Women's Equality around the world

The Law Library of Congress has prepared a resource called "Constitutional Provisions on Women's Equality" (9 page pdf) that provides links to the constitutions of foreign jurisdictions with language stating women's equality and/or states' anti-discrimination policies.

Chrome edges out Internet Explorer

Web analytics firm StatCounter reports that for the first time the Google Chrome browser has edged past Internet Explorer in browser usage. In the same report, it looks like Firefox usage has stayed fairly constant.

Ruling in Georgia State copyright infringement case

Judge Orinda Evans of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia has handed down her ruling (350 page pdf) in the case of Cambridge University Press v. Becker. The case is a closely-watched lawsuit in which a group of academic publishers sued Georgia State University over its use of copyrighted material in electronic reserves. The ruling is being hailed as something of a victory for Georgia State, as the ruling cleared most of the copyright claims against the university, although Businessweek reports that Georgia State was held liable for five of the 99 claims. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the publisher-plaintiffs in the case are disappointed with much of the ruling.  

Summer reading...

If it's May, it must be time to catch up on non-law reading for pleasure.  The Christian Science Monitor has an especially interesting list of 15 new novels recommended for summer reading. The plots range from a story about a duck-billed playpus in Adelaide, Australia (Albert of Adelaide), to a book offering an updated version of "Age of Innocence" set in a Jewish suburb of London (The Innocents).  If you prefer non-fiction, they also provide a list of 21 "smart" nonfiction books that are being published just in time for summer reading.

LLSDC provides major update to the online section of the Legislative Source Book

The Law Librarians' Society of Washington D.C., Inc. (LLSDC) has announced a major update to its 21 year old publication entitled, "Internet and Online Sources of U.S. Legislative and Regulatory Information" part of LLSDC's extensive and highly regarded Legislative Source Book. The ten page publication briefly describes and then sets out in a comparison table more than 60 Internet and online sources for U.S. federal and state legislative and regulatory information. It describes both subscription sources and non-subscription source, so that readers can see what kind of legislative and regulatory information is or is not available from each provider, and frequently the dates of coverage and the file name.

ProQuest announces individual access to databases

ProQuest has announced a new service called Udini that is geared towards "the individual researcher".  According to the press release, Udini is geared towards knowledge workers without access to research libraries, providing  individuals with access to "premium" ProQuest content like peer-reviewed and trade journals, dissertations, newswires, and more. It includes content from publishers like Springer, the Economist, Cambridge University Press, and 3800 others. It is easy to sign up for a Udini account, and you get 5 articles for free to keep forever.  After that you can preview articles and decide if you want to pay to get the entire article added to your Udini library.
It certainly marks a new approach to selling proprietary content, and it will be interesting to watch.
Hat tip: Law Librarian Blog

Graphic: gay rights in the US, state by state

The UK Guardian has an interesting "data visualization" on their website that illustrates gay rights in the United States, state by state. The categories in which states are compared include gay marriage, gay adoption, hospital visitation and medical decision-making, and various anti-discrimination areas of law. The states are grouped by region.
Hat tip: Pat Roncevich

National Archives catches inside thief

The Washington Post reports that a sharp-eyed collector of radio ephemera has helped the National Archives bring a thief to justice. The collector was shopping on eBay for additions to his collection when he came upon an item that piqued his interest: the master copy of a broadcast radio interview with baseball legend Babe Ruth as he hunted for quail and pheasants on a crisp morning in 1937. A close look, however, made him realize that the item had been stolen from the National Archives. Working with federal authorities, he helped them track down the seller- who turned out to be a longtime Archives official who has admitted to stealing 955 items from the Archives – including original recordings of the 1948 World Series and a rare recording of the 1937 Hindenburg disaster.

NYC public schools forbid Facebook friending for teachers

The New York Times reports that the New York City Dept. of Education has issued guidelines governing social media interactions between teachers and students. Following numerous inappropriate relationships between students and teachers that began on social networking sites, the rules prohibit teachers from communicating with students using their 'personal' Facebook or Twitter accounts, and requires parental consent before students can participate in social networking for educational purposes. The rules also state that teachers have no expectation of privacy online, and that principals and other officials will inspect teachers' profiles.

LOC on born digital collections

The Library of Congress's Digital Preservation blog today has a really interesting post about the Rhizome ArtBase online archive of digital art. This is the beginning of a new series that the LOC is trying out that will focus on interesting and valuable "born digital" collections. The series will look at particular collections and include conversations with archivists, curators, librarians and others who work to collect, preserve, and provide access to "our born digital cultural record". Today's article features an interview with the digital conservator of Rhizome ArtBase, who talks about the sort of work that is in the collection including Jellotime.com (2008) and the Endangered GIF Preserve (2012-ongoing) which collects animated GIFs that have been marked for deletion from Wikipedia.

Digital library for all

Technology Review has a terrific article feature titled "The Library of Utopia". The article discusses the utopian ideal of making all knowledge available to everyone in a public library of all books ever published. In particular, the article looks at two projects with these ambitions: the Google Book project and Robert Darnton's Digital Public Library project. The author discusses the problems that have arisen with each, and the prospects for the future.

Dropbox price compared with other online storage

Amit Agarwal's Digital Inspiration blog has a useful post in which he compares the cost of "cloud" storage in the top online storage services. The services he looks at are Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, Box, and SugarSync. He points out that the pricing strategy of Google (for Google Drive) and Microsoft (for SkyDrive)has pressured Dropbox to offer smaller and less expensive plans.

The Digital Campus 2012

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a Special Report on the Digital Campus 2012. The report looks at the current status of technology in higher education, and includes articles about open education, designing online courses, and how one professor at Virginia Tech, John Boyer, teaches a megaclass of 2,670 students using technology.

Preservation Week in law libraries

+Margaret Maes, director of the Legal Information Preservation Alliance (LIPA)is highlighting projects undertaken by LIPA member during Preservation Week. The first story comes from the University of Arizona, where the Cracchiolo Law Library has established a digital projects initiative to provide online access to content from the Law Library's Special Collections. The focus has been on Law College publications (such as alumni magazines and course catalogs) and Arizona pre-statehood materials (including territorial session laws and legislative journals, among others). Many of the Law College’s own development publications, while widely distributed when first printed, are now available only through the library’s Special Collections; and although some of the Arizona pre-statehood materials can be found in subscription databases, most are not freely available to the public. By making these materials available online, the Law Library hopes to encourage use of Special Collections resources while preserving the physical items. The Law Library staff have digitized approximately 24,000 pages in-house, spanning 71 magazines, 39 newspapers, and 51 volumes. Of this, nearly half (12,000 pages) is currently available to the public on the Law library website. The Law Library’s most recent efforts involve digitizing Law College newspapers issued between 1966 and 1993, some of which are in poor condition, and transferring material to a digital repository to facilitate search and access.

Lexis teams with Overdrive for eBook lending

LexisNexis has announced an e-book library application for law firms developed in partnership with digital content distributor OverDrive. Until now, legal professionals could only buy Lexis' 1,100 e-books individually. The new Digital Library product gives firms customizable software from which lawyers can check out titles, and for librarians to establish lending policies. "About a year and a half ago, we started introducing our e-books into the market in a piloted way," noted Lexis' Susan Slisz, vice president of research. Customers asked for administrative tools, leading Lexis to find OverDrive, she said. "We looked at that and said it's kind of what we need. We worked with [OverDrive] to create a custom solution for law firms." Slisz said other features are planned. "Our e-books have links today into Lexis.com. In the very short future we're going to have links into Lexis Advance," she said. An automatic update feature for e-books is also planned, and a version for law school books is under way, she added. Digital Library is priced based on the number of users and content.

TRAC reports

TRAC has released two new reports this week, using the data they collect from the Justice Deaprtment.
There is a new report on a prosecutorial discretion initiative by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). TRAC's findings are based on case-by-case data, obtained from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) by TRAC under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). TRAC is hosting a free webinar next Thursday to discuss the report. 

A second report is on White Collar Crime Prosecutions, showing that these prosecutions are down over 40 percent since August 2011.

Pittsburgh "literary lab"

Pop City has an interesting story today about "Cyberpunk Apocalypse", a Pittsburgh writers' project.  The project is moving from Lawrenceville to the North Side.  According to the article, the Cyberpunk Apocalypse is "a multifaceted writers’ project based around a close quarters residency program. Our mission is to aid and abet writers and comic artists in Pittsburgh.a one of a kind project--the only zine residency program in the US, and the only residency program that puts zinesters, novelists, and comic artists on equal footing. We’ve grown organically, and consider ourselves a kind of literary laboratory--a place to experiment in a changing world."

Following the money

Two online databases are helping to track money going to politicians and how it affects their voting records. SOPAtrack was originally developed as the Stop Online Piracy Act was being rushed through Congress last fall without public debate. Eventually the bill was tabled because of the interest aroused by this website and others. Now Sopatrack is continuing the same scrutiny of other Congressional bills. Maplight has similar data, and presents it in a variety of formats, so that you can track money going from interest groups to legislators to influence voting on bills in Congress.

hat tip: Pat Roncevich

ABA database has trove of law school graduate info

The ABA Journal has a story about an analysis of law school data that was done by the National Law Journal using an online ABA database. The result reveals the number of 2010 grads in jobs paid for by their law schools, the number whose jobs are short-term or temporary, and the number working in different size firms. They also report that Above the Law has dubbed the University of Michigan "the Most Honest Law School" because of the transparency of its reporting on graduates. It reported that 27 graduates over the 2009-2011 3 year period had non-legal jobs, including bar owner, acotr, sheep farmer, polo coach and professional poker player.

ideas for "mixing the web with everyday things"

Technology Review reports on a new device called a "Ninja Block" that is the latest step in "democratizing computing".  Ninja Blocks contain sensors with the ability to sense their environment: acceleration, temperature, current, humidity, motion, distance, sound, light and even capture video. Consumers can program them to do a variety of tasks that would utilize these abilities. The Ninja Block is connected to the "Ninja Cloud" which connects the sensor device to social media, so that sensed events can be tweeted, emailed, etc. Without writing a line of code, Ninja Cloud allows you to control your Ninja Blocks with simple “if this then that” style tasks. The example given by the Ninja Blocks website is that with a Ninja Block you would be able to take a picture of your front yard and save it to Dropbox when movement is detected.