New Law Deans

Tax Prof Blog reports that there have been 18 new Deans of law schools appointed recently, and that 61% of them are women, including Pitt Law's Amy Wildermuth. The numbers come from the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.

Visualizing census data: upcoming workshop

On Friday, May 11, Andrew Batt of the UCONN-based State Data Center will lead a streaming workshop on visualizing Census data (both American Community Survey data and National Historical Geographic Information System data) with the Tableau Public software app. Tableau Public is free for PC or Mac. The streaming service is being offered through FDLP Academy. You can access login 15 minutes before the webinar starts (appx. 10:15am EST) at this link. The workshop is expected to run for about 90 minutes. You can see some of the visualizations that the presenter has created for Connecticut here.

New database in HeinOnline: McGill Air and Space Law

Our HeinOnline subscription contains a new database: McGill Institute of Air and Space Law Publications. It includes complete coverage of the Annals of Air and Space Law, nearly 50 titles and 50,000 pages. The McGill Institute and Centre of Air and Space Law is a leading authority on air and space law: the Institute of Air and Space Law (IASL) is the world’s premier academic setting for teaching and research in the dual disciplines of international air law and space law, and the Centre for Research in Air and Space Law (CRASL) publishes leading literature in both disciplines including the Annals of Air and Space Law (founded in 1976), treatises, monographs, and occasional papers. The Annals, which began publication in 1976, is devoted to fostering the free exchange of ideas and information pertaining to the law applicable to aerospace activities. The Annals publishes original articles, drafted in English or French, covering the entire spectrum of domestic and international air law and the law of space applications. The contributors are academics and leading practitioners from all parts of the world.

Federal Register digitized in entirety by GPO

The Government Publishing Office and the National Archives' Office of the Federal Register announced that they have digitized every issue of the Federal Register back to its beginning in 1936, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued the first document, an Executive Order.  The complete digitized set is available at the govinfo website.
The announcement included some highlights from the early issues of the Federal Register:

•  The first Executive Order published in the Federal Register on March 14, 1936, enlarged the Cape Romain Migratory Bird Refuge in South Carolina. 
• The first war related Presidential proclamations following the Declaration of War on Japan was published in the December 10, 1941 Federal Register issue. 
• The August 25, 1958 issue contains the Executive Order outlining changes to the flag following the admittance of Hawaii as a state.

ABA announces major restructuring

The ABA journal has an article titled "Massive restructuring at the ABA will rehouse entities under 9 centers" that outlines the soon-to-be effected changes in how the organization is structured. The ABA website still reflects the "old" structure: click on "ABA Groups" and you see a list of links to commissions, committees, task forces etc. But Executive Director Jack Rives says:

“Our current structure of divisions, committees, commissions, task forces, working groups, and other creatively named entities makes the Association extraordinarily difficult to access and costly to manage,” Rives wrote. “Our organization’s complexity has also impeded effective resource allocation. We must live within our means; we must prioritize; we must focus our resources on the programs and issues that matter most to our members, the profession and society.”

The new structure has nine centers organized around the four goals of the ABA: serving members; improving the profession; eliminating bias and enhancing diversity; and advancing the rule of law. The restructuring will help the ABA operate more efficiently and cheaply; staff cuts will occur by the end of April.

Court says PACER fees misused

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia has issued an opinion in the class action case National Veterans Legal Services Program, et. al., v United States (docket available here). In her opinion, Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle said that the federal judiciary misused millions of dollars in PACER fees to fund programs that are not allowed. However, she wrote that "the Court rejects the parties’ polar opposite views of the statute." She rejected the plaintiffs' reasoning that PACER fees can only be used to cover the "marginal cost" of running PACER, but also rejected the government's "other extreme" reasoning that the E-Government Act allows PACER fees to fund any dissemination of information through electronic means. Under her reasoning, the federal judiciary must return approximately $200 million to people who paid PACER fees from 2010-2016.
The Freedom to Tinker blog has an extensive discussion of the decision:

"The law says that the Judiciary “may, only to the extent necessary, prescribe reasonable fees… to reimburse expenses incurred in providing these services.” The lawsuit centered on the meaning of terms like “only to the extent necessary” and “these services.” During the litigation, the Judiciary provided a spreadsheet showing how PACER fees were spent across different categories (categories invented by the Judiciary). About a quarter of these fees were spent on things that related to public access tangentially at best (for example, “courtroom technologies”). The judge decided that these were illegal. About 15% of fees were under a different heading: “Public Access Services.” The plaintiffs did not allege that these were illegal even though ~$25m per year seems an awful lot for serving digital documents to the public. Only the middle set of categories—about $100m per year—was seriously in dispute."

CRS Reports to be made available to the public

The GPO reports that a provision called "Equal Access to Congressional Research Service Reports" is included in the Consolidated Appropriations Ace of 2018. The provision makes all non-confidential Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports freely available online to individuals, schools and universities, researchers, and libraries. According to the GPO announcement, "The Librarian of Congress, in consultation with the CRS Director, shall establish and maintain a public website containing CRS Reports and an index of all CRS Reports contained on the website." This is big news for librarians, as distribution of CRS reports was historically limited to members of Congress, and were outside the scope of the Federal Depository Library Program. According to GPO, "Once CRS Reports begin to be publicly-disseminated, these reports will be in scope of the FDLP. These reports will then be cataloged and made available via the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) with links to the CRS website."
Vermont Business Magazine has more information on the provision which was sponsored by Vt. Senator Patrick Leahy, and which has been an issue that Leahy and Sen. John McCain of Arizona have worked on for 15 years.

More on "The FDLP Moderization Act of 2018"

The Government Publishing Office today published the GPO Statement on H.R. 5305, The FDLP Modernization Act of 2018." The statement says that "The GPO is pleased to support the FDLP Modernization Act of 2018. We appreciate the consultation the Committee engaged in with us as well as with other key stakeholders during its development. The bill affirms the principle that the free flow of Government information is fundamental to the health of our democracy, and acknowledges the important role Federal depository libraries play in ensuring free public access to that information."
On the other hand, the Free Gov Info blog has some misgivings about the bill that are summarized here under the heading "Loopholes.":
1. Fugitives
2. Agency Websites and
3. A Digital FDLP.
Free Gov Info suggests that Congress can make the bill even better; the meeting to discuss the bill is scheduled for Thursday April 12 at 11 am.

Title 44 big news

The announcement came from the Government Printing Publishing Office (GPO) today:  On March 15, 2018, the U.S. House of Representatives filed H.R. 5305 IH, the FDLP Modernization Act of 2018, the amend Title 44, U.S. Code. They included a link to the FDLP's Title 44 Revision Page which has links to the Depository Library Council's Title 44 recomndations, Congressional testimony, and other related resources.
As you may know, concerned gov docs librarians have been writing about the proposed amendation of Title 44 for several months. Two of the best-known gov docs librarians, both named James Jacobs, have published an article in Library Journal discussion their concerns. They also encourage interested readers to check out a special issue of Against the Grain titled Ensuring Access to Government Information to read up on the issues involved.

Pennsylvania congressional redistricting

There's an excellent blogpost titled "Exploring Pennsylvania's Gerrymandered Congressional Districts" that provides very detailed, granular geospatial data to illustrate the congressional district issue in Pennsylvania. The blog is hosted by Azavea, a Philadelphia-based company that makes "geographic data more valuable by creating beautiful and scalable web and mobile applications, and by creating analytics that uncover insights in your data."

hat tip: Pat Roncevich, our Pitt Law geospatial expert

Friday fun...

If you're bored there's a fun online game called "Click That 'Hood Pittsburgh" - it tests your knowledge of where all the neighborhoods in the 'burgh are located.

FDLP webinars in March

Webinar: Federal Government Databases and Websites: A Surprising Source of State and Local Data March 14, 2018 2:00 pm EDT According to the GPO and FDLP, his webinar will present an "exciting variety of state and local resources" which can be found by searching Federal Government websites. Resources range from health and nutrition to science and education as well as legislative and judicial information. Websites that provide a surprising wealth of state and local resources include usa.gov, the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP), science.gov, ERIC, and PubMed. Participants will learn strategies for searching for state and local resources using Federal Government databases and websites. Register here to attend the live training webinar.

They are offering a second webinar of interest to librarians: "Digital Content Contributors: Increasing Access to Digitized Content." This one will be held on March 13 at 2 pm. The description: Digitizing parts of your depository collection or considering starting a digitization project? Join us as members of the GPO Partnership Team share information on how your digitized content can be widely accessible through GPO’s govinfo. During the webinar, learn more about the Digital Content Contributor partnerships, how GPO makes decisions on priorities for ingest of content into govinfo, as well as tips on how to package your content for ingest. Register here.
And if you aren't able to attend a webinar the FDLP has all of their webinars and webcasts archived and available on their website.

Congressional Data Challenge

The Library of Congress has announced it is sponsoring the "legislative data challenge" to advance the discovery, use, and exploration of the collection of legislative information it has available on Congress.gov. From the announcement:

"The Library is inviting submitters to use a variety of Congressional publications and data sets available on Congress.gov to create new meaning or tools to help members of Congress and the public explore it in new ways. This could take the form of interactive visualizations, mobile or desktop applications, a website, or other digital creation. Submissions must be entered at Challenge.gov by April 2, 2018; please see the challenge rules for more information. Per the challenge requirements, submitters must use at least one congressional data set from Congress.gov. Submitters may access the data directly from Congress.gov or though GPO’s govinfo, which, in partnership with the Library of Congress, the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, hosts bulk data from Congress.gov for download."

FDsys to retire

The GPO has announced that in December 2018, GPO plans to retire FDsys, and govinfo will take its place as GPO’s source for official Government information. FDsys has been the GPO's online portal to information since 2009; the more modern and mobile-friendly govinfo debuted in 2016.
 While FDsys will remain available until its "retirement", users are encouraged to transition to govinfo. Immediately before FDsys is retired, redirects from FDsys to govinfo will be enabled, but GPO advises that users should prepare for the FDsys retirement by proactively updating their systems and links to point to govinfo instead of FDsys. govinfo offers many enhancements over FDsys including:
• Optimization for display on mobile devices
• More relevant and precise search results
• Integrated social media sharing
• New Related Documents feature
• Curated content and new ways to browse
• Developer tools and data feeds
• Expanded help and resources
There's more information about the transition on the govinfo website. 

Changes to BloombergBNA Labor & Employment And Benefits News

Bloomberg Law has announced that effective January 16, 2018, your Bloomberg BNA Premier labor, employment, and benefits news products will be available on an improved news delivery portal. This updated news portal comes with a host of new features and functionality, including: delivery of timely and concise news, custom alerts for monitoring developments, a better mobile experience, and more. Several of the news publications will be combined on the updated news services but Bloomberg promises that w "will continue to benefit from the same breadth and depth of coverage that have been the hallmark of all of our labor and employment news services."
A few changes:
• Labor Relations Week™ will be renamed Labor Relations News.
• Construction Labor Report™ will be renamed Construction Labor News.
• Pension & Benefits Daily™ and BNA Pension & Benefits Reporter™ will cease publication as stand-alones and combine to become Benefits & Executive Compensation News.
• BNA’s Employment Discrimination Report™, Workplace Law Report™, and Workplace Immigration Report™ will cease publication as stand-alones and combine to become Employment Law News.

CALI QuizWright

Our friend Elmer Masters from Computer Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) has just published an article on CALI Spotlight called Zero to Quiz in 5 Minutes: Getting Started With CALI QuizWright in 5 Quick Steps. QuizWright is CALI's new web-based formative assessment tool and is available now through the CALI website. Anyone with faculty-level access to CALI can use QuizWright. After logging in at www.cali.org go to the dropdown menu called your "CALI Dashboard" in the upper right and select QuizWright from the menu. The site says that "QuizWright is a web app that lets law faculty write individual Multiple Choice, True/False, and Yes/No questions, saves the questions in a personal question bank, allows law faculty to bundle the questions into quizzes, uses CALI AutoPublish to instantly and securely publish the quizzes to the CALI website and lets students take the quizzes as formative assessments, either live in class or as homework, right on the CALI website, where most students already have an account. Faculty can view the basic results or access advanced analytic reporting from an online dashboard. Download of results to Excel for further analysis is available."

Digitized Historical Congressional Record now complete

The Government Publishing Office (GPO) today announced that with the release of the years 1873-1890 they have completed the digitization project of the Historical Congressional Record. These documents are freely available to the public on the GPO's govinfo website. The Library of Congress collaborated with the GPO on this project. The LOC created the digital images of the pages and the GPO devised the metadata for the project, so that the collection is accessible and searchable "across a wide variety of digital platforms."
The first date for which the Congressional Record is available is Tuesday, March 4, 1873, when the Senate held a "special session" for the second inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant as President of the United States.

HeinOnline: new alert service

HeinOnline has announced that they have added a new alert feature "with the help of machine learning and natural language processing tools." You can now receive email alerts when articles are added to the database that are similar to those written by a specific author. Instructions for using this feature are included in the announcement on the HeinOnline blog.

Public Domain talk by Peter Hirtle

The American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy is hosting a free online "CopytTalk" with Peter Hirtle giving an overview of the public domain: what it is, how works rise into it, what is copyright renewal, and some of the common mistakes he has made when trying to determine the public domain status of a work.
Peter Hirtle is the author of the frequently cited resource, “Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States." He is an Affiliate Fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Until his retirement from Cornell in 2015, he served as Senior Policy Advisor to the Cornell University Library with a special mandate to address intellectual property issues.
The one-hour webinar will be held on Thursday, Dec. 7, at 2pm Eastern time. You don't need to register; just go to the OITP copytalk Adobe Connect site and sign in as a guest at the appointed time.

Blockchain

Debbie Ginsburg, who is the Educational Technology Librarian at Chicago-Kent College of Law (and a very gifted law librarian) recently wrote a post titled "Law and the Blockchain" on the Blockchains for the Information Profession blog. Debbie's post discusses what blockchain is and how it is starting to be used in the US legal landscape. The blog, which is a project of the School of Information at San José State University, has introductory information about blockchain technology and is gathering ideas for ways in which this technology can be used in libraries.
And speaking of Blockchain, Pittsburgh-based K&L Gates has announced that it has become "one of the first major law firms to implement own private Blockchain."

HeinOnline's Reports of U.S. Presidential Commissions and Other Advisory Bodies now available

The Barco Law Library now subscribes to HeinOnline's Reports of U.S. Presidential Commissions and Other Advisory Bodies, available from the HeinOnline's main collections page. According to the description, "This work is the most current and comprehensive listing of publications created by presidential advisory bodies, and will be useful to researchers interested in U.S. history, political science, and law. Presidents have created such advisory groups (also called committees, commissions, boards, blue ribbon panels, or task forces) to advise them on particular problems or issues such Pearl Harbor, civil rights, the status of women, the assassination of JFK, the 1967 riots, Iran Contra, HIV/AIDS, the Challenger Space Shuttle accident, and 9/11. The bibliographic listings of more than 6,000 reports and other documents from the administrations of Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama are indexed by commission/advisory body name, report title, report subject and presidential administration. Links to the full text of the reports are provided whenever possible. The companion database contains not only the bibliographic listing of reports but also many reports themselves as well as related United States congressional hearings, scholarly articles, and a bibliography."
The user-friendly search interface for the collections means Users can browse or search the collection by President, Commission Name, Commission Subject or Report Title. There is an alphabetical listing of all the reports by title and other useful discovery aids. There are also links to scholarly law review articles written about these reports which are also in HeinOnline; for example the article, "President's Commission on the Status of Women Established [Notes] by Marguerite Rawalt from the Women Lawyers Journal (1962) is linked from the "Scholarly Articles" page.

GPO "seeking community input" on FDLP shared libraries

The US Government Publishing Office has annuonced that it is looking at the models for shared regional depository libraries, and has made a draft of proposed guidelines for establishing regionals available online (just click the blue "Download" link). The draft guidelines mention that

"different models of sharing resources and responsibilities between regional and selective libraries within the states they serve have been implemented over the years, with GPO approval. These include different models of intra- and inter-state sharing between regionals and selective libraries, and for sharing of some services between regional depository libraries in one state and selective depository libraries in an adjacent or near-by state where no regional library exists.
In recent years, technological innovations and the ease of disseminating digital information have made it possible for a number of depository libraries to participate in multi-state collaborations for rapid delivery of shared services. This has also made it possible to develop models and networks that create cost effective shared print resource archives and digital repositories. Both intra- and inter-state shared regional models can offer practical and economical means to maintain public access and reallocate library space, while achieving operational efficiencies for the participating regional and selective depository libraries."

GPO is interested in commentary about the guidelines and suggestions for making them more useful. Suggestions and comments may be submitted until Jan. 20, 2018.

A sobering cautionary tale- don't make friends online

Wired magazine has just published a horrifying true story titled "How One Woman's Digital Life Was Weaponized Against Her." The woman in question develops an online friendship that goes sour and results in her and everyone in her family being stalked and hounded for years, on the phone, online, at home, at work. Eventually it becomes a court case (with K&L Gates representing her) that is time-consuming and expensive. Despite a positive outcome it's still not over for her as the case is being appealed and the harrassment continues.
When it comes to social media, be very careful.

There's a bootleg Bluebook out there...

Sharp-eyed librarians at Brooklyn Law School Library have discovered that there are FAKE BLUEBOOKS being distributed by third-party vendors... and the fakes are riddled with errors. It's all very ironic. For the full story, see the Brooklyn Law School Library Blog post "Beware the Bootleg Bluebook."
And you would probably be better off borrowing one of the Barco Law Library copies of the Bluebook (20th edition) rather than buying a cheap knockoff online.


hat tip: Karen Shephard

Judge Rules Canada Can't Make Google Delete Search Results in U.S.

Slashdot reports that a U.S. District Court judge has blocked a recent decision by the Supreme Court of Canada requiring Google to delete search results globally. The decision marks a significant win for Google in its efforts to prevent any one country from dictating what can be posted or searched online around the world. The problem began when a court in British Columbia ordered Google to globally block search results linking to sites associated with Datalink Technologies Gateways Inc., which Canadian courts earlier sought to shut down. Google took the issue to the Supreme Court of Canada which affirmed the order, saying that "the internet has no borders." Google then filed suit in the US arguing that that the Canadian order is “unenforceable in the United States because it directly conflicts with the First Amendment, disregards the Communication Decency Act’s immunity for interactive service providers, and violates principles of international comity.” The court order, written by judge Edward J. Davila of the Northern District of California, agreed with Google, saying that the Canadian order violated a federal law giving internet content providers strong legal protections against lawsuits over what internet users post on their sites. The judge did not address Google’s First Amendment claim.

Scholarly publishers and access to research

The Canadian law blog Slaw has an excellent article today discussing scholarly publishing. The author says, "(t)he current series of legal kerfuffles in scholarly publishing involves property and access rights in an industry that is, for all intents and purposes, moving toward universal open access..." but the publishers' "legal strategy is about reminding the academic community that such publishers own the better part of this body of knowledge and, as such, have a legal right to determine the financing of access to it now and into that uncertain future." He makes an interesting suggestion at the end of the article, saying that it may be time to reform the law, to create a new catgory of intellection property that is for scientific and academic research.

Changes to BNA coming in the new year

Bloomberg BNA has announced changes to our Bloomberg BNA Premier subscription coming on Dec. 31, 2017. All of the BNA news about energy, safety, and the environment will be moved to an "enhanced delivery platform under the Bloomberg Environment brand." Because of this some of the titles that we have subscribed to will no longer be stand-alone publications: Daily Environment Report™, International Environment Reporter™, Chemical Regulation Reporter®, Energy & Climate Report, Right-to-Know Planning Guide Report™, and State Environment Daily™ will cease publication and be replaced with the Bloomberg Environment & Energy Report. Occupational Safety & Health Reporter℠ and Environment Reporter℠ will also move to the new platform on December 31, 2017. Environment Reporter now includes reporting on water law and policy in addition to its former coverage areas. Water Law & Policy Monitor™ will cease publication on a stand-alone basis. Occupational Safety & Health Reporter will move here permanently.
Until January 16, the old URLs will still give you access to the old interfaces. Any users currently signed up to receive email highlights to the publications listed above should have already begun receiving alerts that link into the new platform.

GPO Director leaving

The GPO has just posted an announcement that Davita Vance-Cooks has announced her departure from Federal service to accept a job in the private sector. She was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate as the 27th Public Printer of the United States. GPO says that "Vance-Cooks leaves behind a legacy of achievement and fiscal responsibility at GPO. Under her leadership, the agency cut costs while improving services, generating positive net income each year and consistently receiving clean opinions from annual independent audits of GPO’s finances. She reversed the previous decade’s pattern of requesting ever greater appropriations from Congress while overseeing increased digital productivity and transformation. During her tenure GPO acquired digital equipment, developed new digital products, and implemented digital processes."
By law, GPO Deputy Director Jim Bradley will assume the duties of Acting GPO Director until a replacement is appointed.

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

"Clickbait" corrupting scholarship

The Tax Prof Blog posts and quotes from a recent article in Inside Higher Education, which says that "academe has been “hacked” by scholars and journals looking to up their citation and impact figures." The problem has received attention because of the recent furor over an article called "The Case for Colonialism" published in the Third World Quarterly. The article has been criticized as being "a thrice-rejected piece that failed on basic scholarly standards of intellectual rigor, accuracy or integrity ” and some critics claim that the only reason it was published was as "clickbait" to raise the profile of the journal. The paper achieved a higher Altmetric Attention Score than any other paper published in the journal.

Hollywood versions of true crime

The ABA Journal has an interesting article about how Hollywood portrays true crime stories in films. The article discusses the movie version of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, about the 1959 murder of an entire family in Kansas by two men; it says "Critics have suggested Capote took a few creative licenses with certain scenes and conversations for dramatic impact as well: a 1988 biography concedes that at least one of the scenes was Capote’s own creation... there’s evidence that Capote arranged scenes and added fiction to what he claimed was a factually accurate account."

CASA from Google Scholar and HeinOnline

The HeinOnline blog reports that Hein has expanded its existing relationship with Google Scholar (Google Scholar provides links to articles in HeinOnline when available). Now off-campus users can access HeinOnline articles seamlessly, without having to log in through a proxy server. This service, developed by Google Scholar, is called Campus-Activated Subscriber Access (CASA). The blurb from Google says that " With CASA, a researcher can start a literature survey on campus and resume where she left off once she is home, or travelling, with no hoops to jump through. Her subscribed collections are highlighted in Google Scholar searches and she is able to access articles in exactly the same way as on campus.”
The blogpost points out that with CASA, subscribing libraries are still abot to comply with license agreement terms and copyright laws, and material accessed via CASA is correctly attributed to the subscribing institution, so usage statistics remain accurate. One caveat is that Users must access HeinOnline on-campus at least every 30 days to maintain off-campus access.

Historical Congressional Record for the 1920s now available from GPO

The Government Printing Office (GPO) has announced that the GPO, in partnership with the Library of Congress, has uploaded the digitized Congressional Record from 1921 - 1930 to GPO's govinfo website. This release covers the debates and proceedings of the 67th through the 71st Congresses and the presidential terms of Wilson (final 2 years), Harding, Coolidge and Hoover (first 2 years). It includes Congressional debates of important historical topics, such as the lengthy debate about the Immigration Act of 1924. GPO points out that other topics covered include Prohibition, the Teapot Dome Scandal, The Dawes Plan for WWI reparations, and The Stock Market Crash of 1929.

A new look for the Bloomberg BNA website

Bloomberg BNA has announced that on Thursday, September 28, the BNA.com website will be updated. The website will have a new look and feel, which will slightly change the way you sign into your Bloomberg BNA and Bloomberg Law products. On the new home page, click on the green “Sign In” button at the top right of the page, enter your user name and password, and you should be signed in and able to access Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg BNA.
Here's hoping the transition will be smooth.

Bar Exam results are improving

The blog "Excess of Democracy", written by Pepperdine Law professor Derek Muller, has been following the latest bar exam results closely as they are reported. Last week he reported that bar exam scores this year have rebounded to the highest point since 2013 (note that not all state bar exam results have been reported yet). Today he has a post analyzing these results titled "Why are bar exam scores improving?" In the post he looks at how law schools' strategies for improving their bar pass rates may have affected this year's results. He concludes by saying,

"I wonder if institutions have found better strategies of intervening with at-risk students, or providing more robust bar exam support for at-risk students. Perhaps in the last couple of years, students have been sufficiently scared of failing the bar to study harder or earlier... These are matters that institutions may have the data to examine (or may be in the process of collecting). Regardless, it remains good, albeit still slightly mysterious news--and those in legal education hope that it is the beginning of a continued trend of good news."

Facebook and privacy

Gizmodo has an interesting blogpost about Facebook called "Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, And It Won't Tell Me How." The author says:

"Rebecca Porter and I were strangers, as far as I knew. Facebook , however, thought we might be connected. Her name popped up this summer on my list of “People You May Know,” the social network’s roster of potential new online friends for me. The People You May Know feature is notorious for its uncanny ability to recognize who you associate with in real life. It has mystified and disconcerted Facebook users by showing them an old boss, a one-night-stand, or someone they just ran into on the street.
What makes the results so unsettling is the range of data sources—location information, activity on other apps, facial recognition on photographs—that Facebook has at its disposal to cross-check its users against one another, in the hopes of keeping them more deeply attached to the site. People generally are aware that Facebook is keeping tabs on who they are and how they use the network, but the depth and persistence of that monitoring is hard to grasp. . . . Rebecca Porter, we discovered, is my great aunt, by marriage. She is married to my biological grandfather’s brother; she met him 35 years ago, the year after I was born. Facebook knew my family tree better than I did."

File under creepy.

FDLP webinar: Preservation for Free

The FDLP has scheduled another of their excellent free webinars for librarians called "Preservation for Free." It will be held on Wednesday, August 23, 2017 from 2:00 pm until 3:00 pm EDT. Description: Preserving library collections can seem both daunting and potentially expensive. Yes, hiring a Conservator, purchasing ‘archival’ quality preservation housing materials (like boxes, envelopes, sleeves, and folders), and acquiring all of the equipment necessary for an on-site Conservation Lab are all major investments, but there are also small things everyone can do *for free* to prolong the life of their materials. In this webinar, you’ll learn some tips on how you can aid in the preservation of your collection with minimal or no cost. No prerequisite knowledge required.
Register here.

ProQuest Ebook Central will be temporarily unavailable

ProQuest has announced that to maintain the currency and security of ProQuest ebook platforms, Ebook Central, used by the Pitt University Library System, will be unavailable for approximately three hours beginning Saturday, August 12, 2017 at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
If you are interested in seeing what law books are available on ProQuest, click here.

Government Attic website

The ALA govdocs listserv had a post today about a website called The Government Attic,a site that provides electronic copies of thousands of interesting Federal Government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The site says "Fascinating historical documents, reports on items in the news, oddities and fun stuff and government bloopers, they're all here. Think of browsing this site as rummaging through the Government's Attic -- hence our name." The site menu, accessed by clicking on the "Documents" tab at the top of the page, is worth browsing. Documents are organized by federal agency; there is also a category for "State Records/Miscellaneous Records/Interagency Records." Most of the documents have been run through optical character recognition (OCR) so they can be searched by word, and most items include an agency release letter. The "rummaging through the Government's Attic" description is apt - there are plenty of "oddities", like the FBI file on the subject of a certain "Midwest Stag Film and Burlesque Showman, 1952-53" or "The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) emails and memos that include the word “hemp,” 2006 – 2007" or the "Report of Investigation of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) Office of Inspector General (OIG) by the Department of Education Office of Inspector General, 2013" which sounds vaguely interesting but is so heavily redacted as to be unreadable.
There isn't much info about who created and is maintaining the website; the "Acknowledgments" page says that "The governmentattic.org web site (“the site”) is noncommercial and free to the public...The public records published on this site were obtained from government agencies using proper legal channels... The Government Attic website receives no funding from any outside source. All costs are paid for by the site owners."

GPO wants to change Title 44

Over at the Free Gov Info blog, James A. Jacobs has a post titled " Here we go again: GPO wants to change Title 44." The director of the GPO, Davita Vance-Cooks, has asked the Depository Library Council (DLC) to make recommendations for changes in Chapter 19 of Title 44 of the U.S. Code. A link is provided to the FDLP page where comments and ideas about changing Title 44 are solicited. But Mr. Jacobs discusses why he is very leery of this request. For example, he says, "Changing the U.S. Code is a complex, lengthy, political process. The results of suggesting changes to the law are unpredictable. Even if you begin the process with clear, unambiguous, and lofty goals, the outcome can end with very, very bad unintended consequences.... The first and most important question is: What does GPO want to accomplish by changing Chapter 19? Unfortunately, GPO has not told us what they want or why or if they were directed to do this. It has not told us what parts of Chapter 19 they think need to be changed or why they need to be changed. It has not told us what changes it wants or what it would wish to accomplish with those changes."

FCC cracking down on robocalls

Reuters reports that the Federal Communications Commission has voted unanimously to pursue rules that will help consumers block unwanted robocalls. One report estimates that there are 2.5 million of these unwanted automated messages made to US consumers each month. The FCC press release states that "In its latest step to combat annoying and malicious robocalls, the Federal Communications Commission is seeking public comment on standards that will help differentiate legitimate phone calls from those that attempt to trick consumers through caller ID spoofing. The Commission will explore ways to set up a reliable system to verify that a phone call is really coming from the phone number that it claims to be." These calls are easy for scammers to make thanks to inexpensive automatic dialing machines and spoofing tools that hide the source of the call from your phone company and make your phone’s caller ID display a bogus number.  FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said robocalls are a top consumer complaint. "Americans are mad as hell" that they still get these calls in spite of efforts by Congress and the FCC to stop them.

ABA mulls changes in full-time faculty requirements

Inside Higher Ed reports that the American Bar Association is considering changing its requirements on full-time faculty members at law schools. Currently the ABA requires that more than half of credit hours offered at a law school must be taught by full-time faculty, or that more than two-thirds of "contact hours" are taught by full-time faculty. The ABA is considering cancelling this requirement. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has come out against loosening this regulation because of the effect it would have on the number of full-time law school faculty. In comments submitted to the ABA Section of Legal Education this week, the AAUP stated:

    "In the current climate for legal education, for the Council to adopt the proposed revision to Standard 403(a) would be tantamount to abandoning its longstanding commitment to tenure as the best system for assuring intellectual merit, professional excellence, and academic freedom. At this important juncture, we cannot afford for American legal education to be less rigorous in its expectations of scholarship and classroom performance, or less committed to the highest standards of free inquiry and professional integrity."

new: Happy! Effective lawyer

Pittsburgh attorney Robert Creo is the principal of a new website (launching officially 8/1/17, but fully operational now) called Happy! Effective Lawyer , an initiative focusing on lawyer contentment and peak performance. The site has information and links to sites about mindfulness, wellness, self-care, insights on human behavior, and other resources. The full site is set to be a subscription but you can have a free 30-day trial without giving any credit card info. From the homepage (which is a cheerfulness-inducing bright yellow):

"Lawyers deserve to lead an integrated life 24/7 and to find contentment in their daily tasks. The HAPPY Lawyers at Work approach rejects the concept of mainly focusing on achieving a work-life balance. We believe that this is a false duality between work as drudgery contrasted with time away from work as “living”. Whether you work 20 hours or 80 hours each week, not all of these hours are going to be performed with passion. Work, however, can be structured to be engaging while maximizing individual core competencies. There is a correlation between happiness, peak performance, and effective judgment and decisions. You can take affirmative steps to enhance your engagement, productivity, competency, and happiness. Best practices can be creatively crafted to meet the individual expectations for success while providing effective representation for clients."

article: Information literacy for law school graduates

The current University of Hawai'i Law Review has an interesting article by professors Ellie Margolis and Kristen E. Murray titled "Using Information Literacy to Prepare Practice-Ready Graduates." The article addresses the difficult problem of preparing “practice ready” law graduates when the practice of law is rapidly changing as a result of new developments in technology. Building upon their prior work on legal information literacy, the authors suggest a new way to think about how to prepare law students to be “practice ready” for the legal research and writing tasks they will face as they enter law practice, and how to equip them with the skills to communicate with older generations of lawyers while adapting to new and evolving technologies. From the article:

"What constitutes “cutting edge” legal research and writing skills is almost ever-changing; these are also areas where senior practitioners are likely to feel wedded to the methods and technologies they learned and first encountered in practice. Bridging this gap poses a great challenge to both the new lawyers trying to navigate it and educators striving to prepare new graduates to enter the profession within the ability to hit the ground running...The first step in helping law students and new lawyers bridge the technology gap is to shift from thinking about research and writing as fixed skills, and to focus instead on self-learning and skill development, so that new lawyers can be flexible and adapt as the technological landscape continues to change. Thinking about these skills in terms of “information literacy” can help us take this first step."

City of Pittsburgh database of city-owned properties that are for sale

The City of Pittsburgh Department of Finance has created an online searchable database listing more than 3,000 city-owned vacant lots and abandoned buildings that are for sale. The database website features a map and search options for 3,089 properties. Many of the properties are "vacant land" but there are also houses and other buildings. Some of the listings have photographs. All listings show the lot area, zoning, and assessed value. There are forms available online for anyone interested in applying to purchase any of the properties.

Lexis Advance enhancements announced

Lexis recently announced new enhancements to Lexis Advance. Lexis Answers uses "machine learning technology" to understand and anticipate your research questions as you type into the search box. The new technology suggests natural-language questions for your search and delivers a clear, concise and authoritative answer plus comprehensive search results for deeper research.
There is more info available on the Lexis website; Lexis also provides a short (2 minute) video overview of Lexis Answers on Vimeo.

Access to CRS Reports... now available to the public!

This great news came from Emily Feltren, who is the Director of Government Relations at the AALL and a tireless proponent of open access to government information.

"(T)he House Appropriations Committee just took a giant leap toward making Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports available to the public. During its mark up of the Fiscal Year 2018 Legislative Branch Appropriations bill, the full Committee approved language directing CRS to report back to the Committee within 90 days of enactment with a plan to make its non-confidential reports available to the public. This has been more than 20 years in the making, and it was only possible thanks to the hard work of the many advocates−including many of you--who have written, called, tweeted, and spoken to their members of Congress about CRS over the years. While there are still some hurdles to get over (namely, the bill must pass the House, and there must be a companion bill in the Senate), the report language in legislative branch appropriations bills is generally adhered to even if not passed into law. Please join us in celebrating this win for public access! AALL will continue to work hard to make sure public access to these valuable reports becomes a reality in the coming months. .. Here is the appropriations report language: 'Public Access to CRS Reports: The Committee directs the Library of Congress’s Congressional Research Service (CRS) to make available to the public, all non-confidential reports. The Committee has debated this issue for several years, and after considering debate and testimony from entities inside the legislative branch and beyond the Committee believes the publishing of CRS reports will not impede CRS’s core mission in any impactful way and is in keeping with the Committee’s priority of full transparency to the American people. Within 90 days of enactment of this act CRS is directed to submit a plan to its oversight committees detailing its recommendations for implementing this effort as well as any associated cost estimates. Where practicable, CRS is encouraged to consult with the Government Publishing Office (GPO) in developing their plan; the Committee believes GPO could be of assistance in this effort.'"

Ravel Law bought by LexisNexis

LexisNexis has issued a press release announcing their acquisition of Ravel Law, " a legal search, analytics, and visualization platform that aims to turn lawyers into data analysts." Ravel was started in 2012 by law student Daniel Lewis et al in a dorm room at Stanford. According to the email announcement that Daniel sent out, "Simultaneously, we will begin work on integration with LexisNexis. You can expect that Ravel's analytics offerings will continue to expand and be fully integrated into Lexis Litigation Profile Suite. Additionally, Ravel's search visualization will be integrated into Lexis Advance. Finally, Ravel's Harvard caselaw content will enrich the already expansive caselaw collection available from LexisNexis. We hope to complete integration with LexisNexis by early 2018, at which time we will ensure a seamless transition for our customers."
News of the acquisition has been widely reported as an indication that data analysis is of increasing importance to the practice of lawyering and conducting legal research.  The Wall Street Journal reported the acquisition as "When it comes to the future of lawyering, LexisNexis is doubling down on big data." SLAW says that "LexisNexis Seeks to Turn Lawyers into Data Analysts." The ABA Journal says that "LexisNexis Legal and Professional has acquired legal research and litigation analytics firm Ravel Law, and will integrate Ravel's data visualization and profiling technology into LexisNexis services."

Publishers announce anti-counterfeiting measures

In March, academic publishers Cengage and McGraw-Hill Education, along with Elsevier and Pearson, formed the Education Publisher Enforcement Group to raise awareness about counterfeit textbooks. Now, Inside Higher Education reports that this Cengage Learning & McGraw-Hill Education textbooks will have a "certification seal" that can be scanned by a smartphone ?QR code-reading app to verify that the books are from the publisher and not a counterfeiter.

LawPORT: Online tutorials from the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies

The University of London's Institute of Advanced Legal Studies has announced the launch of LawPORT, a collection of training tutorials "designed to improve the information literacy skills of law PhD students." Of course these are geared towards law students in the UK, but they are very well done. The tutorials "Researching customary international law" and "Treaties and international conventions" both have useful information for anyone doing international legal research (the third tutorial, using OSCOLA, is about using the Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities, similar to our Bluebook). The tutorials are free-to-use, can be accessed anywhere, at any time and be undertaken at your own pace.

Interactive database from the U.S. Courts

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts recently made available an enhanced database containing information about civil and criminal federal cases going back to 1970. The Integrated Database (IDB) is available to the public for free on the Federal Judicial Center website. According to the announcement, "The interactive database contains docket information from district, appellate, and bankruptcy court filings and terminations, including plaintiff and defendant names, filing date, termination date, disposition of the case, type of lawsuit, jurisdiction, and docket number. It excludes judges’ names as a preventative measure against judge-shopping by plaintiffs..."

GPO Director on transforming the GPO for the 21st Century

The new Director of the Government Publishing Office, Davita Vance-Cooks, recently met with the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House Administration at a hearing on "Transforming GPO for the 21st Century and Beyond." She reported on the continuing evolution and transformation of the GPO from a print-centric to a content-centric publishing operation, and detailed the GPO's current and future digital publishing initiatives for Congress and Federal Agencies. Her prepared statement is available on the GPO website as a 16 page pdf.

UN Libraries announce new free resource

The librarians at the UN have announced that the United Nations Digital Library (UNDL) is now available and can be accessed globally free of charge. From the announcement:

"The new platform runs on innovative open source technology... and is a result of the successful collaboration between the Dag Hammarskjöld Library at UN Headquarters and our sister library at the UN Office in Geneva...Phase 1 of the features the integration of ... 3  databases into one; it incorporates digital content, mainly official UN documents and selected UN maps, with metadata  as well as speech and voting records... We plan to add and integrate additional collections of digital materials as they are created or are made available to us by UN departments, offices, and agencies."

Features of the new platform include:
• Content organized into collections (by UN body, agency, and type of document).
• Various search options (simple keyword, advanced, Boolean, search using field tags, include/exclude search in full text).
• Links between related documents.
• Interface in 6 official UN languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) – in progress.
Users who register for an account at the library can access additional features, such as search alerts, saved searches, and "baskets" for saving documents and collaborating with others.
There is a promotional video on YouTube.  The librarians add "We are developing more features and functionalities and are committed to implement enhancements on a continuous basis. You can help us by sending us your comments and observations."

New Readex interface

Readex has announced enhancements that are now available on a number of their databases. These enhancements include "Fresh new looks featuring compelling graphics and streamlined designs to spur fresh interest and higher use; More intuitive navigation, including a prominent search box and larger tabs to encourage searching and discovery; Better image viewing to make working with historical documents far easier for both novice and seasoned users.
The search page for each of the Readex databases looks quite different, with larger and more obvious visual cues for searching. And when you pull up a document to view, the display is larger and easier to navigate. You can see for yourself at the new Readex Congressional Serial Set homepage. ULS also subscribes to several other Readex databases that have been updated:

•  Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports  
• American State Papers, 1789-1817
• American Broadsides & Ephemera
• African Newspapers
• Latin American Newspapers

TRAC reports increasing FOIA backlog at USCIS

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University issued an FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) Project report yesterday which stated

"The backlog of unprocessed FOIA requests to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) continues to climb. In just a two-year period, the backlog of unanswered FOIA requests has tripled, climbing from 17,998 at the end of December 2014 to 46,550 at the end of December 2016. This means that countless requesters – including reporters, scholars, and those subject to immigration actions – are not getting the information they need to check against unlawful actions and to better hold the government accountable to the governed."

Detailed data is included at the website link.

the privacy paradox

Harvard Business Review has an interesting article titled "Why We’re So Hypocritical About Online Privacy." The author discusses the "privacy paradox", or why so many say they are concerned about their online privacy yet so few do anything about protecting it. An example is that most of us are annoyed at the targeted marketing that follows us around as we browse online, but few of us actually change our online shopping behavior. A scary piece of information is that "Our digital footprint can already be used to infer our deepest character traits; a 2013 study of 58,000 Facebook users (who volunteered for the study) was able to reliably predict sexual orientation, gender, race, age, religious and political views, level of intelligence, alcohol and cigarette use, drug use, and whether the volunteer’s parents were separated. The researchers were also able to predict, to some degree, personality traits, such as extraversion, conscientiousness, openness, emotional stability, and agreeableness." This is particularly true of social media users, who, despite expressing concerns about privacy, are careless in what they reveal on social media and allow a wide range of external apps to access their information. The author of the article gives some psychological reasons for this behavior, but he questions whether there is, really, "any such thing as a 'secret' life anymore?"

Airtable online database creator

The Informed Librarian Online has a recent post titled "Is There Such a Thing as an Easy to Use, Lightweight Relational Database?" by Dana DeFebbo, a law librarian at the Tarlton Law Library at U of Texas. The article is about Airtable, a new online resource for building databases. The author says that "Airtable is a cloud-based, lightweight relational database that integrates the relational database function of something like Microsoft Access with the overall easier to understand layout of a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel. However, Airtable is by and large much easier to use than Access and Excel, it is web-based so it can run on any machine with nothing to download, and it is mostly free."
Airtable is flexible like a spreadsheet, but it's made for organization rather than number crunching. You can use it to organize anything and when you start using the website you can view and explore of the ways Airtable is used for collections of information and project management. A nice feature is that you can customize your fields for a large variety of data types including text, attachments (like photos), checkboxes, date, email address, number, currency, formula, barcode, and many other types of information. Airtable has some preconfigured templates that you can modify for your own needs; you can also import an existing .csv file to create your own "base" from scratch. The interface is very user-friendly with "help" and "information" popups readily available.

The 14th Amendment

The ABA Journal has an excellent article that details the history of the 14th Amendment titled "The 14th: A Civil War-era amendment has become a mini-Constitution for modern times." The article features analysis and discussion by a number of prominent legal scholars. Included with the article is a digital slideshow of 14th Amendment Milestones, from the Dred Scott decision (1857) through Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)

Microfiche webinar

The Federal Depository Library Program is hosting a webinar on Tuesday, May 9, at 2 pm titled "Everthing you need to know about Microfiche." From the description: "Managing a microfiche collection can be challenging, especially as this format becomes obsolete and collections of fiche begin to show signs of physical degradation. This webinar will discuss how microfiche is produced, examine risks and risk mitigation for microfiche collections, and options for reformatting microfiche to digital."
The webinar is free, but you should register here.

GPO. LOC release digitized Congressional Record for the 1960's

The Government Publishing Office and the Library of Congress have announced that they have partnered in making the digitized Congressional Record 1961-70 available on GPO's govinfo website. Comprising ~ 380,000 pages, these Congressional Records include Congressional debates and proceedings from the turbulent 1960's. They cover important historical topics including:
·The Administrations of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and the first two years of the Administration of President Nixon
·The Civil Rights Era
·The Vietnam War
·The Space Program and Moon Landing
·Legislation of the Great Society and the War on Poverty, including:
    The Civil Rights Act of 1964
    The Voting Rights Act of 1965
    The Fair Housing Act of 1968
    The Medicare and Medicaid Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
    The Immigration Act of 1965
    The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965
    The Endangered Species Act of 1966
    The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967
The bound volumes have been digitized chronologically and are available as pdfs.

Google Earth relaunched

Google Earth has been completely revamped, in a "stunning relaunch" according to Search Engine Watch.  They have an article authored by Clark Boyd that gives a detailed look at the new product. For those of us who use Google Chrome as our browser the best news is that Google Earth is built into Chrome so one no longer has to download the app.  It works quickly and smoothly and is quite amazing. When you launch it for the first time there is a brief video tour "This is the new Google Earth, here are the top 5 things to try" which can help you get started. 

Fake Review Detector

Have you every doubted a review on Amazon or Yelp?  There's an app/browser extention/website to help with that. It's called Fakespot.  Because there are lots and lots of fake reviews out there, and this will help you separate the junk from the useful ones. It also has a webpage called "worst fake reviews" where you can see products whose online reviews are pretty much 100% fake. 

New: USA Facts website

CIO and others report that Steve Ballmer, late of Microsoft, has a new project called USA Facts (Our nation, in numbers) that has the grand goal of fixing the US government.  According to the New York Times, "The database is perhaps the first nonpartisan effort to create a fully integrated look at revenue and spending across federal, state and local governments." The website states that "USAFacts is a new data-driven portrait of the American population, our government’s finances, and government’s impact on society. We are a non-partisan, not-for-profit civic initiative and have no political agenda or commercial motive. We provide this information as a free public service and are committed to maintaining and expanding it in the future. We rely exclusively on publicly available government data sources. We don’t make judgments or prescribe specific policies."  The site already contains a wealth of information but it is still in beta. 

WK Study Guides: interface update tomorrow

Wolters Kluwer has informed us that they are upgrading the portal for the WK Online Study Aid library with the release planned for April 22, 2017. Their website will be unavailable for about one hour on April 22 beginning at 1:00 am while they implement the changes. There will be no change to the content, to a student’s settings, notes, highlights, or bookmarks. Students will continue to access content as previously. Benefits of the new interface for students include:
• Updated online and offline readers.
• Sync notes and highlights between online/offline access when same file format is used.
• Option to view EPUB or PDF when reading online.
• Export notes.
• My Shelf: create custom shelves to organize your books.
• Responsive design for the desktop site and a mobile site for tablets and smartphones.

The very first 1040 form, from the LOC

In a timely post, the Law Library of Congress blog today posted an image of the very first Form 1040, from 1913. The current federal income tax can be traced back to the Revenue Act of 1913, which was passed after the ratification, by the states, of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution. The act provided that taxes on individual taxpayers would be imposed beginning for the year 1913 on incomes of $3,000 and up.
Despite being over 100 years old, the 1040 from 1913 resembles our current form in its structure and bureaucratic language, as well as the several "see instructions page ___" However, it was due on March 1, and only taxed income earned between March 1 and December 31 for some reason.

GPO Launches New GPO.gov Website

The Federal Depository Library Program has sent out an announcement that the Government Printing Office has launched a new website (still in beta) that is meant to be more user-friendly for customers, vendors, Federal agencies, libraries, and the public looking for Government information. The site is https://beta.gpo.gov. Eventually this site will replace the current site, developed in 2009.
They welcome your feedback on the site at this feedback form.

FDLP webinar: resources from the Army War College

The Federal Depository Library Program is offering a free webinar on Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 2 pm titled "U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE INFORMATION RESOURCES: LANDPOWER, GEOPOLITICS, ARMY HISTORY, AND EDUCATIONAL TREASURES." The presenter is Prof. Bert Chapman,who is a Political Science and Economics Librarian/Professor of Library Science at Purdue University. This webinar will introduce students to the rich variety of information resources provided by the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA. Examples of these resources from the Army’s premier professional military education institution include materials such as course syllabi, podcasts, and detailed studies on the role of land power and strategy in the U.S. and foreign militaries. It will also cover historical materials produced by the War College’s Army Heritage and Education Command that can enhance understanding of the U.S. Army’s role in U.S. and international history. Register here.

Reuters adds "Trust Principles" and "Backstory" to news reports

Reuters recently announced that they "have attached a link to the Trust Principles at the bottom of all stories on Reuters.com. In addition, from time to time, when we think it might be useful to the reader, we will also provide an explanation – which we are calling Backstory – of how we have reported a particular piece. Backstory will be presented as a statement of methodology or a Q&A with a Reuters journalist. These additions reflect our commitment not only to deliver accurate, unbiased news but to share more information about the way we work and the standards under which we operate."

hat tip: Karen Shephard

A graphical history of Google search results

Google has been around for almost twenty years now. Search Engine Watch has created a visual history of Google's evolution, "including its many successes and its few notable failures, through the lens of the humble Search Engine Results Page (SERP)". They also provide an updated look at search engines that are currently an alternative to Google - even though about 80% of desktop computer users vhttps://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx?qprid=4&qpcustomd=0 Google for their search engine.  

USDA website redesign

The United States Dept. of Agriculture recently announced a complete redesign of thei website. According to the announcement, the  redesign features "stronger visual storytelling components, a more modern user-experience with easy to find services and resources, and to top it off, a completely mobile-friendly design. Through careful planning, thoughtful design, and a primary focus on user experience and usability, we’ve taken the best of government and industry expertise and put it into creating our new website."

GODORT prisoner locator update

GODORT, the ALA section of government documents librarians, maintains the State Agency Databases Project and, as a subsection, the Prisoner Locator Tools page on the State Agencies website. They recently updated the url for that site, which links to inmate locators in a number of US states; they also provide a link to the prisoner locator for Federal prisons.

Unpaywall helps find free online papers/articles

A new Chrome extension called "Unpaywall", though still being tweaked, is available - the official release is April 4th. It searches Open Access sites for accessible materials that are known to be behind paywalls. The organization behind Unpaywall is Impactstory, "a nonprofit working to supercharge science by making it more open, reusable, and web-native." According to the site, Unpaywall is able to get articles behind paywalls for free about half the time, though they claim that this is improving regularly.

hat tip: Karen Shephard

Alternative law school ranking system

The Volokh Conspiracy blog has a post titled "This law school ranking system is much better than U.S. News," by David Bernstein. The related paper, A De Gustibus Approach to Ranking Law Schools by Christopher J. Ryan and Brian L. Frye, is available on SSRN. From the abstract:

This article assumes that the purpose of ranking law schools is to help students decide which school to attend. Accordingly, it describes an approach to ranking law schools based entirely on the revealed preferences of students. Law schools admit applicants based almost entirely on their LSAT score and undergraduate GPA, and compete to matriculate students with the highest possible scores. Our de gustibus approach to ranking law schools assumes that the “best” law schools are the most successful at matriculating those students. This article concludes with a “best law schools ranking” based exclusively on the LSAT scores and undergraduate GPAs of matriculating students.

hat tip: Karen Shephard

Pitt diversity book club March 30

The University of Pittsburgh Diversity Book Club is having a panel discussion next Thursday, March 30, from 4-6 pm in the William Pitt Union Lower Lounge.  In honor of Women's History Month, the topic will be the book Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay. Goodreads review of the book says:

"In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman of color while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years and commenting on the state of feminism today. The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture. Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better."

webinar Saving government data: A conversation with the future

On Wednesday, March 29, 2017 from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. (Eastern) there's a Help! I'm an Accidental Government Information Librarian Webinar about the DataRefuge project and other projects like it that work in conjunction with the End of Term Web Archive to capture and make available federal web content during administrative transitions. The discussion will explore the fragility of digital information, and expand on ideas about what data is. We’ll talk about current projects and efforts, and explore the future of this work. Finally, we’ll address the concept of sustainability, and propose a paradigm of empowered experimentation that aligns with our values and roles within libraries. The webinar is free; RSVP here.

Report on European case law availabilty

A project called BO-ECLI - Building On the European Case Law Identifier - has published "Online Publication of Court Decisions in the EU: Report of the Policy Group of the Project 'Building on the European Case Law Identifier' (178 page pdf)." BO-ECLI is a project involving sixteen partners from ten Member States (Italy, Greece, Croatia, Estonia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, Spain, Romania) that aims to broaden the use of ECLI and to further improve the accessibility of case law. BO-ECLI is co-funded by the Justice Programme of the European Union.  

The report is a comparative study regarding the on-line publication of court decisions within all 28 Member States of the European Union, as well as at three European Courts. The Executive Summary states that "It focusses on three main themes – policy and practices with regard to on-line publication, data protection and Open Data – and two accessory topics: citation practice and the implementation of the European Case Law Identifier... After an introductory section, the five themes (publication, data protection, Open Data, legal citation and ECLI) are discussed in separate sections. Section 7 contains reports for all 28 EU Member States as well as for three European courts: the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights and the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Organization. Section 8 contains the conclusions and a set of 25 recommendations. "

hat tip: LII (Legal Information Institute)