Law Librarian Blog

Carol Parker Joins Law Librarian Blog Editorial Board

I'm delighted to announce that Carol Parker has agreed to join the editorial board of Law Librarian Blog as a contributing editor. Carol is Law Library Director and Assistant Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law. Prior to joining UNM, Carol was Assistant Director at the Wayne State University Law Library. Before that, she served as the Head of Faculty & Public Services in the Law Library at the Michigan State University College of Law.

Carol teaches Wills and Trusts, and Advanced Legal Research at the UNM School of Law and previously has taught Legal Research, Writing and Advocacy at Michigan State University. Immediately after graduating from Wayne State University Law School, Carol clerked at the Michigan Court of Appeals. While at Wayne State University Law School, she served as an Assistant Editor of the Wayne Law Review.

Carol's current research interests include the impact of the open access movement on legal scholarly communication, a topic on which she presented at the 2005 CALI conference. Her forthcoming article, Institutional Repositories and the Principle of Open Access: Changing the Way We Think About Legal Scholarship, is featured in Law Librarian Blog today (see above).

I'm confident that you will enjoy Carol's contributions to Law Librarian Blog. Thanks Carol! [JH]

Ron Jones to Serve as Co-Editor

I want to thank my Cincinnati Law colleague, Ron Jones, for all the heavy lifting he has performed for the Law Librarian Blog during the last several weeks. He has been covering developments for me while I have been out of town, working my “day job," etc. What's the old adage, those who work, get more work. Well, I am very pleased to announce that Ron, who has been serving as a contributing editor for over a year, has agreed to join me as a co-editor of Law Librarian Blog.

Ron joined the staff of the University of Cincinnati Law Library in 1997 serving as Head of Circulation. He received his MLS from the University of Kentucky in 2000. In 2001, Ron was hired as a Reference Librarian. His responsibilities were expanded to include Electronic Services in 2005. In the fall of 2005, Ron was awarded tenure. Ron serves on a number of law library and university libraries committees. He also help Cincinnati Law Prof Paul Caron by serving as the Research Associate for the TaxProf Blog.

Ron and his wife, Erin, are the proud parents of a six year old daughter and two year old son. They are expecting a second son in late September. Once Ron and Erin stop making babies (and stop changing diapers), Ron plans to go to law school.

-- Joe Hodnicki

Our Reader Survey is Underway

Please take a moment to fill out our short reader survey here.  We would like to have a better idea about who is reading this blog so we can better serve you.  Thanks in advance for your help.  (The survey will remain at the top of the middle column throughout this week.)

Why Don't Librarian Blog Posts Generate Comments?

Betsy McKenzie gives us her explanation for why librarian blogs don't receive many comments at Out of the Jungle. Of course, her post received two comments within 24 hours of publication. I guess that disproves my theory, which was that we're just too busy to comment.

Horrors! Can it be because librarian posts are just too damn boring?

Dennis Kennedy Awards Law Librarian Blogs the Best Legal Blog Category

In 2004, Dennis Kennedy judged law librarian blogs to be runner-up in the category of best law blog trends. Interestingly, he picked Sabrina Pacifici's BeSpacific winner of the the 2004 Best Overall Legal Blog award . As most know, Sabrina is one of the great phenoms in online law librarianship publishing. In addition to being a DC law firm librarian for 25 years, Sabrina publishes the webzine LLRX.com as well as BeSpecific. (If you do not visit Sabrina's site daily then at lease subscribe to her email newsletter at http://www.bespacific.com/mt/subscribe.html )

This year, law librarian blogs received Dennis Kennedy's Best Legal Blog Category award. He wrote:

I stand in awe of the job that law librarian bloggers as a group are doing. Across the board, these blogs have developed into strong information resources, often with links to primary source information that I'm not sure how I would find otherwise. There are so many great blogs in this category. I'll simply mention a few to get you started.

I am please to announce that Law Librarian Blog was one of the blogs he listed by name. To be listed with such excellent blogs as Sabrina Pacifici's BeSpacific, Slaw.com and many others is a great honor. See http://www.denniskennedy.com/archives/2005_12.html#a000959 for all listed librarian blogs as well as a complete list of all 2005 awards.

Interestingly, Kennedy gave the 2005 Best Overall law-Related Blog award to Tom Mighell's Inter Alia. Tom's blog was runner-up in this category in 2004 and certainly is most deserving of this award now. Tom is not a law librarian but he can give any law librarian a run for his or her money when it comes to identifying useful legal resources.

Clearly Dennis has a "thing" for legal research blogs.

Law Librarian Blog is One Year Old!

Today is the anniversary of the first post published on Law Librarian Blog. See Putting Law Librarian Blog in Perspective. I would like to thank my contributing editors - Neal Axton (William Mitchell), Mark Giangrande (DePaul), Ron Jones (Cincinnati) and Lee Peoples (Oklahoma City) - for helping me with this blog. Together we posted stories every day last year. In fact, we posted 1,889 stories in 2005.

And it has been quite a ride: 87,799 visitors and an amazing 126,436 page views in 2005. Thank you for your patronage.

Editor's Note

Some of the recently posted materials are less current than they should be. Over the weekend I had a family matter requiring my attention, one that keep me away from the Internet for four days. I started performing email triage yesterday afternoon; 700-plus email messages in my  three email accounts!

- Joe Hodnicki

Law Librarian Blog To Be Captured for MINERVA

I am proud to announce that the Library of Congress has selected Law Librarian Blog for inclusion in LC's historic collection of Internet materials related to the Supreme Court. This collection of materials will be called the Supreme Court Web Archive. It is part of the MINERVA Web Preservation Project. Never in my wildest dreams did I think this little blog would be deemed one of the nation's cultural artifacts worthy of preservation by the Library of Congress.

Blogs as Providers of Research-Quality Content

Last Monday's USA Today featured a story on student use of blogs for research purposes. No law library angle in the story but it reminded me of a compliment fellow blogger, Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog, received several months ago. It seems that a tax student cited Paul's blog in a paper the student wrote. The student's prof emailed Paul to tell him about it because the blog citation in a student paper was a first in the prof's experience.

No longer. Blogs are cited in court opinions, law reviews, etc. The new edition of the Bluebook even has a rule for blog citation format.

Law blogs that provide news and analysis without the attitude and drama, like the ones we strive for at Law Professor Blogs, are legitimate sources for legal research now.

If you know of a prof who might be interested in covering a legal subject in a blog in such a way that the blog becomes a useful research tool, please send him or her my way. If you would like to contribute to the Law Librarian Blog to help make it a better publication, whether on a regular, semi-regular, or occasional basis please contact me.

Joe Hodnicki, editor of Law Librarian Blog.

Co-founder and web producer of the Law Professor Blogs Network.

Juris Novus Featuring Blogs from the Law Professor Blogs Network

The Law Professor Blogs Network is proud to announce a collaboration with Juris Novus, one of the finest law blog aggregators online. Juris Novus will be featuring a rotating cast of blogs from our Network.

Statement from Juris Novus:

Keeping up with the blogsphere is a daunting task as new blogs come online daily. Juris Novus provides order and centralization, pulling together relevant headlines and presenting them on a single page. Law professors greatly influence the legal blogsphere. Academia demands a clear writing voice and current knowledge of legal ongoings. Successful blogging demands the same, it comes as no surprise that professors have risen to the top of the law blogsphere. In honor of those law professors who have contributed to the rich culture of the legal blogsphere, Juris Novus features a heavier balance of law professor blogs.

Juris Novus is updated three times an hour and stores headlines on a history page when you miss a day. Save time and simplify your day with Juris Novus. Thank you for making the legal blogsphere a better place!

Fourth of July Weekend Hiatus

The Law Librarian Blog will be on hiatus from July 2 through July 4 while I recuperate from minor knee surgery. I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holiday.

-- Joe Hodnicki, Editor

Was It Just My Imagination?

Or in his inaugural address did President Bush really say

Weekend Roundup

In case you missed them, here are last weekend's posts.

Saturday Posts:

• Top Ten Privacy Stories of 2004
• Index to Legal Periodicals Goes Retro
• Scalia and Breyer on Foreign Law and the US Constitution
• Belated Happy Anniversary to BoingBoing

Sunday Posts:

• Illinois Courts Implement CM/ECF
• A Quick Look at the Search Systems Free Public Records Directory
• A Quick Look at the Trial Watch Database

Please Take This Survey

West Publishing Company and Foundation Press, sponsors of this blog and our Law Professor Blogs Network, have asked that we help identify our readership through this on-line survey.  They (and we) would like to figure out the mix of professors, judges, lawyers, librarians, students, and others who read this blog.  The survey takes less than a minute to complete.  Thanks in advance for your help.