Monthly Archives: July 2011

Thomson Reuters in the news

Posted on by
Reply

From a Wall Street Journal report:

Thomson Reuters Profit Jumps 93%

. . . WestlawNext, which has been sold to over 24,000 customers since its launch in early 2010 and is helping to offset downward pressure stemming from continuing weakness in business from large law firms. Legal revenue increased 9% to $843 million for ongoing businesses and before currency adjustments.

And this from a story in yesterday’s Financial Times, “Thomsons grow restless over Reuter’s progress,” (p. 17, by David Gelles and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson).

. . . the company’s focus is largely on its Eikon platform, which was designed as a rival to the Bloomberg terminal.  Outside observers acknowledge that Eikon was well conceived. “Eikon is a fantastic idea and if they have time it will go far, ” said [Douglas B. Taylor, managing partner at Burton-Taylor International Consulting].  “It won’t be a Bloomberg killer, but it will reset the bar for Thomson Reuters.”

Easy Does It: Examining First-Year Law Student Impressions of the Online Resources They Use Most Often

Posted on by
1

“Easy Does It: Examining First-Year Law Student Impressions of the Online
Resources They Use Most Often” 

LISA D. KINZER, University of Texas at Austin – School of Law

You’ve got what you get and you don’t throw a fit.

It’s a mantra heard in households across the country when kids sit down at the
kitchen table and realize they do not have what they wanted for dinner. A few
weeks ago, I had a “you’ve got what you get” moment as I was looking over data I
had collected from first-year J.D. students at the University of Texas School of
Law.

The data, as it turned out, were not what I wanted. I had asked
students to name the online resource they use most often, and then to answer a
series of brief questions about that resource. I had intended to (1) measure
student use of WestlawNext, and (2) get a sense of what students think of
WestlawNext. But in retrospect I realized I had not accomplished my second goal,
because I had failed to collect any information about WestlawNext from students
who do not use it. It is not particularly useful to hear about a resource from
its fans, without also hearing from individuals who are perhaps not as enamored
with that resource. So I could not use the data to write anything very
interesting about WestlawNext.

However, some of the data patterns that
emerged were so striking that I wanted to share them. I found that, regardless
of whether a student is using Lexis, Westlaw, or WestlawNext, students are
overwhelmingly convinced that their resource is the easiest and the fastest to
use. I also found that students are not nearly as convinced that their resource
returns relevant material or everything they need. In addition, it seems that
students simply do not care near as much about vendor rewards programs as
vendors might have us believe. And finally, to the extent that their legal
research professors have any preference as to what resource students should use,
students are either unaware of that preference or simply unaffected by
it.

In this paper, I review the data that create these patterns, and then
try to sort out what these patterns mean, practically speaking. I will begin
with an overview of my methodology, then review the results of the survey, and
then turn to the implications and possibilities for further research.

 

Source: LSN Legal Education eJournal Vol. 8 No. 41, 07/20/2011

U.S. Government Indicts Researcher for Alleged Data Theft from MIT and JSTOR

Posted on by
Reply

Researcher, writer, software developer and online activist Aaron Swartz has been indicted by the U.S. Government for alleged data theft from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and JSTOR.

The indictment, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts and asserting that Swartz stole “well over 4,000,000 articles from JSTOR” via MIT’s computer networks, is here.

JSTOR’s statement is here.

A statement by the nonprofit political action group Demand Progress, which Swartz co-founded, is here.

For one commentator’s reaction, see:

Free the JSTOR Four Million

Additional information is reported at:

Coder Turned Progressive Activist Aaron Swartz Charged In MIT Theft

Over 90 Percent of College Students are online

Posted on by
Reply

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has recently published an interesting report

College Students and Technology (July 19, 2011)

arguably confirming what one might generally expect about Internet use by college/university-age people:

When it comes to general internet access, young adults of all stripes are much more likely than the general population to go online. Fully 92% of 18-24 year olds who do not attend college are internet users, comparable to the rate for community college students and just slightly lower than the rate for undergraduate and graduate students (nearly 100% of whom access the internet).

Undergraduate and graduate students differentiate themselves more clearly when it comes to home broadband access, as more than nine in ten undergraduate (95%) and graduate students (93%) are home broadband users—well well above the national adult average of 66%.

Community college students (78% of whom are home broadband users) and young non-students (82% of non-students in the 18-24 age cohort are home broadband users) adopt broadband in comparable numbers—both have higher adoption rates than older adults but lower adoption rates than students in undergraduate or graduate institutions.

Hat tip to DocuTicker.com.

Legal Issues in the Republic of South Africa

Posted on by
Reply

“Legal Issues in the Republic of South Africa” is a Web site of 59 short articles written by H.C.J. van Rensburg on various aspects of South African law. Topics include criminal law, evidence, animal law, business organizations, labor law, and consumer law. Free registration is required.

http://legalissues.co.za/

 

Festival Justice et Cinema

Posted on by
Reply

La Rochelle, France offers an annual justice and film festival – Festival Justice et Cinema. Now in its third year, the 2011 edition was held June 10th and11th.

Each year’s festival offers a different theme, with this year’s films focusing on  screen portrayals of investigating magistrates (juge d’instruction)

 In addition to screening  films, the festival also offers discussions by legal practitioners, film critics, journalists, and academics.

http://www.festivaljusticeetcinema.fr/

The Web site also includes a biblioghraphy.

Additional Stakeholders Functional Requirements Group (ASFRG) for Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF)

Posted on by
Reply

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina (E.D.N.C.) has posted a number of interesting materials regarding the Additional Stakeholders Functional Requirements Group (ASFRG) for Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) and the project for the “CM/ECF Next Generation.”

Please see here.

The materials include two presentations as well as three different surveys.

Please see:

Making room for cappuccino, and fish too.

Posted on by
Reply

While it won’t be front-page news for anyone reading this blog, there was a front-page story in Tuesday’s San Francisco Daily Journal (password needed) about how law firms are reducing the size of their libraries and using the spaces that once held books for people purposes instead.  The story, “Making Space for Collaboration – Libraries, Formerly the Hub of Firm Intellectual Life, Have Been Downsized,” by Susan McRae, looks at how a few local law firms have shifted their focus from books to cappuccino.

. . . Seizing the void [of little-used libraries] as an opportunity, firm administrators began turning unused library space into open meeting rooms, lounges and cappuccino bars, confining the far smaller collections to a few shelves . . .

The story takes a close look at Durie Tangri’s beautiful new offices and features photographs of a modern “common space” and also the firm’s pool table.  The story notes that

Firm lawyers were even willing to make individuall offices smaller to accommodate the collaborative dynamic.  Their print library was confined to one volume of treatises houses in a 3-by-6 foot shelf.

Another firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan

. . . enthusiastically incorporated a cappuccino bar and a couple of saltwater fish tanks into its library space.

At Davis Wright Tremaine its “traditional law library in Los Angeles, which was sitting unused, . . . ” has been turned into a lounge “with comfortable seating and a big-screen TV” while “the remaining law books are kept in a centralized area off to the side.”

At Greenberg Glusker the library space and collection have been reduced by two-thirds.

This pattern of greatly shrinking libraries and getting rid of the books is not limited to law firm libraries.  Here at Stanford University we also see this trend reflected in two newly opened libraries.

The first is the Engineering Library which is part of the newly build Terman Engineering Center.   According to a story in the Stanford Daily, “Terman library adapts to ‘bookless’ system,” the library has “cut down the number of books to about 20,000 from 80,000 and increased the number of e-books to around 40,000.”

And our business school just build an enormous new campus, with a brand new drop-dead gorgeous library.  There the on-site print collection was reduced from 400,000 volumes to approximately 30,000.

 

 

 

World eBook Fair

Posted on by
Reply

The World eBook Fair runs July 4-August 4, 2011.

The fair’s aim is to provide free public access for a month to some 6.5 million eBooks.

Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive are both contributing organizations.

Each will be presenting a number of items in other media during 2011 — such as music, movies, artwork, and dance choreography.

The available collections include reference books and scientific items, as well as approximately 50,000 music entries (on top of 12,000 that debuted last year).

All are welcome to join the World Public Library for an annual membership of US$8.95 per year.

Members can download from a selection of about 2 million PDF eBooks.

Hat tip to ResourceShelf.com.

See also: World eBook Fair – 6.5 million ebooks available through August 4th

Cross-posted on Law Library Blog.

Latest Version of BLAW released

Posted on by
Reply

Bloomberg has released its latest version of Bloomberg Law (BLAW), featuring, among other things:

  • a redesigned interface for more intuitive navigation
  • enriched search capabilities for faster information retrieval with  less time spent searching and more time for analyzing and applying findings
  • new practice area centers offering specific resources to quickly and easily access primary and secondary sources, news and analysis
  • enhanced collaboration and workflow features building on Bloomberg Law’s [BLAW's] workspace tools to help users research faster, stay organized and share securely

See: Bloomberg Law Releases Latest Evolution of its Web Platform