Open and machine-readable data requirement for all gov info

Last week the White House announced that President Obama has issued Executive Order 13642 (3 page pdf) "Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information", affecting federal agencies. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has sent a memorandum (12 page pdf) to agency heads establishing guidance for implementing the Open Data Policy. The guidance identifies the policy requirements to collect or create information, build information systems that support interoperability and accessibility, manage data and release practices, and identify related privacy and confidentiality measures.The memo defines “open data” as publicly available data that is “structured in a way that enables the data to be fully discoverable and usable by end users.” Under the guidance, open data is: public; accessable in open formats; fully described with documentation; reusable (available under open license); complete, with as much detail allowed by law; timely; and supportable after release.  This is a big step forward in making government data accessible and useful for citizens, scholars, entrepreneurs, politicians, and others.

LLMC to launch new interface

The Law Library Microform Consortium publishes a monthly newsletter which it sends via email link. The May 2013 newsletter just arrived and it contains the excellent news that LLMC has been beta testing a major redesign of the LLMC-Digital interface. The new interface is set to launch at the AALL annual meeting in Seattle this July.

3D printer gun plans pulled from website

A University of Texas law student and his company called "Defense Distributed" recently figured out how to make a working handgun on a 3D printer and made the plans available on the Defense Distributed website. The federal government got involved when the "Department of Defense Trade Controls", an agency of the State Department, wrote to the company arguing that the files should not be posted because the website uses servers in New Zealand, and sharing gun manufacturing information through servers operated in a foreign country amounts to an illegal export. The plans were removed from the website but the New York Daily News reports that prior to the takedown, copies of the gun blueprint were downloaded more than 100,000 times and are now available on other websites. The Atlantic has an interesting story, titled "How Defense Distributed Already Upended the World", in which there is a discussion of various facets of the issues involved.

Build-Your-Own Law School Rankings

The Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System has an online tool that essentially lets you build your own law school rankings, depending on what sort of legal career you want. The tool they provide is called "Law Jobs By the Numbers" and it focuses on the types of jobs graduates get. According to the website, "you have the flexibility to review the (law school) employment rates using formulas that are commonly applied by organizations such as the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), US News & World Report, National Jurist and Law School Transparency (LST). But more importantly, you can build a formula based on what matters most to you."

Justice Dept. approves use of data-review software

The Wall Street Journal and the ABA Journal report that the U.S. Justice Department recently approved the use of data-sifting software (rather than lawyers) to go through over a million documents produced for review in the proposed merger of beer producers Anheuser-Busch and Grupo Modelo. Lawyers for the 2 companies loaded the documents into a software program (by kCura Corp.) and manually reviewed a batch to train the software to recognize relevant documents. The manual review was repeated until the Justice Department and Constellation were satisfied that the program could accurately predict relevance in the rest of the documents. The companies spent 50% less than they would have using more traditional methods, said Warren Rosborough, a partner at the firm who represented one of the parties. "Something that would easily cost three, four, five million dollars, you can do in the range of one to two," Mr. Rosborough said.
The Wall Street Journal says that "Only a handful of judges have approved the use of such data-review software in litigation, and law firms have been cautious about deploying the technology, which can be trained to hunt for concepts and unleashed across millions of documents at once."

Important Lexis Info: single access ID

To everyone at Pitt Law who uses LexisNexis, please note that LexisNexis is moving to a single ID system in early summer 2013. Your current lexis.com® ID will be deactivated; your Lexis Advance® ID will be required to access lexis.com, Lexis Advance, Web Courses and the Law School Home Page. If you don't have a Lexis Advance ID, or if you have forgotten your Lexis Advance username/password, contact Susanna Leers, eResearch & Technology Services Librarian.

50 years of Nimmer on Copyright

The U.S. Copyright Office is recognizing the 50th anniversary of the treatise "Nimmer on Copyright" by hosting a program on May 6, 2013. "nimmer" is the most cited work in the field and the undisputed leading authority for in-depth, comprehensive analysis of U.S. copyright law. The program will feature David Nimmer of UCLA School of Law who will discuss his own role with respect to the treatise, as well as that of his father, the late Melville Nimmer. Scholars Robert Brauneis of The George Washington University Law School and Peter Menell of Berkeley School of Law will also speak, as will Jon Baumgarten, former general counsel in the Copyright Office, and Shira Perlmutter, Chief Policy Officer at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Karyn Temple Claggett, Associate Register of Copyrights for Policy and International Affairs, will moderate the discussion. The panel of experts will offer insights and observations about the treatise, including its effect on both the theory and practice of copyright law.

International content added to WestlawNext

Info from WL: The first set of International Content is now available on WestlawNext. The International Materials browse category will allow you to access the following international materials directly on WestlawNext without having to bridge out to Westlaw Classic: • UK Cases/Statutes/Journals • EU Cases/Journals • Australia Cases/Journals • Some UK Treatises To get to the unmigrated international materials, click the International Materials (on Westlaw Classic) link under Tools & Resources in the right pane of the International Materials page. This link bridges to the International Directory on Westlaw Classic.

Immigration FOIA requests problem

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University (TRAC)  reports that "at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) there has been a rapid rise in the backlog of FOIA requests received that have been waiting unanswered for long periods of time. According to its annual FOIA report, ICE had only 50 pending requests at the end of FY 2011; this number jumped to 2,903 at the end of FY 2012 after the agency was assigned the responsibility of processing some of the backlog of FOIA requests received by the Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS). And according to the latest available agency records analyzed by TRAC, ICE's backlog is projected to grow to over 13,125 by the end of September 2013 when the fiscal year ends, three and a half times higher than it was at the end of FY 2012."
TRAC derives much of its data from FOIA requests that it files with the federal government. 

DPLA opens

The Digital Public Library of America website has launched, despite the delay of the grand opening festivities due to the Boston Marathon bombings.  MIT Technology Review calls it "he start of a bold project to digitize America’s cultural heritage." Yes, it is still in beta, but already contains about 2.4 million digital objects including books, manuscripts, photographs, recorded sound, and film/video. It also gives access to the application program interface (API) Codex for the site, enabling users to tinker and create new tools for sorting and presenting the library’s materials. The DPLA created an open API "to encourage the independent development of applications, tools, and resources that make use of data contained in the DPLA platform in new and innovative ways, from anywhere, at any time."

Law in Graphic Novels

This week's edition of the Current Index to Legal Periodicals tells us that the latest edition of the peer-reviewed legal journal Law Text Culture has been published, focusing on the topic of "Law in Comics and Graphic Novels". Law Text Culture is a trans-continental peer reviewed journal from the University of Wollongong (Australia) that "publishes critical thinking and creative writing across a range of genres - from artwork and fiction to the traditional scholarly essay". Fans of comics and graphic novels will enjoy the articles which include Spider-Man, the question and the meta-zone: exception, objectivism and the comics of Steve Ditko and The Aesithetics of Supervillainy.

Digital Libraries now subdomain on Pew Internet

The Pew Internet homepage has added a subdomain (libraries.pewinternet.org) that aggregates Pew publishing on digital libraries. The site hosts a number of interesting Pew reports on libraries and related information. For example, there is a report on Library Services in the Digital Age and an infographic that shows what services are wanted by the public.
It also includes a blog that recently posted an updated timeline of the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life project, which has received a grant to study the role of libraries in users' lives and communities.  

Students prefer face-to-face courses for some subjects

Inside Higher Education reports that a study from the Community College Research Center at Columbia University gives interesting insights into student attitudes towards online courses.  The study looked at community college student experiences with both "face to face" and online courses, and how/when they chose the online sections of courses.  Students reported that online courses had lower levels of instructor presence and that they thus needed to “teach themselves” in these courses. Accordingly, most students preferred to take only “easy” academic subjects online; they preferred to take “difficult” or “important” subjects face-to-face. The study concludes that "While it is important to respect and accommodate the flexibility needs of busy students by offering online options, it is clear that the majority of students still prefer to take many types of courses in the face-to-face setting. Accordingly, colleges need to take care to avoid curtailing the availability of face-to-face course sections, particularly in academically challenging or advanced areas of study."

Revised "Federal Websites for and about American Indians" website

Thanks to govdoc librarian Steve Beleu, of the Oklahoma Department of Libraries, for creating and updating the excellent "Federal Websites for and about American Indians" website that provides links to all federal websites and webpages containing significant information for native Americans. 

US dictionary history

A recent  newsletter from Readex has an interesting article  titled "War of the Dictionaries" about the history of the Merriam-Webster dictionary which has been published since 1847.  Apparently Naoh Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language was not well-received, and after he died the Merriam brothers,
a pair of entrepreneurial printers, purchased all remaining copies and the rights to the dictionary. They revised Webster's work, aiming at standardizing US spelling, pronunciation, and definition.  A rival from Cambirdge Ma. published a rival dictionary that preserved British language habits. The rivalry continued for more than a decade before the Merriam-Webster version became the dictionary of choice.  

Article: WestlawNext v. Westlaw Classic

A new article in the Legal Reference Services Quarterly by Emily Marcum of the law firm Lightfoot, Franklin & White, LLC, in Birmingham, Alabama compares the cost of using Westlaw Next with that of using Westlaw Classic (for her law firm). Her methodology included running a variety of searches, both "real-world" and artificially generated, across categories in the databases. Her conclusion is that for her firm, WestlawNext transactional is twice as expensive as Westlaw Classic transactional under the old pricing scheme regardless of whether a real-world experiment is employed or artificial questions are generated. Expert materials are an exception to the rule, however. WestlawNext under simplified pricing is cheaper than Classic for primary law materials, like cases, statutes, and newspapers, as well as expert materials, but more expensive than Classic for verdicts and treatises. She adds that "If a phase-out of Classic Westlaw is indeed planned for some unspecified future date, then it is possible that charging more for a platform that will eventually be the customer's only option is simply another way to raise prices."
The citation: Emily Marcum (2013): The Quest for Client Savings in Legal Research: WestlawNext v. Westlaw Classic, Legal Reference Services Quarterly, 32:1-2, 142-159.
Hat tip: Joe Hodnicki, Law Librarian Blog

Library of Congress invites no-cost digitization proposals

The Library of Congress's preservation blog, The Signal, recently posted an open invitation, essentially seeking collaborators interested in digitizing Library collection materials at no cost to the Library. In order to respond to increasing expectations for collections materials and related items to be made available on the Library's web site, the Library seeks to supplement its existing digitization programs by entering into no-cost contracts for the scanning or digitization of Library materials for the mutual benefit of the contractor and the Library. The Library has issued an ongoing Request for Proposals for third party digitization projects. All digitization projects must comply with Principles for Library of Congress Third-Party Digitization Agreements. For more information contact thirdpartydig@loc.gov.

GPO and FDLP to conduct virtual meeting on preservation of government info.

As Barco's many fans know, we are a Federal Depository Library. On April 23-25, 2013, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) and the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) will celebrate Preservation Week 2013 by conducting a virtual meeting with the theme, "Partners in Preservation: Government Information for Future Generations." The meeting will convey how GPO and Federal depository libraries are "Keeping America Informed" by preserving our nation's documents of democracy for permanent public access. Through a mix of information updates, focused discussions, and training sessions, the meeting will explore:
* GPO's role in preservation.
* Depository library views on preservation as reflected in FDLP Forecast Study responses.
* Partnerships for preservation.
* Digitization project guidance.
* Preservation of tangible collections.
* Digital registries.
The meeting is free, but registration is required. For those who are unable to attend the live programming, sessions will be recorded and made available for later viewing here.  The complete schedule and agenda is available here. 

South Dakota Rural Attorney Recruitment law signed

The Argus Leader reports that South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard signed a bill recently that would encourage attorneys to practice law in rural South Dakota. The law will provide incentive payments over a five year period to attorneys that practice law in counties with a population of 10,000 or less. Any participating attorney will have to agree to practice law on a full-time basis in the eligible county for five years. Attorneys would have to meet eligibility requirements set by the Unified Judicial System.

FDsys access: is "cost recovery" a possibility?

The folks over at the Free Government Information blog report that Acting Public Printer Davita Vance-Cooks has written a letter responding to  the group CASSANDRA about the recent report Rebooting the Government Printing Office: Keeping America Informed in the Digital Age by the National Association of Public Administration (NAPA) (166 page pdf). The report recommends that GPO should consider "cost recovery" for access to FDsys . The Response from Vance-Cooks says that GPO has "no intention of charging public users a fee to access content available through FDsys. GPO remains committed to no-fee access to FDsys for the public as part of our mission of Keeping America Informed." FGI says that this is good news, "but we have to temper our enthusiasm with the realization that GPO's ability to meet its intentions will inevitably be dictated by Congress and its budget."  See also FGI's post NAPA releases report on GPO.

Teaching students to still the mind cultivate attention

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting article about a course offered at the University of Washington Information School called "Information and Contemplation".  Taught by Professor David Levy, the course description says that it explores contemplative practice techniques such as meditation and contemplative reading to help students learn about "stilling the mind and cultivating attention", and to critique the speedy, fragmented, and inattentive mind states that digital technologies seem to encourage.

Maps for librarians

ALA's MAGIRT (Map & Geospatial Information Round Table) recently held its first webinar called "Care and Feeding of Maps: Tips for Managing Your Map Collection". The webinar, which has a lot of information on map librarianship, is now available online. An excellent bibliography/resource guide on storing and managing maps is also available online (2 page pdf).

Congress.gov: 6 month review

The Law Librarians of Congress have posted a review/update about the Congress.gov website that was launched in beta 6 months ago. Since that time they have made a number of improvements and updates, including the addition of the Congressional Record and a "status of legislation" graphic that lets you know what's going on with your favorite bills. The review is well worth reading (not least because it was written by Andrew Weber, one of the law librarians of Congress and a Pitt Law grad).

Mobile device charger

The Barco Law Library now has a charging station for mobile devices like cellphones and tablets. There are 8 different charging ends that work with most mobile devices. The station is in the Fawcett Student Commons on the 4th floor, right next to the Panther Funds machine.

Laptop locks now available in Barco

At the suggestion of students, the Barco Law Library now has laptop locks available for students to borrow. These Kensington laptop locks utilize the security slot found on most laptops, and have a strong cable to secure laptops to a heavy stationary object (most of the study tables and carrels in the library have laptop anchors designed for this purpose). The locks are available only to Pitt Law students and can be borrowed for a 4 hour period.  For more info, ask at the library desk.

New JSTOR beta search

Today JSTOR released a new “Beta Search,” with a redesigned interface and a new search engine. The new search is also accessible from a link on www.jstor.org.While it is in beta testing it is in parallel with the existing search options to avoid disrupting regular research workflows on the site. During the beta period JSTOR wants to gather feedback and make further improvements, focusing development efforts in these areas:
 • Refining the new interface: facets that allow easy narrowing/broadening of searches
• Improving relevance rankings: results that more closely match your search terms
• Incorporating new features, including auto-suggested search terms and spell checking
• Enhancing the search results view to support evaluation of relevance: preview article and book details directly from the search results list
 One  feature of the new Beta Search is the application of “topic modeling” to enhance discovery of content. Unlike standard searching on JSTOR where searches can be focused only within disciplines assigned at the journal level, the Beta Search uses text analysis techniques to automatically assign one or more topics to an article. The goal is to help searchers find relevant content that may be outside of their main disciplinary area.
There's more info about Beta Search on the JSTOR website. 

Livening up presentations in the courtroom

Law Technology News has an interesting article about how lawyers can make their presentations in the courtroom more interesting and "interactive".  The problem is that jurors get bored sitting in their box  "as the day drags on you can see it weighing on the jurors, as more and more of them slouch or stare at the ground or cast repeated glances at the courtroom clock." The author has several tips about techniques lawyers can use to keep the attention of everyone in the room. These include using everything from magnetic boards to ELMOs, barcode readers, and using an iPad in conjunction with AppleTV and trial presentation apps. Even more advanced (and expensive) options include the Magic Wall, a Microsoft screen with a touchscreen and other hightech options.

Legal Work of the War Department, 1 July 1940 - 31 March 1945

The Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress has just posted an interesting new (but historic) document to their website. The document is called "Legal Work of the War Department 1 July 1940 - 31 March 1945: A History of the Judge Advocate General's Department" (382 page pdf) and was prepared and published by the Office of the Judge Advocate General. The report tells of how the Office worked during WWII, with increased duties and responsiblities, reorganization of the office, and the addition of new divisions and branches. It includes chapters on Contracts, Litigation, Patents, Tax Problems and International Law. And it even includes a subchapter on the expansion of the law libraries during the war (see page 27/382). 

LegalShare (beta) lets lawyers buy and sell legal documents online

One of the new legal technology companies that was represented at the recent LegalTech conference is LegalShare  an online legal document marketplace. It is an online repository of legal documents, including pleadings and memos, contributed by other lawyers and available for purchase on a per document basis. Lawyers can both buy and sell documents. This online tool is meant for solo and small firm lawyers who don’t have access to the vast document databases available to large firm lawyers and who can’t afford to pay for the expensive legal database access that includes access to pleadings and legal forms. According to their website, "LegalShare now has a curated collection of real estate, personal injury, criminal law, L&T, civil rights, and general litigation documents from experienced practitioners." The website also has a note to attorneys that they can "Get paid for work you have already done! If you have legal documents you want to sell, please email us with a writing sample and resume. When you upload a document, you will receive 80% of the proceeds from every purchase."

Case Western to offer MOOC in international criminal law

Case Western Reserve University has announced that, in collaboration with Coursera, they will offer 2 MOOCs starting on May 1, one in International Criminal Law. MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses, are a recent trend in higher education: free online courses open to anyone. Michael Scharf, associate dean for global legal studies at the CW School of Law, is teaching Introduction to International Criminal Law, is an 8-week course. The course description and syllabus are available on the coursera website.

HeinOnline: Congressional Documents webinar

This week HeinOnline offered an excellent webinar called "The Top 3 Things You Should Know When Researching in HeinOnline's U.S. Congressional Documents". If you were unable to attend the webinar "live", video is now available at Hein's Help and Training Center. The webinar explains how to navigate HeinOnline's U.S. Congressional Documents collection, which includes both historic early Congressional documents as well as the Congressional Record, Vols. 1-155 (1873-2009). Their finding tools include a helpful "Congressional Record Daily to Bound Locator", which is demonstrated in the webinar.

Friday Fun: Courtroom Movies

From the Bloomberg Law video library comes this mashup of scenes from 29 courtroom dramas and comedies called Courtroom Movies: Hollywood's Most Hackneyed Genre. Proving that "every movie trial has the very same tired elements".

New law app by a law librarian

Ruth Bird, who is currently  law librarian at the Bodlein Law Library, Oxford University, has announced the creation of a new law app that she has helped design. "Lawsauce" is a useful resource for law students as well as for lawyers in practice. The app provides quite extensive coverage of many jurisdictions, and includes many free sites, Francophone sites, subscription sites and quite a number of foreign language locations, though most are in English. Ruth says that "It is a work in progress and we will add data on a regular basis... I welcome any feedback." The app is available in the iTunes Store for iPhones and at GooglePlay for android; cost is $4.99.

All the Yellow Books in one online subscription!

The Barco Law Library has purchased a one-year subscription to the Leadership Library database, a powerful employment research tool. The database includes 14 Leadership Directories’ Yellow Books:
 1. Congressional yellow book
 2. Federal yellow book
3. State yellow book
 4. Corporate yellow book
 5. News media yellow book
 6. Municipal yellow book
 7. Federal regional yellow book
 8. Judicial yellow book
 9. Financial yellow book
 10. Associations yellow book
 11. Law firms yellow book
 12. Government affairs yellow book
 13. Foreign representatives in the U.S. yellow book
 14. Nonprofit sector yellow book
 The database allows searching and browsing within individual directories or across all 14 directories using single or multiple criteria, such as name, job title, industry, and geographical location. It contains contact information for federal and state courts, law firms, federal, state and local government, non-profits, and corporations. It's available to all current Pitt Law students, faculty, and staff, at Law building computers or via the wireless network. Bookmark the link and note that it is also available via the Barco Law Library databases page  and through the ULS online catalog PittCAT. You should browse around in it for a while to see how it works since it is an unfamiliar interface and has a bit of a learning curve; but it has tons of great information. 

Scotusblog Supreme Court Challenge

Bloomberg Law and SCOTUSblog have announced the "Supreme Court Challenge", a contest for law students that places teams of law students in a head-to-head competition to test both their collective knowledge of the Supreme Court and their ability to analyze legal decisions. Law student teams will use materials from Bloomberg Law and SCOTUSblog to predict the outcome of 6 merit cases and 6 petitions for certiorari to be heard by the Supreme Court as well as how each Justice will vote on the cases. The student teams compete against each other and also the SCOTUSblog Expert Team.

The prizes? First prize is a minimum of $3,500, with an additional $1,500 awarded if your team also beats the experts at SCOTUSblog. Second prize is $1,500 with an additional $1,000 if they beat the SCOTUSblog team. Third prize is $1,000, with an additional $500 if they beat the SCOTUSblog team.
Competition Rules and Registration information (must register by Feb. 28) are available on the SCOTUScompetition website. 

Presentation on The Future of Govt. Info. and the Digital FDLP

James Jacobs, a gov docs librarian at Stanford, recently gave a talk at the University of Washington titled "Gone Today, Here Tomorrow: The Future of Government Information and the Digital FDLP" (that's Federal Depositories Library Program). In the talk he discusses the historical ideals underlying the FDLP and how those ideals have been under under fire from both within and without the library community (did you know that the National Archives and Records Administration has contracted with the commercial company Ancestry.com to preserve census information?). He argues that applying FDLP's historical ideals to today's new information metaphors is the best chance at access to and long-term preservation and assurance of free government information. He also talks about some of the digital collection strategies that he has found to be successful and provides ideas for future successful preservation.
The talk and slides are available on the Free Government Information website. 

HeinOnline Webinars

HeinOnline has announced the first in their 2013 webinar series will take place on Wednesday, February 27 at 2:00 p.m. EST. The topic of the first webinar is "Top 3 Things You Should Know When Researching in HeinOnline's U.S. Congressional Documents" which will cover: 1. Using the Daily to Bound Locator Tool to quickly pull up a page from the Daily edition in the Bound edition and vice versa. 2. Using the Congressional Hearings Quick Finder to locate a hearing from Covington & Burling's prestigious collection. 3. Searching for a bill in the History of Bills and Resolutions in the Daily and Bound Volumes. The webinar will be lead by their excellent presenter Marcie Baranich. The webinar is free but you need to register online to participate.

Barco joins the PALMPrint project

The Barco Law Library has joined Preserving America's Legal Materials in Print (PALMPrint), a collaborative pilot project aimed at developing a shared, circulating collection of primary, U.S. legal materials in print. Librarians across the country are working on the issue of the retention of and persistent access to print materials in an increasingly digital world. A number of different print archiving projects are currently underway, and include both centralized and distributed models. The PALMPrint project is led by 2 library organizations: NELLCO (New England Law Library Consortium, of which we are a member) and LIPA (the Legal Information Preservation Alliance. They hope it will serve as a model for a collaborative solution to print retention, allowing libraries to make different decisions about library space at the local level. In this way, libraries can continue to be responsive to the changing needs of their users secure in the knowledge that primary print materials are within reach, and under the stewardship of the collaborative. More information is available in the PALMPrint online overview.

WS Hein is moving... but not far.

The Wm. S. Hein Co., provider of HeinOnline and many legal publications, has announced that they are moving. They have been located on Main St. in downtown Buffalo for many years, and are staying in the Buffalo area but moving to the leafy suburbs - Getzville, NY, specifically. They explain that "With the company's strong shift to digital media over the past decade, our need for more advanced support has led us to a facility that allows for a stronger technological infrastructure to support our ever-growing database, HeinOnline."

WS Hein before and after move.

Updated PA Courts website

The Supreme Court has just launched a redesigned the PA Courts website with greater functionality and even a Twitter account link.
Hat tip: Joel Fishman

Google maps North Korea

Yesterday Google revised its Google Maps app to add information on North Korea. Using crowdsourcing -the assistance of "citizen cartographers" with knowledge of North Korean geography - Google was able to fill in some of North Korea's streets... and prison camps. No Street View is available, however.

New, revised American FactFinder

The new online version of American FactFinder was released this week with some big improvements. There are two new search tools designed to make searching easy: 1) Community Facts, which lets you find data about a single geography (city, town, county, etc.), and 2) Guided Search, which lets you choose, in this order a) topics, and/or b) geographies, and/or c) race/ethnic group for People, Housing, and Business/Industry. For users who've had experience using the previous Factfinder it also has the options of d) search by dataset and e) search by table number or table title. Users who've had experience using the previous Factfinder will recognize Advanced Search as the previous Factfinder; and advanced users who download data have the option of using Download Options. The information and help links are very informative.

Thomson Reuters Legal Solutions

Law Librarian Jason Wilson and the Law Librarian Blog have both pointed out that Thomson Reuters appears to be rebranding Westlaw as "Legal Solutions".  The tipoff came from a url redirect from http://west.thomson.com that now goes to http://legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com/law-products/; watch the rather anxiety-producing video to learn more about how they provide a "better way forward" in dealing with "the new reality".  

LexisNexis Academic webinars

LexisNexis Academic has been redesigned with students in mind, and is providing the following upcoming webinars in February and March:
1. LexisNexis Academic: general training

•  Tuesday, February 5; 2 to 3 p.m. (EST) 
•  Tuesday, February 19; 3 to 4 p.m. (EST)  
•  Friday, March 8; noon to 1 p.m. (EST) 
•  Tuesday, March 26; 2 to 3 p.m. (EST) 

2.  LexisNexis Academic - Business:  This seminar focuses on business resources and Company Dossier.  

• Tuesday, February 5; noon to 1 p.m. (EST) 
• Tuesday, March 5; 1 to 2 p.m. (EST) 

3. LexisNexis Academic - Legal Research: This session will concentrate specifically on conducting legal research.

•  Tuesday, February 26; 2 to 3 p.m. (EST) 
•  Tuesday, March 19; 2 to 3 p.m. (EST) 

 LexisNexis Academic - News This webinar will show how to search current hot topics in the news, as well as archival news information and tailor search results to fit your needs.

• Monday, February 11; 3 to 4 p.m. (EST)

Bookscanner updated

The library's Zeutschel Zeta bookscanner has been updated with new software so that it provides even better scans and an easier interface. The Zeta is available for any Pitt Law student or faculty to use at no charge; all you need is a flash drive for saving your scans. Chris Todd has provided updated instructions with screenshots. But - if you want to scan flat documents - the flatbed scanners, located near the ref desk, are probably a better option. These scanners are connected to the internet so you don't need a flash drive, you can email the scans to yourself. If you need help with the scanners any of the library staff can assist you.