University of Washington (UW) School of Law Associate Professor Kathryn A. Watt’s subject, thought-provoking paper is here.
Hat tip to Law Librarian Blog.
Cross-posted at Law Library Blog.
A helpful resource on current U.S. federal and state legislative activity — which has been around a while (since October 2011, actually, per this posting) — is the American Association of Law Libraries’ (AALL’s):
Legislative Action Center (LAC)
Content at the LAC frequently includes convenient “Advocacy One-Pagers” — see, for example:
The LAC is helpfully searchable too, per the following layout:
Search within Government Relations
Cross-posted on Legal Research Plus.
Cross-posted on Law Library Blog.
Dear scholars,
Please pay attention to where you place your scholarship. Are you aware of the cost of some journal subscriptions? One example, of many, is the Journal of Law & Society. The Stanford Law Library used to get this print subscription with discounted rate and paid $161 for the current 2013 print subscription. We just received word from Hein (who handles the subscription for us) that the publisher will begin to charge us the full price with an additional payment of $851.00.
What made me think of this was the receipt yesterday of a new publication from my hero Carl Malamud. Carl has become quite the pamphleteer and his most recent is On Crime and Access to Knowledge. I urge you all to read it.
In the pamphlet, Carl tells the story of the late Aaron Swartz and discusses JSTOR, PACER, and broader information access issues such as Carl’s heroic efforts to make public safety documents, such as building codes, available to the public.
But on the issue of what Aaron did with JSTOR, Carl makes this important point:
. . . One must remember that JSTOR is a messenger, an intermediary, and if there is fault here, that fault is ultimately the fault of the scholars who wrote those articles and allowed them to be locked up. It was a corruption of scholarship when the academy handed over copyright to knowledge so that it could be rationed in order to extract rents.
Please think twice before you place a piece of your scholarship with a particular journal. Find out what it costs to subscribe to the journal; find out what databases include its text (your librarian can help with this); ask the journal if you can retain ownership and publication rights. And ask yourself: Do you really want your scholarship tightly locked up behind expensive pay walls?
As contentious as the issue of climate change is, it is useful and valuable to have the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO’s) latest summary of current climate change findings and figures here.
Note: the WMO, a specialized agency of the United Nations, endeavors to maintain its independence and to “embody the highest aspirations of the people of the world” — please see its Code of Ethics.
Cross-posted on Law Library Blog.
Legislative Research & Intent LLC (LRI) has launched an
and California legislative history and legislative intent research is reportedly available to academic patrons (law school faculty and students) at no charge.
Content is described as follows:
Carolina Rose
Carolina C. Rose, J.D., President
Legislative Research & Intent LLC
1107 9th Street, Suite 220
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 442-7660 Phone
(800) 530-7613 Toll Free
(916) 442-1529 Fax
Carolina.Rose@lrihistory.com
www.lrihistory.com
has very kindly provided the following updated information about LRI’s offer here.
Cross-posted on Law Library Blog.
LLRX.com has posted
Statistics Resources and Big Data on the Internet 2013
Hat tip to ResourceShelf.com.
Cross-posted on Law Library Blog.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) — which is intended to lead “the first concrete steps toward” making “the cultural and scientific record available to all” (please see here) — is scheduled to open with a series of “launch” events on April 18-19, 2013 at the Boston Public Library.
Please see:
With New Leader, Digital Public Library of America Prepares for Its Debut
Hat tip to ResourceShelf.com.
Cross-posted on Law Library Blog.
“To provide the public with open access to electronic federal court records.”
Please see here for more information, including by way of some explanation:
The Open PACER Act provides for free and open access to electronic federal court records. The courts currently offer an expensive and difficult-to-use web site. They charge more than their cost of offering the service—more than Congress has authorized—violating the E-Government Act of 2002. This [proposed] Act seeks to, once and for all, compel the courts to fulfill Congress‘ longstanding vision of making this information “freely available to the greatest extent possible.”
and
PACER was designed before the turn of the [21st] century, and hasn’t been updated much. It is difficult to search, confusing to use, and is not indexed by search engines like Google. The biggest problem is that it charges for access. Every time you search, view a docket report, or download a document, you pay. These little charges add up quickly and make it impossible to do large-scale searching or analysis. This is bad for democracy.
Cross-posted on Law Library Blog.
Third Branch News of the United States Courts has today posted the following:
Access to Court Opinions Expands
Cross-posted on Law Library Blog.
The U.S. Library of Congress has added — among other things — the Congressional Record to Congress.gov.
Please see here.
Cross-posted on Law Library Blog.
