FDLP webinar series "How Laws Are Made"

The FDLP Academy recently hosted an excellent three-part series of webinars: How Laws are Made: The Legislature; How Laws are Made: The Administrative Agencies; and How Laws are Made: The Courts.  The series was created and is presented by Sharon Bradley, Special Collections Librarian, University of Georgia School of Law. Each archived webinar is available for anyone to watch. Each lasts about 45 minutes and provides well-organized information about the law-making functions of each of the three branches of government. In addition to the recorded webinars, there is a libguide for each of the three topics on the University of Georgia law library website. 

The Federal Courts Web Archive

The Law Library of Congress recently launched a website called "The Federal Courts Web Archive." The archive is a resource for scholars and others interested in doing historic research about the federal courts and federal judiciary. It has captured archival links to over 200 websites including the federal courts as well as specialty courts like the U.S. Court of International Trade, U.S. Tax Court, U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.
The interface will be familiar to anyone who has used the Wayback Machine, because it uses a local installation of the Wayback Machine.

New Google initiative begins in Pittsburgh

MIT Technology Review has a story titled "Google Hopes $1 Billion Will Help Americans Adapt to the Future of Work" reporting that "The tech giant may have a guilty conscience. It says it will pony up $1 billion (and 1 million hours of employee time) to retrain people around America with digital skills that “they need to get a job or grow their business.” Money for training will be handed to non-profits, and a national tour of courses in things like coding and social media will roam the U.S., starting in Pittsburgh. The hope: that the initiative will help save some of the careers that technology (such as Google's) is already destroying." You can read all about it (and also feel good about Pittsburgh) on Google blog, in an article by Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google.

ResearchGate starts removing research papers

Inside Higher Ed reports that ResearchGate, a scholarly social media platform used by scholars to share their work, has started taking down large numbers of research papers because of publishers warnings that many of the papers uploaded there are in breach of copyright. ResearchGate provides an easy platform for uploading scholarly papers, but apparently publishers have gone from being irate to threatening legal action. A group called the Coalition for Responsible Sharing posted a statement saying that "ResearchGate’s primary service is taking high-quality content written and published by others and making as many as 7 million copyrighted articles – 40% of its total content – freely available via its for-profit platform...numerous attempts to agree with ResearchGate on amicable solutions... remained unsuccessful." Inside Higher Ed says that the coalition planned to initially issue more than a hundred thousand takedown notices to ResearchGate. It also reported that ACS and Elsevier were suing ResearchGate in its home country of Germany.  Now the Coalition has published an online notice that ResearchGate has removed a significan number of copyrighted articles. 

Resources Supporting Research On Cybersecurity

From the Federal Depositories Library Program:

National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM), celebrated each October, was established to educate the public about the need to be safe and secure online and to be prepared in the event of a cyber incident. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team are two agencies concerned with informing the Nation about these crucial matters. Stop.Think.Connect. is a DHS national public awareness campaign which provides promotional materials as well as educational videos and brochures. The National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is a partnership between the Government, academia, and the private sector which focuses on cybersecurity education, training, and workforce development.

In addition, GPO has recently cataloged a number resources on this critical issue; examples:
- Prospects for the rule of law in cyberspace
- Is cyber deterrence possible?
- Task force on cyber deterrence
- The achievable multinational cyber treaty: strengthening our nation’s critical infrastructure
- Assessing Russian activities and intentions in recent US elections