Law Librarian Blog

Slouching Toward a Study of Blogs by "Library People"

Walt Crawford, Director and Managing Editor of the PALINET Leadership Network, is considering the prospect of studying changes in blogging patterns by "library people" (not library blogs, not just professional librarians). See his Changes in Liblogs: Slouching Toward a Study. He is inviting comments to help him decide. Go to A really big look at liblogs: Good idea or waste of time? to post them. Comments will be more useful if posted before June 8, 2008. [JH]

You Choose '08 YouTube Channel Launched by Google and C-Span

From the Google Blog: Our You Choose '08 platform now features content from candidates, news organizations, and voters, and we've made it easier than ever to see where the candidates stand on each of the major issues in this election. The next big stop on the campaign trail is Pennsylvania, so we're partnering with C-SPAN to collect videos from voters across the country who will answer the question, "What is the most important issue to you in this election?" [JH]

What Can You (Legally) Take From the Web?

Interesting post from IEEE Spectrum describing how copyright applies to bloggers and webmasters.  Check it out!

See also: Legal Consequences of Co-Blogging: "The decision to blog collaboratively can have significant legal consequences for the co-bloggers. In part 1 of a two-part series, Eric Goldman examines how current legal doctrines relevant to co-blogging can lead to unexpected (and possibly unwanted) results." Here's Legal Consequences of Co-Blogging, Part 2)  [RJ]

European Privacy Rules Apply to Search Engines

The Article 29 Working Group has established "a clear set of responsibilities" on search engine companies regarding their handling of user data. The opinion (pdf) states that the European Union Data Protection Directive requires search engines to "delete or irreversibly anonymise personal data once they no longer serve the specified and legitimate purpose" for which they were collected. This requirement has particular significance for search engines, because European privacy rules classify Internet Protocol (IP) addresses as "personal data." The opinion further holds that European privacy laws generally apply to search engines "even when their headquarters are outside [Europe]," and requires that search engines must delete personal data within six months of collection.

Details at EPIC's Search Engine Privacy. Hat tip to beSpacific. [JH]

A Must-Read, Zittrain's The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It

A superb and alarming discussion, from one of the most astute and forward-looking analysts of the Internet. Zittrain explains how the glorious promise of the Internet might not be realized—and points the way toward reducing the current risks.  Absolutely essential reading." — Cass Sunstein, Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence, The University of Chicago Law School

The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It
by Jonathan Zittrain

List Price: $30.00
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press (April 14, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0300124872
ISBN-13: 978-0300124873

Book Description: This extraordinary book explains the engine that has catapulted the Internet from backwater to ubiquity—and reveals that it is sputtering precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of its users, the generative Internet is on a path to a lockdown, ending its cycle of innovation—and facilitating unsettling new kinds of control. 

IPods, iPhones, Xboxes, and TiVos represent the first wave of Internet-centered products that can’t be easily modified by anyone except their vendors or selected partners. These “tethered appliances” have already been used in remarkable but little-known ways: car GPS systems have been reconfigured at the demand of law enforcement to eavesdrop on the occupants at all times, and digital video recorders have been ordered to self-destruct thanks to a lawsuit against the manufacturer thousands of miles away. New Web 2.0 platforms like Google mash-ups and Facebook are rightly touted—but their applications can be similarly monitored and eliminated from a central source. As tethered appliances and applications eclipse the PC, the very nature of the Internet—its “generativity,” or innovative character—is at risk.

The Internet’s current trajectory is one of lost opportunity. Its salvation, Zittrain argues, lies in the hands of its millions of users. Drawing on generative technologies like Wikipedia that have so far survived their own successes, this book shows how to develop new technologies and social structures that allow users to work creatively and collaboratively, participate in solutions, and become true “netizens.”

About the Author: Jonathan L. Zittrain is the Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University and co-founder of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Social Media Sites of Presidential Contenders

• Barack Obama: Blog
• Hillary Clinton: Blog
• John McCain: Blog | McCainSpace

[JH]

Hoeflich Launches The Legal Antiquarian Blog

Michael H. Hoeflich, the John H. & John M. Kane Professor of Law and former dean of the University of Kansas School of Law, is an internationally recognized authority on legal history, Roman law, and the history of the legal profession.  He is the author of An Inquiry into the Origin of the Laws And Political Institutions of Modern Europe, Particularly Those of England (2006) (with George Spence) and Roman and Civil Law and the Development of Anglo-American Jurisprudence in the Nineteenth Century (1997) and editor of Sources of the History of the American Law of Lawyering (2008) [our post] and The Gladsome Light of Jurisprudence: Learning the Law in England and the United States in the 18th and 19th Centuries (1988). In 2004, he delivered the first Tarlton Law Library Rare Books Lecture, now available for purchase [details].

Professor Hoeflich has just launched a blog, The Legal Antiquarian. The Legal Antiquarian is devoted to the history of the material culture of the law, i.e. to the various aspects of legal history having to do with the daily life of lawyers and judges, as well as to the sources, manuscript, printed, and otherwise preserved which can be used by legal historians to help understand how law and the legal profession functioned in the past. Among the subjects Professor Hoeflich intends to cover will be the daily lives of lawyers, their practices, their offices, the books they owned and read, etc.

These are perfect topics for a blog and something I believe most law librarians will find very interesting. Check it out! [JH]

Check Out LII Announce Blog

From the hardworking crew who produce Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute (LII) comes LII Announce, a blog which according to its about page will consist of "announcements, featured content, and the occasional bizarre legal information factoid from the LII." It's great to see that LII staffers have a sense of humor. Here's an example from a recent "favorite quotes" post:

"The timorous may stay at home." -- Benjamin Cardozo, Murphy v. Steeplechase Amusement Co., 250 NY 479 .

Frequently used at the LII when deploying new software or hardware

Humor aside, LII Annouce looks like a blog worth reading for its coverage of legal developments and insights into the operation of LII. Welcome to the legal blogosphere! [JH]

Web 2.0 and Privacy

Legal experts again raised their concerns that the rise of Web 2.0 has come at the expense of individual privacy. This time at the Legal Futures Conference; read more about it on c|net: To be anonymous or not to be, that is the privacy question

Related c|net coverage of Stanford's Legal Futures Conference:

• Why we should care about the spectrum debate
• The future of professional content, ad infinitum

[JH]

Online Companions to Law Reviews -- Fizz or Fizzle?

Online law review companions can take several forms (websites, blogs, forums, etc) for a number of purposes (publishing scholarship on topics that might not fit the editorial confines of the hardcopy review,  providing a means for responses and critiques of recently published articles, etc). On PrawfsBlawg, Scott Dodson (Arkansas) wonders about the value of online companions to law reviews. Do they?  Unfortunately, Dodson poses the question without surveying the landscape of this form of web communications.

Hat tip to Adjunct Law Prof Blog. [JH]

A Portrait of Early Internet Adopters

A recent Pew/Internet survey asked early Internet adopters why they first went online. The majority of respondents noted "to communicate with colleagues." In other words, to network via a new communications medium. "Social networking is nothing new. Remember BBSs and Usenet, chat rooms and threaded discussions" writes Amy Tracy Wells in A Portrait of Early Internet Adopters: Why People First Went Online --and Why They Stayed (February 20, 2008). [JH]

Worldcat's New Facebook Plug-in

We reported on the launch of Worldcat.org in 2006, but the program has recently become more social by integrating with the popular social networking site, Facebook. The Facebook plug-in complements Worldcat's search plug-ins for the Firefox and Google Toolbars.

As if you needed another reason to have Facebook open on the reference desk...[NA]

Recently Launched, Micro-blogging at law.librarians

law.librarians, an experiment in collabrative micro-blogging, was launched earlier this month. In Twitter fashion, posts are very brief, like this one. List of Contributors Great idea! [JH]

Webcast: Justice Ginsburg and Baroness Hale on the British and US Legal Systems

Associate Justice Ginsburg and Baroness Hale, the first woman to join the British House of Lords as a "Lord of Appeal in Ordinary," discuss the British and U.S. legal systems in this archived webcast of an event sponsored by the Supreme Court Fellows Program Alumni Association and the Georgetown Law Supreme Court Institute. [RJ]

Sidebar, the Blog for Court TV Junkies

When Court TV was replaced with truTV ("not reality. actuality" programming) this year [our post], fans were left with only six hours of trial coverage, In Session, which is aired from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (ET). But Sidebar, In Session's blog, has been added to the mix. "Sidebar takes you behind the scenes of the day's legal headlines with breaking news and in-depth analysis from In Session's anchors and correspondents."

From the blog's About Page:

At Sidebar, our distinguished anchors and correspondents will bring you the latest breaking trial news, along with expert legal analysis. We’ll tell you what’s coming up on the docket. Our correspondents and anchors take you behind the scenes. We’ll give you our observations, insights, comments and opinions on what is happening in and around America’s courtrooms. We are excited about our new home at CNN.com and look forward to your suggestions and ideas as we continue to develop this new venture.

[JH]

What if the Machine Stopped

Recently a major undersea cable failure in the Mediterranean brought down Internet services in much of Asia, the Middle East and northern Africa. What if the failure was permanent? Would civilization as we know it come to a grinding halt if the Internet stopped working? Check out Lynn Greiner's Networkworld article, What if the Internet went down...and didn't come back up? Civilization, no. But "the business world would come to an end until they completely rebuilt their business model." So would law school student legal research! [JH]

New Companion Website to Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law

The Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, a peer-evaluated, faculty-student journal published semi-annually by The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law has launched an online companion website, OSJCL Amici: Views From the Field. Hosting timely commentaries from crim law practitioners, OSJCL Amici: Views from the Field aspires to "help bridge divide between the academy and the practicing community by creating a venue for leading practitioners to engage with academics, students, the public, and others in the criminal law field." [JH]

A Quick Look at the Annotated Justinian Code Website

In Tim Kearley's Justice Fred Blume and the Translation of Justinian’s Code, 99 Law Library J. 525 (2007), he mentioned the Annotated Justinian Code website.  The site went live late last year. Created with the support of an AALL/Aspen research grant, the site contains PDFs of Justice Blume’s copiously annotated English translation of Justinian’s Code—the only English translation made from the Latin version regarded as most authoritative. It also includes Blume’s scanned translation of the Novels; his 100+ page "The Code of Justinian, and it’s Value"—an address he delivered part of to the Riccobono Society in 1938 but which has never been published and several additional Blume-related items. [JH]

Jimmy Wales Summons Librarians to Helps Improve Wikipedia

"Librarians are not engaging with the academies," said Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. "If libraries throughout the world formed regional groups and made an effort, they would be playing a positive role within Wikipedia. The job of the librarian is about highlighting the weaknesses and strengths of information." Read Mark Chillingworth's Information World Review article for more and check out Phil Bradley's thoughts. [JH]

2007 Gold Mouse Report: Lessons from the Best Web Sites on Capitol Hill

From the press release:

"A new report from the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) on congressional Web sites says the overall quality “continues to be disappointing,” with more than 40% of congressional Web sites earning a substandard or failing grade. The report also contains recognition and praise for the best Web sites on Capitol Hill with the announcement of the winners of the 2007 Gold, Silver, and Bronze Mouse Awards. 

"The good news is that 19 more offices won awards in 2007 than did in 2006, including 16 freshmen Members.  The bad news is that there were 20 more D's and F's," said Beverly Bell, Executive Director of CMF, a non-profit, non-partisan organization founded 30 years ago to promote a more effective Congress.  "We were glad to see good sites getting better, but discouraged to see the bad getting worse."

Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, The 2007 Gold Mouse Report: Lessons from the Best Web Sites on Capitol Hill evaluated 618 congressional Web sites, including those of all Senate and House Members and Delegates, committees (both majority and minority sites) and official leadership sites.  Providing invaluable assistance for the 2007 report were research partners from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, the University of California-Riverside, and Ohio State University."  [RJ]

Council on Foreign Relations Launches Campaign 2008 Website

CFR.org's Campaign 2008 site tracks the presidential campaign through the prism of foreign policy issues, featuring Candidate Position and Issue Trackers, a daily blog, transcripts of debates and speeches, up-to-date polling data, and more. Campaign 2008 is a one-stop resource for critical information on the upcoming elections. [JH]

What Non-Librarian Blogs Should Librarians Be Reading?

As a follow-up to their 10 Librarian Blogs Librarians Should Read In 2008 [our post], LISNews is soliciting recommendations for the 10 non-librarian blogs librarians should read in 2008.

My suggestion: INFO/LAW by young law profs William McGeveran (Minnesota), Derek Bambauer (Wayne State) and Tim Armstrong (Cincinnat), all former Berkman Center for Internet and Society fellows [Blog's About Page]. Back in 2007, I characterized INFO/LAW as the blog librarians should be but aren't yet reading. Hopefully that has changed. [JH]

Academic Peer Review: Anonymous Blog Commenting v. Traditional Peer Review

Let the games begin! Read more about this experiment in Jeffrey Young's Chronicle article, Blog Comments and Peer Review Go Head to Head to See Which Makes a Book Better. Hat tip to INFO/LAW's Can Crowdsourcing Beat Academic Peer Review? [JH]

HTML5 Working Draft Released by W3W

The W3C has released the Working Draft of HTML5 (Jan. 22, 2008). In this version, new features are introduced to help Web application authors, new elements are introduced based on research into prevailing authoring practices, and special attention has been given to defining clear conformance criteria for user agents in an effort to improve interoperability. See also HTML Design Principles (Nov. 23, 2007) which describes the set of guiding principles used by the HTML Working Group for the development of HTML5.

Hat tip to LISNews. [JH]

CU-Boulder Law School Launches Website Offering Environmental Problem-Solving Tools

From the press release:

The Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder Law School has created a new information series for The Red Lodge Clearinghouse, a Web site project that provides tools for individuals or groups seeking to address environmental problems.

The first edition of the new series addresses how to work with federal notice and comment processes, said Lauren Ris, coordinator for the project.

"The Red Lodge Clearinghouse provides resources to individuals and groups in their efforts to address environmental challenges through collaboration stories, funding information, the Collaboration Handbook, summaries of legislation and regulations and up-to-date news," said Ris. "Viewers are provided a primer on how to work within the process, tips on how to write effective comments and insights from a federal official responsible for running a comment process, as well as links to additional resources."

The goal of the series, said Ris, is to explore the process of collaboration -- in its many forms and applications -- as well as other approaches that may accompany, enhance or even replace a collaborative process.

According to Ris, future editions of the series will provide information on public hearings, meetings, field trips, open houses, administrative protests and appeals, alternative dispute resolution, legislation, litigation and collaboration. For each of these topics, she said, the Clearinghouse will evaluate the risks and benefits of various approaches, provide examples of their successes and failures and illustrate lessons learned.

Check out The Red Lodge Clearinghouse Website. [JH]

Sunstein on the Internet and Political Polarization

"[A]s a result of the Internet, we live increasingly in an era of enclaves and niches -- much of it voluntary, much of it produced by those who think they know, and often do know, what we're likely to like. This raises some obvious questions. If people are sorted into enclaves and niches, what will happen to their views? What are the eventual effects on democracy?"

Read more about it in The Polarization of Extremes by Cass Sunstein (University of Chicago). [JH]

Two Academic Website Studies by Primary Research Group

The Primary Research Group has published Academic Library Website Benchmarks and The Survey of College Website Management Practices. Details excerpted from the press release. [JH]

Academic Library Website Benchmarks
85.00; a PDF version, for $92.50
(ISBN #:1-57440-094-0).

The report presents data from 82 North American college libraries about their library website policies and development plans. Some of the report's findings are that: 

• More than three quarters of all respondents plan a major redesign of the library website within the next two years. Nearly 85% of research universities (84.6%) planned a website redesign in this period. A high percentage of colleges with FTE enrollments below 2,000 (82%) planned to redesign their website within the next two years, compared to 72.7 to 78.3% of colleges with higher enrollments.
• The library information technology or web staff accounted for over 76% of the total man-hours spent running the college library websites for the colleges in the sample. College-wide IT or web staff performed an average of just 15.76% of the labor necessary to run the college library websites in the sample.
• Nearly 42% of survey participants used a content editing system provided by the central college web staff. 
• Of the libraries that do use a content management system, just over a quarter expressed satisfaction for the most part and had no plans for changing software or management methods in the future. Another 31.4% reported that they were not completely satisfied and might change content management systems or their policies.
• The mean number of library staff or personnel who entered content into the college library website in the last full semester was 13.24. Community colleges had just 2.5 library employees entering content, compared to 5.2 employees at 4-year/MA granting institutions and 11.1 at PhD-level granting institutions. Research universities reported the highest number of library staff entering data, at 51.8, and a maximum of 200.
• Nearly half of survey participants selected JavaScript as their most commonly used scripting language on the college website.
• For a shade less than two thirds of the libraries (64.9%) the library website budget was part of the library IT budget, and not separately broken out; 35.1% considered it part of the college IT budget.
• More than 8 out of 10 college libraries use cascading style sheets at least to some degree.
• Approximately one in ten college libraries have a presence on the social networking site MySpace.
• The mean number of interactive tutorials on how to use the library or its services made available on the library website was 3.84, with a maximum of 50. Community colleges reported the fewest available interactive tutorials with a sample mean of just 0.82, while other institution types reported an average of between four and five.  The mean number of end users who have visited or used these interactive tutorials in the past year was 3,757 with a maximum of 33,657.
• Over three quarters of the libraries in the sample (76.8%) do not have a "My Library" type of service for users to log in to, save research or favorite places, and bookmark other commonly used library resources.
• The mean number of files on the library website was just over 5,400.
• Just over a third of the sample responded that they were currently offering federated search capabilities from the website, so that a broad range of library databases could be searched at once. Three out of four research universities had federated search capabilities, compared to just 53.33% of PhD-level granting institutions, 29.27% of 4-year/MA granting institutions, and just 8.33% of community colleges. The mean number of subject-specific search windows offered through federated searches was 19.72.

The Survey of College Website Management Practices
$249.00.

North American colleges spent a mean of nearly $28,000 on website development consulting fees in the 2006-07 academic year, according to The Survey of College Website Management Practices, just published by Primary Research Group. The 171-page study presents more than 500 tables of data about college websites, and is based on data from 68 North American colleges. Just a few of the study's hundreds of findings are that: 

• 29.41% of the colleges in the sample had a policy in place to communicate in a crisis with students, faculty and staff through text messaging to cell phones.
• About 22% of the webmasters in the survey use Apple/Mac as a main supplier of personal computers or workstations.
• Lumnis was the most commonly used type of portal software, used by 47.83% of those that reported use of a portal software.
• 45.6% of the colleges in the sample allow postings for faculty and staff blogs.
• The webmaster was the main training provider for 48.39% of web staffs reporting, while others on the web staff were the main trainers for 32.56% of survey participants. For 19.35% of those surveyed, another unit of the college handled training.
• Thirty seven percent of public college webmasters review departmental or division sites every 1-2 years.
• Significantly less than half of the colleges in the sample, 43.75%, required all college websites to conform to a single graphic style
• 68.52% of the colleges in the sample used a content management system for departmental web pages.
• The mean number of students employed by the college web staff was only 0.99 and the mean was only 0.50, and no college employed more than six students on the web staff. 
• Most college had at least one website editor, and the mean number per college was 1.05. 
• Close to 45% of respondents said that the most important person for initiating major website changes was a college official in the public affairs/university marketing department (or similar such department such as External Relations).
• Only about 16% of colleges allowed deans to change the website without prior clearance.
• PHD-level/research universities vastly outspent others, averaging almost $263,000 in salary spending for the web staff. More than 13% of the web staffs in the sample receive primary or ancillary finding from specific campus services or functional units, such as The Department of Public Relations, in addition to or rather than directly from the college administration.
• More than 58% of the colleges in the sample had a centralized web governance structure. Private colleges were much more likely than public colleges to have a centralized structure, by which we mean a structure that concentrates decision-making power in a centralized locus rather than dispersing it among several webmasters or authority centers.
• The 68-college sample has nine community colleges, 41 BA/MA level colleges, and eighteen PHD-level or research universities. Mean enrollment FTE for the public colleges in the sample was 13,419; for the private colleges, 4,103.

OCLC Interviews Experts on Social Media Trends

NextSpace (The OCLC Newsletter) asked nine experts to explore and comment on the trends and behaviors of users of the social Web: Lori Bell (Alliance Library Systems, Second Life Librarian and Director of Innovation), Edward Castronova (Indiana University, Associate Professor of Telecommunications),Paul Jones (ibiblio.org, Director), Hemanshu Nigam (MySpace, Chief Security Offfice), Kitty Pope (Alliance Library System, Second Life Librarian and Executive Director), Fred Stutzman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ph. D. Student), Stuart L. Weibel, Ph. D. (OCLC, Consulting Research Scientist). Here's the link to the interview.

Hat tip to Gary Price, The Resource Shelf. [JH]

Law Student Uses Facebook Group to Promote Health Care Reform

Jeff Traylor, a Lewis & Clark Law School student, has turned to Facebook to advocate for universal health care. In the year between his graduation from college and his first year in law school, Jeff Traylor worked in a restaurant and was similar to approximately 44 million Americans in this respect: He had no health insurance. Having confronted the choice facing many Americans between paying bills or buying medicine, Traylor created 1,000,000 Strong for Universal Health Care in America that he hopes will help people “get organized, get active, and begin the campaign for reform and a real solution.” [Politico story] Check out Taylor's Facebook group. [JH]

Web Project to Unite People With Their Lost Gloves

Jennifer Gooch's mission was to create a simple Web site where people could go to find their lost gloves. Her Pittsburgh-based site, One Cold Hand, went live about a month ago, and she's already reunited four gloves with their owners. Now there's a site for New York City with more in development. CNN has the story. Very cool. [JH]

OpenCongress Launches Facebook App!

OpenCongress has launched a new OpenCongress Facebook application. The app lets you post bills to your profile, show your support or opposition, and comment on why they're important to you. And of course, each bill links back to OpenCongress, so your friends can get all the info they need in order to get involved with the issues themselves. Very cool. [JH]

Join the OpenCongress Users group | Add the app to your Facebook profile

CDT Critique of Searchability of Federal Websites

The Center for Democracy & Technology reports that many important information sources within the federal government are essentially hidden from the very search engines that the public is most likely to use in the Center's Hiding in Plain Sight: Why Important Government Information Cannot Be Found Through Commercial Search Engines.

CDT Recommendations to Help Agencies Ensure Their Content Is Accessible to Search

• Congress should pass the E-Government reauthorization act, which would require OMB to create best practices to encourage searchability of federal Web sites.
• OMB should officially recognize the importance of commercial search to Internet users and work with the CIO Council to adopt policies to help users find information.
• Agencies should adopt an information policy that makes public accessibility of online content and resources a priority.
• Agencies should create Sitemaps of content on their sites, with special attention given to materials stored in databases and accessible only through drop-down menus. For example, many agencies have FAQ databases that are not accessible to search crawlers but contain very succinct and useful answers to common questions.
• Agencies should review their use of robots.txt files in order to ensure they are used in the least restrictive way possible. Every effort should be made to include, rather than exclude, materials from the website, whether materials were excluded purposefully or accidentally in the past.

Hat tip to Mark Giangrande (DePaul Law Library), Tech Law Prof Blog, who writes, "This is just shocking news, except possibly to reference librarians who regularly use government web sites." Yup. [JH]

Reflections on Computer-Mediated Instant Conversaton

The age of computer-mediated instant conversation is upon us. Will the economy of ideas implode under its own weight, now rapidly increasing because of the popularity of social media? Not according Heaton and McLellan, editors of The Age of Conversation, a compilation of articles about "conversation" by 103 bloggers. Read more about it. See also Snippets from the Digital Age. [JH]

Commercials 24/7

Brought to you bv Firebrand,  a new Internet video startup financed by Microsoft, NBC Universal and GE. Search engine, playlist, subtitles, what more can you ask for? [JH]

Students Rank BigLaw Work Environments

Building a Better Legal Profession ranks and grades large, private law firms on several workplace factors, such as diversity of partners, pro bono work, and billable hours.

Hat tip to Melanie Oberlin, Moritz Legal Information Blog. [JH]

Guantanamo Bay Manual leaked to Wiki

Wired has an article on a sensitive Guantanamo Bay manual leaked to a wiki designed specifically for whistle-blowers, mostly political but also corporate.  Wikileaks is of no relation to wikipedia, but runs on the same platform.  Anyone can post materials and the founders trust in the masses to vet any document's authenticity and comment upon its veracity.  More about wikileaks goals and policies here, and here is a description of the Advisory Board.  An interesting if controversial use of 2.0 technology that was launched in January.

[JJ]

Law Librarian Blog Ranks as Genius

This site ranks the readability of blogs.  I'm happy to report, LLB and our readers are geniuses.  Congratulations everyone!   [JJ]

Vote for the 2007 Weblog Awards

Voting for The 2007 Weblog Awards is underway. There are 49 categories includeing one for Best Law Blog. You can vote once a day in each category. Polls close Thursday November 8, 2007 at 10:00 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which is 5:00 p.m. (EST) and 2:00 p.m. (PST).

Finalists in the Best Law Blog category are:

Above the Law
How Appealing
Volokh Conspiracy
Sui Generis
Balkinization
Simple Justice
Wall Street Journal Law Blog
SCOTUS Blog
Likelihood Of Confusion
Ms JD Changing the Face of the Legal Profession

[JH]

A Quick Look at 10Questions

10Questions.com is an effort to use the power of the Internet and new media to allow ordinary folks to submit and vote on questions to be asked of all the Presidential candidates. Here's the summary from their "how this works" page:

The 10Questions Presidential Forum is divided into two rounds. During the first round, which will run from October 17 to November 14, anyone with access to YouTube, MySpace Yahoo Video, or Blip.tv can submit a video question. To enter, upload your video question to one of these sites and tag it "10questions." Be sure to give it a descriptive title so others can find it. And if you want, add additional tags that describe it further.

During round one, videos bearing the tag "10questions" will be collected on the main page where anyone can vote for or against them. At the close of round one, there will be an audit of the top vote-getters, after which the top ten videos will be presented to the candidates.

During round two, which will begin November 17 and end December 31, the candidates will be asked to post their replies to the top ten questions, and you get to vote on their replies. The candidates will have until December 15 to post their answers; you'll have until December 31 to vote on them. At the end of this round, we will audit the ratings and announce the final results.

Check out the site to submit a question or vote on someone else's. [JH]

The Machine is Us/ing Us

Check out the very interesting The Machine is Us/ing Us video about Web 2.0. created by Kansas State University cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch and his lecture about creating it on Law X.0. [JH]

The Web 2.0 Predicament: Making the Web Inaccessible Again?

Check out the videos posted on Law X.0. [JH]

UN Launches Climate Change Website

A new United Nations Internet site, Gateway to the UN System’s Work on Climate Change, that highlights the wide-ranging work of the various parts of the United Nations system on climate change has been launched. The new website makes it easier for Internet users to find information on climate change from across the United Nations system. [JH]

Law Prof Gives Lecture in Second Life Today

Joshua Fairfield, visiting professor of law at Washington and Lee University, will deliver a lecture titled "Anti-Social Contracts in Virtual Worlds" today. The lecture will take place at 11:00 am pacific time. Fairfield's talk, which is part of the Metanomics Series sponsored by Cornell University's Johnson School of Management, will focus on the uses and limits of contracts in governing interactions in virtual worlds. For links and details, read the press release. [JH]

Suffolk Law School Hosts Webcasts of Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Oral Arguments

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, in partnership with Suffolk University Law School, has launched live webcasts of oral arguments.  A schedule and brief summary of the cases to be broadcast are available on the website. The Law School will broadcast the oral arguments before the court during the first full week of each month from September through May when the court is in session. The webcasts may also be viewed at a later time through the Suffolk Law School's archives. Next webcast is scheduled for Monday, October 1st. [JH]

OpenCongress Offers Widget to Monitor Pending Federal Legislation

OpenCongress has created "Congress, I'm Watching," a website widget for websites and blogs. It's a handy little tool to monitor selected federal legislation. [JH]