Open and machine-readable data requirement for all gov info

Last week the White House announced that President Obama has issued Executive Order 13642 (3 page pdf) "Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information", affecting federal agencies. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has sent a memorandum (12 page pdf) to agency heads establishing guidance for implementing the Open Data Policy. The guidance identifies the policy requirements to collect or create information, build information systems that support interoperability and accessibility, manage data and release practices, and identify related privacy and confidentiality measures.The memo defines “open data” as publicly available data that is “structured in a way that enables the data to be fully discoverable and usable by end users.” Under the guidance, open data is: public; accessable in open formats; fully described with documentation; reusable (available under open license); complete, with as much detail allowed by law; timely; and supportable after release.  This is a big step forward in making government data accessible and useful for citizens, scholars, entrepreneurs, politicians, and others.

LLMC to launch new interface

The Law Library Microform Consortium publishes a monthly newsletter which it sends via email link. The May 2013 newsletter just arrived and it contains the excellent news that LLMC has been beta testing a major redesign of the LLMC-Digital interface. The new interface is set to launch at the AALL annual meeting in Seattle this July.

3D printer gun plans pulled from website

A University of Texas law student and his company called "Defense Distributed" recently figured out how to make a working handgun on a 3D printer and made the plans available on the Defense Distributed website. The federal government got involved when the "Department of Defense Trade Controls", an agency of the State Department, wrote to the company arguing that the files should not be posted because the website uses servers in New Zealand, and sharing gun manufacturing information through servers operated in a foreign country amounts to an illegal export. The plans were removed from the website but the New York Daily News reports that prior to the takedown, copies of the gun blueprint were downloaded more than 100,000 times and are now available on other websites. The Atlantic has an interesting story, titled "How Defense Distributed Already Upended the World", in which there is a discussion of various facets of the issues involved.

Build-Your-Own Law School Rankings

The Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System has an online tool that essentially lets you build your own law school rankings, depending on what sort of legal career you want. The tool they provide is called "Law Jobs By the Numbers" and it focuses on the types of jobs graduates get. According to the website, "you have the flexibility to review the (law school) employment rates using formulas that are commonly applied by organizations such as the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), US News & World Report, National Jurist and Law School Transparency (LST). But more importantly, you can build a formula based on what matters most to you."

Justice Dept. approves use of data-review software

The Wall Street Journal and the ABA Journal report that the U.S. Justice Department recently approved the use of data-sifting software (rather than lawyers) to go through over a million documents produced for review in the proposed merger of beer producers Anheuser-Busch and Grupo Modelo. Lawyers for the 2 companies loaded the documents into a software program (by kCura Corp.) and manually reviewed a batch to train the software to recognize relevant documents. The manual review was repeated until the Justice Department and Constellation were satisfied that the program could accurately predict relevance in the rest of the documents. The companies spent 50% less than they would have using more traditional methods, said Warren Rosborough, a partner at the firm who represented one of the parties. "Something that would easily cost three, four, five million dollars, you can do in the range of one to two," Mr. Rosborough said.
The Wall Street Journal says that "Only a handful of judges have approved the use of such data-review software in litigation, and law firms have been cautious about deploying the technology, which can be trained to hunt for concepts and unleashed across millions of documents at once."

Important Lexis Info: single access ID

To everyone at Pitt Law who uses LexisNexis, please note that LexisNexis is moving to a single ID system in early summer 2013. Your current lexis.com® ID will be deactivated; your Lexis Advance® ID will be required to access lexis.com, Lexis Advance, Web Courses and the Law School Home Page. If you don't have a Lexis Advance ID, or if you have forgotten your Lexis Advance username/password, contact Susanna Leers, eResearch & Technology Services Librarian.

50 years of Nimmer on Copyright

The U.S. Copyright Office is recognizing the 50th anniversary of the treatise "Nimmer on Copyright" by hosting a program on May 6, 2013. "nimmer" is the most cited work in the field and the undisputed leading authority for in-depth, comprehensive analysis of U.S. copyright law. The program will feature David Nimmer of UCLA School of Law who will discuss his own role with respect to the treatise, as well as that of his father, the late Melville Nimmer. Scholars Robert Brauneis of The George Washington University Law School and Peter Menell of Berkeley School of Law will also speak, as will Jon Baumgarten, former general counsel in the Copyright Office, and Shira Perlmutter, Chief Policy Officer at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Karyn Temple Claggett, Associate Register of Copyrights for Policy and International Affairs, will moderate the discussion. The panel of experts will offer insights and observations about the treatise, including its effect on both the theory and practice of copyright law.

International content added to WestlawNext

Info from WL: The first set of International Content is now available on WestlawNext. The International Materials browse category will allow you to access the following international materials directly on WestlawNext without having to bridge out to Westlaw Classic: • UK Cases/Statutes/Journals • EU Cases/Journals • Australia Cases/Journals • Some UK Treatises To get to the unmigrated international materials, click the International Materials (on Westlaw Classic) link under Tools & Resources in the right pane of the International Materials page. This link bridges to the International Directory on Westlaw Classic.

Immigration FOIA requests problem

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University (TRAC)  reports that "at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) there has been a rapid rise in the backlog of FOIA requests received that have been waiting unanswered for long periods of time. According to its annual FOIA report, ICE had only 50 pending requests at the end of FY 2011; this number jumped to 2,903 at the end of FY 2012 after the agency was assigned the responsibility of processing some of the backlog of FOIA requests received by the Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS). And according to the latest available agency records analyzed by TRAC, ICE's backlog is projected to grow to over 13,125 by the end of September 2013 when the fiscal year ends, three and a half times higher than it was at the end of FY 2012."
TRAC derives much of its data from FOIA requests that it files with the federal government. 

DPLA opens

The Digital Public Library of America website has launched, despite the delay of the grand opening festivities due to the Boston Marathon bombings.  MIT Technology Review calls it "he start of a bold project to digitize America’s cultural heritage." Yes, it is still in beta, but already contains about 2.4 million digital objects including books, manuscripts, photographs, recorded sound, and film/video. It also gives access to the application program interface (API) Codex for the site, enabling users to tinker and create new tools for sorting and presenting the library’s materials. The DPLA created an open API "to encourage the independent development of applications, tools, and resources that make use of data contained in the DPLA platform in new and innovative ways, from anywhere, at any time."

Law in Graphic Novels

This week's edition of the Current Index to Legal Periodicals tells us that the latest edition of the peer-reviewed legal journal Law Text Culture has been published, focusing on the topic of "Law in Comics and Graphic Novels". Law Text Culture is a trans-continental peer reviewed journal from the University of Wollongong (Australia) that "publishes critical thinking and creative writing across a range of genres - from artwork and fiction to the traditional scholarly essay". Fans of comics and graphic novels will enjoy the articles which include Spider-Man, the question and the meta-zone: exception, objectivism and the comics of Steve Ditko and The Aesithetics of Supervillainy.

Digital Libraries now subdomain on Pew Internet

The Pew Internet homepage has added a subdomain (libraries.pewinternet.org) that aggregates Pew publishing on digital libraries. The site hosts a number of interesting Pew reports on libraries and related information. For example, there is a report on Library Services in the Digital Age and an infographic that shows what services are wanted by the public.
It also includes a blog that recently posted an updated timeline of the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life project, which has received a grant to study the role of libraries in users' lives and communities.  

Students prefer face-to-face courses for some subjects

Inside Higher Education reports that a study from the Community College Research Center at Columbia University gives interesting insights into student attitudes towards online courses.  The study looked at community college student experiences with both "face to face" and online courses, and how/when they chose the online sections of courses.  Students reported that online courses had lower levels of instructor presence and that they thus needed to “teach themselves” in these courses. Accordingly, most students preferred to take only “easy” academic subjects online; they preferred to take “difficult” or “important” subjects face-to-face. The study concludes that "While it is important to respect and accommodate the flexibility needs of busy students by offering online options, it is clear that the majority of students still prefer to take many types of courses in the face-to-face setting. Accordingly, colleges need to take care to avoid curtailing the availability of face-to-face course sections, particularly in academically challenging or advanced areas of study."

Revised "Federal Websites for and about American Indians" website

Thanks to govdoc librarian Steve Beleu, of the Oklahoma Department of Libraries, for creating and updating the excellent "Federal Websites for and about American Indians" website that provides links to all federal websites and webpages containing significant information for native Americans. 

US dictionary history

A recent  newsletter from Readex has an interesting article  titled "War of the Dictionaries" about the history of the Merriam-Webster dictionary which has been published since 1847.  Apparently Naoh Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language was not well-received, and after he died the Merriam brothers,
a pair of entrepreneurial printers, purchased all remaining copies and the rights to the dictionary. They revised Webster's work, aiming at standardizing US spelling, pronunciation, and definition.  A rival from Cambirdge Ma. published a rival dictionary that preserved British language habits. The rivalry continued for more than a decade before the Merriam-Webster version became the dictionary of choice.  

Article: WestlawNext v. Westlaw Classic

A new article in the Legal Reference Services Quarterly by Emily Marcum of the law firm Lightfoot, Franklin & White, LLC, in Birmingham, Alabama compares the cost of using Westlaw Next with that of using Westlaw Classic (for her law firm). Her methodology included running a variety of searches, both "real-world" and artificially generated, across categories in the databases. Her conclusion is that for her firm, WestlawNext transactional is twice as expensive as Westlaw Classic transactional under the old pricing scheme regardless of whether a real-world experiment is employed or artificial questions are generated. Expert materials are an exception to the rule, however. WestlawNext under simplified pricing is cheaper than Classic for primary law materials, like cases, statutes, and newspapers, as well as expert materials, but more expensive than Classic for verdicts and treatises. She adds that "If a phase-out of Classic Westlaw is indeed planned for some unspecified future date, then it is possible that charging more for a platform that will eventually be the customer's only option is simply another way to raise prices."
The citation: Emily Marcum (2013): The Quest for Client Savings in Legal Research: WestlawNext v. Westlaw Classic, Legal Reference Services Quarterly, 32:1-2, 142-159.
Hat tip: Joe Hodnicki, Law Librarian Blog

Library of Congress invites no-cost digitization proposals

The Library of Congress's preservation blog, The Signal, recently posted an open invitation, essentially seeking collaborators interested in digitizing Library collection materials at no cost to the Library. In order to respond to increasing expectations for collections materials and related items to be made available on the Library's web site, the Library seeks to supplement its existing digitization programs by entering into no-cost contracts for the scanning or digitization of Library materials for the mutual benefit of the contractor and the Library. The Library has issued an ongoing Request for Proposals for third party digitization projects. All digitization projects must comply with Principles for Library of Congress Third-Party Digitization Agreements. For more information contact thirdpartydig@loc.gov.

GPO and FDLP to conduct virtual meeting on preservation of government info.

As Barco's many fans know, we are a Federal Depository Library. On April 23-25, 2013, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) and the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) will celebrate Preservation Week 2013 by conducting a virtual meeting with the theme, "Partners in Preservation: Government Information for Future Generations." The meeting will convey how GPO and Federal depository libraries are "Keeping America Informed" by preserving our nation's documents of democracy for permanent public access. Through a mix of information updates, focused discussions, and training sessions, the meeting will explore:
* GPO's role in preservation.
* Depository library views on preservation as reflected in FDLP Forecast Study responses.
* Partnerships for preservation.
* Digitization project guidance.
* Preservation of tangible collections.
* Digital registries.
The meeting is free, but registration is required. For those who are unable to attend the live programming, sessions will be recorded and made available for later viewing here.  The complete schedule and agenda is available here. 

South Dakota Rural Attorney Recruitment law signed

The Argus Leader reports that South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard signed a bill recently that would encourage attorneys to practice law in rural South Dakota. The law will provide incentive payments over a five year period to attorneys that practice law in counties with a population of 10,000 or less. Any participating attorney will have to agree to practice law on a full-time basis in the eligible county for five years. Attorneys would have to meet eligibility requirements set by the Unified Judicial System.

FDsys access: is "cost recovery" a possibility?

The folks over at the Free Government Information blog report that Acting Public Printer Davita Vance-Cooks has written a letter responding to  the group CASSANDRA about the recent report Rebooting the Government Printing Office: Keeping America Informed in the Digital Age by the National Association of Public Administration (NAPA) (166 page pdf). The report recommends that GPO should consider "cost recovery" for access to FDsys . The Response from Vance-Cooks says that GPO has "no intention of charging public users a fee to access content available through FDsys. GPO remains committed to no-fee access to FDsys for the public as part of our mission of Keeping America Informed." FGI says that this is good news, "but we have to temper our enthusiasm with the realization that GPO's ability to meet its intentions will inevitably be dictated by Congress and its budget."  See also FGI's post NAPA releases report on GPO.