age where some courts are ruling that smart phone and computer hard drive analysis can be conducted by government either without a warrant or expansively beyond the original warrant.  (See 88 Criminal Law Reporter 644).  The real point here is while location tracking is useful for marketers to provide lawful services, the government has an interest in that same information.

Apple says in its various responses to the revelation that iPhones store location information is that the information represents cell phone tower locations.  This information assists the phone in determining its location without resorting to satellite calculations, which in turn extends battery power by using less of it.  The fact that about a year's worth of data collection exists on the phone and computer back ups now turns this feature into a "bug."  Apple claims that none of this shows a person's true location history.  This, I guess, should be interpreted as saying Apple doesn't compromise personal privacy.  Apple, for its part, is updating its software to shorten the data collection period and give customers some options.  What's a person to do, extend battery life or be tracked?  It is now a consumer choice.

But the same information collected by a software "bug" can work with other cell phone information collected by the telcos.  Prosecutors can match phone data with that lawfully subpoenaed from the cell phone companies to the detriment of a defendant.  Or at least a prosecutor would try that strategy.  That the same information collected by marketers on our hand held computers that incidentally make phone calls is also useful to the government is not lost on the DOJ.  Hence Weinstein's testimony suggesting that any legislation take into account existing business surveillance tracking of customers.

The draft bill proposed by Senators McCain and Kerry on consumer privacy does exactly that.  Note that the bill doesn't completely stop data collection as much as it regulates how it is used and disclosed.  Consumers would have rights to opt out of some data collection situations and opt in to others.  Whether a groundswell of people would take advantage of these options is debatable.  Nonetheless, section 405(c) states that the bill does not expand or limit the duty of a covered entity to provide information to a government entity.  I haven't checked the competing bills, but I suspect they will have a provision similar to this if not already included in drafts.  See this story in CNET for additional analysis.   

My prediction on all of this is that either no privacy provision will be enacted, or if one is, it will be weak.  There is too much incentive in the business and law enforcement communities to dramatically change the rules at this point.  Remember the outrage to the Total Awareness Information data mining project did not end it as much as Congress quietly transferring funding and functionality to various security agencies instead.  The government also fought to keep the library provisions in successive re-authorizations of the PATRIOT Act.  That shows some motivations to keep the information pipeline open to government law enforcement agencies.  The information businesses collect is a potential evidence goldmine to attractive to eliminate. 

While we're on the subject, check out this editorial in the Los Angeles Times that highlights some of the privacy problems and rounds up some of the legislative reactions.  It notes, for example, that Facebook tracks users and non-users alike through its "Like" button.  It may not be able to put faces to the non-users, but tracks nonetheless.  Law enforcement likes that.  [MG]

The World of Actionable Actions, Part II: Addressing Vendor Inefficiencies Because Format and Quality Matters

I mentioned in January 2011 that I liked, in principle, what ALM was doing in the Company's systematic transformation from a traditional print-based publisher to a "digital-first" media and information provider in because I thought Law Journal Press Online was an interesting twist on law eBooks. It certainly is more innovative than current law eBook offerings from our major vendors. Since then, however, invoice-paying law librarians have spent a fair amount of time addessing format options for LJP titles. By fair amount I mean way too much time being spent because of LJP's inefficiencies.

Law library institutional buyers have been grappling with LJP's original marketing of their once print-only titles because the Company was initally providing only two options at renewal time for their updated treatises: (1) online only or (2) online and print only. The Company did respond to CRIV chair Rob Myers' communications that it would address and accomodate law librarians wanting print-only titles. At least LJP didn't respond to Myers like TR Legal did with its copyrighted response to format switcheroos:

We are comfortable that we capture enough customer, author, and editor feedback before any title undergoes a format change and are confident that this feedback effectively reflects customer preferences.

By way of LJP's response, Rob provided contact information for one LJP staffer tasked with this via AALL listservs. Doesn't help non-institutional LJP consumers dealing with this but that's SOP for AALL. Poor soul. The phone must have been ringing constantly from calls by invoice-paying law librarians; I tried several times and gave up after always getting a busy signal. I imagine this staffer's email in-box was filled to the max but I decided not to go that route. In the world of actionable actions, I started cancelling LJP titles as their individual renewal invoices appeared in my in-box. Appears than many others also did the same because I got a call from a LJP representative soon after my cancellations were communicated to the Company. I'm thinking LJP  may not have expected such a large number of negative reactions (read substantial numbers of institutional buyer cancellations) and decided to addess this by staffing up in response to that.

I have found LJP reps to be very helpful. After requesting and not receiving a list of current LJP subs to see if we and the Company were "on the same page" from "someone" at LJP customer services, I received a phone call and email for someone who was not 1-800-Nameless. Don't know if he is my personal account rep now or is one of many LJP customer service reps assigned to address law librarian issues but he has become my "go-to" during this transformation. He provided a list of my current subs and recent cancelations and  is forwarding my decisions to the the invoice-generating folks. Works for me because one title I was really going to regret cancelling if I had to renew for print-online is the best title on the subject, namely Hindert, Dehner & Hindert's Structured Settlements and Periodic Payment Judgments. I would have killed that title and other LJP title if my options excluded print-only because those other format alternatives just won't work in my little county law library. Quality matters.

Quality of Editorial Content and Format Options Matter Now. Killing off some LJP titles would have been regrettable but neccessary. In the Shed West Era for print, editorial quality really matters now. I will pay for that if I can buy the publications in the format I want. In addition to some LJP titles which provide damn good editional quality I can depend on (at least for now) some other publishers still driven by quality such as BNA, WK's Apsen and CCH, and PLI. However, I can't and probably will never be able to justify LJP titles as online-only or online-print combinations at our little county law library. Format matters.

But in the "New Normal," law librarians are taking a more closer look at titles offered by the likes of LJP because the Company have a long-established reputation for editional quality, something some of our major vendors no longer have. I believe we will pay for that quality by subsituting or relying solely on their titles. I certainly have. We cancelled some WEXIS print titles in this Shed West Era because of this. We focus on cost-savings but we also look for the "best bang for our buck." We elevate such titles to pride-of-place status of "best available" in editorial quality in the world of actionable actions. We use some of the cost savings generating from cancelling titles produced by "traditional" legal publishers who have neglected to maintain content quality standards by acquiring titles from other publishers who have a track record of consistently meeting editorial quality standards because they do not treat content as a commodity.

Ways and Means for LJP Titles. For recent renewal cancellations, the Company is offering a 20% discount off invoiced renewal costs if you want print-only and a 15% disount off of current renewal costs for live subscriptions if you only want print-only distibution. I, for one, reactivied one subscription as print-only at the 20% discount for a title I killed after having received its renewal invoice for the print-online combo. I insisted that the reactivation was continguent of receiving a new base volume at no additional cost because it had already been recycled and the Company compiled. I also listed which titles I would continue to take at the print-only 15% discount and which titles I still intended to cancel.

Most invoice-paying law librarians do not like how this has to be accomplished because it is so damn time-consuming. Apparently some, if not most but not all institutional buyers must apply for the discounting on a invoice-by-invoice basis where one receives a renewal invoice for the print-online combo because renewals are triggered on a title-by-title basis when each individual title comes up for renewal.

The procedue is you get the renewal notice for the print-online title and then you have to email it back to get an adjusted invoice for the discounted print-only cost. That certainly can be very time-consuming for subscribers of a lot of the LJP catalog of titles. Our little county law library executed "Shed West Era" print cancellations for LPJ titles even before LJP's implementation of ALM's transformation from a traditional print-based publisher to a "digital first provider. So the workload isn't great but I certainly understand the law library community's very justifiable complaints. Efficiency matters.

Each execution has to be based on an making an affirmation decision title by title as indicated above. There could be a much more time-saving method for buyers who subscribe to many more LJP titles than our little county law library does. I think this has more to do with a smaller vendor making adjustments in the context of a recently implemented invoice generating system that was not brought online with an eye toward responding to buyers who would cancel if they could not acquire titles in the format they deemed best for their collection.

Due note, a library's LJP customer account number has also changed but the customer service reps can cross reference old to new account numbers. Also note, even after one receives the discounted invoice print-only, the invoice will not explicitly state that the renewal is for print-only. I'm not particularly concerned about this right now as long as the invoice pricing reflects the discount. However, I have yet to receive one of the adjusted invoices and I've sent backy three invoices for print-only pricing already. 

Will the current print-only discounting become institutionalized at LJP for 2012 renewals and thereafter? I have no idea. However, LJP ran a quickie two day sale for acquiring new titles last week but the sale discount was not offered for acquiring print-only. It appears to have been based on subscribing to new titles by way of pint-online or online only format options. That's not a particular good signal. Guess we will just have to wait and see.

Shifting Vendor Generated Inefficiences Back to the Publisher. The inefficiences LJP has generated is just an illustration of the world of actionable actions in the context of institutional buyers needing to start taking "vendor sourcing" actions. Cancellations prompted LJP to staff-up but the procedure the publisher created to respond to subscribers wanting print-only titles because format matters is incredibly inefficent.

DLA Piper's Jean O'Grady defines vendor sourcing as "a process by which we shift the cost of vendor generated inefficiencies or the inefficient processes themselves, back to the publishers."

Let's face it; we have for too long made our administrative processes subservient to the idiosyncrasies of individual publishers.

See O'Grady's Dewey B Strategic post, "Vendor Sourcing" : Thinking the unthinkable as a strategic alternative to outsourcing for much more.

Endnote. For the first post in this series, see The World of Actionable Actions: Institutional Buyers, Individual Consumers and the Legal Publishing Industry. [JH]

 

Playing Catch-Up Again: Microsoft to Acquire Skype for a Whopping $8.5 Billion in Cash

After a fair amount of speculation, Microsoft officially announced yesterday that it will acquire Skype for $8.5 billion dollars:

The acquisition will increase the accessibility of real-time video and voice communications, bringing benefits to both consumers and enterprise users and generating significant new business and revenue opportunities. The combination will extend Skype’s world-class brand and the reach of its networked platform, while enhancing Microsoft’s existing portfolio of real-time communications products and services.

While not likely to have the ROI that Microsoft's $50,000 acquisition of the rights to QDOS has had, the Skype acquisition is the largest in Microsoft's history.

In Why Microsoft Is Buying Skype for $8.5 Billion, Om Malik writes "the biggest reason for Microsoft to buy Skype is Windows Phone 7 (Mobile OS) and Nokia. The software giant needs a competitive offering to Google Voice and Apple’s emerging communication platform, Facetime." Malik adds

[Facebook] gets the best of both worlds: It gets access to Skype assets (Microsoft is an investor in Facebook) and it gets to keep Skype away from Google. ... Facebook needs Skype badly. Among other things, it needs to use Skype’s peer-to-peer network to offer video and voice services to the users of Facebook Chat.

Playing Catch-Up Once Again. On Bloomberg, Dina Bass, Douglas MacMillan and Joseph Galante write

[Microsoft CEO] Ballmer ... is making Microsoft’s largest acquisition on a wager he can use Internet calling to play catch-up in online and Web advertising. He offered more than $7 billion to cover Skype’s debt and keep a rival from gaining a business that would add calling features to games, e-mail and software on computers and mobile phones.

Quoting from Skype Said to Have Demanded Over $7 Billion in Talks. [JH]

Opening: Electronic Services Librarian, Univ. of Iowa Law Library

Employer Information: The University of Iowa Law Library is part of the University of Iowa Law School.  The University of Iowa Law School, founded in 1865, is the oldest law school west of the Mississippi River.  It is located in Iowa City, Iowa, and is one of eleven colleges of The University of Iowa. The Law school has a student population of about 600 students in its JD program and about 15 in its LLM program, and has a faculty of about 45.  According to the most recent ABA figures, the Law Library collection of information resources contains the second largest number of separately cataloged on-site accessible different titles in all formats, and the second largest collection of volumes/volume equivalents, among all academic law libraries. The collection is very strong both in American Law and Foreign, Comparative, and International Law.  The Law Library has a staff of 32 FTE, including 8 librarians with both library and law degrees.

For more information about the law library - http://www.law.uiowa.edu/library
For more information about the law school - http://www.law.uiowa.edu
For more information about the University of Iowa - http://www.uiowa.edu

Responsibilities:  Under the direction of the Associate Dean for Research, Executive Law Librarian and the Head of Public Services, the Electronic Resources librarian coordinates the provision of student computer support services, reviews services provided, and recommends policies for the types and levels of services performed in the unit, which consists of one full-time IT technician and one part-time librarian.  The Electronic Resources librarian consults in the collection development aspects of electronic resources, arranges for trials of new services, and assists in the evaluation of the terms and conditions of license agreements for electronic resources, and implements the new services.  This librarian is responsible for the general web presence of the Law Library and monitors, evaluates, recommends and implements emerging library technology and electronic products.  This librarian works collaboratively with seven other law and library trained reference librarians in providing extensive reference and research services in a technologically advanced environment serving a sophisticated and research oriented faculty and student body.  The librarian in this position is responsible for a full range of reference work, including coverage of the reference desk, legal research instruction both in formal and informal settings, creation of instructional and promotional materials in print and digital formats, and other duties as assigned.

Qualifications and Experience:  Candidates must have a sound knowledge of legal systems and legal bibliography, familiarity with sophisticated online legal research services, and strong research skills; excellent communication, interpersonal and organizational skills; creativity and adaptability in the face of multiple simultaneous demands; group instruction experience; and some experience with web content management systems and/or web-coding and authoring tools, and courseware.  Some supervisory experience is desirable.  A Master's degree in library science and a law degree from accredited institutions are required.

Salary:  Salary dependant on qualifications and experience.

Please apply online via JOBS@UIOWA (http://jobs.uiowa.edu )  One must register on the site before beginning the application process.  Once registered, click on "Search for Jobs" and check the box next to "Librarians/Library Science" then "Enter."  This position is Requisition #59437.

The University of Iowa is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.  Women and minorities are encouraged to apply.

For further information, please contact:

Ted Potter, JD/MSLIS
Head of Public Services
University of Iowa College of Law Library
ted-potter(at)uiowa.edu

NOCALL Members Respond to Question: "How widespread is WestlawNext?"

21 law librarians representing firm, county and court libraries replied to the question Paul Lomio posed on the NOCALL listserv about WestlawNext use. Check out the results of his informal survey on Legal Research Plus. [JH]

Debt Slows Some Law School Growth

Law school debt isn't merely a law student problem.  Law schools themselves, or more specifically, planned law programs are getting cut back or delayed.  The Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting that Drexel University is delaying plans to build a new law school building, and that the University of Delaware is either delaying or cancelling it's planned law school, depending on the source.  The National Law Journal says it's delayed, in contrast to the Inquirer report that says cancelled.  UDelaware's own report indicated the law school would run a deficit of $160 million a year for the better part of 10 years.  The NLJ also reports that an authorized law school at the University of North Texas will also be delayed because of budgets.  

The problem is probably less the number of students a new school would attract than the investments in the physical plant, including establishing a law library.  Law school applications are down nationally,  but not enough that established law schools are in danger of folding.  At least not yet.  That trend is not affecting other new law schools from opening, including one in Tennessee and another in Louisiana, and the planning for another one in New York State.  Students can dream of beating the odds to finding a good job in spite of the current job market.  I suppose law school administrators can do the same.  [MG]

O'Grady's Three Mythbusting Axioms on Cost Effective Legal Research Training

Jeffrey Brandt, editor of PinHawk Law Technology Daily Digest calls attention to a post published in my newest favorite law librarian blog, DLA Piper's Jean O'Grady's Dewey B Stragegic.  O'Grady calls it like she sees it in each and every post she publishes. Take the damn RSS feed -- take it even if you are an academic law librarian because academic law libraries don't move the marketplace -- the private sector does. Take it if you are a public sector law librarian because we have much more in common with the private sector than the academic law library sector even if we don't have BigLaw's purchasing power.

Quoting Brandt's PinHawk Law Technology Daily Digest e-newsletter summary, which also covered other recent interesting developments:

Jean O'Grady has a great post at Dewey B Strategic. So good I will just quote her three axioms. "1) Cost effective research training is a hopeless exercise." "2) Cost effective legal research training is counter-productive." "3) Subscribing to the myth of cost effective research training keeps the focus off the true culprits and keeps us from demanding real solutions." Read more here and demand a solution: The Myth and the Madness of Cost Effective Lexis and Westlaw Research Training.

I couldn't resist adding Rees Morrison's quick post on the subject of worthless reports. He comes at it from the corporate law department perspective, but law firms have them too. In one of my old firms they were called 'Monday reports.' They justified their own high end printer in the accounting department. Hundreds of trees were killed to produce them. Hours of staff time to burst, staple and deliver them to the lawyers. And the majority went straight into the trash can. Read more here: Have you stopped sending reports that people have stopped reading?

We all have too many passwords, PINs and more to manage. Some people cope by using the same password everywhere. Others prefer the Post-It Note approach. Still others use password vault software (my approach), or use a cloud service. But what do you do if your cloud service gets compromised? According to The New York Times, LassPass, a cloud service for managing passwords thinks they got hacked. Read more here: Bits: Password Service Warns of Possible Hacking Attack

(Emphasis added.)

Thanks PinHawk. I did read more because I am way behind in reading my RSS feeds.

I agree with O'Grady's teaching cost-effective online search analysis with one caveat and completely agree with O'Grady's criticism of WEXIS pricing. Two snips:

Since most law firms have a unique menu of “included” content, unique pricing plans and unique billing policies for the identical content – academic librarians are faced with the impossible challenge of training students for a universe in which there is likely 100% inconsistency in the pricing and billing policies across the firms where they will be summer associates.

...

When Lexis and Westlaw deliver simplified and rational billing systems we could actually develop cost effective legal research methods and classes that  could prepare associates to perform cost effective research  while remaining focused on the real goal: delivering the best result to their client.

It is, as O'Grady writes "an impossible challege to instruct law schools on pricing and billing where there is 100% inconsistency." It is not, however, an impossible challenge to wean law students from suckling on the WEXIS nipple provided to them in the legal academy.

Teaching Cost Efficient WEXIS Training in the Legal Academy by Illustrations. While WEXIS reps could provide boilerplate licensing agreements to law students to study, does anyone expect that to happen?

Instead, grab a couple of well-redacted, even out-of-date, different private sector licensing agreements if you can obtain them for a class assignment in 1L LRW and ALR courses about the costs of "real world" online WEXIS research. The assignment:

1. Perform an online search, where a research assignment requiring the use of primary and secondary sources is assigned;
2. Instruct students to take step-by-steps notes of their research trail; and
3. Then require the students to apply the cost structures under the terms of the provided Ks in writing.

Hopefully one can obtain WEXIS Ks that are structured to include pricing for access to out-of-plan databases. If academic law libraians can't obtain private sector WEXIS Ks because, well you know why, public sector WEXIS licences are available by federal FOIA and state open records act requests.

While I suggest that O'Grady's first axiom may need to be qualifed by the above so as to state "'Cost effective research training is a hopeless exercise but teaching students to analyze WEXIS Ks in law schools may be a teachable moment in very expensive online legal search." I completely agree with O'Grady's other two axioms:

Cost effective legal research training is counter-productive.

Subscribing to the myth of cost effective research training keeps the focus off the true culprits and keeps us from demanding real solutions.

For details, see The Myth and the Madness of Cost Effective Lexis and Westlaw Research Training.

Two CYAs. I don't republish an entire article or e-newsletter alert summary (etc.), since that may violate copyright in a commerical blog network like the Law Professor Blogs Network. So I hope my you-know-what is covered by mentioning that I've watched PinHawk since its launch several years ago, thinking it was a crap-shoot if it survived because selling ads was required. It has succeeded in garnering ads and expanding its daily e-mail alert topical offerings business model. Love the wacky Einstein-inspired law prof banner ads from Lexis! 

Note to FTC, yes I receive free email alerts because LLB is and has been featured in relevant e-newsletters since the launch of Pinhawk. I find Pinhawk email alerts to be very useful. Am I grandfathered in because this was agreed upon long before the FTC blogger requirement? If not, a second CYA. [JH]