Law Librarian Blog

Congratulations to the I Love My Librarian 2012 Award Winners

Sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the New York Times and administered by ALA each year, 10 librarians were honored for their commitment to patrons, communities, and libraries at a ceremony in New York City on December 18th. Details on American Libraries Direct. [JH]

AALL Election Results

The 1,373 ballots cast -- meaning only 29.85% of dues paying members were interested in voting -- have been counted in this year's AALL election. Congratulations and good luck to AALL's new national office holders:

Vice President/President-Elect (July 2013 - July 2014):

• Holly M. Riccio, Library Manager for Northern California, O'Melveny & Myers LLP, San Francisco, CA

Treasurer (July 2013 - July 2016):

• Gail Warren, State Law Librarian, Virginia State Law Library

Executive Board (July 2013 - July 2016):

• Femi Cadmus, Edward Cornell Law Librarian, Associate Dean for Library Services, Cornell Law School
• Kenneth J. Hirsh, Director of the Law Library and Information Technology, University of Cincinnati College of Law, Robert S. Marx Law Library

See AALL's election results page for the demographics of this year's voting population.

Considering the low voter turnout, which may not be atypical, does the voter turnout not support the argument and suggested changes in how nominees could appear on the ballot to make AALL more representative of rank-and-file interests at the national level as stated in When "None of the Above" Is Not an Option in Electing AALL National Officers. [JH]

RIP rethinc.k: 2009 - 2012

In his Nov. 26, 2012 blog tombstone post, Jones-McClure's Jason Wilson writes

Read it while you can until the end of the year, then I’m shuttin’ her down. I can’t stand the sight of a dead blog.

"It" is Wilson's rethinc.k blog. All good thing do come to an end.

What Jason doesn't mention is that Jones-McClure's O'Connor's Annotations blog is alive and well. [JH]

Publishing Suicide: Another Possible Merger in the General Trade Publishing Industry

First came the Random House and Penguin Group merger which together will have a combined 28-30% share of the US market if it passes regulatory scrutiny. Now rumors are flying that News Corp, owner of HarperCollins Publishers, is interested in acquiring Simon & Schuster from CBS Corp. Reportedly in preliminary talks, if the deal is concluded, the combined HarperCollins-Simon & Schuster would account for an 18-20% US market share, making it the second largest publisher in the US. For details, see Christopher S. Stewart and John Jannarone's WSJ report, News Corp. Eyes Book Publisher.

The coming consolidation in the the general trade publishing industry has even caught the attention in the law prof blogosphere. On Concurring Opinions, Lawrence Cunningham writes in Suicide in American Trade Publishing:

The slow death of big-time American trade publishing is becoming rapidly more imminent, suggests the Random House-Penguin merger of desperation. Technology is only an accomplice, after the fact, to this fate. The real cause is suicide.

The big publishing houses do precious little to add value to the products they distribute. Except for a handful of editors within a few houses, authors and their own teams of privately-hired agents and editors do all the real work in manuscript writing, editing and rewriting — and marketing.

At many publishing houses, editors do not even read manuscripts, other than acquisition editors giving a skim to verify acceptability and young copy editors going over them for minor quibbles about punctuation and hyphenation.

Ah, OK. Like the above editorial practices aren't already common in the legal publishing cartel. Law librarians have known this for years but it only appeared in the sunlight two years ago

• Raising the Bar for "Publisher's Staff" Content After Rudovsky? On some really bad decisions made by West and its many and varied consequences for not being "proud" of publishing a "sham" pocket part (Dec. 22, 2010)
• The Rudovsky Case and Quality Control (April 21, 2011)
• A Bit More On The Rudovsky Case (Sept. 23, 2011)
• Whatever Happened To The Rudovsky Case? (Nov. 21, 2012)

Cunningham adds

True, publishes create a dust jacket, but though that often takes some skill and a bit of imagination, many covers could be done by any modestly capable graphic designer. Some covers come out with ad copy that suggests that the copy writer, much like her colleagues in editing, didn’t actually read the book. For non-fiction, publishers even outsource the creation of indexes to freelancers.

Hell, legal publishers have standardized book covers. No additional skill or imagination required. Indexing leads to blind page cites. Even title pages oftentimes are not fact-checked for current authorship attributions. [JH]

Erwin C. Surrency, May 11, 1924 - November 8, 2012

Erwin Surrency's law librarian career spanned many decades including serving as law librarian and professor of law for 28 years at Temple and director of the law library at the University of Georgia Alexander Campbell King Law Library in Athens for 15 years. A recognized authority in legal history and a founding member of the American Society for Legal History, the Surrency Prize is awarded annually to the person or persons who wrote the best article published in the Society's journal, the Law and History Review. In 2012, Professor Surrency was inducted into AALL's Hall of Fame. For more about his long and distinguished career, see the Athens Banner-Herald obituary. [JH] 

PLL Summit Resuscitated for 2013

Perhaps I missed the "memo" but I think I would have noticed the news if posted on either AALL's Members Open Forum or PLL-SIS web communities. It certainly was not a news item in the October 2012 issue of the AALL E-newsletter. Not newsworthy enough for what would have been a logical vehicle of web communication to all members?

Buried fairly deep in the Board Book for the E-Board's November 2-3 meeting comes this information:

AALL Executive Board Conference Call Meeting Minutes
Monday, October 1, 2012

MOTION FOR BOARD ACTION:

That the AALL PLL-SIS Summit can be held in 2013, as it has in the past with the PLL-SIS responsible for planning and logistics and that the appropriate charges will be made for administrative service costs incurred by AALL in support of the Summit. These charges to include, but not limited to, room charges, registration costs, credit card fees and bank processing charges.

The motion carried.

(Emohasis added.)

If you attended the Members Open Forum in Boston, the podium people clearly indicated that the Summit was "history" but mumbled that perhaps some sort of PLL-SIS "workshop" sessions could be conducted the day before the Annual Meeting officially commenced instead. The Summit "as it has in the past" was not workshop-oriented. It was and hopefully this announcement means it will remain an exchange of ideas about emerging issues that are impacting the private sector in 2013. Whatever happens in the private sector market will eventually impact the government and academic markets.

PO-ing the PLL-SIS members including something like 300 who attended the 2012 Summit (of which 54 members only attended the Summit) plus the vendor community that financially supported the Summit because the private sector is their major food group just was not smart.

However, do note well that the Board action says nothing about 2014. "Can be held in 2013" is not the same thing as "can continue to be held until further notice." [JH]

Almost a Founding Member? But What the Heck, AALL Has Joined the Owners' Rights Initiative

In the recent flurry of AALL web communities postings on this matter, one time-stamped October 29, 2012 at 11:20 AM in the Members Open Forum announced that "[l]ast week the AALL Executive Committee approved a request from the Copyright Committee for AALL to join the Owners' Rights Initiative." Based on earlier web community messages, my hunch is the decision was made late last week as in the afternoon of Oct. 25 or on Oct. 26. Along with founding members ALA and ARL when ORI was officially launched on Oct. 23, 2012, AALL is now listed as an ORI member. [JH]

General Trade Book Publisher Mergers: Will a Window of Opportunity Be Opening to Revisit the Legal Publishing Industry Cartel?

Pearson and Bertelsmann have agreed to merge their general trade book publishing houses, Penguin and Random House. See yesterday's LLB post by Mark Giangrande and the WSJ's Penguin And Random House To Form Joint Venture Likely Leading To A New Company ("The combination of Penguin and Random House, if it clears antitrust scrutiny, would create a book-publishing powerhouse responsible for roughly a quarter of global English-language consumer book sales." (Emphasis added.))

Why? According to NYT Media Decoder, (in an article published before the announcement) Amy Chozick and Eric Pfanner explain:

The potential consolidation comes as traditional publishers try to compete with dominant technology companies like Amazon, Apple and Google that have gained power in the e-book market. Lower prices offered by retailers like Amazon have put pressure on publishers to adjust their digital book strategy at a time when brick-and-mortar stores have been disappearing.

In other words, a transformative change based on technological innovation in content delivery and commerce is underway. Some industry experts believe big publishing mergers have been "inevitable for some time." See this BBC story. Chozick and Pfanner add

A deal [between Penguin and Random House] could signal a move toward further consolidation among the major publishers, much the way the music industry realigned itself as it made the painful transition to the digital marketplace.

Rapidly aging and decrepit Boomer gen law librarians who lived through what is now the status quo probably would add:

For a case study of a technology-driven industry realignment, check out the consolidation and globalization of the legal publishing industry to learn from the mistakes when consumers fail to present unified aggressive opposition that resulted in cartel-like behavior; don't roll over and play dead like "we" did.

Reporting on the In re Books conference proceedings last Friday the then rumored Penguin-Random House merger may have been in the minds of some participants when the topic of antitrust issues in the general trade book industry was being discussed. Check out Jeff John Roberts' paidContent report, Do book publishers deserve special treatment? Antitrust experts say no. A couple of snips:

“There’s never been a defendant sued for antitrust who didn’t think their market was special,” said Chris Sagers of Cleveland State University, adding that “agency pricing” (a commission-style pricing system used by the publishers to check Amazon) is just another word for price-fixing.

And according to Ariel Katz, a law professor at the University of Toronto, publishers have been engaging in cartel-like behavior for more than a century.

Will AALL extract its collective head out of the sand? In the likely coming merger mania in the general trade book industy, will a window of opportunity present itself for addressing anti-competitive practices in the legal publishing industy? Will AALL see this as an opportunity to address cartel-like behavior by following ALA's robust consumer advocacy efforts for its member buyers and patrons?

Hell if I know but if consolation in the general book trade industry is "inevitable" (and I believe it is) the issue of competition will be addessed in the US and Europe by regulatory bodies. There is no doubt in my mind that our globalized providers of legal information want to stay under the radar of any new regulatory examination of the legal publishing industry. {JH]

You Bought It, You Own It! Owners’ Rights Initiative Launched to Protect Consumers’ Rights

Launched on October 23, 2012, the Owners' Rights Initiative (ORI) is a coalition of retailers, libraries and Internet companies that have joined together to protect ownership rights. See Coalition of businesses, associations, educators and libraries join together to protect ownership rights and global commerce. From ORI's statement of purpose:

We believe in the fundamental premise that if you bought it, you own it, and should have the right to sell, lend or give away your personal property. ORI members are concerned about recent federal court decisions that have eroded owners’ rights. The initiative provides a unified voice for members to engage in advocacy, education and outreach around these important issues.

Founding members include ALA and ARL. See, for example, ALA Joins Coalition to Protect Library Lending Rights ("The coalition was formed to champion “first-sale rights,” or ownership rights, as the issue will be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Kirtsaeng vs. Wiley & Sons, Inc. on October 29, 2012. The Supreme Court’s decision could have adverse consequences for libraries and call into question libraries’ abilities to lend books and materials that were manufactured overseas.") 

About Kirtsaeng, see Mark Giangrande's Supreme Court To Hear Case On Applying The First Sale Doctrine To Foreign Goods, yesterday's post by Mark, The Deeper Implications Of The Pending Kirtsaeng Case and Kirtsaeng vs. Wiley & Sons, Inc (SCOTUSblog). [JH]

Chief Justice Roberts Speaks

Chief Justice Roberts spoke at Rice University earlier this week as part of Rice’s centennial celebration.  Rather than giving a formal lecture, the talk was billed as a conversation with the Chief Justice.  His comments included a concern about the Constitution as applied to new technologies:

"What is the fundamental protection offered by the Constitution when applied to new technology and situations? It's a question that comes along all the time."

Justice Alito addressed this concern in one of the most recent cases, United States v. Jones where the Court confronted this issue.  That case concerned placing a GPS tracking device on a suspect’s vehicle:

The Court argues—and I agree—that “we must ‘assur[e] preservation of that degree of privacy against government that existed when the Fourth Amendment was adopted.’”  Ante, at 5 (quoting  Kyllo  v. United States, 533 U. S. 27, 34 (2001)).  But it is almost impossible to think of late-18th-century situations that are analogous to what took place in this case. (Is it possible to imagine a case in which a constable secreted himself somewhere in a coach and remained there for a period of time in order to monitor the movements of the coach’s owner?³)

³The Court suggests that something like this might have occurred in 1791, but this would have required either a gigantic coach, a very tiny constable, or both—not to mention a constable with incredible fortitude and patience.

It appears that GPS trackers were much larger at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. 

Chief Justice Roberts further addressed collegiality on the Court.  He pointed out that talk of divisiveness is untrue. There are never voices raised in anger at conferences and there is great intellectual depth on the Court.  While the press is fond of labeling Justices as liberal or conservative, many of the Court’s decisions are unanimous.  I’m not so sure about that last part myself.

The story on the talk is in the Houston Chronicle.  There is a video of the talk at the Rice University web site, courtesy of Rice’s Educational Technology Team.  [MG]

Newsweek To End Print Edition

Newsweek has announced that it will end print publication of the magazine with its December 31 edition.  The news source will become a single all-digital subscription edition called Newsweek Global.  Tina Brown and Baba Shetty made the announcement on the pages of The Daily Beast which joined with Newsweek about two years ago.  The announcement contains high hopes for capturing a tablet based user base willing to pay for news and commentary from Newsweek.  Good luck with that. 

The road to online profitability depends on the loyalty of readers drawn to unique content.  Therein lies the problem.  News alone is not unique.  Consider last Tuesday’s presidential debate.  Can’t get past a potential pay wall for Newsweek’s coverage?  Then try The Atlantic, or Time, or Slate, or The New Yorker.  There will always be alternatives for coverage to major news events that are free, and for many readers, good enough.  In fact, some of the same content will appear free on The Daily Beast web site.  How’s that for undermining the model?

I agree that the economics of maintaining print production and distribution is getting less and less viable as time goes on.  I don’t believe, however, that a subscription model will generate the kind of cash that will make the online version of Newsweek successful in a way Tina Brown envisions.  A more detailed analysis of this point is available from Reuters in an article by Felix Salmon.  Oh, and it’s free.

I’ll add one other thought not usually covered in the popular press.  I pity the poor cite checker who will have to explain to his or her law review editor that there is no permanent print version of Newsweek to verify a draft footnote.  I see this problem happening more and more at the reference desk these days. 

We’ll see if Newsweek’s transition from print to digital is profitable, or as profitable as the editors will like.  I’m not so sure that will be the case.  [MG]

Harvard University Library Transitions into the "Digital Future"

Recently Harvard University Library launched its new web portal in beta. For details, see the Harvard Gazette's Library in transition: Harvard moves rapidly into digital future, while preserving past and the University Library's Vision Statement. The Vision Statement includes the following animation entitled "The Future of the Harvard Library". [JH]

Kickstarting Production of Zombie Law: Zombies in the Federal Courts

Joshua Warren has received over $5,000 in pledges to support  his Zombie Law: Zombies in the Federal Courts  project. From the Kickstarter page:

This edited collection is a serious book compendium of epic real life zombie stories as told by the U.S. Federal Courts. This Kickstarter project funds production of a law school style bound casebook to include case opinions from the over 300 U.S. Federal Court opinions with the word “zombie” (and “zombies”, “zombi”, “zombis”, “zombified”, “zombism”, etc..)

[JH]

He Said, He Said and Then Another He Said: Posner v. Scalia's Mediated Point-Counterpoint in Good Old Saturday Night Live News(maker?) Fashion

Adding to Mark's More on Justice Scalia post which followed up my Is Originalism Hitting Its Sell-By Date? post, here's the latest "all the news that's fit to print" as created by the Reuters news branch of the publisher of Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts.

On September 17 Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen J. Adler "interviewed" Justice Scalia (and Bryan Garner) on their book, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts (2012). [Video below; transcript here]. During the interview, Scalia accused Posner of lying in Posner's eviscerating review of the book in The New Republic, The Incoherence of Antonin Scalia. At issue is whether Scalia deviated from his textual originalism to strike down the District of Columbia handgun ban by doing "legislative history" as Adler characterized Posner's remarks about Heller.

"To say that I used legislative history is simply, to put it bluntly, a lie."  -- Antonin Scalia

Quoting the post-interview follow-up article by Thomson Reuters' Terry Baynes in Fanning furor, Justice Scalia says appeals court judge lied (Thomson Reuters News & Insights, Sept. 17, 2012).

Lied, really? At worse it would be a matter of misinterpretation. It this case, however, it is a matter of Adler misrepresenting what Posner said. I'm not saying Reuters' Editor-in-Chief lied about what Posner said in The Incoherence of Antonin Scalia. I prefer to think he simply does not know how to apply "textual originalism" to Posner's text.

Alternatively, Adler could have been slow pitching a lead-in for Scalia to hit one out of the ball park. My hunch is that he at least knew that Scalia (and Garner's) Reading Law is a a repudiation of using "legislative history" in judicial decision-making. Did Reuters' Editor-in-Chief read all 600-plus pages of text before the interview? Don't know but he wouldn't have had to pay for a copy out of his own pocket because it was published by Thomson Reuters.

In response to the headline grabbing pump-it-up to infinity and beyond Reuters mudslinging:

"There is no question that Scalia in Heller was looking for the original meaning of the Second Amendment-that is his method of constitutional and statutory interpretation, the method defended in Reading the Law."  -- Richard Posner

Quoting from Text of Judge Posner's respose to Justice Scalia (Thomson Reuters News & Insights, Sept. 20, 2012).

And then one publication day later came Scalia's response to Posner's response in what Thomson Reuters News & Insights' Terry Bayner charactized as "fir[ing] another salvo in his unusual public feud with Judge Richard Posner over the meaning of 'legislative history.'" (Emphasis in the orginial but "added" because Bayner's entire introduction to Scalia's statement is published in italics which to be fair appears to be the house style for lead-ins to published statements but one can you smell the excitement in Reuters' newsroom for creating the news instead of just reporting it.)

"I stand by my statement." -- Antonin Scalia

Quoting from Scalia v. Posner: Round 4 (Thomson Reuters News & Insights, Sept. 21, 2012).

Keep the buzz alive? Perhaps these two brainiacs eventually will move on to a related judicial decision-making topic. Scalia could go on the offensive by addressing the doctrine of stare decisis as "applied" (read sometimes if not oftentimes ignored) by Posner. Perhaps some grunt at Thomson Reuters News & Insights -- "featuring content from Westlaw" -- can compile the history and treatment of Posner's Seventh Circuit opinions by Scalia for a News & Insights feature to keep the buzz alive. If so, the first thing I would do is slap the scraped text into Lexis for Microsoft Office to fact-check the KeyCites by way of Shepard's.

The below video interview of Scalia (and Garner) by Adler is not characterized as a interview. Adler's role is identified as serving as a moderator. Just Thomson Reuters BS. However, a moderating referee would be required if the feuding principals (sorry Garner) were interviewed together. Since LexisNexis hasn't gotten into the legal news broadcasting business yet, IMHO the only neutral forum is Bloomberg Law. It could be as interesting and entertaining as this still timely classic 1978 SNL Point-Counterpoint skit on the topic of abortion.

For what most likely will be the last traditional legal treatise published by Thomson Reuters, buzz just can't get any better than this. Perhaps TR can talk Justice Thomas into writing a legal treatise on silence. Garner is probably available to "co-author" it. [JH]

Happy 225th "Birthday," U.S. Constitution

The National Constitution Center is "serving as the national headquarters for the 225th anniversary of the Constitution’s signing". [JH]

A Call for Donations from EveryLibrary to Help Establish a PAC for Public Libraries

A grassroots movement, EveryLibrary, is soliciting donations to establish itself as a 501(c)4 dedicated to supporting local library ballot initiatives and voter education campaigns across the US. Donations are needed now for what is being called the nation's first library PAC. For background information, see Beverly Goldberg's ALA article entitled The Campaign Is On to Form the Nation’s First Library PAC. [JH]

Greg McCaffery Named CEO of Bloomberg Law

Quoting from today's press release:

As CEO, McCaffery will be responsible for development and execution of strategy and management of day-to-day operations as Bloomberg Law expands its role as a leader in the field of online legal research. He succeeds Larry Thompson, who is retiring.

[JH]

ABAJ Announces Legal Rebels 2012

Here's the ABAJ article. Kudos to LST's Kyle McEntee:

Kyle McEntee may be young, but he certainly doesn’t mind challenging the institutional gatekeepers of the legal profession. As co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit policy organization Law School Transparency, he has been a principal catalyst behind a crusade to overhaul the business of legal education in the United States.

The is a two-fer year for being recognized for his work. McEntee, 26, is also a member of the 2012 Class of the Fastcase 50. [JH]

Vendor-Provided Information Solutions for National Party Conventions This Presidential Election Year: First, Lexis-GOP Convention, Second?, Third? ...

Earlier this week it was announced that LexisNexis was named the online research provider for the GOP convention [Dayton Business Journal, Aug. 21, 2012].

"LexisNexis is relied on by business professionals, attorneys, government officials and journalists alike for current state-of-the-art information solutions. We're grateful for their participation" -- William Harris, CEO of the 2012 Republican National Convention Committee on Arrangements.

Like OMG dude, I thought the Republican Party relied on Fox News for its information solutions. Will the Democrats just rely on MSNBC or one of our competing vendors for its convention's information solutions?

Love 3 Geekster Greg Lambert's tweet comment: "hmm… if LexisNexis gets the GOP convention does that mean Westlaw gets the Dems? Bloomberg gets the Libertarians? ;-)" I guess that leaves the Green Party with state-of-the-art open access information solutions. [JH]

ATL's Elie Mystal Can Now Perform Marriages

Just '[l]ike a mayor. Or a ship’s captain." For details, see Above the Law Can Now Legally Perform Weddings: Now Tell Me How Marriage Is A Sacred Institution. I'm wondering if ATL's business plan will add an online wedding chapel soon. [JH]