HeinOnline now has a blog

Theirs is also on Blogspot: http://www.heinonline.blogspot.com. And they're using the same blogger template. Don't tell Shannon, but I think ours is better :-)

Batgirl is a librarian.

Secret closets for the librarian rock!(hat tip Joe Hodnicki)!

Database reviews

A recent query on the ERIL (Electronic Resources in Libraries) listserv asking for sources that review electronic databases generated a lot of interest and quite a bit of information. The list of sources that review databases and eresources has been published on the listserv (free registration required).

More law database news

Advanced Technology Systems Corp. and Claraview, a company "focused on business intelligence and data warehousing", announced that the Law Library of Congress has contracted with them to host, maintain and enhance GLIN.gov and a supporting distance learning program. Currently available in 13 languages, ATSC will add Hebrew and simplified Chinese language support for GLIN.gov in the first contract year. The Global Legal Information Network is a public database of official texts of laws, regulations, judicial decisions, and other complementary legal sources contributed by governmental agencies and international organizations. The GLIN database contains nearly 150,000 laws and supplementary legal material from 47 nations and multi-national jurisdictions is accessible in 13 languages and viewed by users in over 100 countries around the world. Since January 2007 traffic to the website has increased by 70%.

nellco grant: Universal Search Solution

NELLCO (Barco is a member of this organization - the New England Law Library Consortium - even though we're not, strictly speaking, in New England) has just announced that it's been awarded a 2-year, $364,150 National Leadership grant from to develop a "Universal Search Solution." What's that, you ask? According to the press release, "Universal Search Solution" will result in the creation of a physical master index of material including participating library catalogs, as well as subscription-based databases and open content, special collections, and other resources that a participating library wishes to make discoverable to its patrons. Tracy Thompson, who is the executive director (and only fulltime employee) of NELLCO,
says that the project is a response to the shortcomings of the federated search solutions currently available to law libraries. “Law libraries spend an enormous amount on electronic resources for their users. We want those resources to be exploited as fully as possible to enhance scholarship and inform thebody of knowledge in the legal arena. But connecting library users to our e-resources isan ongoing challenge.
Sounds like an ambitious and very worthwhile project. NELLCO's technical partner in the venture is IndexData, and the grant is from the IMLS - the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

September

The back-to-school cold season has hit the Barco Law Library faculty and staff hard - straining our resources and making it hard to keep up with the blogging. Let's hope we all recuperate over the weekend.

Google Docs in Plain English

This is a nice little video that explains how Google docs works.

Mail: the twilight years

A couple of days ago I told a friend of mine that I don't think there will be snailmail or a post office much longer. She replied that her mailman has told her the only reason he's still got a job is because of all the junk mail he has to deliver. So this headline in PC World magazine (the online version, needless to say) caught my eye: "Never Get Paper Mail Again". There is a company called Earth Class Mail that offers this service: you pay them $13 a month, and you fill out a change of address card at the Post Office that redirects all your mail to Earth Class Mail in Kirkland, Washington. They scan the outside of all the envelopes that arrive and you can view the scans online, and decide whether you want that piece of mail opened and scanned, archived, shredded, or even mailed to your address (a little more than half of the mail is discarded, with nearly a quarter of the mail opened and scanned.) PC World says "The service is targeted at people who travel a lot and at companies of all sizes that want more secure, efficient mail handling. But it's also ideal for anyone who thinks paper mail is silly and is looking for a better way."

Are ISBNs intellectual property?

Yesterday's Harvard Crimson has a story about a student who was asked to leave the Harvard Coop bookstore because he was writing down the prices of 6 books in the store. The president of the Coop said that the Coop considers information about ISBNs to be the Coop’s intellectual property.

SSRN expands

SSRN (the Social Science Research Network) sent an email this morning announcing the expansion of its ERPN - Entrepreneurship research and policy news - and the addition of several new paper series. One that might be of interest to law faculty, especially to anyone contemplating empirical research, is the U.S. Census Bureau Center for Economic Studies Research Paper Series.

Et tu, WSJ?

A story on the front page of Section B of the Wall Street Journal this morning suggests that the Wall Street Journal - the bastion of capitalism - may follow the lead of the New York Times and make its online content freely available. The Journal became the only major U.S. paper charging for online access to most of its content after the New York Times yesterday abandoned its online "Times Select" paid-subscription service.
You can read the story in the WSJ here if you have a paid subscription. Otherwise, you can read about it here, or if you search Google news using the search term "Murdoch's Choice" (in quotes) you can get into the WSJ version free.

Lawyers: big (carbon) feet

The ABA Journal reports today that lawyers have oversized carbon footprints. The average lawyer uses 20,000 to 100,000 sheets of copy paper in a year. Not included in the study was Barco's student Westlaw printer - the one in the computer lab that was one of the top printout producers in the country this summer.

Duke Law School creates new center

In the aftermath of the scandal involving wrongful accusations of several Duke lacrosse players, the Duke Law School has announced that it will spend $1.25 million on a center that will incorporate and expand the law school’s Wrongful Convictions Clinic and Innocence Project. The purpose of the center is to promote criminal justice and train lawyers to fight wrongful convictions. The center will expand the existing Wrongful Convictions Clinic to include an undergraduate course on the causes and remedies for wrongful convictions and courses taught by experts in areas such as forensic science, eyewitness identifications and false confessions. The programs will continue to investigate credible claims of innocence made by convicted felons in N. C. and work to raise public awareness of systemic problems in the criminal justice system that lead to wrongful convictions.
Duke University President Richard Brodhead stated that “three of our students suffered a grave injustice at the hands of the legal system... I am determined that we will make some good come out of the grave injustice that took place."

NY Times online to stop charging

The New York Times has announced that as of midnight tonight it will stop charging for content that it started charging for two years ago. The NYT has been noticably irresolute about its Times Select online service. It began as a paid subscription that was free to print subscribers, but then the Times began to give free access to college students and educators. Now the Times reports that "in addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free." Removing the subscription barrier will open the website to traffic directed by search engines and the paper says the increased traffic and resulting increased ad revenues will more than make up for any lost subscription revenues.

New attorney general

President Bush has named Judge Michael Mukasey Attorney General. Read the AP report on the appointment.

Academic library asks patrons what to cancel

In an article in the online university newsletter, the librarians at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota have asked the university community to review and comment on their cancellation list. ""We propose canceling 31 titles for which there will be no exact counterpart available on campus. Please, take a moment to examine the list to ensure that we have precisely identified the least used resources for the campus. " It will be interesting to hear the results - will anyone bother to comment?

Library Science Jeopardy

Test your library science knowledge!

Second Life in the classroom

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting report about some college faculty who are using Second Life to teach in innovative ways. The article also contains comments from faculty who don't think Second Life is helpful.

The US Courts website recently posted a report on the federal judiciary's Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system and how PACER's popularity is affecting court staff. The widespread use of PACER by law firms has changed the way court staff do business. One judge is quoted as saying that "I'm worried about what can be the complete absence of interaction between lawyers and their staffs and the court staff." Another judge said he's more likely to insist on quicker responses from lawyers because "submitting a reply brief in two days is much easier than it was in a paper world."

Students use of technology

Inside Higher Education has interesting writeup about a new report from the Educause Center about how students in higher education use information technology. They interviewed 27,846 students at 103 higher education institutions and studied what kinds of information technologies these students use, own, and experience; their technology behaviors, preferences, and skills; how IT impacts their experiences in their courses; and their perceptions of the role of IT in the academic experience. The entire report is available free on the Educause website.