new titles in the Gale Virtual Reference Library

News from the University Library System that ten titles have been added to our Gale Virtual Reference Library subscription :
Encyclopedia of World Biography
Encyclopedia of World Cultures
Encyclopedia of Religion
Dictionary of American History
Encyclopedia of Education
Encyclopedia of Modern Asia
Europe, 1450 to 1789: An Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture
Gale Encyclopedia of Science, 3rd ed.
Encyclopedia of Sociology
When you search the Gale Virtual Reference Library you can limit your search to one of these titles or any title in the Library.

GLBT-friendly law firms

Legal Blog Watch directs us to the Human Rights Campaign's annual ranking (pdf, go to page 21 for the list) of how equitably companies treat their GLBT employees and customers, and points out that the number of law firms with a perfect score has doubled from last year. Note that only large law firms are included in the rankings.

Justice Harry Blackmun papers online

Thanks to Pat Roncevich, our Acquisitions Librarian extraordinaire, for this one: Lee Epstein, a law professor at Northwestern, has created and is maintaining a digital archive of Justice Harry Blackmun's papers. The archive contains pdf files of the docket sheets and preliminary (pool) memoranda from Blackmun’s papers in the Library of Congress and is browsable or searchable by case docket number. Prof. Epstein also has on her website the U.S. Supreme Court Justices Database, which "contain(s) a wealth of information on individuals nominated (whether confirmed or not) to the U.S. Supreme Court (John Jay-Samuel A. Alito, Jr). Specifically, the database houses 263 variables, falling roughly into five categories: identifiers, background characteristics and personal attributes, nomination and confirmation, service on the Court, and departures from the bench."

New electronic subscription: Foreign Law Guide

Barco has added a new electronic subscription to our collection of online licensed databases: Foreign Law Guide: Current Sources of Codes and Basic Legislation in Jurisdictions of the World. This is the online version of the print book Foreign Law: Current Sources of Codes and Basic Legislation in Jurisdictions of the World by law librarians Thomas Reynolds and Alberto Flores (available in our international collection - K520 .R49). Containing information on more than 170 jurisdictions, the database is designed to locate primary and secondary sources of foreign law and is an excellent starting point for finding foreign law both in the language of the country and in translation. For each country there is a brief introduction to the legal system, a list of past and current sources of legal information including both print and online and a section listing sources of law by subject.
The simple search interface allows you to search the database for words or phrases by country. Access to the database is by IP address, which means that you can use the database from any computer in the Barco law building or via the law school wireless network.

Online "office productivity" resources news

The great trend this year is Everything 2.0. What does this mean? Lots of online interactive applications, aka "apps", and the hits just keep on coming. What's amazing is that most of these apps are free, at least for the basic versions - there are usually "better" and "best" versions with enhanced features for a monthly charge. These apps do things for which ten years ago we would've shelled out hundreds of dollars for a software program in a box.
For example, yesterday brought an article from PC World announcing that both Microsoft (with Office Live Workspace beta) and Adobe (by purchasing Buzzword) are moving into what they call the "online office productivity" market.
Last week, there was an article in Computerworld called "five free apps we couldn't live without" and it included one of my favorite apps, Zoho Creator. This is an application that does lots of cool things but here's what I love most about it: you can take an Excel spreadsheet and abracadabra turn it into a database in a few seconds! All you have to do is copy everything in the Excel spreadsheet, paste it into a box on Zoho, click the button, and in seconds you have a database that you can add records to and manipulate easily. And it's so much nicer than an Excel spreadsheet. Highly recommend trying it.
One bit of bad news though - eBay is having problems with Skype. When they bought Skype a couple of years ago there was a lot of hype but I guess it hasn't done very well. Which is too bad because it can be a really great communication service - especially for talking to people in other countries. But apparently the business model isn't working: "The Skype service has been tremendously popular as a free service. But at some point, free doesn't work anymore. It's not a management problem. It's a business model issue."

U. Conn law library called "a monumental mess"

An editorial yesterday in the Hartford Courant bemoans the fact that the law library at the University of Connecticut law school was built in 1996 at a cost of $24 million and now needs $19 million in repairs. "Its majestic facade began to loosen from its anchors. Scaffolding had to be erected over the entrance to protect students in case a stiff wind sent the stones tumbling. Mold grew and so did the price tag for repairs." The university is working with the state attorney general to recover damages from the original contractors and designers.

CMU introduces the Anti- Phishing Phil game

It's not always easy to tell when you are being scammed by an email or website link, and it can cause a lot of trouble if you fall for a false website. Phishing, as it's called, tries to lure unsuspecting users to a website that LOOKS bona fide and then convince them to give out confidential information about credit cards, bank accounts, passwords, etc. Some of the websites are very sophisticated and very convincing.
To help consumers separate the bogus from the bona fide, CMU is beta-testing a game called anti-phishing Phil. The game teaches you to recognize websites that are phishing for information. Okay, it seems geared to small children, but grownups can benefit from playing too. You are shown url's and have to decide if the website is real or fake.
Sample questions:
http://www.ameritrading.net/apps/LogIn Is this the real Ameritrade website? (fake)
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=email-recovery Is this the real PayPal website? (real)
https://web.da-us.citibank.com/cgi-bin/citifi/portal/l/l.do Is this the real Citibank website? (fake)

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."