Gov Doc wins the 2012 Ig Noble Prize for Literature

The Ig Noble Prizes are awarded each year by Improbable Research Inc. The winners are announced at a gala ceremony at Harvard University's Sanders Theatre and prizes are physically handed out by genuinely bemused genuine Nobel laureates. This year's Ig Noble Prize for Literature was awarded to: the US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports. The winning title: "Actions Needed to Evaluate the Impact of Efforts to Estimate Costs of Reports and Studies," (32 page pdf, including a helpful link where you can report fraud, waste and abuse in federal programs)  US Government General Accountability Office report GAO-12-480R, May 10, 2012.

New Congress.gov site in beta

Last week, the Library of Congress (LC) announced that the LC, the U.S. Congress and the Government Printing Office (GPO) launched the new beta Congress.gov, which combines Congress's internal LIS system with THOMAS. The Congress.gov site includes bill status and summary, bill text and member profiles and some new features:

• Effective display on mobile devices; 
• Ability to narrow and refine search results; 
• Ability to simultaneously search all content across all available years, with some files dating from the 93rd congress; 
• Easier identification of current bill status; 
• Members’ legislative history and biographical profiles; 
• Maintenance of existing features such as links to video of the House and Senate floor, top searched bills and the save/share feature. 

 While the site is in beta, it’s important that the Library of Congress hear feedback from legal researchers. The Library is releasing Congress.gov as a beta site to enable a period of time for collecting user feedback and refining functionality while other content is incorporated. The Library anticipates Congress.gov will operate as a beta site for approximately one year as this work is completed. During that time, both THOMAS and LIS will continue to operate as usual.

JSTOR goes (more) mobile

JSTOR has announced improvements to using JSTOR on a mobile device. Rather than a device-specific app or a separate mobile site, they have used responsive design to implement an under-the-hood overhaul that enables the JSTOR interface to adapt to the screen size of a device automatically. This means that areas of the pages on the site are "reflowed", moved, or hidden to present a simpler but fully functional experience for researchers.  The new mobile design works well on a wide variety of mobile phones and tablets. Via mobile devices, researchers may now use the Institution Finder to log in from remote locations, complete advanced searches, save and manage citations and alerts, and access full-text content. There's a video explaining Institution Finder on the JSTOR video tutorial page. They are also offering a free webinar, called "Learn How to Get the Most from the JSTOR Platform", on October 19, 2012. 

Blue Book comparison

Law librarian Mary Whishner, at the University of Washington, has written a comparison of the 3 formats of the Blue Book: print, online, and iPad/Phone/Pod app. Her article is on LLRX.  The cost of the print Bluebook is now $34 from the publisher, and it weighs 1 lb, 6 oz. A subscription to the online version, available at www.legalbluebook.com, is $32 for one year, $42 for two years, and $50 for three years. The app is a very recent option.  Users need to download the app Rulebook and then purchase the Bluebook content for $39.99.  

PA Supreme Court one judge short

The Legal Intelligencer published an editorial this week, titled "Absence of Seventh Justice Impairs Court's Ability to Act," commenting on the current situation of the PA Supreme Court since Justice Joan Orie Melvin was suspended earlier this year. This leaves the Court with 6 justices, which is a concern because it is very possible that there will be 3-3 split decisions and default affirmation of appellate court rulings.  The editorial points out that the result of this is that the PA appellate courts - Superior Court and Commonwealth Court - may be the last stop in the state judicial process. Says the Intelligencer: "This is madness. Members of the appellate bar and law professors agree that the votes will effectively neutralize the Supreme Court in many cases and leave in place rulings that litigants believe are dubious at best."

hat tip:  Joel Fishman

State Employee Labor Laws

The teachers' strike in Chicago has prompted a post on the The Thicket blog called "Education Labor Laws in Light of Chicago Teachers' Strike".  The Thicket is a blog that is maintained by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), and the post talks about differences in state labor laws that affect teachers.  The author also links to a database maintained by the NCSL called the Collective Bargaining and Labor Union Database that tracks state legislation on unions and collective bargaining. 

Mobile Apps for Law Students

A law librarian at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law has put together a great research guide called "Mobile Apps for Law Students". Many are free; others range in price from a few dollars to as much as $499.99 for a bar prep app.  The apps are categorized as:

• Study Aids
• Reference
• Productivity 
• News
• Career
• Bar Exam
• Practice
• Ohio
• Federal

Thanks to Karen Schneiderman at CSU for creating the resource. 

New and Improved Legislative Source Book

The Law Librarians' Society of Washington D.C. (LLSDC) has provided the terrific online resource "Legislative Source Book" since 2000.  Now the site has been restructured and updated to make it even better; the content has been divided into more manageable general categories: Research Guides and Explanations, Resource Lists & Links, Tables of Information, and Other. It's a thorough guide for any sort of legislative research.      

Online Academy of Teaching and Learning Law

Vickie Eggers, a librarian who is the Director of Faculty Support & Distance Education at Cooley Law School in Michigan, has developed an excellent website called the ONLINE ACADEMY of Teaching & Learning Law. This valuable resource collects videos and articles about legal education in the categories teaching, learning, thinking, outcomes, assessment, skills, law practice, and technology.  The site focuses on law school pedagogy and curriculum, with a focus on educational methodology.  

sundown for Ref Works

A note from the University of Pittsburgh's library system has reminded us that they are not renewing their RefWorks subscription. Here's what they say: "After much consideration, the University Library System (ULS) has decided to not renew its subscription to the RefWorks citation management tool. The ULS subscription to RefWorks will end on September 30, 2012. Citation managers have evolved, and there are new, powerful tools available. The University Library System (ULS) looked at what citation management tools were used by the University of Pittsburgh faculty and students, and tested several other tools to see which might help our patrons make the most out of our resources for their research. The ULS will be offering training for two of these tools, Endnote and Mendeley, beginning in September 2012. The ULS will be reaching out to RefWorks account holders in several ways. The ULS will contact account holders via email to let them know of the subscription deadline. If you have already exported your citations or completed your research, please disregard this message. If you are still using RefWorks, the ULS is prepared to provide support during this time of transition in the form of online guides and one-on-one support." The ULS has created an online guide with instructions helping users to save and move their RefWorks collections to other citation management tools. The online guide Transitioning from RefWorks @ Pitt is available at http://pitt.libguides.com/refworkstransition."

If you digitize books can you throw them away?

The Baylor University Libraries Digital Collections Blog has an interesting post that discusses the question of whether it is responsible to discard the print copies of books etc. after you have digitized them and saved them in digital format. The discussion brings up Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, the Nicholson Baker book that is a must-read for every library & info science student. Some librarians do not agree with Baker's opinion that it was shortsighted for libraries to discard newspapers after they had been converted to microfilm, but the post's author agrees. As he explains, "what about the things we can’t predict? What if the next generation of computers is so different from what we’re used to today that the very idea of digital files changes completely? What if a specialized virus destroys every TIFF file in creation?...The best answer is to do what people have done since 200 BC: go back to the paper versions. That’s why we counsel our partners to use the process of digitizing materials to serve as a catalyst for rehousing materials in archival storage if they’re not stored that way already. That’s why we urge conservation of fragile materials before they arrive at our center. That’s why we never tell them it’s safe to throw something away just because it’s been scanned, cataloged and placed in a digital collection."
This opinion is shared by a British Library study that says "In summary, digital is not generally viewed as a suitable long-term preservation archival surrogate for print. It is currently regarded more as an access medium. As a preservation medium, digital was generally seen as unstable, experimental, immature, unproven on a mass scale and unreliable in the long term."

Is it ok to cite to websites in court documents?

There's an interesting post over at the West Reference Attorney Blog that addresses this question. We know that lawyers and law librarians, law students and faculty, frequently use Wikipedia and other non-legal websites for leads or ideas on research, but how accepting are courts of documents or materials from these types of websites? The author conducted a WestlawNext search (and includes the search phrase she used) to find this information. She concludes that courts are not very accepting of these cites, but despite the fact that many courts view this practice negatively, it is still frequently done.

Mind your online presence

It's a good idea to monitor the information that's available about you by following this infographic's advice: the Google Yourself Challenge. As it says, too many people don't take the necessary steps to protect the information they've shared online. The infographic provides a lot of statistics that really bring the point home.

New Congressional (ProQuest) interface launched

Just in time for the start of school .... the new interface for the popular ProQuest Congressional database has been launched.  It has a completely new look. The link from the law library databases list has been updated, though you can still use the "old" interface if you go to the old link (I don't know how long that will last).
ProQuest has provided a LibGuide with information on search syntax and other information.

Hotmail accounts banned from CALI website

Due to a near-site killing influx of spammers and other internet ne'er-do-wells using Hotmail, CALI had to ban all CALI.org accounts that are affiliated with a Hotmail email address. Unfortunately, this will cause a number of legitimate registered CALI.org users to be banned from the CALI system. This is a small percentage of total users, but still a decent amount of people. If a student or faculty member complains of being unable to log onto the CALI.org website, add "ask them if they use Hotmail" to your trouble-shooting checklist.

Mendeley

The Pitt University Library System has ended its subscription to RefWorks and is promoting the use of Mendeley, a free and open source  research management tool. Tech Crunch has an excellent post today that explains what Mendeley is and how it is affecting academic research.  Mendeley's open source, free software differs from other research platforms. The post says that "most academic online networks remain locked up by academic publishers (such as Elsevier) with expensive licensing agreements for universities... (T)he difference between the way it (Mendeley) and Elsevier approaches the academic world is thrown into sharp relief today with the news that Mendeley’s third-party app eco-system is fast approaching three times the size of Elseviers’. This amounts to the difference between an open and closed approach to apps." The story goes on the provide the statistics that Mendeley now covers 65 million documents, compared to Thomson Reuters' 49 million and Elsevier's 47 million.

BIALL Legal Information Literacy Statement

The British and Irish Association of Law Libraries has published a "Legal Information Literacy Statement", which aims to help law students develop a comprehensive legal research skill set following a five stage model. The five stages are: 

• Research skill 1 - Demonstrate an understanding of the need for the thorough investigation of all relevant factual and legal issues involved in a research task. 
• Research skill 2 - Demonstrate the ability to undertake systematic and comprehensive legal research. 
•  Research skill 3 - Demonstrate the ability to analyse research findings effectively. 
• Research skill 4 - Demonstrate the ability to present the results of research in an appropriate and effective manner. 
• Research skill 5 – Continuing Professional Development – refreshing the legal research skills required of a modern lawyer.

The Statement describes each of these stages and then develops a set of subskills that are required for each stage.

New Stanford Law site helps students navigate curriculum

The Sacramento Bee reports that Stanford Law School has launched an online tool to help students navigate curriculum and career choices to better prepare them to practice in specific areas of the law. The school spent three years developing the SLSNavigator, which is available for anyone anywhere to use. The content in SLSNavigator is based on extensive interviews with faculty, alumni, practicing attorneys, and other legal professionals about the substantive knowledge and skills they use in their careers. It includes not only law school courses but also courses from across the university that are pertinent to different areas of the law, furthering law school's goal of fostering interdisciplinary education.

Feeling Lucky? Or Hungry? Or Doodly?

After 15 years, Google has made a change to the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button that has been on the Google homepage since its inception. If you hover your mouse over the Feeling Lucky button for a second or two, it now shows a rotating list of Google’s other products like Hot Trends, The Arts Project, Image Search, Google Doodles, Google Earth and Local Search. So the wording on the button changes from "I'm Feeling Lucky" to other words like "I'm feeling Hungry", or "I'm Feeling Playful". Depending on which set of words is visible on the button when you hit enter, the results will be affected; you can't be sure where the search will take you.

ReDigi hopes to sell used ebooks

Publishers Weekly reports that internet company ReDigi, which currently sells pre-owned digital music, hopes to do the same with pre-owned ebooks. The question that arises, of course, is whether we consumers actually own the apps, music, ebooks, and other content we have paid for, and whether we can legally resell them. ReDigi is currently involved in a copyright infringement case filed by Capitol Records in the US District Court in Manhattan involving their resale of digital music and whether the first-sale doctrine applies to digital content. ReDigi claims that it is just the cyber-version of a used record store and everything it does is lawful because its technology first validates, then transfers your music to its servers without copying. If ReDigi prevails, it will "upend the way e-books and other digital products are sold, since such products would get a second life on the resale market and provide a new revenue stream for publishers and authors."