Legal References.

2004-03-04T11:47:00.000-05:00

Blackmun Papers Released Five years after his death, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun's papers have been made public. The Washington Post's Fred Barbash has written a good article about them: Blackmun Papers Provide a Peek Inside the Court [Free registration required]. The Library of Congress has a few of the documents scanned and online here. Fascinating. Might be worth a trip to DC to see them in person.

2003-10-24T18:56:00.000-04:00

Psst... Do You Think He's Asleep? Here's the article from the Toronto Star:

A Toronto judge fell asleep in the middle of a criminal trial but woke up when a defence lawyer dropped a 2,136-page copy of the Criminal Code on the desk in front of him, a court was told yesterday.

Mr. Justice Ayres Couto convicted Andras Deak of mischief and criminal harassment at the end of the trial on July 18, 2001, and sentenced him to two years' probation. But an appeal court overturned the conviction yesterday, saying Couto's ability to observe the demeanour of a key witness might have been impaired.

Couto dozed off during cross-examination of the complainant during the Old City Hall trial...

Nice.

[Thanks to Obscure Store for the link.]

2003-10-16T13:44:00.000-04:00

New Job Last week I accepted a position with a bigger firm downtown. I start in a little over a week. I'll be doing more reference and no Intranet, which makes me happy. Posts may be even spottier than usual while I make the transition. Bear with me!

2003-10-08T15:36:00.000-04:00

Business Research Tools Research Notebook offers tips, techniques, and observations about business research. It is written by the staff of Baker Library at Harvard Business School. Recent topics include labor statistics and researching bankruptcy information on the Web. [Thanks to SiteLines for the link.]

2003-10-03T18:01:00.000-04:00

Brand Spankin' New LLRX Content There's a whole slew of new articles on LLRX, including an analysis of the OCLC v Library Hotel suit; an elucidation of the uses of that, which and who; and links galore. LLRX is one of the most valuable web sites I use in my work. Subscribe to their free update and make sure you don't miss anything!

2003-09-25T14:31:00.000-04:00

Arrrrrgggh RSS Bob from Daily Whirl kindly pointed out that when you view Legal References via an RSS reader, there's no link back to the post itself. I'm busily linking all my previous posts using their permalinks, which is a pain, but not impossible.

I have a question for anyone wise in the ways of RSS. Because Legal Refs is on Blogger, I don't have much choice but to use LISFeeds RSS-ify to create a feed. Is there a way to create a post with a link back without posting first to get the permalink? Anyone know what sort of scheme Blogger uses to decide what the permalink address will be? Anyone have an easier way?

2003-09-24T17:26:00.000-04:00

Google vs. Cornell Librarians The Ithaca Journal has an article on a study pitting Cornell librarians against Google researchers. The conclusion? What some librarians have been saying all along:

"The source should match the person's need," Lance Heidig said. "If you want a quick fact, use Google. If you're writing a dissertation, you should be in a library, either virtually or physically."

I agree with that statement, sort of.

If you want a quick fact, Google (or AlltheWeb or...) is definitely the place. If an attorney asks me for materials on lazy susans, I say sure, no problem, I'll get back to you. Meanwhile, I have no clue what the things are, much less where I would find information on them, so I throw the term in Google. I am able to get a quick and shallow grasp on the concept so I can begin my real research.

The problem is that a lot of people, even educated and/or smart people, don't know how to use a search engine to get an answer. A search for a quick answer can become slow and tedious. Librarians help retrieve books, sure, but we can also teach research skills to those who want to learn.

(For more info on Google Answers from a researcher's point of view, see Jessamyn West's article called, "Information for Sale: My Experience With Google Answers," from Searcher Magazine.)

2003-09-22T18:01:00.000-04:00

OCLC Sues Hotel for Trademark Infringement The Library Hotel, located just a few blocks from my office, is getting sued because they've been using Dewey Decimal Classification as a guiding theme. Read the Newsday article.

(Side note: I had no idea libraries were charged for the use of DDC.)

2003-09-17T16:31:00.000-04:00

Federal Law Libraries When I am asked to retrieve documents from a government agency, unless I have a specific number or subsection to call, I like to find the agency's library and start there. Sometimes this strategy works well, sometimes it doesn't. Law Librarian's Society of DC has a Federal Law Libraries directory that's great for this purpose. The list includes staff, hours, ILL policies, and contact information where available.

2003-09-16T15:35:00.000-04:00

On-Topic, Sort Of The Scout Portal Toolkit provides subject access to legal pathfinders on the web. This looks like it will be a great resource.

And speaking of the Internet Scout Project, how did I miss their weblog?

2003-09-16T13:26:00.000-04:00

Organizing Links I've read many articles about creating web pages and they all have the same advice: create a site structure first. I created a basic structure, but because of time constraints, the structure was not as detailed as it perhaps should have been. I've now added so many links to the library home page that I need to change the organizational structure. In my mind, the most important thing about a web page is not its look but its function. When a user visits the page and they have a specific task in mind (i.e. Finding a link to a site that will list the county St. Paul, Minnesota is in.), can they, without much effort, discern where they might find that link with a minimum number of steps? I'm not sure that we're achieving that goal right now.

I've been wandering around the Web, trying to find good examples of organizational structures. The Librarians' Index to the Internet is a good one. The Guide to Law Online and The Virtual Chase's Legal Research Guide are also helpful.

And speaking of web links, LII has a great index of sites that talk about how to find information on the Invisible/Hidden Web, sites that aren't visible to search engines.

2003-09-16T12:48:00.000-04:00

Interesting Blog Inter-Alia's linked up Braced for Impact. He's got some fascinating links and thoughts on technology, privacy, etc. You should go check him out!

2003-09-04T14:41:00.000-04:00

Slightly Off-Topic Rant Steve of Library Stuff posted Black Saint's "Five Point Plan for Saving the Library":

1) Close down library
2) Get rid of the homeless
3) Burn down library (don't tell the junior "J.Los")
4) Perform exorcism
5) Rebuild library

Having worked at the branch he's complaining about, as well as others in the NYPL system, Black Saint's post stuck in my craw.

My response? Here's my three-point system for saving the library (New York City's, in particular):

1) Money for professional staff. NYPL's had to resort to using folks with only Bachelors degrees or less to staff the reference desks and do other tasks that would normally fall to librarians with degrees. The staff are underpaid and overworked. Retention of good staff is difficult because of the conditions. Of course, I am not excusing a bad attitude or poor customer service.
2) Money for books. Because the budgets for all city agencies have been cut, NYPL had to make cuts somewhere. There's no money in the budget for new books for the next few years, from what I understand, aside from money that comes in from long-standing grants. That means that new release you want will have a waiting list miles long.
3) Money for social services. There's no place for the homeless to go in New York City since social services have been cut. The library's warm in the winter and cold in the summer. The library has a bathroom. They won't kick someone out just because they're homeless. Knowing this may not alleviate a library patron's discomfort, but perhaps it makes the situation a little more understandable.

Barnes and Noble is fine, but try finding a book or a person to help you find that book. Workers can tell you if the book is in stock but they can't necessarily tell you where to find it. At least at the library, everything has a call number. Can they suggest other books that you might like? Doubtful.

Though I left the public library for greener pastures, I find that I advocate for them in my daily life. A few tips that may make your library use more pleasant:

1. Most branches have a drop box (Mid-Manhattan does) near the door so you can return your books without waiting in line. Unless your book is overdue and you want to pay fines.
2. You can avoid fines by renewing your books at a branch, online or over the phone.
3. For that matter, you can look up a book, place a hold and renew a book-- all online. To look up a book or place a hold, access the book's record in the catalog. To renew a book, access your patron record.
4. A friend of mine recently visited the branch near City Hall. When she tried to place a hold on a book, they told her that the only place the book could be sent was her home branch. This is not true, unless things have changed. You can place a hold on a book owned by any library in the system and get it sent to any other library in the system. Try that at a Barnes and Noble near you.

None of these things change the fact that the libraries in New York City (NYPL, Queens and Brooklyn) are woefully underfunded and suffering. Thus, unfortunately, the patron experience sometimes suffers.

Don't give up entirely. Push city officials. Donate money or time. Keep visiting the library!

2003-09-04T13:19:00.000-04:00

Is Your Firm on the A-List? AmLaw has a new survey called the A-List. This one uses successful law practice, pro bono performance, decent treatment and development of new lawyers; and diversity of workforce as factors. My firm isn't at the top, but we aren't at the bottom either.

2003-09-03T15:56:00.000-04:00

Environmental Documents from the Federal Register The EPA has grouped all Federal Register environmental documents from 1994-present together on one page. Browsing by subject is possible, but only if you have a specific date in mind. You can also search by date, keyword or page number.

I'm not entirely sure there are benefits to using this instead of the Federal Register through GPO Access. The GPO Access version is the official one.

2003-09-02T20:34:00.000-04:00

Flattered... and Thrilled Headlines from Legal References are now included at Daily Whirl. How exciting is that? If you haven't visited Daily Whirl, you definitely should. They've got headlines from 100+ legal sites. Set your preferences to include only the sites you're interested in.

2003-08-29T10:29:00.000-04:00

Federal Procurement Law is not something I know much about. My dad, an attorney with a quasi-governmental agency, suggested the site PubKLaw. This site is aimed at public and private sector legal and acquisition professionals. There are updates on cases, regulations, and hot issues. A listserv is available for a fee.

2003-08-29T10:18:00.000-04:00

Labor Statistics We have an active labor department. Just last week, I was asked to find the bylaws and constitution of a union local. I'm also asked for statistics. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is chock full of them. The Collective Bargaining section has data on work stoppages.

Another favorite around here is the Producer Price Index, which measures the average change in the prices producers receive for their output. It never fails- I'm always asked for some odd category, so I end up creating my own tables.

2003-08-22T18:03:00.000-04:00

The End of the Week I knew when I posted about things being slow in the library that it would come back to bite me in the butt, and boy, has it ever. *Whew* I've had corporate research, corporate research, corporate research. Wednesday night I stayed an hour late and that's never happened before. It's been quite a while since I've been this grateful for the weekend. I hope you enjoy your weekend... I know I will. I'll be back with more research-type stuff next week.

2003-08-18T15:43:00.000-04:00

Another Article About News Aggregators Steve and Ernie and Jenny (among others) have been touting news aggregators for months now. Wired's got a new article up about them titled Aggregators Attack Info Overload. I use Amphetadesk. It's free, it's easy, and I haven't had any problems.

2003-08-18T13:52:00.000-04:00

I'm Giving Away All My Secrets- Come and Get 'Em! Part of my job is to send out a monthly "Web Watch" to the attorneys, paralegals, and other librarians in my firm. The Web Watch contains links to websites and articles, along with short annotations. Most of these links I've discovered in my own searches on the Web, but sometimes I need a little nudge. That's why I subscribe to email lists. The lists keep me current, even when I'm not able to surf the Web on my own because of other projects. I subscribe to:

BeSpacific, a blog about law and technology, has a newsletter component.

Free Pint Newsletter is a monthly update for the Free Pint site. Can be a bit UK-centric.

Informed Librarian Online sends you links to the latest library publications.

InSITE, from Cornell Law School Library for law-related websites

Internet Legal Research Weekly is the newsletter counterpart to Tom Mighell's awesome blog, Inter-Alia.

Library Link of the Day

LISNews for library news

Milbank Research Portal has lots of legal and business links. Especially good because the links are intended for attorneys in a large law firm, and thus, close to what our attorneys might look for.

Neat New Stuff and ExLibris, from Marylaine Block. Weekly newsletter with research links and an essay from Marylaine.

New on LLRX. LLRX has helped me out of a jam so many times I've lost track. Get updated when there's a new article on legal research.

New This Week, from LII general web links from a public library reference viewpoint. Great stuff!

Research Buzz covers Internet research.

Resource Shelf Update has the latest from the Resource Shelf

SearchDay is from Search Engine Watch.

The Scout Report has general links on a wide variety of topics.

SiteLines has "news, information and resources related to web searching."

Daily Legal Newswire from Law.com. You'll need to be a Law.com subscriber to view most of the articles.

Tourbus has good computer and virus information and lots of fun links.

TVC Alert, brought to you by Genie and The Virtual Chase. Links to articles and websites about law and the web. Absolutely indispensable.

Keep in mind that many of these are newsletters for websites that have RSS feeds. I like to get updates in my inbox even if I subscribe to a site's feed.

I'm sure I've forgotten some. Are there any I've missed? Let me know!

2003-08-17T10:06:00.000-04:00

I'd been writing a whole post about good Web link email lists for ready for you Thursday afternoon. I'd almost finished it when all the lights went out. I walked down 32 flights of stairs and seven (give-or-take)miles from my office in midtown to my home in Brooklyn before it got dark. The power came back on by 4:30 the next afternoon.

My daily number of hits has been steadily growing. Thanks to Excited Utterances, Corp Law Blog, Inter-Alia, and Library Stuff for the plugs. (Ed. note: I forgot Bag and Baggage. Sorry!)

2003-08-14T11:59:00.000-04:00

Election Law Librarians' Index to the Internet New This Week (Subscribe! Subscribe now!) mentions the Election Law blog. The blog's written by Richard Hasen, a law professor at Loyola in LA. It's got news, commentary, cases... all the good stuff.

I follow politics and I've voted in damn near every election since I turned 18, but I doubt that I would've checked out the link if it weren't for the mishegas going on out in California. The whole idea of recall seems unreal. Representative recall is possible in about 1/4th of U.S. states, mostly in the west, according to the encyclopedia entry I read. That explains why I didn't know about it, since most of my life has been spent in the eastern U.S. no further west than Texas, save that year in Salt Lake when I was 10.

2003-08-12T16:57:00.000-04:00

Federal District Court Dockets LLRX has an article that explains how to decipher the information contained in dockets. [Thanks to Research Buzz for the link.]

2003-08-11T14:48:00.000-04:00

Don't Discount the Phone A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to find the most recent directory from the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education.

First thought? Why, OCLC, of course. I ran a search and discovered that the directory I needed was a serial and that there weren't many holding libraries. Unfortunately, OCLC only tells you what libraries have, not what's been published. I couldn't tell what the latest directory was.

Next up, Books in Print, which I accessed through NYPL's Electronic Resources collection. I have serious concerns about answering reference questions at a for-profit entity using free databases provided by a non-profit entity, but I occasionally do it anyway with a pain in my heart. No luck.

Then, web search. (I can't really tell you whether this was truly my third search. The process happens so fast). I found reference to their publications, but no link to the Association itself. Google, Yahoo. I went to the Baruch College website and searched the directory. Nothing. Strange.

In my searching, I'd found a mention of the Center on a page hosted by the School of Public Affairs at Baruch. (Another tip: always analyze the web address! You can get really good leads!) I called the School's main number. The Center had been transferred to Hunter College (and isn't listed on their web directory, either). Long story short, after being transferred twice and hung up on once, I was able to speak with someone at the Center directly. They were able to tell me which directory was the latest and I ordered it.

Sometimes, you waste more time on the Web. Just pick up the phone.

2003-08-10T01:37:00.000-04:00

Free Courses from MIT I read about this several months ago, but this month's Wired has an article on the OpenCourseWare Project from MIT. (I'd link to the article, but it doesn't seem to be online.) They have made many previous semesters' coursework (lectures, class notes, exams, reading lists) available for free on the Internet. The article discusses the ways people around the world are making use of the courses. Apparently, videos of some of the lectures are online, though I couldn't find any for the courses I might be interested in checking out (Linguistics, Urban Planning, Architecture, etc.)

2003-08-08T15:30:00.000-04:00

Major Faux Pas Today is the summer associates' last day. One of them came by to thank me, which was really sweet. What do I do to thank him? I asked him whether he'll be coming back next year. It turns out that the poor guy didn't get an offer. He didn't seem upset that I asked the question. And of course, I apologized profusely. Last year, I was very careful not to ask about offers, lest I upset someone, but it seemed everyone I knew received an offer, so I wasn't so careful with the subject this year. I'm wondering whether we're just not hiring as many people.

Things are slow slow slow. (Knock on wood). I should continue to work on the library homepage. It needs a complete overhaul. Right now, it is very very basic mid-90s, which is all my doing. I opted for the whaddyaneedhere'swheretogetit simple outline format, which seems to satisfy the audience. I don't have advanced skills and there's really no opportunity to expand my skill set unless I want to buy the books myself. Since I've been told a portal is imminent, I think I'm going to wait.

2003-08-07T11:36:00.000-04:00

What's Up With Hedge Funds? You can find out what the SEC's doing
regarding them, at least, at their Spotlight on Hedge Funds. I have been asked for information about them several times. Invariably, each time I'm asked the question, I have to freshen up on exactly what they are, so I appreciate the Heads Up on Hedge Funds page most of all. [Thanks to CorpLawBlog for the link.]

2003-08-06T22:14:00.000-04:00

Donation Boxes NYPL's putting out donation boxes to make up for all the books that they can no longer buy. The situation's horrible and getting worse every day. At least someone's drawing attention to it. [Thanks to Peter Scott for the link.]

2003-08-06T17:42:00.000-04:00

I Hate Bad Search Engines I'm often asked for recent New York Law Journal articles. Most of the time, the requestor doesn't have the exact date of the article or they don't have a client charge (or just don't want to pay money). Hence, no Westlaw or Lexis. That means the NYLJ website- the thought of it makes me cringe. You just can't find anything. It doesn't matter if you follow their search hints. It doesn't matter if the article just appeared in the print version and one of the title words is utterly unique. Nothing.

Recently, they revamped their website. I needed to get an article, and toot-sweet, for a kind partner who's always in a hurry. What do I see on the front page? A prominent box that says Search Site. I type in the word "whistleblower." Nothing. (Now, I know from the info he's given me that he got an e-newsletter specifically citing to this article. Odd.... it should come up in a site search, then.) The "no results" page has a link to the Search Help, so I check it out, wondering how I could possibly have searched differently to come up with the article I need.

Surprise, surprise. The Search Help page lists 2 other search engines, Newswire and Practice Center, which gives me the article I'm looking for. How was I supposed to know that these other two searches exist? How was I supposed to know that Search Site really only means stories that appeared in the New York Law Journal and not literally the whole site???

I think they either need to explain things a little better or put everything in plain sight.

2003-08-06T12:28:00.000-04:00

FASB Statements- Full Text! Financial Accounting Standards Board now has the full-text for every statement issued since 1973 on their website. Plus, access summary and status information. [Thanks to Genie for the link.]

2003-08-06T11:04:00.000-04:00

US Joins Madrid Protocol According to an INTA press release, the treaty takes effect for the US on November 2 of this year. The benefit, says Kathryn Barrett Park, is that trademark owners will now have the option to use the International Registration system to protect their trademarks in all of the 59 Madrid Protocol-member countries with only one application, in one language and with one set of fees in a single currency.

2003-08-05T14:01:00.000-04:00

Federal Register I know the summers and first-years are usually a bit confused when they have to deal with regulatory information. Occasionally, I need a brush-up, too. Especially when the summers and first-years are asking me questions! NARA's got a tutorial called The Federal Register: What It Is and How to Use It that seems like it'll be helpful in the future.

2003-08-04T15:22:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my first post at Legal References. I've been blogging for over a year on a personal site. However, as a legal reference librarian with Intranet responsibilities, every day I come across websites, articles, and news that I want to share but that might not be appropriate (or, more likely, interesting) for the readers of my regular blog.

I hope to bring something new to an already crowded field that includes amazing blogs and websites like Inter Alia, Library Stuff, Librarian.net, BeSpacific, and The Virtual Chase.