Law Libraries after Covid

 Susannah Tredwell over at Slaw, "Canada's Legal Magazine," has an interesting article in which she discusses the changes law libraries have undergone during the Covid pandemic, and whether these changes will stick.  How will library services be affected post-Covid? She covers several topics: 

• Death of the looseleaf?  
• Greater adoption of digital library resources by users, in which she points out the dramatic increase in print resources now available online as well.
• Library space continues to shrink (or disappear completely?)
• Greater flexibility in how publishers licence (Canadian spelling) products?
• Increase in library staff working remotely. 

We are all looking forward to finding out how our law library will continue to be affected by the changes during Covid. 

FDLP: No more "Fugitive Documents"

The Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) has announced that it is discontinuing use of the term "fugitive documents" to describe "Public information products that are not discoverable through the Government Publishing Office's Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP)."  According to the announcement, "It is time to replace the phrase “fugitive documents.” Going forward LSCM will use “unreported publications.” This change was approved by the Depository Library Council, the Superintendent of Documents, and the GPO Director.
You may notice some changes over the next several weeks as LSCM staff work to reflect this change in external and internal documentation, public facing web pages on FDLP.gov, and in askGPO. We will not replace the term in past conference presentations or in previously published articles. Our goal is to have changes completed by the end of May 2021."

Justice Clarence Thomas "goes rogue on the Bluebook"

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas recently made the headlines in both the ABA Journal and Law 360 for using what both publications termed a "rogue" Supreme Court citation in the opinion he wrote for Brownback v. King, 141 S.Ct. 740 (Legal Writing Professors take note). 
The ABA Journal says that Justice Thomas "went rogue on the Bluebook when he embraced an appellate lawyer’s suggestion for dealing with 'citation baggage'... that distracts from the point."
What was this bold move? Justice Thomas used the suggestion to used the parenthetical "(cleaned up)" after a citation to denote the court's omission of quotations within quotations and the need for a quoting citation parenthetical, as dictated by Bluebook Rule 5.2. The appellate lawyer who made the suggestion in an SSRN article is Jack Metzler of the Federal Trade Commission. Metzler told the ABA Journal that this is a big deal, "at least in the world of legal citation."

Open Access to Research and the Covid pandemic

 An interesting article on Slaw (Canada's online legal magazine) by John Willinsky discusses growth in the Open Access movement during the past year. 

It is influencing the opening of scholarly publishing, more generally...After an initial start with two publishers, there are now, one year later, nine publishers moving away from selling traditional subscriptions to research libraries to having those same libraries pay much the same price to make this research publicly available. The growth of this model over the course of this extraordinary year has meant that what is now available to readers everywhere includes research reviews in areas of public health and cancer biology, as well as research in anthropology, water, mathematics, political economy and other areas.

And what's more, the article says, "Librarians are making clear the serious consideration that some are giving to moving research and scholarship to open access." The author has embarked on an interesting project to develop usage statistics for open access articles. 

Coronavirus Regulations State-By-State

 Law360 has an article titled "Coronavirus Regulations: a State-by-State Review." The article has an interactive map of the United States (powered by LexisNexis state-net) that lets you click on any of the states or territories of the US to view legislative, regulatory, and executive order information with a link to full text reports for each measure. The site tracks federal, state, and local government activity related to coronavirus, including pending bills, new regulations, and executive orders. 

2021 NELLCO Symposium for Law Libraries begins this Wednesday

 The 2021 NELLCO Symposium: Uncertainty - Living with Reality. Finding Opportunity. is scheduled to begin this Wednesday, with a host of interesting sessions spread out over 6 days March 17-19 and 24-26. Registration is free. The Symposium will be conducted on Zoom. Some of the sessions: 
3/17 from 1-2 pm,  Best Practices for Negotiating with Vendors
3/17 from 4-5 pm, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging in Collections & Acquisitions
3/18 from 1-2:30 pm, Back to Normal? Law Libraries After the Pandemic
3/24 from 2:45 - 3:30 pm, The Fight for the Right to Loan: Digital access, lending, and preservation in crisis
Plus lots more interesting sessions, and presentations from law library vendors like Fastcase, Bloomsbury, PLI Plus, vLex, and others. 
The full program is available here. Register here. 

LexisNexis Launches Law360 Pulse

 LexisNexis has introduced "Law360 Pulse: a comprehensive business of law news service." Law360 Pulse is a news service that combines the journalism and research of Law360 (which was acquired by LexisNexis a few years ago) with data and analytics from Lexis. Pulse complements Law360’s legal news coverage, offering single source for comprehensive legal news. LexisNexis is offering legal professionals complimentary access to Law360 Pulse for a limited time. And the good news for us is that law school faculty and students have complimentary access to Law360 Pulse.

Casemaker & Fastcase merge

 Casemaker and Fastcase have announced that the two companies are merging to create "a powerful alternative for legal information." According to the joint announcement of the merger, "The two companies will combine their teams and technologies to innovate research, analytics, and workflow offerings that empower lawyers with powerful digital solutions for their clients."  Both products have been popular lower-cost alternatives with Bar associations, and have over one million subscribers. Ed Walters, who is one of Fastcase's co-founders and current CEO, is quoted as saying "With the hard-won editorial and production expertise of Casemaker, we’re now ready to accelerate our climb, rewarding all our bar partners who believed in our companies as strong alternatives.”  

For law school subscribers (Pitt Law's Barco Law Library is a subscriber), the announcements says that "Fastcase and Casemaker access for law school students will remain in its current state until a unified law school student plan is finalized. All changes and improvements will be made in the best interest of law school students who will eventually be bridging into practice, and the newly combined Fastcase and Casemaker team wish to be the preferred legal technology provider for those future attorneys."

Free Wi-Fi for schoolchildren - broadcast from top of Cathedral of Learning

"We need to bridge Pittsburgh’s Digital Divide. By creating a community-based, non-profit Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP),...(we) will provide Internet to the homes of Pittsburghers who need it most."
That's the message from Meta Mesh, one of four community partners along with Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh and the Keystone Initiative for Network-based Research (KINBER) who have formed Every1online, a program to provide high-speed internet for school-aged children in the area. And the source of the signal: the top of Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning.
A story published on TribLive  describing this interesting project in detail says,

'“It’s a perfect tower,” said Sam Garfinkel, development coordinator at Meta Mesh, a nonprofit internet service provider. The Cathedral of Learning is, after all, the highest educational structure on the Western Hemisphere, standing more than 500 feet tall with 42 stories.'

EEOC's New COVID-19 Guidance

General Counsel News has a link to an article in the HR Daily Advisor that gives a a helpful summary of newly updated guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission addressing common questions about federal employment laws and COVID-19. The article points out that the new EEOC guidance, available here, pulls together information from other agency resources, modified two existing questions and answers, and added 18 new ones. It addresses question about COVID-19 testing and inquiries in the workplace; confidentiality of medical information and reasonable accommodations for COVID-19. From the article:

"The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted employers’ normal operations in virtually every way, but it’s important for you to stay abreast of the EEOC’s guidance on employment laws during this challenging time. The agency’s recent update clarified:
You may conduct coronavirus screening tests and inquiries to all employees returning to the workplace, but you must have a reasonable belief that an individual has COVID-19 or its symptoms if you wish to conduct a test or make inquiries to the person.
To the extent possible, you must keep confidential all medical information about employees, including COVID-19 details.
Finally, if employees request a reasonable accommodation, you must engage in the interactive process by discussing what they need and the reasons why."

New Westlaw news: Today

Westlaw has launched a new "news" product called "Westlaw Today." This news is different from the news you get if you click on "News" on your Westlaw home page, which provides the latest news from Reuters and links out to various news outlets.
Westlaw Today is available to our users from the Westlaw Edge main page by going to the dropdown menu in the upper lefthand corner of the page where is says Thomson Reuters Westlaw Edge. The Today homepage provides the latest legal news, attorney analysis, and most viewed articles. According to the website, Westlaw Today provides a matter of fact approach to news with content from a variety of sources, including articles from CQ Roll Call, The Hill and more. There is also a tab that allows you to focus your news by thirty different defined practice areas.

LLoC to preserve govdocs for GPO

The Federal Depository Library Program reports that the Law Library of Congress has signed a Preservation Steward agreement with the U.S. Government Publishing Office. The agreement states that the LLoC will preserve its collection of the daily Congressional Record and Federal Register, published by GPO.

To help libraries meet the needs of efficient Government document stewardship in the digital era, GPO has established Preservation Stewards to support continued public access to historic U.S. Government documents in print format. Preservation Stewards contribute significantly to the effort to preserve printed documents, and GPO welcomes all libraries that wish to participate as Preservation Stewards... This agreement comes in addition to the Library of Congress’ 2017 Preservation Steward agreement with GPO to preserve Congressional Hearings. The Library of Congress and GPO also have a digital access partnership to provide permanent public access to digital publications within the scope of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) available through the Library of Congress website.

Yay Teams

Pitt IT has reaffirmed that Pitt is migrating all Skype users to Microsoft Teams this Saturday.  And according to various online news sources, Microsoft has been working hard to make Teams the best WFH app for all sorts of situations.  Examples of new features on Teams:  

Endgadget reports on the upcoming “virtual commute” feature, whose goal is “to create a boundary between work and life.” It is designed to help people mark the start and end of the workday (Half of the chat volume on Teams occurred between 5 p.m. and midnight in the past six months, up 48% from the months before the pandemic). According to Endgadget, “Microsoft says this is an attempt to promote employee wellness.” 

“Teams Together” mode looks custom made for university teaching. According to Computerworld,   Instead of the BradyBunch-like gallery view that we’ve gotten used to, Together makes the group in the meeting look like they’re sitting together in a room or an auditorium.  

And Crayon has the information on how to add virtual and custom backgrounds in MS Teams. You can also blur your background on Teams (to protect your privacy or hide a mess 😊).  

Finally, there are lots of keyboard shortcuts on Teams; just open your Teams app and hit the “Control” key and the “.” key on your keyboard at the same time to pull up the list.    

Blacklight: A Real-Time Website Privacy Inspector

The Markup is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates how powerful institutions are using technology to change our society. They have a strong interest in online privacy. To that end, they recently developed Blacklight,A Real-Time Website Privacy Inspector. On Blacklight you simply enter the address of any website, and Blacklight will scan it and reveal the specific user-tracking technologies on the site—and who’s getting your data. Blacklight says: "Who is peeking over your shoulder while you work, watch videos, learn, explore, and shop on the internet? You may be surprised at what you learn."

GPO's Collection Development Plan Updated

The Government Publishing Office (GPO) has updated its Collection Development Plan and made it available on the FDLP website (as a downloadable 1.5 mb pdf). Of particular interest to law librarians are the Executive Summary on page 1, and Appendix B:Current govinfo Collections page 20 and Appendix C: Ingest Priorities for the System of Online Access, page 23.

In order to better meet the Government information needs of current and future users, GPO must increase the availability of historical content in the system. To this end ingest priorities include, but are not limited to, earlier editions of titles currently available through govinfo so as to have complete and historic holdings. The historical content of executive and judicial branch agency collections needs to be developed as well. Digitization of this content may originate from GPO, other Federal agencies, or from parties with whom GPO has formally signed agreements, such as Federal depository libraries.

Also on the FDLP website is a list of institutions that have a project or resource that would benefit the public/depository community and have formed partnetships with the GPO.

All-Virtual 2020 FDLP Conference in October

The (free) 2020 Federal Depository Library Conference is going to be all-virtual this year and will be held on October 20-23, 2020. Register here. The final schedule shows the dates and times of events and the agenda has information about the presenters and presentations. There are lots of interesting presentations scheduled, including the Keynote Address: Enhancing Access to National Archives Collections and Services During the Time of COVID by David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States. Also an introduction to persistent digital identifiers titled "DOIs, PURLs, URIs Oh My! " by James Jacobs, and a discussion of FOIA requests:

"The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) FOIA Advisory Committee recently issued a recommendation encouraging agencies to release FOIA documents to the public on their FOIA websites and through FOIA portals in open, legible, machine-readable and machineactionable formats. Meanwhile, there is a flood of documents released every month in response to public requests. There are some superstars out there that are helping to make FOIA’d documents and other unpublished records more publicly accessible."

There's also going to be a joint presentation from GPO and the Library of Congress about digitization of the Serial Set as well a talk about new govinfo Content and Enhancements.

The ascendance of worker bees?

Have you noticed shifts in who takes on leadership roles during the WFH pandemic? The BBC has an article on "leadership" titled "The surprising traits of good remote leaders."

"Strong in-person leadership skills don’t necessarily translate to being a good virtual leader. Instead, organisation and competency reign supreme."

They cite a study that shows virtual teams often trend to accepting leadership from workers who are organized, dependable and productive, rather than the usual "ambitious workers" in the "executive suite." The basis of the article is a report from the Journal of Business and Psychology titled "Who Emerges into Virtual Team Leadership Roles? The Role of Achievement and Ascription Antecedents for Leadership Emergence Across the Virtuality Spectrum" (link goes to SpringerLink).

Constitution Day 2020 - African-American Members of Congress and the Constitution During Reconstruction

The Law Library of Congress and the Library of Congress have announced the annual Constitution Day lecture for Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020 at 3:00 pm Eastern Time. This year's lecture will be an online lecture given by Michael J. Murphy, a Historical Publication Specialist in the Office of the Historian for the U.S. House of Representatives, entitled“The Bulwark of Freedom”: African-American Members of Congress and the Constitution During Reconstruction. Registration is free, but required in order to attend the online event. From the blurb:

"Mr. Murphy explains that in 1870, Joseph Rainey of South Carolina became the first of 14 African Americans elected to the U.S. House of Representatives before the end of Reconstruction in 1877. Following the Civil War, Congress amended the Constitution to outlaw slavery, extend civil and political rights to African Americans, and expand the power of the federal government. Rainey and the small cohort of Black Representatives who served alongside him were all elected from southern states and many were formerly enslaved. They saw the Constitution as a battleground in the debate over Reconstruction and the future of the country, arguing for an expansive vision of citizenship and legal equality. For Rainey, the Constitution was “the bulwark of freedom,” designed to provide “protection to the humblest citizen, without regard to rank, creed, or color.” During the 1870s, Black Members embraced the Constitution—the founding document which had long denied them their very personhood—as a tool to redefine American democracy and fully realize the promise of representative government."

Another interesting webinar from FDLP Academy

FDLP is offering another interesting, free, webinar, "Legal Instruction and Resources at the Law Library of Congress: Recent Developments." The webinar will be on Tuesday, Oct. 13 from 2-3 pm Eastern time. Register here.

"This webinar will introduce attendees to new and developing resources at the Law Library of Congress: the Legal Research Institute, Legal Gazettes, and Legal Reports. The Law Library provides instruction on legal research and on how to use its vast collections, and these services have been enhanced through the introduction of webinars on the Legal Research Institute website. Participants will be oriented to the Legal Research Institute site and discover the instruction offered on U.S., and foreign and comparative law. In addition, participants will learn of how the Law Library is making available its extensive collection of legal gazettes collected from around the world and of the legal reports that are created in response to Congressional inquiry. Furthermore, participants will receive an overview of the efforts to make available foreign legal gazettes and legal reports that are prepared by Law Library staff for Congress."

Webinar: Subject Headings Behind the Scenes

The FDLP and GPO are offering another free webinar called "Subject Headings Behind the Scenes." The webinar will take place on Wednesday, October 14th, from 2-3 pm Eastern time. From the blurb:

Have you ever wondered how subject headings are chosen for catalog records or why they are worded the way they are? This session will dispel mysteries about how GPO selects and applies Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms (LCGFT). Topics include headings and terms commonly used for Government information dissemination products; how to interpret headings; quality control measures at GPO; and tips for searching the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (GGP).

Register for the webinar here.