As the Washington, DC-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has started accepting electronic filings, now every U.S. federal appellate, district and bankruptcy court is doing so.
Please see:
All Federal Courts Now Accepting Electronic Filing
Cross-posted at Law Library Blog.
govDelivery, a “provider of government-to-citizen communication solutions,” has recently released an email best practices guide — please see:
Public Sector Digital Communication Management Best Practices: The Critical Role of Email
Cross-posted on Law Library Blog.
Call for Submissions
The Goettingen Journal of International Law (GoJIL), founded in 2007, is currently seeking submissions for its 5th International Law Essay Competition. GoJIL is an e-journal of legal scholarship focusing on International Law. It is the first student-run German International Law journal published exclusively in English. The journal is available online and free of charge. If you win, your article will be published online and accessible.
To participate in the GoJIL International Student Essay Competition 2012, follow the following guidelines:
The deadline is 15 August 2012.
For further details see the GoJIL website: www.gojil.eu
The Chesapeake Digital Preservation Group — with participating libraries including the Georgetown University Law Center Library, the Harvard Law School Library, the Maryland State Law Library and the Virginia State Law Library — has recently posted its 5th Annual investigative report
Some highlights:
Data Show Link Rot in 38 Percent of Online Publications within Five Years
Cross-posted on Law Library Blog.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) Office of Information Policy (OIP) recently (on 29 March 2012) posted its latest annual Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) report — for 2011 –here.
Other DoJ FOIA-related resources are also available online.
Cross-posted at Law Library Blog.
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), an independent, non-profit, research organization, has recently released:
The Gender Wage Gap (17 April 2012)
See also here.
In brief:
Women’s median earnings are lower than men’s in nearly all occupations, whether they work in occupations predominantly done by women, occupations predominantly done by men, or occupations with a more even mix of men and women. During 2011, median weekly earnings for female full-time workers were $684, compared with $832 per week for men, a gender wage ratio of 82.2 percent. Added to the gender wage gap within occupations is the gender wage gap between occupations. Male-dominated occupations tend to pay more than female-dominated occupations at similar skill levels, particularly at higher levels of educational attainment. Tackling occupational segregation is an important part of tackling the gender wage gap.
Cross-posted at Law Library Blog.
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) late last month issued a report on the U.S. Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP):
Federal Depository Library Program: Issues for Congress
Here is the (March 29, 2012) report’s summary:
Summary
Congress established the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) to provide free public access to federal government information. The program’s origins date to 1813; the current structure of the program was established in 1962 and is overseen by the Government Printing Office (GPO). Access to government information is provided through a network of depository libraries across the United States. In the past half-century, information creation, distribution, retention, and preservation has expanded from a tangible, paper-based process to include digital processes managed largely through computerized information technologies.
The transition to digital information raises a number of issues of possible interest to Congress. This report discusses those possible concerns as they affect FDLP. These issues, which are in some cases interrelated, may not only affect FDLP, but also extend beyond the program to a variety of contexts related to the management of government information in tangible and digital forms. Issues include the following: maintenance and availability of the FDLP tangible collection; retention and preservation of digital information; access to FDLP resources; authenticity and accuracy of digital material; robustness of the FDLP Electronic Collection; and the costs of FDLP and other government information distribution initiatives.
The emergence of a predominantly digital FDLP may call the capacity of the statutory authorities GPO exercises into question. Whereas GPO is the central point of distribution for tangible, printed FDLP materials, its responsibilities are more diverse, and may be less explicitly specified, regarding its distribution of digital information. In some instances, GPO carries out activities to distribute digital information that are similar to its actions regarding printed materials. In other instances, GPO provides access to digital content that it does not produce or control. The agency has archiving and permanent retention authorities for tangible materials, but those authorities do not envision digital creation and distribution of government publications. Digital distribution authorities provide for online access to publications, but are silent on GPO’s retention and preservation responsibilities for digital information. These concerns may be addressed in their own right, or in the context of user demand for FDLP information, for which there is no uniform metric.
A number of efforts related to FDLP have been initiated by GPO and groups representing a number of libraries that participate in FDLP. These have included certain regional library activities; studies of the program by a private organization; proposals by a consortium of FDLP libraries to advance the consolidation, digitization, and cataloging of tangible collections; and a study of FDLP coordinated by GPO.
Cross-posted at Law Library Blog.
The World Bank has announced today that it is introducing an Open Access (OA) policy. This will mandate that World Bank research outputs and knowledge products are deposited in a newly-created institutional repository called the Open Knowledge Repository (OKR), which will be freely accessible on the Internet.
For details, please see here.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project of the Pew Research Center has just issued an interesting new report:
See here for a summary of the report’s findings, including but not limited to the following:
Hat tip to ResourceShelf.com.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has just issued:
Global Parliamentary Report: The Changing Nature of Parliamentary Representation
This is the first such report by the UNDP.
Highlights from the executive summary of the report include:
Summary Conclusions (also from the executive summary):
(Also from the executive summary) Three specific challenges stand out:
Hat tip to DocuTicker.com.
