Law Librarian Blog

"You're better off going to law school abroad."

That is one of the 10 Things Law Schools Won't Tell You from Annamaria Andriotis' Smart Money article.

English universities don't offer a core curriculum of arts and sciences. Prospective students declare their major during the application process. After three years at an English university, law students can complete their undergrad studies and qualify for the Bar exams in 27 states... To be sure, in most of those 27 states that permit taking the Bar, students will need to meet extra requirements, like attaining additional education at an ABA-approved law school that can include a Master's program in Law, but that still wouldn't wipe out their savings.

[JH]

Congressional Staffers Value CRS Reports Over Lobbyists

Those of us in the information business generally accept that Congressional Research Service reports are thorough for their topics and unbiased.  It seems that congressional staffers agree with that sentiment.  The National Journal takes a quick look at one part of survey of congressional staffers and lobbyists and finds that staffers find information from a CRS report valuable by a whopping 86% of respondents.  Issue experts are next on the list with the Congressional Budget Office third.  Lobbyists rate below Beltway publications, Internet searches and constituents for information.  Politico has a broader analysis of the survey results, including charts and graphs.

None of this respect for the CRS stopped the House from a budget vote last week that cut the CRS budget by 1% rather than cutting their own staff, travel, and office expenses.  The bill cuts back on repairs to the Capitol dome as well.  The Sacramento Bee reports the average congressional office budget is $1.4 million a year.  The source of that information?  A CRS report.  [MG]

What's on a Law Prof's Mind in 120 Characters or Less: Top 50 Law Professors on Twitter

Ranked #24 is Nebraska's Law Library Director and Professor of Law Rich Leiter, @rleiter. "Leiter's posts deliver a weekly dose of information on law librarianship, blues, eSudoku or whatever else strikes his fancy," according to the list. Rich tweats "[v]alidation that people actually are reading my tweets!" [JH]

A "Teachable Moment:" Tamanaha's Failing Law Schools

The review copy release of Washington University Law professor Brian Tamanaha's new book, Failing Law Schools (Chicago UP, June 15, 2012), created so much of a buzz in the law prof blogosphere there are just too many posts to cite. The work is now available for all to read.

My hunch is that the debate over structural reforms of the economics of legal education will gravitate to this work much like debate over curricular reforms of legal education did with the Carnegie Foundation's Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (2007). Unfortunately, the Carnegie Report was an instance where the cart was placed in front of the horse. The only way to effectively institutionalize a program to produce practice-ready law school grads nationwide is to execute structural reforms that hold the ABA-Legal Academy cartel accountable before federal loans for law school tuition are granted. That would require government intervention. If Congress does hold hearings on this matter, I expect Tamanaha will be one of the first witnesses called to testify.

From the blurb for Failing Law Schools:

On the surface, law schools today are thriving. Enrollments are on the rise, and their resources are often the envy of every other university department. Law professors are among the highest paid and play key roles as public intellectuals, advisers, and government officials. Yet behind the flourishing facade, law schools are failing abjectly. Recent front-page stories have detailed widespread dubious practices, including false reporting of LSAT and GPA scores, misleading placement reports, and the fundamental failure to prepare graduates to enter the profession.

Addressing all these problems and more in a ringing critique is renowned legal scholar Brian Z. Tamanaha. Piece by piece, Tamanaha lays out the how and why of the crisis and the likely consequences if the current trend continues. The out-of-pocket cost of obtaining a law degree at many schools now approaches $200,000. The average law school graduate’s debt is around $100,000—the highest it has ever been—while the legal job market is the worst in decades, with the scarce jobs offering starting salaries well below what is needed to handle such a debt load. At the heart of the problem, Tamanaha argues, are the economic demands and competitive pressures on law schools—driven by competition over U.S. News and World Report ranking. When paired with a lack of regulatory oversight, the work environment of professors, the limited information available to prospective students, and loan-based tuition financing, the result is a system that is fundamentally unsustainable.

Growing concern with the crisis in legal education has led to high-profile coverage in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and many observers expect it soon will be the focus of congressional scrutiny. Bringing to the table his years of experience from within the legal academy, Tamanaha has provided the perfect resource for assessing what’s wrong with law schools and figuring out how to fix them.

See also Tamanaha's recent New York Times op-ed piece, How to Make Law School Affordable (a nutshell summary here), and the below interview conducted by Glenn Reynolds. [JH]

Friday Fun: Working Non-Stop to Help Law Grads to Find a Job in This Tough Market

Yes, it is up to law school grads to find gainful employment but... See ATL's Elie Mystal post NALP 2012: Does Your School Even Know How to Get You a Small Firm Job? [JH]

Call for Participation in New Generation of Legal Research Databases Survey: Findings will be reported at AALL Boston 2012

One of the best programs I attended at last year's AALL annual meeting was a well-organized and equally well-prepared panel presentation on WestlawNext. Interest was high. Despite being scheduled for the late afternoon of the last day of Philly 2011 (meaning, of course, the traditional time most attendees are heading home), the program was attended by many law librarians, particularly law firm representatives. No doubt, this year's follow-up program will be just as informative. Emily Marcum, Jean Davis, Jean O'Grady, Susan Nevelow Mart and Vicki Szymczak's The New Generation of Legal Research Databases: 2012 Boston Sequel will take place on Sunday, July 22.

From the description:

This forum will enable librarians familiar with Bloomberg Law, LexisNexis Advance, and WestlawNext to compare the developments of these research tools and consider the effect these changes have had in libraries. The discussion will contrast the latest interfaces of these services to their classic versions, as well as to each other. What worked? What failed? Have these “improvements” changed the workflow at your institution or company? Did these changes impact user preference? And, how can vendors improve future product generations? Practical matters – such as implementation, user education, accuracy of results, document sharing, billing practices, and user satisfaction – will dominate the discussion.

The organizers have launched the following surveys to gather information about Bloomberg Law, LexisNexis Advance, and WestlawNext. The findings will be presented at the Boston Sequel. Many of the questions focus on each library type's different institutional circumstances. They request that the director of each library appoint one person to respond to the applicable survey. The deadline is June 30th.

Academic Library Survey

Government and Court Library Survey

Private Firm and Corporate Law Library Survey

[JH]

CIA Unable to Locate Its Own Declassification Regulations According to FOIA Response

Unredacted's Nate Jones reports:

The CIA –according to its response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Kel McClanahan of National Security Counselors– “did not locate any records responsive to your request [for published CIA regulations about declassification].”  The Agency claims that “our searches were thorough and diligent, and it is highly unlikely that repeating those searches would change the result.

Jones publishes the CIA's June 1, 2012 dated "final" response to the FOIA request for "an electrontic copy of CIA's copy of its new regulation 32 C.F.R. 1908" at The CIA Cannot Find Their Own Regulations about Declassification. Free Government Information notes that "[t]he CIA even has a copy of 32 CFR on its own website (though evidently not the current version!)." [JH]

Short Takes On The News

The New York Law Journal is reporting that a federal judge refused to allow Chase Bank to serve a defendant via Facebook.  The rationale is that there is no guarantee that the person holding the profile is the person in question, or if that person, will even see the service.  The judge directed service by publication in areas where the person in question has maintained addresses.  The case, ironically, involves identity theft where a daughter is alleged to have stolen her mother’s identity and fraudulently opened credit card accounts in her mother’s name.  Service by publication may be just as iffy in whether a defendant will see the notice, but at least it is authorized by the New York Civil Practice Law.  If publication is viable under those circumstances, why not publish and send notice via email or Facebook?

The Boston Globe is reporting that the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth School of Law was given provisional accreditation by the American Bar Association.  The school could receive full accreditation if it remains standards compliant for the next three years. 

In the say-it-ain’t-so category, the Telegraph is reporting that the Bodleian Library at Oxford is considering lending books for the first time in its existence.  The History Faculty Library is moving into the Bodleian via merger, prompting the policy review.  The very idea has stirred up a heated controversy with traditionalists firmly against the idea, at least if the quotes in the Telegraph are accurate. 

Dr. William Poole, a tutor in English at New College stated “It is worth asking how we propose to charge £9,000 a year when we'll just lend out books to whoever, so that students can't read what they have been invited to read.”  I imagine that Dr. Poole made the statement with all the indignation that Graham Chapman used to muster when he played the put-upon Englishman.  Examples are here.  Lend books to “whoever” indeed.  I can imagine a student saying "I pay £9,000 a year in tuition and I can't borrow a bloody book!"  

Finally, Bloomberg Businessweek profiles the argument style of Justice Scalia when policies of the Obama administration are involved in the case.  The profile suggests that Justice Scalia has a political axe to grind and uses examples from environmental and health care cases to make the point.  Really?  And the magazine just noticed this after Justice Scalia’s 26 years on the Court?  While we’re on the subject, the ABA Journal lists the high profile decisions that await release by the end of the current term.  [MG]

There's an App Developer for That: Creating in-house mobile solutions for Thomson Reuters content by acquiring Apsmart

On June 8, 2012, Thomson Reuters announced it had acquired Apsmart. From the press release:

The Apsmart acquisition will improve Thomson Reuters ability to provide customers with mobile solutions that drive a competitive differentiation in the marketplace.

Mobile is an increasingly significant way in which professionals work and consume information. The acquisition of Apsmart will enhance Thomson Reuters mobile product creation, design and development, allowing the company to deliver even more expert-enriched content, news and solutions through the interfaces that professionals want on the mobile devices they use.

(Emphasis added.)

From Apsmart founder Rahul Powar's blog post:

Thomson Reuters is intensely focused on serving the needs of professional customers in the financial and risk, legal, tax and accounting, intellectual property and science and media markets. And as mobile becomes increasingly important to how professionals work and consume information, we’re uniquely positioned to help deliver Thomson Reuters expert-enriched content, news and solutions through the interfaces customers want on the mobile devices they use.

(Emphasis added.)

Android Apps? I'm wondering if this acquisition means TR will enter the brave new world of Android apps. Android-powered devices are gaining market share but app development is floundering because of the many different devices and Android operating systems. See Yep. Developers Are Still Building For Apple’s iOS Over Android By A Factor Of 2-to-1. ("Fragmentation is still a beast. Unlike iOS where you might have to deal with the 4S, the 4, the 3G and the 3GS (or maybe a half-dozen models), Android developers generally need to support dozens of devices. Or if you want to go the extra mile, hundreds!")  

Clearly, TRI's acquisition means moble app development will be standardized across the multiple silos of the Company's operations much like one can expect from the Company's ProView eBook platform. [JH]

Google Comes To Agreement in France on e-Books - Kindles and iPads Need Not Apply

Google’s life in the book scanning saga became a little easier lately with a settlement announced between it and publishers and authors in France.  The agreement settles a suit where Google was found to infringe copyright in French publications by French courts.  The deal allows Google to continue scanning cooperatively with authors and publishers who will have the ability to decide which books will appear in Google’s index, and which books Google may sell through its online bookstore.  Out of print books are included in the agreement.  Each group will share in the profits.

Google will financially support a literacy program in French schools.  I’d count that as a plus for Google as it gets its name prominently in front of school children.  Another plus for Google is that it will apparently be the exclusive source for these books, leaving the Apple store and Amazon on the outside.  The European Union may want to take a look at that provision of the agreement.  The EU is informally investigating Google on a variety of competition issues relating to search and has “asked” Google to address these before formal charges are put in place.  

I can understand if Google doesn’t want its competitors to make money from the scanning work it is performing.  I wonder if the agreement allows Apple and Amazon to reach separate agreements to scan out of print works for sale.  Traditionally, Apple and Amazon sell content but do not create it.  Google is really making lemonade out of lemons with this move.  [MG]

Adoption Rate Watch: Tracking WestlawNext as an Indicator of Customer Acceptance of the Current Gen Platform Model

WLN Adoption Since Launch
Quarter	Customers	WLN as % of Westlaw Revenue Base
2010 1Q	2,300	N/A
2010 2Q	5,700	N/A
2010 3Q	9,000	18%
2010 4Q	15,000	31%
2011 1Q	18,500	34%
2011 2Q	24,000	41%
2011 3Q	29,000	46%
2011 4Q	34,000	54%
2012 1Q	N/A	65%

Being first to the market can be a dream come true or a scary nightmare of lost opportunity. The WestlawNext launch confirmed the old "do the opposite of whatever TR Legal does" rule. Being second to launch has been advantageous for Lexis Advance. See "WestlawNext": What happens when a brand becomes synonymous with the negatives of all similiar products. Whether it will benefit the adoption rate of Lexis Advance remains to be seen. For now, the only indicator of customer sentiment for today's legal search platform model is tracking WestlawNext's adoption rate.
 
"WestlawNext has been sold to approximately 65% of Westlaw’s revenue base" according to Thomson Reuters Reports First-Quarter 2012 Results (May 2012). No additional information was provided in the Company's 1Q 2012 documentation. In previous quarterly presentations, the Company would identify the number of customers. See table, right. But that factoid isn't as interesting as the consistent omission of reporting the actual revenue being generated solely by the WestlawNext "premium" and related revenue generaton, meaning the investment community has no idea what the return on investment for WestlawNext really is.

About all one can say is that approximately 35% of Westlaw's revenue base has not jumped on the WLN bandwagon. However, note well that if Westlaw subscribers accepted (or insisted upon) WestlawNext with no premium add-on costs to them, their Classic Westlaw spend would be moved to the less than enlightening reporting category of "WestlawNext as a percentage of Westlaw's revenue base." Oh well, David Thomson knows the score.

I'm wondering if David Thomson is also scratching his head. If he was taken in by the Mad Men's marketing pitch for WLN, he has to be wondering why in the parlance of the Mafia, WLN isn't a "good earner" yet. Two years since launch now and WLN hasn't exactly had a psychedelic Purple Orange Haze effect on the market. Of course, Thomson is too smart to be taken in by narco-marketing but you know damn well that the MBA-types dive into their business modeling calculations before anything is given the green light. One very important factor is forecasting when a legacy platform can be killed based on an estimated adoption timeline for the new platform.

Quoting from Interview with Mark Schiff, Vice President of Product Marketing at Thomson Reuters regarding Launch of WestlawNext, The CRIV Sheet, May 2010 at 3 (conducted by Caren Biberman on Feb. 24, 2010):

The long term vision is that there be a single platform, WestlawNext, but there is no date for the retirement of Westlaw.com and Mark believes it will be “years.”

Right, "years" isn't exactly the kind of specificity any business model analysis will spit out; it certainly isn't the sort of forecast any enlightened corporate executive wants to base a $1 billion investment decision on. If drunk on the TRI corporate Kool-Aid, the predication might have been one (1) post-WLN launch multi-year Classic Westlaw license renewal before the remainder of the Westlaw subscriber base would be sufficiently small that they could be PO-ed by having no choice but to take WLN (or switch vendors). Under a worst case scenario, two (2) multi-year Westlaw renewals before all Westlaw revenue can be converted to WLN revenue.

In addition to serious concerns raised about West Search as a reliable search engine by law librarians, cost comparisons are another major issue even if TR Legal would eliminate the WLN "premium." Quoting from the abstract of Emily Marcum's The Quest for Client Savings in Online Research: WestlawNext V. Westlaw Classic (April 3, 2012 draft posted on SSRN; Paper not available to download as of June 12, 2012):

WestlawNext and Classic were each used exclusively in transactional mode for eight days. Cost to the client was assessed using a discount off retail model. Classic was found to be 51.6% cheaper. This difference was so stark that the experiment was terminated early and only two days of each platform in hourly mode was completed. WestlawNext hourly was four times more expensive than Classic, even with fewer minutes used.

I haven't had the opportunity to read the full analysis but the conclusion does dovetail into many law librarians' expectations that West Search's federated search model could ratchet up out-of-plan charges substantially. The same, of course, is true for Lexis Advance but at least one gets a sneak peak at an out-of-plan document first. Clearly a variable cost explosion is not going to increase WLN's adoption rate. Clearly, continued comparisons by legal information professionals where Classic Westlaw bests WestlawNext isn't going to increase the voluntary adoption of WLN. If anything, it might advance the take-it-or-leave-it involuntary adoption proposal as current licenses come up for renewal. The best way to sell WLN is to eliminate comparisons with Classic Westlaw and there is only one way to do that -- kill Classic Westlaw.

While the launch of and sales push for the adoption of full-text online legal database search services produced some Luddite reactions in the professional literature 30-plus years ago, that is not the case now. Today's law librarians are tech savvy and cost conscious. Out-of-plan licenses have increasing become the exception, not the norm, in the private sector. A study like Marcum's will only do one thing, namely, increase the march to in-plan only WLN licenses.

There is no doubt in my mind that despite all of the new platform's faults, WLN's adoption rate would be higher than it is today if Thomson Reuters had not applied its 20th century database selection in-plan/out-of-plan licensing scheme to its 21st century West Search federated search engine. One per seat flat rate price for the entire database universe is the only model that makes sense if a federated search engine is going to be the major selling point for current gen search platforms. The same, of course, is also true for Lexis Advance. But I seriously doubt WEXIS will ever consider going that route.

Now, if BLaw grabs and keeps more than a 15% share of the legal search market in the private sector, WEXIS business modelers may start crunching the numbers. Despite BLaw marketing, flat rate pricing is the norm but per seat flat rate for a vendor's entire database universe is not. At least, not yet. [JH]

Supreme Court Action: Habeas Corpus and Appealing An Adverse Civil Service Decision

The Supreme Court issued two opinions this morning.  Neither of them are high profile decisions that will define this term.  The first is Parker v. Matthews (11-845).  It’s a habeas corpus case where the Supreme Court corrects the Sixth Circuit for substituting its judgment for that of the jury and the Supreme Court of Kentucky.  Matthews broke into his estranged wife’s house where over the course of the night he shot and murdered his wife and mother-in-law with a gun he purchased earlier in the day with borrowed money.  He was apprehended at his mother’s house where he was attempting to remove or hide evidence of the crime. 

Matthews introduced psychiatric evidence that he acted under “extreme emotional disturbance” which would have reduced the crime from murder to first-degree manslaughter.  The jury rejected the evidence and convicted Matthews on all charges.  He was sentenced to death.  Matthews claimed on appeal that the evidence did not establish that he acted in the absence of extreme emotional disturbance.  The Kentucky Supreme Court found that there was more than enough evidence to support the capital murder verdict.

Matthews brought a habeas petition in Federal District Court alleging the same grounds in contravention of federal law.  The District Court Judge denied the petition but the Sixth Circuit reversed.  That Court held that the Kentucky Supreme Court had shifted the burden of proving extreme emotional disturbance to Matthews and that Kentucky had failed to prove the absence of extreme emotional disturbance beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Sixth Circuit relied on Kentucky precedent that allocated the burden for proving and overcoming evidence of extreme emotional disturbance.  The Kentucky Supreme Court cited one of its earlier opinions in Matthews’ appeal that absence of extreme emotional disturbance is not an element of the crime of murder that Kentucky needs to prove.  The Sixth Circuit rejected that rationale as a violation of due process by judicially revising the Kentucky murder statute. 

The Supreme Court rejected this, stating this was not the entire basis of Matthew’s conviction.  The jury instructions at the trial required the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Matthews had not acted “under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable justification or excuse under the circumstances as he believed them to be.”  That was enough to sustain the conviction. 

The Sixth Circuit further justified its decision on alleged prosecutorial misconduct via statements in closing arguments that Matthews and his counsel fabricated his defense.  The Court chided the Sixth Circuit for citing its own precedent when Supreme Court precedent controlled the the outcome of the argument.  The opinion was issued per curiam with no dissents.

The second case is Elgin v. Department of Treasury (11-45).  The case concerns a civil service employee who was discharged pursuant to a statute which bars anyone from Executive agency employment who has knowingly and willfully failed to register for the Selective Service as required by the Military Selective Service Act.  Elgin claimed the statute requiring discharge is an unconstitutional bill of attainder and unconstitutionally discriminates on the basis of sex when combined the male-only registration requirement.

The case proceeded through the Merit Systems Protection Board where Elgin’s claim was rejected.  The administrative law judge said he didn’t have the authority to adjudicate the constitutional question. Elgin’s procedural course under the statute was to appeal an adverse decision by the MSPB to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  He instead joined with others in filing a suit in Federal District Court.  The Court found that it had general federal question jurisdiction and denied the constitutional claims on the merits.  The First Circuit reversed, holding that the District Court had no jurisdiction.  Elgin and others could not adopt a different review scheme for their claims simply because they claimed constitutional violations.

The Supreme Court affirmed the First Circuit.  The constitutional claims could be adjudicated in the Federal Circuit once denied by the administrative law judge at the MSPB level.  The statute’s text makes it clear that Congress intended the procedural route it prescribed was the exclusive avenue for adjudication of claims, even constitutional claims.  Elgin’s arguments to the contrary, such as the lack of a record at the MSPB deprived him of a meaningful hearing at the Federal Circuit, were rejected.  The Court stated that the Federal Circuit could take judicial notice of facts related to the constitutional question. 

Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Breyer, and Sotomayor.  Justice Alito dissented, joined by Justices Ginsburg and Kagan.  The Health Care decision waits for another day.  [MG]

BLaw Responds to Push-Backs by Lowering Pricing in Multi-Year Licenses

Quoting from Jean O'Grady's Dewey B Strategic post, Bloomberg Blinks On Pricing: New Lower Pricing Schedule Hits the Market:

When was the last time a vendor sent you a letter advising you that they had just lowered your contract price? In unison we shout "never!" This is something that I think we can file in the "when hell freezes over" drawer.

And yet.... that exact thing happened last week Bloomberg Law subscribers  were advised that Bloomberg Law had lowered the contract price for years three through five in  previously executed multi-year contracts. True to their "everyone gets the same deal" philosophy, law firms which are currently in negotiation will be receiving the revised pricing schedule as well.

(Emphasis in the original.)

Remember, BLaw's five-year license includes opt-outs at the end of year 2 and year 4 with progressive per seat rate increases that approached the full retail rate in year 5. Even before seeing how many law firms would have opted out of firm-wide plans, something I believe would (and still may) happen, BLaw has cut back its pricing to increase its BigLaw firm adoption rate.

To date, there have only been two BLaw press releases about uber BigLaw firms signing up for BLaw. More to follow? [JH]

0Ls, it is not too late to change your mind: No end in sight for law grad job market blues according to NALP

With titles like 'Brutal' Job Market for New Law Grads (Inside Higher Ed) and Two out of three 2011 law school graduates did not get real legal jobs (Inside the Law School Scam) upon the release of selected findings from NALP's Employment Report and Salary Survey for the Class of 2011, you just know the news can't be good. Even NALP's title of its press release, Class of 2011 Law School Grads Face Worst Job Market Yet — Less Than Half Find Jobs in Private Practice is discouraging. Bloomberg News offers a summary of NALP's placement stats in this video clip.

I'm thinking every law school should send the NALP press release to all 0Ls who have been accepted for admission with a note saying "it is not too late to change your mind." [JH]

Browsing On A Sunday: More Rutgers-Camden and Bookstores In 1931

The merger of Rutgers-Camden and Rowan University may become a shotgun marriage after all.  Despite opposition at both universities there is pending legislation that would operate Rutgers-Camden and Rowan as a partnership with a joint governing board.  The legislation is further complicated by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark joining the Rutgers system.  Some articles peg its debt load at $600 million.  The Rutgers University system is at odds with the legislature over how to pay for these kinds of costs if the merger goes through.

One particular piece of fallout is the enrollment at the Rutgers-Camden law school.  NorthJersey.com News quotes Dean Rayman Solomon providing figures of 1,174 applicants so far with 1,601 applicants at this same time next year.  Law school applications are down generally, but Dean Solomon attributes the uncertainty of the proposed merger as a reason for the decline in applicants at Rutgers-Camden.  The merger is seen as benefitting Rowan more than Rutgers.  Rowan staff and faculty and staff will vote on a resolution opposing the merger.  I have a feeling that in a clash of opinions between academics and politicians, that latter have most of the power.

The Atlantic has an article by Alexis Madrigal that gives some detail about the state of publishing and bookstores in 1931.  He riffs on a book he is reading, Two-Bit Culture: The Paperbacking of America, written by Kenneth C. Davis and published in 1984.  The book is about how the paperback caused major cultural and social changes when it appeared in the early 1930s.  What surprises Madrigal is the book’s claim that there were only approximately 500 bookstores nationwide at the time with two-thirds of American counties having no bookstore at all. 

The comments to the story are in many ways more interesting than the story itself.  They describe inexpensive, popular and portable reading material available well before 1931.  They also describe the many outlets for this material that aren’t bookstores, such as department stores, newsstands, travel depots, and general stores where paperbacks were sold.  And then of course, where there weren’t bookstores there were libraries.  The general reaction is that publishers may have catered to the reading elite, but the American public wasn’t starved for reading material or places to buy it.  [MG]

"Imagine a search engine that simply removed the top 1 million most popular web sites from its index. What would you discover?"

Hat tip to Slaw's Omar Ha-Redeye for calling attention to Million Short, a new search engine created by Sanjay Arora. Arora created what he calls "a discovery engine" late one Sunday evening! In The Anti-Google Search Engine, Ha-Redeye writes

The premise behind the site is that it actually removes the most popular sites from search results (top sites are removed, not necessarily the top web results). You can adjust it to remove the top million sites, all the way down to the top one hundred most popular sites online. The rationale is that many of the spammy websites that try to game Google are automatically excluded, potentially providing a more robust and insightful result. ... For legal researchers this could help unearth a treasure trove of more obscure legal web sites with legal commentary or case summaries that would be excluded in either high profile cases or in subject areas where there is a lot of competing but irrelevant information.

[JH]