RIPS Law Librarian

We've Moved!

2010-10-11T12:00:00.004-06:00

The RIPS Law Librarian has moved to WordPress. You can check us out at http://ripslawlibrarian.wordpress.com/. Please update your feeds accordingly.

RIPS members: We will add the RIPS email address to the subscription part of the new blog, so hopefully your receipt of blog postings via email will continue uninterrupted.

When Bad Graphs Happen to Good Papers

2010-08-16T14:23:00.008-06:00

For those of us who assist faculty or students in their empirical research endeavors , I thought I would highlight a resource that we can share with them to prevent bad graphs from happening to good papers.

"Legal Writing: Getting it Right and Getting it Written" (5th ed. Thomson West 2010) by Mary Barnard Ray and Jill J. Ramsfield, is likely already part of your collection of legal writing texts. However, one part of the book you may not have known about is the advice given on how to use graphics and which form is most appropriate to use (pages 174-184). Specifically, the authors provide pointers on good graph design and when it's better to stick the graphs at the end as an appendix rather than embedding them within the document. They also provide clarification on the proper uses of pie charts, bar graphs, stacked bar graphs or side-by-side bar graphs, line graphs, and tables.

RIPS Annual Meeting Follow-up: The Condensed Version

2010-07-14T10:37:00.004-06:00

Fellow RIPSters,

There will be a more substantive post later which includes the Annual Chair Report to AALL, but here are some brief notes on RIPS activities at the 2010 AALL Annual Meeting in Denver.

Word of mouth on the programs we sponsored was highly positive.
The C8 Forum sparked such a lively discussion that we ran a little long. Apologies to the FCIL-SIS for the inconvenience.
There was a full house for the Research Instruction Roundtable, and the Patron Services Roundtable was well attended considering a lot of us were hitting the proverbial wall by Monday evening. The presence of private, court, and agency librarians helped spark the hour long discussions
The Breakfast/Business Meeting was our largest to date, and the Hyatt's food was well received. Our mascot, Puron the Penguin was passed along to the 2010-2011 Chair, Katie Brown. The rest of this year's Executive Board consists of Kris Helge (Texas Wesleyan), Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect; Maribel Nash (Chicago Kent), Secretary/Treasurer; Uwe Beltz (Texas Tech) & Liz McCurry (Charlotte School of Law), Members at Large; and me as Past Chair.
Jessie Burchfield, from the University of Arkansas - Little Rock, and Duane Strojny, from Thomas M. Cooley Law School were named co-recipients of the 2010 RIPS Star Award.
The Alphabet Soup reception was highly attended, and the addition of the Mersky Spirit of Law Librarianship Award announcement made it an even better event.
Lots of interest in the SIS was shown among CONELL attendees, folks stopping by the Activities Area table, and AALL as a whole. Congratulations to Marianne Rogers, (York University Law Library) and Shira Megerman (soon to be at the University of Florida Law Library) for winning our prize drawings.

Thank you to everyone who made it such a terrific Annual Meeting and a fantastic year for RIPS. I was honored to be a part of it.

Robb Farmer, Past Chair RIPS-SIS

2010 RIPS Business Meeting Financial Report

2010-07-08T19:45:00.006-06:00

Both in an effort to go green, and for those members unable to attend, here are some of the supporting documents for this year's RIPS Business Meeting and Breakfast held Monday, July 12th at 7:15 a.m. Special thanks to Lynn Murray, our Secretary/Treasurer.

Robb Farmer, outgoing Chair, RIPS-SIS

RIPS Roundtables at the AALL Annual Meeting

2010-07-08T13:41:00.004-06:00

OK, I know I'm going blog-post heavy today, but please bear with me for another important announcement. Each year, RIPS hosts two roundtable discussions - one for each of the missions that make up our acronym- and we hope to see you there.

The Research Instruction Roundtable is scheduled for Sunday from 5:30 - 6:30 in CCC 608. As always, it's a chance to meet with other librarians who help their patrons/attorneys/students/faculty learn how to use various legal resources. While recent roundtables have been a little heavy on the academia, they are neither just for academics, nor only for RIPS members. So, if you know anyone from PLL who doesn't have an RI roundtable to go to, drag them to ours.

The Patron Services Roundtable is scheduled for Monday, but is also from 5:30 - 6:30 and in CCC 608. So, if you want to come to both, we've made it easy on you. The Patron Services Roundtable has the potential to be the most free-wheeling discussion out there, since we all serve patrons, no matter what else we do.

There's no real theme to our Roundtables this year. This is your chance to discuss what YOU think is important and timely in regard to these missions. We all have gripes, we all have successes, and we all have war stories. This is a chance to share what worked, what didn't, and what you're concerned with for the near future. The issues that come out of these discussions help shape what RIPS can and will do in the next year. Also, not so coincidentally, there are RIPS committees focused on both missions, in case you want more direct involvement.

Robb Farmer, RIPS-SIS chair

RIPS Committee Meetings and Information Sessions in Denver

2010-07-08T12:06:00.005-06:00

Whether you're a long-time member or one of the new additions to RIPS, one of the best ways to get involved and serve the organization is to join one of our committees. We have several standing committees, while other ad hoc committees may be organized for special projects or concerns.

Brief meetings and informational sessions for all our current committees will be held at Noon on Monday, July 12th in CCC Room 107. There you can learn about the missions of each committee, meet current Chairs, and decide which ones may be right for you. We would especially welcome involvement from private librarians; state, court & county librarians; technical services librarians; new librarians and students.

Committees include:

Programming - Annual meeting programming has been a hot button issue (next year's C8?) recently, and as an SIS, we have an automatic bid for each year's annual meeting. This committee helps identify, select, and implement educational programs suitable for RIPS's large and diverse membership. Programming includes official AALL Annual Meeting programs; sessions produced by RIPS like the annual C8 forum; or virtual/distance learning like webinars.

Patron Services - One of the two primary missions that give our SIS its name. No matter what your job description or where you work, you serve patrons in some way. This committee works to make that service more effective and efficient, through such means as planning the Annual Meeting roundtable and collecting information like policies, forms, and training guides.

Research Instruction - Focusing on our other primary mission, this committee helps plan the Annual Meeting roundtable and address issues on teaching legal resources to our different patron groups. Recently, a law librarian blog post commented that the PLL-SIS did not have an RI roundtable. While that may change, we'd gladly let private law librarians to address their research instruction issues on our committee.

Legal Research Teach-In: This committee is responsible for the Legal Research Teach In Kit, a RIPS publication compiling sample instructional materials such as research guides, lesson plans, and presentations.

Public Relations: This Committee helps spread the good word about RIPS to AALL, potential members, and to our profession.

There are also a couple of special committees on the horizon. Details on those are coming soon. If you're interested in committee work, but can't make the informational session, don't fret. Just let me know, and I'll get you in touch with the right person. We look forward to working with you.

Robb Farmer, RIPS-SIS Chair

RIPS Programming at the 2010 AALL Annual Meeting

2010-07-08T10:48:00.007-06:00

A wise man once told me that repeated reminders, according to advertising methodology, get them in the door. So, though we've said it before, we're saying it again. Mark your calendars, because RIPS is bringing you lots of great education opportunities for you in Denver. Details are below.Special thanks to rising Chair Katie Brown and the Programming Committee for identifying great programs to sponsor.

Robb Farmer, RIPS-SIS Chair

2010 RIPS C8 Topical Forum: To Serve Man: Patron Services to the Disadvantaged During and After the Downturn.

Monday, July 12, 10:45

CCC Room 109

Last year, we looked at the recent economic turmoil with an eye toward how law libraries might turn adversity into opportunity. Now, we turn our attention outward to examine how difficult times affects law librarianship's mission in serving low income, tribal, disabled, incarcerated, non-English speaking, and other underrepresented populations. The discussion will be led by a panel, but we want you to offer your own questions, opinions, and experiences.

What is it you do again? Marketing the patron services of the traditional to the nontraditional librarian

Monday July 12 8:45

CCC-Room 201-203

People often get in a rut when marketing their services to their patrons. This program will expose the audience to the marketing of services at a variety of libraries. The format for the program will be a round robin/poster session.

Behind the Scenes at the U.S. EPA

Sunday July 11 4:15

CCC-Room 108-112

Law librarians are familiar with how to research regulations. But do they know about the documents generated in the regulatory process, or how they can best serve non-legal professionals seeking this information? A research chemist and law librarian from the United States Environmental Protection Agency will provide a behind-the-scenes look at the regulatory process

Lies, Damned Lies, and Reference Statistics: Maximizing Your Data Efficiency

Monday, July 12 10:00

CCC-Room 201-203

While data about reference transactions can prove extremely useful for evaluating services, many librarians express unhappiness with their existing methods of collection and analysis. Before reinventing the wheel (again), come to this lively and opinionated evaluation of the most popular techniques for collecting reference statistics.

Beyond (But Within) the Academy: Teaching Research in Law School Clinics

Tuesday July 13 10:45

CCC-Room 201-203

Clinical education provides law librarians with a tremendous teaching opportunity for many reasons. First, the clinics are in line with the Carnegie Report's recommendation for experiential learning. The classes are relevant and specific, which benefits adult learners. Second, many clinics are transactional. Librarians can teach an area not often covered in the traditional legal research curriculum. Finally, librarians can become integrated in Course Management Systems (CMS). CMS software generally excludes libraries in their design, so faculty members overlook the role librarians can play in their classes. During this session, a panel of librarians will discuss the role their libraries play in clinical education, and provide suggestions on how your library can become better integrated with your law school clinics.

RIPS Election Results

2010-07-08T09:49:00.003-06:00

Puron the Penguin; Nominations Committee Chair, Duane Strojny; and I are pleased to announce the results of the 2010 RIPS-SIS Election.

Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect: Kris Helge

Secretary/Treasurer: Maribel Nash

2010-2012 Member at Large: Elizabeth McCurry

Many thanks to all who ran, to all who voted, and to Duane for putting it all together.

Robb

Business Meeting & Breakfast Change: We've Outgrown another Room

2010-07-07T18:22:00.003-06:00

We've done it again RIPSters. As Puron hits age 12, apparently RIPS is experiencing a growth spurt, as expected attendance was greater than the last room could hold. So update your calendars. The Business Meeting & Breakfast is still scheduled for 7:15 on Monday, July 12th, but will now be held in Hyatt Centennial Ballroom F - G.

If you don't have a ticket for the breakfast, a limited number of tickets will be available at the CONELL marketplace and at the RIPS table in the Vendor Hall. If you don't end up with a ticket, you are still welcome to attend the business meeting. I look forward to seeing you in the Mile High City.

Robb Farmer, RIPS-SIS Chair

2010-07-07T07:02:00.002-06:00

We still need volunteers for the RIPS -SIS table at the convention center in Denver. Please sign up for only one hour of your valuable time.

RIPS-SIS currently has 784 members and only 46 slots need to be filled (23 - 1 hour sessions).

If you have the time please consider volunteering! Follow this link to sign up to volunteer.

AALL Annual Meeting Reminder: Alphabet Soup Reception, featuring the Mersky Spirit of Law Librarianship Award for Public Service Presentation

2010-07-06T10:53:00.005-06:00

Each year, RIPS sponsors a reception along with three other Special Interest Sections: Technical Services, Computing Services, & Online Bibliographic Services. While billed in the AALL program as the TS/OBS/RIPS/CS-SIS Joint Reception, the little shindig has become affectionately known as the Alphabet Soup Reception. It's a great opportunity to meet and greet members of other SIS's, while enjoying some quality food and beverages.

This year's Reception offers even more than fellowship and networking opportunities. It's scheduled from 7:00 - 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, in the Hyatt Centennial Ballroom - F, allowing you to eat some real food before all the desserts at the Opening Event. More importantly, at 7:15, the 2010 Mersky Spirit of Law Librarianship Award for Public Service will be presented to this year's recipient: David Selden, Law Librarian at the National Indian Law Library/Native American Rights Fund. I hope you can join us in congratulating David and thanking him for his years of service to others.

Robb Farmer, Chair RIPS -SIS

RIPS-SIS Annual Meeting Breakfast & Business Meeting: Location Change!

2010-06-25T11:16:00.010-06:00

Our annual Breakfast & Business meeting is scheduled for Monday, July 12th at 7:15 a.m. As you registered for the Annual Meeting this year, you may have noticed that our ticketed and usually reasonably charged morning meal was being brought to you absolutely FREE. We're doing that both as a thank-you to our membership, and after consideration of slashed travel budgets throughout the profession.

Shockingly, we had strong registration for the breakfast, and we've outgrown the Convention Center room originally scheduled. The Breakfast & Business Meeting will now be held in the AGATE Room at the Hyatt. As conference literature may not reflect the change, if you're coming to our meeting, please update your schedule. We look forward to seeing you there.

Robb Farmer, Chair, RIPS-SIS

RIPS Notes and Countdown to the Annual Meeting

2010-06-17T12:50:00.003-06:00

It's hard to believe my year as Chair is winding down, but as it does, things in the RIPS-SIS are gearing up in anticipation of the Annual Meeting in Denver.

First, our annual election will be held starting this weekend. When it goes live, please take the time to cast your votes. Many thanks both to Duane Strojny and the Nominations Committee who've set up another great slate of candidates, and to the following candidates who have volunteered to serve. The nominees are:

Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect: Kris Helge, Texas Wesleyan

Secretary/Treasurer: Maribel Nash, Chicago-Kent

Member at Large:

Liz McCurry, Charlotte School of Law;
Gary Hill, Brigham Young University

Second, as in "Second Annual," the RIPS-SIS C8 Topical Forum returns to address another timely, important issue facing our profession, with the program "To Serve Man: Patron Services to the Disadvantaged During & After the Downturn."

Last year, we looked at the recent economic turmoil with an eye toward how law libraries might turn adversity into opportunity. This brought about a lively discussion that continued throughout the year and sparked similar programs among the AALL membership. Now, we turn our attention outward to examine how difficult times affects law librarianship's mission in serving low income, tribal, prisoners, non-English speaking, and other underrepresented populations. As before, the C8 Forum is a town hall where your opinions and questions are encouraged and desired, but to help lead the discussion, we have the following distinguished panelists:

Judy Meadows: Montana State Law Librarian, and Chair of Montana's Commission on Self-Represented Litigants
Larry Meyer: Director of the San Bernadino County (CA) Law Library
Diana Reese: Coordinator for Institutional (Correctional, Veterans, Mental Health, etc.) Library Development for the Colorado state library system
Sherri Thomas (University of New Mexico): Chair of the AALL Native People's Law Caucus and Member of the Federal Bar Association's Indian Law on State Bar exams Committee

C8 is scheduled for 10:45 - 11:45 on Monday, July 12th. Hope to see you all there.

Third, since 2007, RIPS has honored select members for distinguished service to the SIS with the RIPS Star (formerly Heart) Award. Past recipients of the award were Gail Partin (Penn State), Bobbi Studwell (Charlotte School of Law); Peggy McDermott (St. Louis University), and last year's winner, Melissa Serfass (University of Arkansas-Little Rock). If you would like to nominate a RIPS member for this year's award, please email me (rfarmer@faulkner.edu) the person's name and reasons for nomination by Friday, June 25. The winner will be named at the RIPS Breakfast & Business Meeting to be held at 7:15 a.m. on July 12.

More AALL news to follow, gang. Stay tuned.

Robb Farmer, Chair RIPS-SIS
Faulkner University Jones School of Law Library

Electronic Forms are a Good Argument for Print...

2010-06-07T16:53:00.004-06:00

and the librarians that support print and electronic information. The State Law Library of Wyoming recently acquired access to the Gale Legal Forms database through the State Library. I've been playing around with the database while I prepare a training webinar for public librarians. There seems to be a good mix of forms including: family law, business law, and corporations law. Some forms have been completed as examples and checklists have been included in some subject areas. These forms will certainly fill a gap for Wyoming's residents who are far (500 miles plus) from the law library.
However, I was disappointed to see there was no reference to the appropriate state statutes on the forms even though they are listed in the Wyoming subsection as though they were specifically created for Wyoming law. Most anyone, except for someone trained in the law, would need assistance from a law librarian to find the information to be able to implement and complete them correctly. We will need to continue to highlight the information available on the Law Library website including access to state statutes and self-help forms that have been created specifically for Wyoming.
I admit I prefer to have patrons step into the law library or call us, so I can suggest they read a legal encyclopedia, the dictionary, or look at forms within the context of a legal forms book. Our patrons need more than just the forms and sadly, often patrons do not know what they don't know so they are unprepared to know what questions to ask.
The county libraries have extensive collections of Nolo and Sphinx legal self-help publications. Hopefully those books along with the forms database and the law library's assistance will improve access to the law for the far-flung residents of Wyoming.

Design Resources

2010-06-04T14:04:00.002-06:00

"I do believe that there are some universal cognitive tasks that are deep and profound - indeed, so deep and profound that it is worthwhile to understand them in order to design our displays in accord with those tasks."
--Edward Tufte

As librarians, we are often called upon to create visual representations of information – library displays, Powerpoint presentations and handouts, just to name a few. But many of us have little experience with design. Fortunately, there are some resources out there to help.
With regard to library displays, there are a couple of resources out there that can help. Although a little out of date, Rita Cohn’s Experiencing Displays is a nice book for helping you think about design. Ideas about color, depth, shape, framing, texture and much more are discussed in this book. For a practical discussion on book displays, take a look at this article titled What Libraries Can Learn from Bookstores. The article discusses location, signage, lighting, and attracting the eye.
There are several good places to find ideas about good Powerpoint design. One of the popular and highly regarded ones is Edward Tufte’s The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within. The extended essay is excellent at helping you think about the representation information. A practical guide to creating effective powerpoint design is Satyajeet Singh’s “Designing Effective Powerpoint Presentations”.
Finally, taking a look into the world of museum studies, I found a couple interesting helpful resources. The magazine “The Exhibitionist” from the National Association of Museum Exhibition has many fantastic articles about exhibits and The interactive Design and The Elastic Mind from MOMA is a fascinating multimedia project about visual representation.

Law Librarian, P.I.

2010-05-14T14:39:00.002-06:00

As a reference librarian, I am often asked to find information about people. Usually, I am given a name and asked questions such as – what is this person’s job? Has this person published any articles? Is this person still a member of the bar? Does this person have a criminal record? Does this person donate to any charitable causes?

Whenever I’m asked to do this kind of research, I stretch my fingers, start humming the tune from Magnum P.I. (remember that one?), and start typing. Where do I look? In addition to subscription databases , I find the following places helpful:

The BRB free resources page is a good place to start for state, county and city public records sites. Coverage varies by area, but I like to look here to find criminal records, property records, marriage records.

For information about property and addresses, I usually start with Zillow or Property Shark.

Information about political donations can be found with the Open Secrets donor look up.

Since I am so often researching attorneys, the Compilation of State Lawyer Licensing databases from LLRX comes in quite handy.

And finally, the BlackBook Online links to several places for free public records searches.

Despite the wealth of free information on the web, I generally find "people searching" to be quite challenging. Do you have a favorite place for looking for people information?

E-Mail Alerts Now Available from Google Scholar

2010-05-13T11:12:00.007-06:00

From The Resource Shelf blog:

Until now, Google Scholar users had to use a variety of methods to create alerts to notify them of new content in Google Scholar. Well, the wait is over and as of this weekend, Google Scholar E-Mail Alerts are now available. It’s Google, of course they’re free.

Alerts appear to work with all three content options:
A) “Traditional” Google Scholar Content (with patents or without patents)
B) Legal Documents and Journals.

There is also a feature that allows you to create alerts each time there is a new citation to an article in which you're interested.

Because alerts are to find new material (independent of publication date) that has just “entered” the database, the date range limits do not work. You also can’t create an alert for only a source (at least at this time).

And the good news is that you don't have to have a gmail account for the alerts--any email address will work.

Readability - A More Enjoyable Online Reading Experience

2010-04-29T11:16:00.007-06:00

For those of us who spend a lot of time in front of a computer screen, sometimes reading large chunks of text, not all of which is in a font or size suitable for extended reading, I thought I'd post about this new browser add-on that allows you to make whatever you may be reading a little bit easier on the eyes.

Readability allows you to select how you would like web pages to be rendered to make them more readable to you. You may:

Change the style (options include: newspaper, novel, e-Book, and inverse (which creates white text on a dark background))

Size of the text (ranging from extra-small to extra-large)

Margins

Readability does not play very nicely with front pages, though. It is intended to work on articles with a sizable chunk of text that you'd like to read comfortably. If you're using Readability on a landing page (like nytimes.com for example), please click into an article first before using Readability. Also, it does not appear to work with Westlaw (even in full-screen mode) or with LexisNexis (even when documents are displayed in the printer-friendly mode).

However, with general Internet research, random web sites I tested rendered well. It also appears you can download multiple add-ons from Readability that will render differently (such as one add-on that will render inverse with wide margins and large font as well as a second add-on that will render pages like a newspaper with wider margins and a smaller font).

This would make a great addition to the Internet browsers on computers in your library that are accessible to the public.

Weight Discrimination Resources

2010-04-16T14:57:00.006-06:00

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon this NPR piece. It’s about an incident in which film director Kevin Smith was expelled from a Southwest flight because of his weight and/or size. Of course, because of Mr. Smith’s celebrity status and his prolific Twittering, the incident became a popular news/blogging item (I Googled “Kevin Smith” and southwest and got 233,000 hits). The article inspired me to do a little searching on the legal literature regarding weight discrimination.

As far as I know, persons of a certain size or weight are generally not considered to be a protected class. Of the fifty states, only Michigan has a law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of weight (the Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act of 1976). A handful of municipalities have similar laws. The Council on Size and Weight Discrimination has a web page listing laws, ordinances and rulings relevant to weight discrimination.

Despite the lack of legislation, there is some legal literature discussing discrimination on the basis of size and weight. The literature tends to use the terms “weight discrimination,” “size discrimination,” “obesity discrimination” and more recently “fat rights.”

For an overview of the topic, I found the following sources to be quite helpful:

Weight Bias: Nature Consequences and Remedies, offers several articles on weight discrimination. Most of the articles are sociological/psychological in nature, but two articles: Legal Theory on Weight Discrimination by Elizabeth Theran; and Remedies for Weight-Based Discrimination by Sondra Solovay give a solid explanation of weight discrimination and current anti-discrimination laws.

The Fat Studies Reader includes several articles about weight discrimination in contemporary society. Of particular interest is an article titled No Apology: Shared Struggles in Fat and Transgender Law as well as an article discussing airlines and size limitations. The book also includes an Appendix entitled Legal Briefs which provides excerpts from laws and ordinances that prohibit discrimination on the basis of weight.

Anna Kirkland’s Fat Rights: Dilemma’s of Difference and Personhood examines anti-discrimination laws within the context of weight discrimination. Using her “logics of personhood” it offers an interesting analysis of how difference is treated in the legal system and how difference should be treated.

Finally, the Congressional Research Service Report titled Obesity Discrimination and the Americans with Disabilities Act gives a good overview of cases in which weight discrimination was addressed using the ADA.

I hope to see even more literature on the topic in the coming years.

Edit: After posting this, my attention was directed to another place to find weight discrimination information: NAAFA, the National Association to Advanced Fat Acceptance. They have a page dedicated to laws on weight discrimination --including legislation awaiting action, as well as a fantastic reading list. I highly recommend the NAAFA web site for getting started with weight discrimination research.

Sources of Inspiration

2010-04-09T09:16:00.021-06:00

I have days when I feel a bit unfocused. So, I go looking for inspiration. I have only to look as far as my Google Reader account where I can peruse any number of musings from a variety of creative folks. Some of the bloggers I appreciate are:

Seth Godin - hummm, need I say more? The mere mention of his name seems to evoke a response from folks I know. His blog is an interesting peek into his head. Each post seems like a sound bite to me - sound bites that I can riff on.
Dennis Kennedy - have you thought about estate planning for your digital assets? You know, all the digital products you have accumulated which are an important component of your financial and creative life. Many of his posts are not directly applicable to my position as a state law librarian but they keep me in the loop with what private (as opposed to court) attorneys may be thinking about.
Sara Remington - here, I get feelings. Her photos are so evocative and appealing. They remind me of why I love to cook, eat, and garden - especially with family and friends. They also encourage me to consider travel as more necessary and less frivolous. She doesn't post often but I am happy to revisit the "older" images until new ones appear.
Heather B. Armstrong on dooce&reg makes me laugh, tweaks my preconceived notions, and reminds me how I've changed since I was a young mother. Her point of view wakes me up!

I find these blogs refreshing, creative, inspiring and best of all, easily accessible. Reading their stream of conscious ramblings encourages me to expand my self-imposed limits. What do you do to get the creative juices flowing?

Legal Research Textbook Review: Impeccable Research: A Concise Guide to Masterling Legal Research Skills

2010-03-26T12:20:00.011-06:00

It's that time of year when those of us who teach legal research ponder the numerous legal research textbook options to decide which one we will require our students to purchase in the fall. RIPS produced a Legal Research Text Annotated Bibliography in Spring 2006 that I've turned to numerous times for advice on what books to purchase. I hope an update is forthcoming.

To contribute at least one title to this worthwhile project, I will provide a review of Osbeck's "Impeccable Research: A Concise Guide to Mastering Legal Research Skills" (West 2010). Information from the publisher can be found here.

Author: Mark K. Osbeck
Edition: 1st
Publisher: West
Year: 2010
Length: 147 pages (including index)
Price: $36.00
Intended audience: Law students and attorneys
Illustrations: None

Major strengths: This is a book about developing research skills by talking about legal research strategy. While many legal research texts tell the reader how to research (process), less attention is given to troubleshooting or provide answers to perennial questions such as "I Don't Know How Much Time I Should Devote to a Given Project" and "I Don't Know How to Organize the Results of My Research for my Final Work Product." There is a chapter devoted to answering these questions and others as well as a chapter for tips for summer associates and the new lawyer.

Major weaknesses: What prevents this book from being one-stop shopping for a legal research textbook is its scant coverage of legal resources. Secondary sources are covered in 15 pages; primary sources are covered in 17 pages. However, for some situations, this depth of coverage may be more than sufficient, so I hate to classify this as a weakness of the book.

Recommendation: Recommended as a supplementary text for introductory legal research courses or an advanced legal research class. It would also be a great reference on research strategies for new attorneys. This would be a reference book that I would encourage students not to sell back to the bookstore at the end of the semester.

What's Your Personal Brand?

2010-03-08T11:22:00.011-07:00

As law librarians I think we consider ourselves to be obviously branded...we are research mavens specializing in law. A few weeks ago, my ideas about branding were challenged by a presentation about personal branding by Lida Citroen (company name Lida360) sponsored by the Colorado Association of Law Libraries and Rocky Mountain Special Libraries Association.

I think her message on LinkedIn states her premise clearly:
A brand is a promise delivered. It is your reputation and your legacy. Branding is the practice of producing trust and is at the heart of all marketing endeavors. When we market our services or organization, we do so with a promise to meet or exceed the expectations of the audience who must find us relevant.

During the presentation she explained that branding is about feelings and emotional connections. A few of the questions she asked to help us make the connection between feelings and brands included these:

What kind of car would you be?
What kind of song would you be?
What kind of drink are you?

What's my brand if I think I'm an Audi TT convertible as opposed to a Volvo Town & Country wagon? (Keep in mind that these are questions about your work brand because yeah, I'm all about the TT on the weekends!) How does that affect your image of me? What if I think I am a Carly Simon song or something from Bonnie Raitt? Coffee versus herbal tea? The next step is to ask these same questions about your target audience. This process of Q & A helps to focus your attention on your "uniqueness" within the context of your audience/attorneys/clients/patrons.

Have you heard the term "elevator pitch"? Here is her list of three items to include:

tell what you do;
explain how you do it differently; and
offer an example or a testimonial.

As you give your pitch remember to show excitement, keep it concise, act authentically, use good eye contact and a strong handshake.

Your branding strategy is based on how you want to be known. Control the message - buy the URL of your name and use it. Google yourself regularly, update your LinkedIn profile every seven to ten days, add recommendations, or start conversations on LinkedIn. Facebook is for your weekend, personal or family activities - you want to control it too but it's more casual.

She let us know that soon it will be possible to access a self-taught branding program on her website . I plan to watch for the tool. Until then, I am thinking about her questions to help focus my attention on my brand.

Climate Change and US Law

2010-03-05T15:00:00.004-07:00

This semester, I was asked to present a research class to students in a climate change and US law seminar. As I was doing some background reading, I realized that this topic has many more facets than I had initially thought. Climate change affects many areas of US law including SEC disclosure rules, tax law, rules regarding facility permits, insurance law, greenhouse gas reporting and much, much more. Some resources I found particularly helpful in putting together the presentation include:

Columbia Law’s Center for Climate Change Law: http://www.law.columbia.edu/centers/climatechange

This web site contains a treasure trove of information regarding climate change and US Law. The legislation and regulation trackers were particularly useful.

Climate Change Litigation Chart: http://www.climatecasechart.com/

This handy chart outlines important climate change litigation in the U.S. Courts.

Updates for Global Climate Change and U.S. Law: http://www.abanet.org/abapubs/globalclimate/

This web page acts as an update to Michael B. Gerrard’s book Global Climate Change and U.S. Law. It includes pdfs, podcasts, links and articles. I found the article about Massachusetts v. EPA particularly useful in giving me an overview of that important decision.

The EPA climate change web site: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/

This EPA page provides great information on EPA regulations concerning climate change, including regulatory initiatives for greenhouse gas emissions.

I was also happy to find a number of bibliographies on the topic:

Lang, Isa, Wrestling With An Elephant: A Selected Bibliography and Resource Guide on Global Climate Change, 100 Law Lib. J. 675 (2008)

This bibliography covers books, articles, websites, major legislation, and agency activity on climate change. I particularly liked the state by state analysis of responses to climate change.

Columbia Law School’s Legal Bibliography on Climate Change: http://www.law.columbia.edu/centers/climatechange/resources/bibliography

This recently updated bibliography covers scholarly articles in many areas of the law.

GlobaLex Climate Change Bibliography: http://www.nyulawglobal.org/Globalex/Climate_Change_Bibliography.htm

This bibliography covers articles in six different areas: Economics, International/Comparative, Jurisdictional issues, Law/Policy, Popular press, and Science

Edit:
After writing this post, I found one more excellent resource for climate change research. The University of Chicago Law Library has a great guide which covers current awareness, article and book finding, and more. You can find it here: http://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/content.php?pid=71826&sid=531726

Yes, there's an app for that!

2010-02-24T11:04:00.013-07:00

As more law students and lawyers make the transition to iPhones or iPod Touches (and as many of us will soon venture forth with the unfortunately named iPad), I thought I would wander around the App Store to see what, if any, applications exist that law students might find helpful. Here are some of the ones I've found. If you have found others that you like, please comment to this post with your review. Happy app'ing!

Legal Reference & Research

There are a few legal dictionary apps available, but I will only mention 2. The first is Black's Law Dictionary (8th ed) coming in at $49.99. This is quite a hefty app, both in price and content. It's also one edition behind its print format. A product description from West may be found here.

If you want a less expensive option with a price tag of "free," NOLO has a legal dictionary app. Known for its publications aimed at the layman audience, this dictionary continues that tradition. Its coverage is nice for a free legal dictionary. For more information, check out this review from iPhoneJD.

What about rule books? Ever wish there was an app that contained just the text of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or just the US Code? Well, as you can guess, there are apps for that.

Law Stack combines the current text of the US Constitution, the federal rules of Civil Procedure, Appellate Procedure, Evidence, Bankruptcy Procedure, and Criminal Procedure. Price: free. All rules are current through December 2009.

There is also a free app for the current text of the US Code. More information can be found here.

There are also legal research apps available from LexisNexis and Fastcase. The LexisNexis app allows users who already have a LexisNexis account to retrieve a case by citation and Shepardize it. For lawyers, it also provides a place to enter a client code. The bad news is that there are not hyperlinks available to cases cited in the retrieved case and its Shepard's functionality is not as robust as the web-based Shepard's. A review of this app may be found at LegalGeekery.

Fastcase also has an app that provides access to state and federal case law from all 50 states as well as a library of statutes for most states. You can search by citation, keyword (Boolean or natural language) or browse statutes. Free registration is required. The Fastcase website has more information.

Apps for state-specific legal resources are also available from many different app developers. The easiest way to locate these apps is to do a search in the App Store by state. Be prepared, though--you will likely wade through many useless apps before finding the legal ones. Some states will take their statutes and break them down into subject areas to create a smaller, less expensive application.

Study Aids

Study aid apps are also available on the iPhone. Two of the biggest are the Law in a Flash flash cards and the Sum & Substance audio series.

The Law in a Flash flash cards carry an average price of $31.99 (only Professional Responsibility comes in higher at $47.99). Functionality includes shuffle mode and the ability to make notes on the cards. The downside to purchasing study aids in this format, though, is resale. Once you've purchased these flash cards, they are yours. An upside to this is that when it comes time to study for the bar, buyers will have one additional study resource. iPhoneJD has a review.

For the aural learners, West has made its Sum & Substance audio resources available as an app. Consult the West website for topics available. Prices range from $49.99 to $59.99. Again, like the flash cards, once buyers purchase, there is no resale.

Public Library Resources

2010-02-08T14:02:00.002-07:00

Public libraries often provide access to databases that can be useful to your patrons. Here are highlights of some of the ones we suggest to our users who are searching for information that may be tangential to the law or their legal action. These are Gale resources.

Business and Company Resource Center - brings together company profiles, brand information, rankings, investment reports, company histories, chronologies and periodicals.
Criminal Justice Collection - a collection of 150 journals covering homeland security, law enforcement, paralegal and legal work.
Environmental Studies and Policy - includes almost 200 journals on the subject of environmental issues from multiple viewpoints.
General Business File ASAP - allows the researcher to analyze company performance and activity, industry events and trends. Includes access to broker research reports, trade publications, newspapers, journals, and company directory listings.
Insurance and Liability Collection - provides access to articles from industry leading journals.
LegalTrac - use this database to find articles in all major law reviews, law journals, specialty law and bar association journals and legal newspapers. Included are articles on federal and state cases, laws and regulations, legal practice, and taxation.
Small Business Resource Center - learn how to start, finance or manage your small business. Resources include: sample business plans, how-to guides, articles and websites.

Consider the potential of the public library databases for filling in the gaps of your legal research.

LII Citer

2010-01-29T13:34:00.008-07:00

Hat tip to Jennifer Greig at Elon Law for this information!

Imagine reading a document on the web that cites a statute and you would like to read that statute, but it’s not hyperlinked. Yes, you could copy and paste (or even write down with an actual pen and paper) the citation, then plug it into your online legal research system of choice, and then read it there. But what if there were a simpler way? Well, there is!

Thanks to the amazing people at Cornell's Legal Information Institute, there is a new tool for helping you link to law online when the law you wish to see is not already hyperlinked, and it's called LII Citer Here’s how it works. First, you need to add the LII Citer to your Favorites (it works for IE and Firefox (and other browsers)).

Second, highlight the citation of a law you’d like to read, and then access the LII Citer from your
favorites. You will then be taken to the text of that law wherever it may exist on the Internet. And, at least for US Supreme Court cases I tested, it gives you options of where it will retrieve the case.

Currently, LII Citer scans for the following citations types:

U.S. Code, e.g. 12 U.S.C. 1749bbb-10c, or 7 U.S.C. 136a(c)(3), which links to the paragraph level, using the LII internal USC resolver.
United States Supreme Court, e.g. 457 U.S. 800, using the LII resolver that tries to find an LII-local copy, and failing that, gives the user the option of choosing another source.
Federal Circuit Court System, e.g. 875 F.2d 1059, "resolved" by constructing a direct link to the resource.org data set as hosted by lawlibrary.rutgers.edu
Code of Federal Regulations, e.g. 40 C.F.R. Part 164 Subpart D, tries to resolve section references with the get-cfr.cgi file at frwebgate.access.gpo.gov; if no section number is cited, then a resolver at ecfr.gpoaccess.gov is used.
US Statutes at Large, e.g. 118 Stat. 919, resolution currently very speculative, using get-cfr.cgi at frwebgate.access.gpo.gov
US Public Law, e.g. Pub. L. 110-116, fairly stable, using get-cfr.cgi at frwebgate.access.gpo.gov
Federal Register, e.g. 72 Fed. Reg. 37771, uses the getpage.cgi at frwebgate.access.gpo.gov

It really is worthwhile to experiment with the samples they've set up on their site. This is an ongoing project, with new features and wider scope in the works.

Happy weekend everyone!

RIPS-Hop Hurray

2010-01-22T09:41:00.005-07:00

Hi fellow RIPSters.

I was all ready to write a post on something serious and mildly discouraging, when my mood was brightened by a creative student here at the Faulkner University Jones School of Law. With it being Friday afternoon of a short work week, I decided to forgo my somber post until next month. Instead, I'm going to spin some hip-hop legal beats, with shout-outs to research and the law library. Without further adieu, I present Contributory Negligence by 1L-JSL.

Robb Farmer, RIPS-SIS Chair

18th Annual RIPS-SIS Teach-In Kit

2010-01-15T09:19:00.003-07:00

Call for Contributions to the 18^th Annual RIPS-SIS Teach-In Kit

Want to help promote law libraries and enhance legal research instruction? If so, we invite your contributions to this year’s National Legal Research Teach-In Kit. The Research Instruction and Patron Services-SIS has provided the popular Teach-In Resource Kit for many years as a formerly print and now online publication designed to support the instructional and promotional activities of law librarians. It is published annually in conjunction with National Library Week each April.

You can send contributions as email attachments to Gail Partin at gap6@dsl.psu.edu. Any document format that can be attached to email is acceptable. We will accept most any instructional materials that you care to offer:

· course syllabi

· research guides

· lecture notes

· handouts

· assignments

· lesson plans

· PowerPoint shows

· basic instructional guides

· examinations and guided quizzes

· crossword puzzles and trivia quizzes

We welcome your ideas and suggestions and encourage you to contact us to discuss your contributions. Examples of past submissions can be found in last year’s kit (http://www.aallnet.org/sis/ripssis/TeachIn/2009/index.html).

The deadline for contributions is Monday, February 15, 2010.

Thanks in advance for your contributions!

International Law Research

2010-01-11T10:43:00.015-07:00

There are increasing opportunities for finding free information about international law these days. Some of the possibilities include Juriglobe, GlobaLex and LLRX.

The University of Ottawa provides JuriGlobe which is a multilingual information data bank containing general information relating to the different legal systems in the world. It provides lawyers and businessmen with a simple device which enables them to have an initial overview of the applicable legal systems and the official languages which apply to the countries in which they may operate. It also provides a visual educational tool aimed at illustrating and encouraging the teaching of comparative and international law. It can be used to train and prepare students for their work in a globalized world. Be patient, it is an interesting site but it takes a long time for the pages to load.

Mirela Roznovschi announces to the Law-Lib listserv when there are additions to the repository of international, foreign and comparative law on GlobaLex. It's an electronic legal publication dedicated to international, comparative and foreign law research.

Sure, you've used LLRX before...but have you noticed the list of articles about international and foreign law topics? There are International Law Guides as well as the Comparative and Foreign Law Resource Center.

Social Media, Factual Research and Ethics

2010-01-11T08:12:00.004-07:00

In additional to legal research skills, lawyers need fact-finding skills –especially when it comes to publicly available information about people. Social networking sites have allowed for a proliferation of online personal information and have added a new dimension to fact-finding on the web. Specifically, it has become important to know how to conduct research on these sites in an ethical manner.

In March, 2009, the Philadelphia Bar Association issued an advisory opinion warning attorneys against using third persons to “friend” witnesses on Facebook in order to gain access to profile information. Since then, there have been a few helpful discussions about how far a lawyer can go to access information found on social networking sites.
In this Law Technology News article, the author discusses how to mine social media for evidence and touches on the ethics of "friending".

In this article from the New York Law Journal, Ken Strutin offers a detailed discussion on the Philadelphia advisory opinion as well as social media and ethics in the criminal law arena and in New York.

Strutin also has an excellent article in LLRX that discusses court decisions and ethics opinions that provide guidance on pretexting and social networking sites.

Finally, this lawyerist.com post discusses the ethics of changing one's regional network on a social network site in order to access the profile of a witness in a different region. The preceding articles give a nice overview of the ethics of factual research on social networking sites. I am hoping that in the new decade, we'll see more analysis and guidance on the topic.

Call for Input on Law Student Information Literacy Standards

2009-12-18T09:45:00.005-07:00

Seasons Greetings Fellow Ripsters!

2009 has been a good year for us to voice our opinions on the value of research instruction and information resources to the American law student. Previously, we were able to provide a statement to the ABA committee in charge of revising law school standards, and we now have an opportunity to help define the basic whats, whens, wheres, and hows that law students and new lawyers should know about legal research.

The AALL Joint Committee on the Articulation of Law Student Information Literacy (LSIL) Standards, under the leadership of Dennis Kim-Prieto from the Rutgers School of Law, is comprised of members from several Special Interest Sections, including RIPS, PLL, ALL, and FCIL. This committee is working to establish a baseline of information literacy, with the belief that such an articulation would benefit both our association, and the legal profession. A defined set of standards could be used as a basis for assessment tools, curricula, and other needs in the area of legal research instruction and training.

The committee has begun drafting some standards, but the process is far from over, and your input is needed. I believe this is a worthwhile endeavor, but mine is only one opinion out over nearly 800 RIPS members. No matter what type of library you work for, or what type of work you do, your opinions and experience matter. Effective research and usage of information resources may start with instruction, but it affects practice, acquisitions, budgeting, access services, and all other facets of law librarianship. The current revision of the Standards will soon be forwarded to the RIPS listserv. I hope you're able take the time to review them and offer your feedback to Dennis at dprieto@kinoy.rutgers.edu. We'll all be better for it. Thanks and Happy Holidays.

Robb Farmer

Chair, RIPS-SIS

rfarmer@faulkner.edu

Lifehacker

2009-12-07T10:41:00.016-07:00

Lifehacker provides access to both the useful and the silly stuff we use...or perhaps don't yet know we need to use. A few recent posts included: an application for the iPhone that allows the user to report to AT&T exactly where their call was dropped; a complete guide to avoiding online scams (for your less savvy friends and relatives); and the five best outlining tools.

In November, Lifehacker highlighted the best screencasting tools for both Macs and PCs. The review included tools that are freely accessible as well as those which require a fee. It's so much easier to explain how to do something when you are able to "show & tell" the technique.

I work at a state law library but am allowed use of the state library's technology so I am able to use Camtasia...yup - clearly the best way to go if you can!

You Can't Get There From Where You Told Me You Got There

2009-11-25T09:09:00.003-07:00

Subtitle: Adventures in Persistent Linking For GPO Access and Thomas

The following scenario has probably happened to all of us at least once: You were researching in the Code of Federal Regulations on GPO Access and found the regulation you needed. You dutifully copy the URL from your web browser and paste it into an email to the student/faculty member/attorney who needed the regulation.

Pleased with yourself, you got about your busy day, handling the next reference question. And then you get the email telling you the link you sent doesn't work. Your first thought is that these people obviously don't know how to click hyperlinks and the error must be theirs. You check the link you just sent and then you get a knot in your stomach--they were right, you were wrong: the link does not work.

The problem, as we discovered, was that the links we copy and paste from sites such as GPO Access and Thomas are not persistent links. For those of you who need a quick reminder of
where you can go to get the permanent links you need for these services, this post is for you.

Between Thomas and GPO Access, the former had a somewhat easier way of going about creating persistent links through Legislative Handles. Thomas provides a how-to guide on creating Legislative Handles. Legislative Handles requires you to formulate a URL based on a predesigned and intuitive syntax, but this process of creating a persistent URL still takes a minute.

But life just got a little bit easier with tinyThomas.as. tinyThomas works with the following types of information on Thomas:

Bill Summary and Status
Bill Text
Nominations
Congressional Record Pages
Some Committee Reports (not all due to inconsistent formatting of reports)
Congressional Record Daily Digest

tinyThomas also interacts with OpenCongress and GovTrack (both sites were discussed in an earlier post about legislative tracking resources).

As for persistent linking to documents on GPO Access, GPO creates a template which allows you to choose which part of GPO for which you need to create a persistent link. Persistent linking is available for "big" resources like:

Congressional Hearings and Reports
Congressional Record (daily and bound)
Congressional Documents
Public and Private Laws
Federal Register
List of CFR Sections Affected (LSA)
Statutes at Large
United States Government Manual
United States Code
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents

A note of caution--different documents require different information to create a persistent link. I have had the most luck getting this information from the text/ASCII version of the document, not the PDF version of the document. Also, regarding public laws, the drop-down box ends with the 109th Congress. Not to worry--it will still work. All you have to do is allow the program to generate the persistent link, then manually alter it with the appropriate session of Congress. Although a little clunky, the GPO linking template has worked for me every time.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone and happy persistent linking!

How Much is a Smile Worth?

2009-11-20T10:19:00.005-07:00

For a lot of librarians (and especially RIPS members) customer service is a major focus of the job. Even so, sometimes you see something that illustrates how important that is. Recently, I visited a law school in another city for the first time. That morning I was reminded of the most important interaction any service professional has with a patron - the first one. In the briefest of encounters, the entire culture of an institution can be seen in a microcosm, and the impressions made can be lasting ones.

That morning, as I awaited my meeting, I watched the students as they entered the building to start their day. For security purposes, students had to wear badges and walk past a reception area. The weather was gray and windy, the hour early, it was Friday the 13th, and the stage was set for student moods to match. However, that wasn't the case, and the reason was the person sitting at that reception area. She smiled, greeted the students with genuine enthusiasm, and moods visibly lifted in the scant seconds that transaction took. It was inspiring to see, and, in a time when it's increasingly important to show the value of personnel, I can't imagine an electronic alternative to that human element.

Robb Farmer, RIPS-SIS Chair
Faulkner University Law Library

Native American Law

2009-11-10T11:11:00.012-07:00

If ever you find yourself researching Native American Law, here are some excellent resources I have become aware of since moving to Wyoming:

Most of you are probably aware of the U.S. Department of Interior-Bureau of Indian Affairs. The most useful item I have found on the website is the interactive region finder. By clicking on the region you are researching, you will be taken to a page of links that will list the tribes served in that region, contact information for the regional agency as well as contact information for the individual agencies.

The National Indian Law Library (NILL) supports the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) and is open to the public. One of the important resources available on the website is an electronic version of A Practical Guide to the Indian Child Welfare Act which we printed and added to our collection. The website includes indexes to both State and Federal resources and they provide an Ask-a-Librarian service via email or phone. Their collection includes tribal constitutions, codes, ordinances, charters, bylaws and governmental agreements, Indian Law treatises, case law reporters, Federal legislative history relating to Indian Law and newsletters, newspapers and periodicals.

Washburn University has produced a research guide for Native American Law which provides among other things, access to caselaw, a tribal directory and the website addresses for many tribes. The portal is well maintained by the Law Library. It has been a useful resource for me.

IM Reference

2009-11-06T10:35:00.005-07:00

Last week, I found myself in gorgeous Monterey for the Internet Librarian 2009 conference. It was my first Internet Librarian conference and I appreciated the many useful presentations.

On Tuesday morning, I attended a session about improving IM reference by making it multi-dimensional. The first two presenters were librarians from the University of California, Fullerton who went through a chat session using tools that vastly improved the IM reference session.

The tool I liked the most was Jing, which allows you to quickly record onscreen action and create a url for it. For example, you could record yourself searching the catalog and then instantly share that video over IM. This would abolish the need for long explanations such as “… look in the upper left hand corner of the screen and click on the blue “my libraries link, then scroll down……….etc., etc., etc.” Very handy!

I haven’t yet had the chance to try out Jing. It might be a while since I don’t seem to get too many reference questions over IM. In fact, one of the anecdotal bits of information I gathered from the conference was that IM reference is in decline (whereas text reference is starting to gain popularity). One way to attract patrons to your IM reference is to strategically place chat widgets in your library’s website and catalog. This works for institutions that are open to the public, but for institutions (especially law libraries) that limit access to students and bar members, I'm not sure if that would work well.

More about the virtual reference session at the conference can be found on the Law Library Technology blog.

More on text reference can be found in this article from Library Journal.

And finally, something funny.

Legal Research Project: Client Compliance Documents, Sookie Stackhouse Style

2009-10-29T09:22:00.007-06:00

I try to give students in my specialized legal research class in administrative law a practical final project that integrates the research strategies and resources we've discussed throughout the course. Last year, I gave them a regulation that was open for comment and asked them to document the research they conducted to become familiar with the subject matter of the regulation and then draft a comment to the proposed regulation (they didn't have to submit to the agency).

The problem with relying on an assignment like this is that you are at the mercy of agencies having a regulation open for comment when you need it that is both interesting enough to sustain a research problem and a student's (and the professor's) attention span. This was the problem I ran into this semester.

After lamenting to a coworker about the dearth of "fun" regulations, she suggested I make the students prepare a client-centered document. Because one of the goals of an administrative lawyer is to counsel clients on how to comply with regulations, it seemed like a good idea to ask students to prepare a personalized guidance document for a piece of recently enacted legislation. I gave them a fact pattern, very loosely based on the HBO series "True Blood,"which implicates the genetic non-discrimination in employment law passed last year.

They were asked to research the law and pertinent secondary practice materials and draft a layman's explanation of the law (which means I should not see sentences like "According to an article in the Harvard Law Review, employers are in violation of 42 USC 2000e-2(a) when..."). They are also expected to produce an annotated bibliography of the resources they relied on to draft this document (10 minimum).

I don't care as much about the document as I do about the research they conducted to produce the document. There are some forbidden employer practices discussed in the facts drawn directly from the law's legislative history. There is relatively old EEOC guidance that discusses genetic information and the proposed regulations to the new law (with comments) are available for examination as well. There is even an executive order.

The assignment is due on Friday. That's when I find out whether I've drafted a brilliant research assignment or something much...bloodier. Stay tuned.

...And a Tech Services Librarian Shall Show Them The Way: Instruction Inside the Case and Outside the Box

2009-10-21T09:56:00.011-06:00

Building off information gathered from a RIPS sponsored program at the 2009 Annual Meeting, Sallie Smith, cataloging/systems librarian at the University of Pittsburgh Barco Law Library, put together this terrific illustration of non-traditional instruction. Below are pictures of her library display, along with her descriptions of two individual sections.

Robb Farmer

Using Comics and Graphic Literature to Illustrate Legal Concepts

"Ownership Rights – shows the Captain Marvel and Superman copyright battle in National Comics Publications v. Fawcett Publications (191 F.2d 594), and Judge Posner’s description of Spawn in Gaiman v. McFarlane (360 F.3d 644)."

"The Court System – displays the Justice Case Files graphic novel series from The National Center for State Courts, demonstrating that comics are gaining credibility in education as people turn a more critical eye the messages they convey."

Political Commentary

2009-10-16T13:33:00.005-06:00

Even when my middle child was fairly young, she was interested in politics. She liked to read political cartoons and though sometimes it took some conversation with an adult, eventually she would get the message.

Herbert Block (Herblock) was a political cartoonist for 72 years. I recently noticed that his collection had been made available electronically on the Library of Congress website. It has been divided into "Exhibition Sections" which groups similar cartoons together with commentary. Items skewering Richard Nixon and his policies were found under "I Am Not a Crook". Animal Farm includes many cartoons with references about the right to vote, the separation of church and state and racial desegregation. You can search the entire collection as well. I've always been surprised by how much detail could be in a single cartoon - fascinating stuff!

Today my daughter lives in DC and writes for the Governor of Maryland. Perhaps the early exposure helped to lay the groundwork for where she is today.

Environmental Data

2009-10-09T17:32:00.002-06:00

This semester, I've been doing some work with environmental law research and in so doing I've gained some familiarity with the EPA website. Each time I visit the website, I am struck by the massive amount of data it provides – especially when it comes to enforcement and compliance information. It would take several pages to write a comprehensive overview of all of the databases provided by the EPA, but I thought I would highlight two of my favorites.

Envirofacts is a site that provides access into several EPA databases, including the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) database , the Radiation Information Database, the Permit Compliance System, and many many more. Using Envirofacts, you can select a location and find out what types of environmental issues might be affecting the area. For example, I typed in my zip code and found that there are 102 facilities in my county that have reported toxic releases, 4,639 facilities that have reported hazardous waste activities and 5 potential hazardous waste sites that are part of Superfund. Wow! If I had the time and inclination, I could get information about each of the facilities, including maps and contact information. Envirofacts can also generate maps with graphical representations of environmental information for any location in the United States.

While Envirofacts is a great place to learn about locations, ECHO (Enforcement and Compliance History Online) is a great place to learn about companies and their facilities. Using ECHO, you can see whether an EPA regulated facility has had compliance inspections, whether they had violations and whether there were any enforcement actions against them. For example, I typed in Glaxo Smith Kline and found 6 facilities. Each facility had a report listing facility characteristics, permit information, compliance data, and information about violations and enforcement actions. It also listed the related statutes and links to administrative decisions on any enforcement.

ECHO is definitely a great place to find company compliance information. Of course, as with most data, it is always good to double-check its accuracy. I found this 2003 article in an ABA newsletter, shortly after ECHO's launch, stating that several facility listings contained inaccurate information. However, I was unable to find more recent critiques, so it seems likely that these inaccuracies have since been corrected.

Researching Administrative Decisions

2009-09-30T08:50:00.009-06:00

Today in my specialized legal research class we will talk about locating administrative decisions. This gives me a chance to spotlight one of my favorite web sites.

The University of Virginia's government documents department has developed a web site that provides access to agency documents (including decisions) available on the Internet. This includes agency guidance documents, interpretation letters, as well as links to agencies' e-FOIA reading rooms.

Organized by agency and subject, this site provides a wealth of information in a cost-effective manner. The subject search is particularly helpful when you are
not aware of which agency might possibly regulate in the area you're researching. Although you may run across a broken link or two, the site still gives you enough context to locate that same information on your own (through backtracking the URL).

A disclaimer from the site:

This page is not an attempt to link to the Federal Register or the Code of Federal Regulations information for each federal agency. It links to other administrative actions which are outside the scope of the CFR or the FR. What is available via the Internet varies from agency to agency.

Last year when I asked my students to locate administrative decisions on an assignment, I thought I was clever by picking decisions that I thought could only be found on Westlaw and/or LexisNexis. To my delight, every single student chose the Virginia site to answer the questions and found every decision for which I was looking. Very nice indeed (and cost-effective)!

RIPS Weighs in on the ABA's Legal Education Standards

2009-09-21T12:29:00.005-06:00

About a year ago, the ABA began a substantial review of its Standards and Rules of Procedure for the Approval of Law Schools. The Standards Committee overseeing this process has asked for comments on the current standards, as well as suggestions for changes.

So far, quite a few interested parties and organizations have offered their thoughts, and that notable list now includes one penguin. Last week, the RIPS Executive Board submitted a statement to the Committee on behalf of the SIS. In keeping with our dual focal points of proper research and effective service, our comments addressed both the lack of suitable attention given to research in most law school programs, and the necessity of adequate staffing for libraries and compensation for librarians. The full text of the statement can be found at http://www.abanet.org/legaled/committees/comstandards.html, as can further details on the process and other submitted feedback.

There's still a long way to go in the review process. Till it's over, we'll keep our ears open, our voices loud, and our flippers crossed for good things.

Robb Farmer
Chair, RIPS-SIS

Constitution Day

2009-09-17T08:24:00.004-06:00

Today is Constitution Day. The National Constitution Center website states: On September 17, 1787, the United States Constitution was signed by thirty-nine brave men who changed the course of history.

The website provides an interactive timeline that highlights some of the key dates and events that mark more than 200 years of constitutional history. Visitors can browse through a collection of images, audio and video clips, and interactive content and explore some of the people, events, and issues that have shaped the Constitution and the history of our nation.

The National Archives provides information about activities that can assist with teaching and learning about our Constitution. It also provides access to an online version of a Constitution Day Workshop. T

Take me to the movies

2009-09-11T14:59:00.008-06:00

As the fall semester progresses and the new 1Ls begin to browse our DVD cart, I’ve started to think about the “legal” feature film collection in the library—both its uses and its development. Why should law libraries develop feature film collections (aside from these collections being an entertaining way to relax)?

One reason might be to support a law and popular culture course or a law and film course. Other reasons may include developing resources for legal writing, creating trial tactics classes or to otherwise enhance the lawyering process. Elyse Pepper’s 2008 article The Case for “Thinking Like a Filmmaker”: Using Lars von Trier’s Dogville as a Model for Writing a Statement of Facts, ( Legal Writing: J. Legal Writing Inst. 171) illustrates a novel approach for using a movie to teach legal writing. Of course, there are several documentary films that lend insight into a range of legal issues– documentaries about pollution, asylum cases, and endangered species come to mind. These might also be used in various topical classes. Finally, movies are a great way to help students think not only about legal issues, but about their experience in law school (think The Paper Chase). Are there any other reasons?

Of course, it can be difficult to keep track of all the movies being released, so journals and websites dedicated to the cinema can be great resources. The following is a short list of places where I have found useful, scholarly articles and reviews about movies:

Cineaste is a journal dedicated to "the art and politics of the cinema." The most recent issue has an article analyzing recent documentaries about the financial crisis as well as an interview with the director of Crude (a documentary about a lawsuit against Chevron Oil). Cineaste posts a few of its articles online as well.

Cineaction is a scholarly journal that covers a range of topics. Half of the current issue is dedicated to documentaries (the other half is dedicated to superheroes).

JGCinema.org is a website created by the Jura Gentium Center for Philosophy of international law and global politics. It offers movie reviews that focus on international law and politics. The reviews are in several different languages--if you'd like to find reviews in English, make sure to use the language drop down menu in the upper right hand corner.

Jumpcut is an online journal focused on themes in movies and television. The latest issue has a few articles about documentaries on torture as well as an article discussing "the systemic critique of the social order" in the television series The Wire.

Senses of Cinema is an online journal that contains scholarly articles about movies as well as movie reviews, DVD reviews and film festival reviews.

Tech Tip

2009-09-08T11:22:00.007-06:00

I like small amounts of tech information at a time...probably because then I can immediately add it to my repertoire and not forget it! I get my fix by reading Heidi Yelk's Tech Tip in Brief column from WSLL@your service, the newsletter from the Wisconsin Law Library. The tip for September was a suggestion for using the scroll wheel on your mouse. If you're using a tabbed browser and you have a scroll wheel, you can use it to click the scroll wheel on a link and it will open in another tab.

The topics have covered Zooming in on Webpage Content, an explanation of Twitter and how lawyers might use it, a quick review of Netbooks, and links and information about a free PDF annotator tool.

Short and sweet (or short and useful)- that's what I like for tech tips!

Legislative Tracking and Web 2.0

2009-08-28T13:28:00.012-06:00

It's legislative tracking time in my specialized legal research class, so I thought I would reintroduce all of you to three of my favorite sites: GovTrack, OpenCongress, and MapLight.

I obviously speak joyously of the information available on Thomas, but despite the relatively recent addition of RSS feeds to the Congressional Record Daily Digest, and even more recent feeds for what's going on on the House and Senate Floors, the information on Thomas pretty much just "sits" there. I need more than that. I need my Web 2.0. GovTrack.us, OpenCongress and MapLight give me just that.

GovTrack allows visitors to research pending legislation by subject area and by Congressional committee. It also allows you to set up bill tracking RSS feeds (with registration) and embed widgets (which I hope to incorporate into LibGuides) such as for bill status updates. It also has a blog. My only complaint is that, in the past year, they removed the ability to research pending legislation as it would impact the United States Code (or they have very cleverly hidden it). As an alternative, I direct my students to Cornell's Legal Information Institute list of RSS feeds for particular titles of the USC.

OpenCongress (OC) brings together official government data with news coverage, blog posts, and public comments to give you the "real story" behind what's happening in Congress. OC has a blog and a wiki (portions of which have become required reading in my class, particularly the entry on how a bill becomes a law because of its briefer treatment than Thomas' How our Laws are Made).

Finally, MapLight is all about the money. Specifically, this site illuminates the connection between campaign donations and legislative votes. It links (a) bill text and legislative voting records, (b) supporting and opposing interests for each bill and (c) campaign contribution data from the Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

So, by the end of the day, students know who is voting for what and why, how much it's going to cost taxpayers, and how much in campaign contributions are involved. At least that's the goal.

But beyond the political junkie in me that could talk about this kind of stuff all day long, I enjoy teaching these resources (in addition to Thomas, of course). They give me an opportunity to show how outside entities are taking free government information and making aspects of it more readily available and easier to manipulate. They also add a Web 2.0 twist to enhance the appeal, accessibility, and likelihood of public interest and participation in the federal legislative process.

This latter point serves as a conversation starter about how new technologies are increasing access to information and transparency of government and establish expectations of what would make a legislative site even more responsive to its constituents. After all, it is such deep thoughts that truly make it advanced legal research.

Wolfram Alpha: A computational knowledge engine

2009-08-21T12:31:00.004-06:00

If you have not already checked out the computational knowledge engine Wolfram Alpha, please do so. This computational knowledge engine quickly answers factual queries or computations via built in algorithms and stored data. For example, if you perform comparative company research at your library, you can enter the following query "Wal Mart Target" and receive the following data:

Current trade information:

Fundamentals and Financials:

Relative Price History:

Performance comparisons from last year:

Other interesting topics you can search on this computational knowledge engine include: mathematics, astronomy, web and computer systems, units and measures, people and history, culture and media, socioeconomic data, dates and time, and places and geography. This search tool could come in handy for random questions received at the reference desk. For a tutorial on Wolfram Alpha click the following link: http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html

The Life Cycle of a Program: The Kiss and Tell Version, by Hollie White

2009-08-11T11:50:00.005-06:00

The Life Cycle of a Program: The Kiss and Tell Version, by Hollie White

On August 23^rd program proposals are due for the 2010 AALL Annual Meeting in Denver. Programming is an important part of our law library culture. It disseminates new ideas and brings together colleagues who want to continue the law library tradition in new and innovative ways. This article is an account of what it was like to be a part of the planning and presentation process for the 2009 Annual Meeting Program , G-2 -- Unmasking a Marvel of an Idea in D.C.: How Graphic Literature can be Supertools for Law Librarians. I will discuss my perspective of the program process from start to finish—a true life cycle. By including the subtitle “kiss and tell” for this article, I’m promising an honest account of both the good and the more challenging aspects of what can occur when preparing a program.

It all starts with an Idea

Program ideas can come from anywhere. For years, Robb Farmer and I talked outside of work about comic books, anime, and the state of the library profession. Though seemingly unrelated things, these ideas are actually connected in unique and exciting ways. Robb started incorporating many popular culture references into his legal research courses and I worked with a comic book convention doing library outreach. Yet, it was not until the Annual Meeting in Portland that Robb and I discussed the idea of doing a comic book program in D.C. (since “DC” is also the name of a comic book publisher). So, exactly a year before the 2009 conference, the comic book program for D.C. started taking shape.

Writing the Program and Getting Speakers

Robb spearheaded the program proposal process. This process is actually quite involved and includes not only describing a program, but getting speakers, determining learning objectives, targeting an audience, as well as making sure that all of these things match the goals and purpose of AALL. Robb wrote the first draft focusing the proposal on legal research instruction and law library recruitment through comics and other graphic literature, such as manga. The general concept was that Robb would cover the legal research part and I would talk about recruitment. Robb also identified more speakers including: Kerry Skinner, a comic book enthusiast and law librarian who was brought in to moderate and coordinate; Deborah Ginsberg, who was identified as having experience with diversity and comic books, as well as being an experienced AALL presenter; and pulling it all together was our outside speaker, Arnold Blumberg from the Geppi's Entertainment Museum. Arnold is the curator of a comic related museum as well as a writer. Outside speakers are unique because they are not AALL members and can be paid an honorarium. It is often in the program proposer’s best interest to find “conference- local” (people who live close to where the conference is being held) outside speakers because they can potentially cost less money when asked to speak.

Going through the Approval Process

Programs often have to go through many rounds of approval to be included in the Annual Meeting. Getting a popular culture based program approved can be tricky. Popular culture topics have a tendency to diverge from law library foci and can digress into a group of fans talking about their favorite shows. Robb had worked hard to make sure that the program description was on point and solid. The program received a favorable response from both RIPS and the Gen X/Gen Y Caucus—both groups agreeing to co-sponsor the program. While programs are not required to be sponsored by AALL sub-groups, it is not detrimental to have the support of these groups when putting a program forward to the Annual Meeting Programming Committee (AMPC). In October we received the happy news, that AMPC had approved the program for inclusion in the 2009 Annual Meeting program schedule, but there was a catch.

AMPC encouraged us to remove the phrase “comic book” from the title of our program and replace it with “graphic literature”. The argument was that funding agencies were far less likely to send people to conferences with “comic book” programs. At the time, I wholeheartedly supported the change in the title—in my mind it was just another step to complete in order to get the program approved, and that the important thing was to be able to deliver our message to the audience at AALL. Our presentation group had mixed feelings about this change, but eventually, we decided to take AMPC’s suggestion and changed the wording.

Program Preparation

Many months span the time from program acceptance to program presentation. During that time, many things can change. For example, during the nine or so months that our group had for program proposals, the economy became worrisome, many comic book lines and anime distribution companies stopped production, and law libraries cut budgets. Throughout it all, we kept aware of what was happening in the world and scheduled conference calls to talk about program details. Also during this time, Debbie found out she was going to have a baby right around conference time. Instead of backing out of the speaking engagement, alternative presentation methods were planned for her section, and her pre-recorded video really set the tone for a lot of the other presentations that were created for our program.

Giving the Presentation

By the time the presentation rolled around, all of the hard work had paid off. Kerry had compiled all of the slides into one coherent presentation. Debbie’s video presentation played beautifully and she was even able to call in and be available virtually during the question and answer session. We were pleased that for an afternoon program we had a good turnout, and that most of the people who came to the presentation stayed until the end. The question and answer period allowed us to answer fun and serious questions. So, overall, the presentation of the program was the least time consuming part of the entire proposal process, yet it was the most fulfilling.

Response and Evaluation

After our presentation, many people from the audience came up to speak to us individually and ask for our business cards. Later, we heard that people had been sending Twitter tweets out during our presentation. I think it was wonderful for all of us to see people connect to our material.

The life cycle of our program is almost over. The last thing we have to wait for is the evaluation sheet from AALL Headquarters. This sheet will include a score for the program overall, scores for each individual speaker, and comments from attendees. I am excited to see how the program was received and will take this feedback and incorporate it into future presentations.

Now that the program is over, in hindsight there is only one thing I would have done differently. If I could do it all again, I would have encouraged the group to keep the phrase “comic book” in the title. We ran into a number of people after the presentation that showed disappointment that they had missed the program. These people had missed it because they didn’t understand that the program was about comic books—the title was not as obvious as it should have been. While we will not be sharing our slides (since they contain images from various comic book artists), there are lovely handout available to everyone at http://cssis.org/ripsaall2009/ . If you were unable to attend the program, please look at these handouts for more information or listen to the recording made by AALL.

In closing, I would like to thank Robb Farmer, Kerry Skinner, Deborah Ginsberg, and Arnold Blumberg for being excellent co-presenters. I feel honored to have shared the stage with you all! Plus, I would like to give my thanks to the RIPS Grant committee for the generous grant that allowed me to attend this year’s Annual Meeting. Also, many thanks to the CS-SIS for hosting our handouts!

Typography for Lawyers

2009-08-10T08:54:00.011-06:00

I have been intrigued by typography since I learned how to write in cursive. This simply designed website about typography provides more than merely a discussion of which fonts to use for legal writing. It also answers questions of usage that I haven't thought about since third grade, but I should give it more consideration to make my writing more clear and professional.

As artist/author/attorney Matthew Butterick says, "Good typography makes your written documents more professional and more persuasive." As an example of bad typography, the author provides a picture of the November, 2000 Florida presidential ballot. Wow, now I understand how people could have made mistakes! Grievous typographic errors such as the ballot are not typical for attorneys, but being persuasive is a daily part of an attorney's work life. This website includes a quick and dirty discussion (including examples) of how to improve legal writing. For further detail, be sure to read the article: Painting with print: Incorporating concepts of typographic and layout design into the text of legal writing documents, by Ruth Anne Robbins.

Social Networking for Legal Professionals

2009-08-07T11:37:00.005-06:00

It's been just over a week since I've returned from the AALL conference, and after catching up on e-mails I've just started thinking back on what I saw at the conference.

For starters, I learned more about Martindale-Hubbell Connected. I do remember hearing about this service--a social networking site for legal professionals-- back in April when it made its debut. Law Librarian blog mentioned it and there were a few discussions about it on other legal blogs.

Most of the blog commentary discussed its usefulness and its usability. One critic questioned the value of having a closed community for legal professionals and its lack of connection to substantive Lexis content. Another criticized its failure to keep up with Facebook and LinkedIn (especially its lack of applications) and its disorganization. Some have been frustrated with technical difficulties. A recent law school graduate suggested that invitations be accompanied with extensions on their LexisNexis accounts and integration into the LexisNexis research system. All in all, it seems people are still wondering what to do with it and wishing that it somehow plugged into the LexisNexis research system.

When Martindale-Hubbell Connected premiered, only private practice attorneys and corporate counsel were invited to join, but it has since been opened up to other legal professionals, including law librarians (there was a station dedicated to it in the exhibit hall). Perhaps as more people join, we will get a better sense of its usefulness. I recently signed up for an account, but have yet to fill out my profile. For some reason, I am having trouble uploading my profile picture.

Play Ball!

2009-07-23T07:54:00.009-06:00

While browsing our new book truck, I came across the next book in the ABA series of “little books of.” This one is The Little White Book of Baseball Law, by John H. Minan and Kevin Cole. Not only is it the season for America’s favorite past time, it’s also time to get inspired for research problems as the new academic year rapidly descends upon us. It's also just an enjoyable, short read.

The book discusses cases (with citations provided) relating to new stadium construction, ownership of baseball memorabilia, injured spectators, media contracts, and even cases about rules of the game of baseball. The book is divided into innings as opposed to chapters—how appropriate.

From the publisher, the book “is written in a short-story format with additional references to movies, songs, history, and other asides that will add to the reader's enjoyment.” An example is a reproduction of the indictment against Barry Bonds for steroid use, included to stress the point that the market value of baseball memorabilia is tied to the reputation of the player to whom the memorabilia is related.

For those of you traveling to DC for AALL, the Nationals have a home game tomorrow night against San Diego at 7:05. Assuming my train arrives on time, I plan to go. Perhaps I’ll see you there!

Other books in the series include The Little Red Book of Wine Law (most recently reviewed by Heather A. Phillips for LLRX) and The Little Green Book of Golf Law.

Who's tweeting about the law?

2009-07-17T13:49:00.005-06:00

When I found out that our Clerk's Office twitters, I wondered what on Earth they could possibly have to tweet about? I wish I could tell you, but, when I attempted to find out I learned that my Court's Internet filter blocks Twitter. So it may be a mystery I never get around to solving! But, fortunately the filter doesn't block Google. Therefore, I was able to do some Internet searching to find out if there are any other interesting Twitter accounts out there that I also can't follow at work. I guess I just want to torment myself! Here are two URLs with fun lists of twitter accounts to consider checking out:
http://scoop.jdsupra.com/2008/10/articles/another-category/legal-news-feeds-on-twitter/
http://www.onlinebestcolleges.com/blog/2009/top-100-twitter-feeds-for-law-students/

Are you a Twitter follower and don't see your favorite listed? Please consider sharing it with your fellow RIPSters.

Increased Information/Interruptions = Technology in the Workplace

2009-07-13T14:54:00.001-06:00

"Hi...my name is Mike and it's been five months since I stopped a conversation so I could check my Blackberry." Jeff Stahler cartoon from NY Times on Sunday 6/8/2009.

Do you work with someone like Mike? Technology interrupts us more often now than we might have imagined a few years ago. The recently released "Technology Gap Survey" funded by LexisNexis measured the significant gaps that exist among generations regarding the use and application of technology in the legal workplace. These discrepancies can affect workplace etiquette and are causing a blurring of the boundaries between personal and professional tasks.

The most interesting piece of information for me was that Gen Y (the most connected group of workers) is the group of legal professionals most seriously concerned that the unrestricted use of software, hardware and the internet at work may not be good for their own workplace productivity.

Audience Response Systems

2009-07-10T08:52:00.007-06:00

I have attended a few classes in which the instructor used an audience response system (also known as "clickers"), and I felt that they enhanced my learning experience. They definitely helped reinforce concepts from the lecture or clear up misunderstandings I may have had. Despite my positive experiences, I have yet to incorporate audience response systems into any of my workshops. I think the main reason for my reluctance is fear--fear of fumbling around with a new piece of technology, fear that they will start malfunctioning mid-class, and fear that the students will accidentally walk away with them.

An article from the most recent issue of Perspectives (Click to Refresh: Audience Response Systems in the Legal Research Classroom, by Pamela Rogers Melton) has encouraged me to rethink incorporating clickers into the classroom. While investigating the issue, I found some helpful materials online: a wiki article from the ALA Conference Materials Archive provides basic information and a nice bibliography; and an article in Educause Quarterly sets out the pros and cons of using them in library presentations.

OpenRegs.com

2009-06-22T13:39:00.003-06:00

My inner administrative law geek has found a new site that it cannot get enough of: OpenRegs.com. Why do I love this site? Because it makes formulating a research assignment I give every year that much easier to write.

The assignment: I find a regulation that has recently been proposed (and if it’s on a particularly controversial topic, all the better). I then ask students enrolled in my specialized legal research class on administrative law to (a) prepare a research log of the resources they consulted to learn about the agency and the subject matter of the proposed regulation; and (b) draft a comment based on their research from an assigned viewpoint.

OpenRegs.com provides the same information that one can find in the Federal Register (and to some extent on Regulations.gov, another favorite site of mine), but in a much more user-friendly format. The most important feature I find for purposes of my assignment is that it tells me, to the day, when comment periods for regulations will close. This is vital as I try to choose regulations that are open at the time the class is in session to make the exercise seem more real. The site also incorporates Web 2.0 technologies in the form of blogs and discussion forums, but so far very few people have taken advantage of these features.

The creators of the site have created a video on what OpenRegs.com has to offer:

OpenRegs.com Quickstart Guide from Jerry Brito on Vimeo.

The RIPS C8 Forum at AALL

2009-06-15T13:33:00.003-06:00

Join our RIPS-SIS as it cogitates at the AALL Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. Is your law library feeling the impact of the current economic crisis? You aren't alone. So, we want to gather in a town hall setting at AALL to collaborate and create solutions. Come hear Jean Wenger (state, court and county), Linda Will (private) and Tory Trotta (academic) speak to how this crisis affects all of us on a global scale. Ask your questions. Can we turn this crisis into opportunity? Let's find out!

RIPS C8 Forum
Sunday, July 26th at 1:30 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.
WCC-Room 156

Twitter to the Rescue?!

2009-06-08T13:52:00.006-06:00

Why care about Twitter? Well, I found compelling reasons for understanding how Twitter can be useful and not merely entertaining in the Fastcase blog. The reasons included assistance to an emergency response physician, an American in Argentina with a sick husband, and veterinary care for a dog owner in Beirut. Suddenly I was re-thinking Twitter...

A chance to learn about Twitter and other useful web 2.0 technologies is coming again this August sponsored by the CS-SIS. I participated last year as a student (this year I'm a facilitator) and thought it was a great way to be exposed to a variety of Web 2.0 possibilities. Here's the official announcement:

Announcing the Web 2.0 Challenge 2009: A Free, Online Course to Introduce Law Librarians to Web 2.0 Technologies

Last year the AALL Computing Services Special Interest Section sponsored the first Web 2.0 Challenge, an online course to introduce law librarians to social software and how to use it in their libraries. The course was so popular CS-SIS is sponsoring it again in 2009.
The Web 2.0 Challenge will provide a free, comprehensive, and social online learning opportunity designed for law librarians that will incorporate hands-on use of these technologies. The course is intended for law librarians who have little experience with these technologies but are interested in learning more.

The online course will take place between August 3 and September 6. The five week course will cover these areas:

Week 1: Blogs & RSS
Week 2: Flickr & Social Bookmarking Software
Week 3: Social Networking Software and Twitter
Week 4: Wikis and LibGuides
Week 5: Web 2.0 @ Your Library

Participants will be required to complete a series of weekly activities, including viewing an instructional screencast, completing hands-on exercises based on the lesson, weekly blogging about their experience, and participating in a weekly small group chat session. The course will culminate with each participant developing a proposal for implementing a specific social software tool in their library.

Full enrollment will be limited to approximately one hundred participants. However, course content will be freely viewable to anyone who wishes to follow along. Enrolled participants who complete all activities are eligible for final prize drawings (prizes provided by CS-SIS). Certificates will also be awarded to all participants who complete the course.

We anticipate opening enrollment June 22nd. There is no charge for this course and enrollment will be offered on a first come first served basis.

For more information, visit the CS-SIS website. If you have any questions you may contact Meg Kribble (mkribble AT law.harvard,edu) or Sally Irvin (irvinsa AT wfu.edu).

And now for something funny...

2009-06-01T15:51:00.008-06:00

Ohio lawyer and cartoonist David Mills shares his hilarious cartoons on Courtoons. Lawyers, law students, law professors and law librarians should find something here to make them chuckle.

A few that might be particularly funny to law librarians are here (and pictured above), here, and here.
Enjoy.

Law School 2.0

2009-05-26T07:48:00.006-06:00

I recently finished reading Law School 2.0: Legal Education for a Digital Age, written by David I. C. Thomson of the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law, and published by LexisNexis. This excerpt is from the introduction:

This book will describe how this profound generational change [referring to the Millennial Generation] both should and will transform the face of legal education as we know it today. It will cover the new ways our students learn, the pedagogical shifts that will occur inside and outside the classroom, a new breed of hybrid textbooks that will appear, and effective new methods of active, interactive and hypertextual learning. Most important, this book will describe simple ways in which teachers can harness this shift to better prepare law students today for the practice of law tomorrow.

Although this book is written with legal education in mind, much of the technology discussed has the potential to improve legal research instruction. One of my summer projects is to get in touch with my inner Millennial and take advantage of some of these technologies by exploring this book with my first year students and my advanced research students. Few, if any, of us were able to take such a class in library school.

This book is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all educational technologies that are out there, or a normative list of which technologies any particular law school should have. Rather, it plants the seed that new technologies should and will become an indispensable part of the legal educational experience in coming years. It also has an excellent discussion about how the current legal education system has been dehumanizing students by separating them “from their core values and thereby contribut[ing] to unhappy lawyers and, ultimately, to a dysfunctional profession.” So, between encouraging the embrace of technology and advice on how to relate to this new generation, this book has a lot to offer and should be considered mandatory reading for anyone who teaches law students.

For those of you in law schools, you should contact your LexisNexis representatives for information on how to receive a complimentary copy of this book. The book also has a companion website and a blog.

Law review articles for the lay person

2009-05-21T18:20:00.003-06:00

A new website, The Legal Workshop, provides plain language summaries of articles published by the member journals. The summaries are called "concise and lively pieces written for a generalist audience, combining the best elements of print and online publication." New content is posted every Monday and most Wednesdays and Fridays.

It occurs to me that this would be a great way to find fun fact patterns or legal research assignment topics for law students!

Primary Sources on Copyright

2009-05-11T10:13:00.005-06:00

Primary Sources on Copyright (1450–1900) is a digital resource concerning the history of copyright in five key jurisdictions including France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US, for the period before 1900. I enjoyed reading the text of discussion and argument concerning the interpretation of laws passed and opinions from the government coincidental with the beginnings of the printed word.

These items are not necessarily documents that we would access on a regular basis but they are certainly fun to peruse as a curiosity or as fodder for a debate about the direction copyright has taken since these original documents. Although the number of core documents was limited for each country, each core document was connected to contextual documents that have been fully cataloged leading the reader to a more complete understanding of copyright.

New AALL Wiki on the Economy and You!

2009-05-07T14:43:00.002-06:00

I knew that AALL had a new wiki on "Tools for Success in Today's Economy." But, I didn't realize that we, as AALL members, could add content to the wiki. It's something I want to try and remember to do as I run across helpful information. As my employer prepares for a reduction in force, I've tried to be proactive in anticipating their research needs and have been gathering information related to lay offs.

I also thought it was interesting that the ABA has done something similar in creating a website for attorneys dealing with stress from the economy. It's nice to know it's not just law librarians!

Tax Law Tips

2009-05-04T18:00:00.002-06:00

When it comes to tax law research, I love finding "research tips"-- the more the better. I stumbled across the Tax 101 blog recently and was intrigued by its "research tip of the week" posts. Since it is a relatively new blog, there aren't very many research tips on the blog yet, but I am bookmarking this one and looking forward to more.

Equine Law

2009-04-30T12:04:00.006-06:00

Greetings from the Bluegrass State (a/k/a Kentucky)! I am in Lexington attending the 24th Annual National Conference on Equine Law. I am here earning my mandatory continuing legal education credits for the year. The conference is strategically scheduled to coincide with a little horse race that runs just “up the road” in Louisville on the first Saturday in May. Sipping a mint julep, I thought I’d share with y’all a little bit about equine law.

Some of you outside of big “horse” states (Kentucky, Florida, California, Texas to name just a few) might not consider equine law as its own legal specialty. However, over the past day and a half I’ve learned just how ingrained horses are into more traditional areas of the law with which we are more familiar. This conference began as many CLE seminars have: an annual case law update about “big” cases in the equine law field. Areas covered included: sales contracts; security interests; racing (a regulated industry in some states); personal injury; insurance; tax (yuck!); land use; civil procedure; and bailments. In fact, for one hour yesterday, I learned more than I ever needed to know about horse reproductive contracts (including the shipping of horse sperm). There was even a session on using trademarks for horses (as some of them have become rather famous).

A great resource I found for those of you interested in learning more about equine law is “Equine Law and Horsemanship Safety,” an online equine law research guide maintained by the University of Vermont (it looks like it’s updated through the end of 2007). Another great place to find equine-related publications is the University of Kentucky’s Office of Continuing Legal Education. UKCLE recruits experts in equine law to write practice materials (treatises and form books). Finally, if you are looking for a national expert who has written books on equine law, check out Julie Fershtman.

Because equine law touches so many other areas of law, my first year law students next year will be sure to see questions about equine law appear on their homework assignments!

The Survey Round-Up

2009-04-27T17:46:00.004-06:00

Law librarians often use listservs to informally survey each other on a variety of issues relating to legal information and librarianship. Many times the results of these surveys are posted to the listserv for everyone else's benefit. But how does one keep track of this useful information?

A new column in the ALL-SIS newsletter seeks to "compile in a convenient place" the results of informal surveys conducted on the ALL-SIS listserv. The first column in this series covers a number of surveys ranging in topic from legal research workbooks, library internship programs, and legal research videos. There is a wealth of information in this column.

If you haven't already seen it, take a look. It's definitely worth following. The first column can be found in Volume 28, Issue 2 (Spring 2009) of the ALL-SIS newsletter (click here to go to the newsletter homepage).

Wolf v. Pig - An Old Favorite

2009-04-14T10:41:00.005-06:00

Some of you may remember Wolf v. Pig --an unbearably charming picture book that illustrates headnotes and the key number system using an alternative version of the Three Little Pigs. I often go back to it when I need help explaining key numbers or when I just need a refresher.

Apparently, several were given away in 1999 as West promotional items, but now they are rather difficult to find. I lucked into my copy when a friend found a dusty stack of them in an almost forgotten storage closet. Fortunately, you can find an online version here. It’s definitely worth a look.

Dead Men Do Tell Tales…But You Have To Find Them First!

2009-04-14T10:01:00.007-06:00

For those of you looking for an interesting research problem, how about finding a statute relating to the duty of cemeteries to keep records about where bodies are buried (e.g., North Carolina General Statute § 65-60)? Now, let’s assume we have some plaintiffs who are miffed that their dearly departed loved one isn’t buried where he or she had planned (you can create facts as to how they know that grandma isn’t where they think she is). Plaintiffs now want to sue. Therefore, Plaintiffs argue negligence per se because there is a statute that states a cemetery has a duty to keep track of where bodies are buried. If a cemetery is not fulfilling this duty, it may be committing negligence per se (and perhaps also negligent infliction of emotional distress is at play too). The cemetery argues that this is not the kind of statute the negligence per se doctrine is designed to cover. However, a great way to find a statute and cases relating to this issue is to use secondary sources. For example, if you’re in a state lucky enough to actually have legislative history materials, you can use those resources in an attempt to answer your question.

Sound off the wall? Well, an attorney stopped by the library today to research these facts. He was looking for the legislative history relating to the above statute. After driving 1.5 hours to our library, he was dismayed to learn that committee reports for state legislation from the 1970s live only, if they live at all, at the North Carolina Legislative Library in Raleigh (and this may very well be true for your state as well). However, he was delighted to learn that a treatise on North Carolina tort law and Strong’s North Carolina Index (the North Carolina legal encyclopedia) has helpful information to assist one in moving forward with a claim. The moral of this story is secondary sources are your friends.

As a side note, I’ll be blogging from the SEAALL annual meeting in Athens, Georgia later in the week. Stay tuned!

The Darien Statements

2009-04-07T11:15:00.002-06:00

This post partners well with the Bizarro comic post from last week. This one is uplifting and gives hope that the Bizarro comic is not our fate! In late March, an event was held called “In the Foothills: A Not-Quite-Summit on the Future of Libraries.” The participants came "prepared to help sketch out the role librarians should play in defining the future of libraries”. The result is a series of beautiful and empowering statments that are well worth reading.

Tip of the hat to Blyberg.net.

Recovery.gov

2009-04-03T09:33:00.010-06:00

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was signed into law on February 17, 2009. On the same day, the Obama administration launched a website titled Recovery.gov. This website is designed to assist in the Obama Administration's goals of accountability and transparency. This website is also the main vehicle to provide citizens with the ability to monitor the progress of the recovery.

While on this site, you may see funding opportunities within individual states, check news updates, and view a Timeline at the bottom of the page. Also located on this site under the "About" tab, you will find a link to the full text of the bill after a descriptive, plain-language summary.

Only a limited amount of information has been posted as to the progress of the recovery effort, but as the money is dispersed and as projects are commenced this website will reflect any progress made. You can also find your state and learn about its efforts to apply the Act.

RIPS Inaugural Bloggers

2009-04-01T17:45:00.001-06:00

You might have noticed a drop off in blog postings for our RIPS Law Librarian blog. There was a reason for the decline. And, you are about to see a burst of activity!

RIPS was completing its call for statements of interest to be a RIPS blogger. And, we are pleased to announce our inaugural RIPS bloggers:

Yasmin Alexander
Reference Librarian
Barbara and Maurice A. Deane Law Library Hofstra University School of Law

Meg Martin
Public Services Librarian
Wyoming State Law Library

Jason Sowards
Reference Librarian
WFU School of Law, Professional Center Library

When we called for statements of interest, RIPS did not expect the overwhelming response we received. Our sincere thanks to all our members who volunteered!

Humor is in the eye of the beholder

2009-04-01T10:46:00.001-06:00

Today's Bizarro comic strip will hit you where it hurts.

Webjunction

2009-03-12T13:37:00.002-06:00

If you are like me, you know about Webjunction but tend to forget about it. So, a reminder about this resource is always a good thing! If you have never seen Webjunction before, it is a collaborative online space where librarians from all walks of libraries can share information and learn. For example, the Library Services section of Webjunction "offers a unique opportunity to find and share ideas and resources for creating and delivering outstanding services and programs for your patrons." If you ever want to step outside the framework of law libraries and see what other libraries are doing, this is a great resource to keep in mind.

Last Call for Teach-In Kit contributions

2009-03-05T17:40:00.003-07:00

Hello Fellow RIPSers!

Since research instruction is our mission -- you are our best target audience! So, we are making one last plea for you to contribute your most recent instructional support materials for publication in this year's Teach-In Kit. We have received a number of good submissions but would like to see a greater variety of topics and material types. For some reason, we have not received any "fun" items, such as trivia, puzzles, or other games. Don't forget, you can submit any material that promotes or supports legal research instruction!

So, if you have something fresh or interesting lying around on your desk, we would appreciate the opportunity to evaluate it for the 2009 Teach-In Kit. Don't delay -- the Kit will "go live" on the RIPS web site later this month!

Send Teach-In Kit submissions ASAP to either:

Gail A. Partin

RIPS-SIS Teach-In Committee Co-Chair

Penn State Dickinson School of Law

150 South College Street

Carlisle, PA 17013

Ph: 717-240-5294

Email: gap6@psu.edu

Jennifer Murray

RIPS-SIS Teach-In Committee Co-Chair

Superior Court Law Library, Maricopa County

101 W. Jefferson

Phoenix, AZ 85003

Phone: 602-506-3464

E-mail: murrayj006@scll.maricopa.gov

For more information see: National Legal Research Teach-In campaign web page:

http://www.aallnet.org/sis/ripssis/TeachIn/teach_in.html

**************************************************

Gail A. Partin

Associate Director & Law Librarian

H. Laddie Montague, Jr. Law Library

Dickinson School of Law

Pennsylvania State University

150 South College Street

Carlisle, PA 17013

Ph: 717-240-5294

Fax: 717-240-5127

Email: gap6@psu.edu

Invitation to become a RIPS blogger

2009-03-04T12:28:00.003-07:00

Hello:

RIPS is looking for a few good bloggers! If you are interested in blogging for RIPS, please submit a statement of interest to me. Applications will be reviewed by the RIPS Executive Board and our RIPS blog editor, Kris Helge. Any format for the statement of interest is acceptable, e.g. email, Word, or finger painting (well, okay, please no finger paintings). The appointment to RIPS blogger will be for a term of one year. The inaugural bloggers will have a slightly longer term though to get on the AALL calendar year schedule where appointments end and begin at the annual meeting. The expected number of blog postings will vary based on the number of bloggers appointed but would not exceed one blog post every two weeks. The deadline for submission of the statement of interest is March 20, 2009.

If you have not yet had an opportunity to review our newly-minted RIPS blog, the RIPS Law Librarian, it can be found:
http://rips-sis.blogspot.com/

If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.

Thank you,

Jennifer

Jennifer S. Murray

Law Library Assistant Director and

Public Access to Court Services Administrator

Maricopa County Superior Court

101 W Jefferson

Phoenix, AZ 85003

602-506-3464 (tel)

602-506-2940 (fax)

Interested in Information Literacy?

2009-03-03T10:06:00.002-07:00

There is a social network of law librarians on Ning.com. Within that network, there is a group focusing on information literacy in law. If you are of the ilk that embrace Web 2.0 or have been looking for a reason to try it out, consider checking it out!

LexisNexis Research Grant

2009-03-02T13:52:00.007-07:00

The AALL Research Committee is accepting applications for research grants from the AALL Research Fund: An Endowment Established by LexisNexis®. A single grant of up to $1,425, or multiple grants totaling $1,425 may be awarded. The committee will award one or more grants to library professionals who wish to conduct research that supports the research and scholarly agenda of the profession of law librarianship. The deadline for applications is Friday, March 27, 2009.

For more information, see the attached file or consult the Research and Publications Committee website at http://www.aallnet.org/committee/respub/.

Thank you,

Deb Person

University of Wyoming College of Law Library

Dept. 3035, 1000 E. University Ave.

Laramie, WY 82071

Homeless in libraries - An ALA Resource

2009-03-02T11:47:00.002-07:00

As a public law library in a large metropolitan area, we regularly encounter issues with serving homeless library patrons. I just ran across an ALA resource, Services to Poor and Homeless People, that gives a good foothold for those who are just beginning to grapple with this difficult issue. The Maricopa County Library Council is working on a wiki to share resource information for homeless patrons. If other law libraries are working to address this issue, RIPS would love to hear about it.

Expanded Research Courses

2009-02-20T09:30:00.005-07:00

The Public Services Librarians at the Barco Law Library located at the University of Pittsburgh are expanding their research course offerings. In addition to the basic, practical and international research skills courses currently offered, they are also presenting a new course to upper-class students. This new course is titled "Research in Intellectual Property Law and Practice." This new fifteen week course reviews the research tools crucial to patent, copyright and trademark law. This course also explores the processes and procedures one utilizes in the relevant agencies. This course is part of a three year plan expanding research offerings to the University of Pittsburgh students. Further, in 2010, an environmental law research course will debut. RIPS members Valerie Weis, Linda Tashbook, George Pike and Marc Silverman are the course instructors.

Marc Silverman
Associate Director for Public Services
University of Pittsburgh
Barco Law Library

The books vs. Internet debate

2009-02-19T11:28:00.004-07:00

Eureka for Jureeka?

2009-02-13T11:05:00.002-07:00

I haven't tried this out yet. But, if you are a Firefox user and have given Jureeka a test drive, let RIPS know what you think. It's a new Firefox add-on that "transforms legal citations in web pages into hyperlinks that point to online source material."

RIPS-SIS Member makes SSRN Top Ten Downloads List

2009-02-09T11:02:00.003-07:00

The article, "Choosing the Top Candidate: Best Practices in Academic Law Library Hiring" by Georgia State University College of Law Librarians Ronald Wheeler, Nancy P. Johnson, and Terrance Manion was recently listed on SSRN's Top Ten download list for LIT: Practice of Law Librarianship (Topic), Legal Information & Technology, PLL: Administration, Management & Leadership (Topic) and PLL: Administration, Management & Leadership (Topic).

Ron Wheeler is a RIPS-SIS member and chair of the RIPS-SIS Grants Committee.

You may view the abstract and download statistics, or download the article at the URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1313213. The article appeared in Law Library Journal, Vol. 100, p. 117, 2008.

Ron Wheeler
Associate Director for Public Services
Georgia State University College of Law Library
P.O. Box 4008
Atlanta, GA 30302-4008
(404) 413-9142 phone
(404) 413-9144 fax

Email: wheeler@gsu.edu

Homepage: http://law.gsu.edu/directory/wheeler

New law review article on open acces

2009-02-09T10:34:00.001-07:00

If you stay on top of open access and the law, you will want to read Ian Gallacher's article: "Aux armes, citoyens!:" time for law schools to lead the movement for free and open access to the law. The citation is 40 U. Tol. L. Rev. 1-51 (2008).

Seeking Teach-In Kit Contributions

2009-02-02T14:51:00.007-07:00

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE 17TH ANNUAL RIPS-SIS TEACH-IN KIT

The 2009 RIPS Teach-In Resource Kit is coming soon! Your contributions to the 2009 Kit are currently being accepted. The RIPS-SIS sponsored National Legal Research Teach-In campaign has provided the popular Teach-In Resource Kit for many years. This kit was formerly a print publication. Now it is an online publication, and it is designed to support the instructional activities of law librarians. It is published annually in conjunction with National Library Week each April.

You can send contributions as email attachments to any of the people listed below. Any document format that can be attached to email is

acceptable. We will accept most any instructional materials that you care to offer:

* course syllabi

* research guides

* lecture notes

* handouts

* assignments

* lesson plans

* PowerPoint shows

* basic instructional guides

* examinations and guided quizzes

* crossword puzzles and trivia quizzes

We welcome your ideas and suggestions, and we encourage you to contact us to discuss your contributions.

Submission Deadline: Friday, February 20, 2009

Send Teach-In Kit submissions to either:

Gail Partin

RIPS-SIS Teach-In Committee

Dickinson School of Law Library of the Pennsylvania State University

150 S. College St.

Carlisle, PA 17013

Phone: (717) 240-5294

Email: gap6@dsl.psu.edu

Jennifer Murray

RIPS-SIS Teach-In Committee

Superior Court Law Library, Maricopa County

101 W. Jefferson

Phoenix, AZ 85003

Phone: 602-506-3464

e-mail: murrayj006@scll.maricopa.gov

For more information see:

*National Legal Research Teach-In campaign web page:

http://www.aallnet.org/sis/ripssis/TeachIn/teach_in.html

**************************************************

Gail A. Partin

Associate Director & Law Librarian

H. Laddie Montague, Jr. Law Library

Dickinson School of Law

Pennsylvania State University

150 South College Street

Carlisle, PA 17013

Ph: 717-240-5294

Fax: 717-240-5127

Email: gap6@psu.edu

**************************************************

Open Access

2009-02-02T13:04:00.004-07:00

As budgets tighten, I'm looking at the information that is now available
via the open access movement. For example, Creative Commons at
http://creativecommons.org/, and Science Commons at
http://sciencecommons.org/ are really at the forefront. Now, with the
recent announcement of the Legal Education Commons, I think we will
be able to build on that exchange of information for the patrons we
serve. For example, a directory of open access journals is available at
http://www.doaj.org/

Monica Ortale

______________________________________________
Monica M. Ortale, M.L.I.M., J.D.
Faculty Services & Reference Librarian
The Fred Parks Law Library
1303 San Jacinto
Houston, Texas 77002
Phone: 713.646.1721
Fax: 713.659.2217

Keeping research in "Perspectives."

2009-02-02T10:40:00.001-07:00

We assume that everyone knows about what information is out there on legal research instruction. But, assuming is never a good thing! So, in the event you don't know about Thomson Reuter's Perspectives publication, it's definitely worth subscribing to and not just because it's free. If there is anything specific you read to keep abreast of legal research instruction, RIPS would love to hear about it on our blog. Feel free to post a comment about it.

A fighting chance at finding federal dockets?

2009-01-26T17:07:00.002-07:00

If you don't have a Pacer account or Westlaw access to dockets, finding information on federal cases can be next to impossible. I just used the Justia dockets website with success in finding the status of a federal case. While I still couldn't get the docket, I was at least able to have the case number on hand when I called the clerk's office.

Bluebook Fan Club on Facebook

2009-01-20T11:07:00.002-07:00

Here's a fun tip if you are on Facebook. Look for the Bluebook Fan Club and join up! You might just find some other law librarians you know there too.

New ALA book on patron privacy rights

2009-01-13T14:42:00.002-07:00

According to the promotional blurb, this new book, Privacy and Confidentiality Issues: A Guide for Libraries and their Lawyers, will explain:

What First Amendment rights exist in libraries
How to create a library policy to best protect patrons' confidentiality and privacy
The appropriate responses to requests for patron records, and
How to deal with the nuances of Internet use privacy.

How Past Jobs Prepared Me

2009-01-13T13:44:00.004-07:00

I can still chant the mantra of my initial foray into the workforce: “Thank you for selecting Pizza Hut Special Delivery. This is Robb speaking. How may I help you?” I often wonder if my innate desire to provide rapid responses to my patrons stems from the time sensitive requirements of getting quasi-Italian food to the doorsteps of the greater Danville, Kentucky area. It really wouldn’t surprise me, because I learned a lot from my less glamorous gigs back in the day. These lessons made me a better librarian today.

For knowing our collection, nothing could have prepared me more than my job at Video Solutions. We were not Blockbuster, and usually it was just one person working. I had to know what the newly added titles were. I also had to keep track of which titles were circulating, which titles were overdue, and the titles that customers KNEW they had returned. I even had to maintain the “special collection” in the back room behind the curtain. Also, our patrons were often interested in recommendations for what to watch, based on my “expertise.” This meant I had to venture outside of watching my own preferred genres to meet their needs, even to the extent of slasher flicks, tearjerkers, hunting shows, and (shudder) Barney videos. I was occasionally asked for a recommendation from the back room, but there are some choices patrons just need to make for themselves. My favorite customer questions were the video store equivalent of “I’m pretty sure it was a red book.” A lot of people were looking for a movie, but couldn’t quite remember the title. That was my first experience with the reference interview:

Did you see it at the movies, on video, or on TV? TV, I think.

What was it about? There were some guys in a prison that start singing.

Do you remember anyone who was in it? I think it was either Charlie Sheen, or his brother.

Were they in the Army? I’m pretty sure they were.

That’s Cadence. It’s on the second aisle, bottom shelf.

Considering I hadn’t seen Cadence at the time, I was pretty proud of that. It’s actually good, if you’re interested. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101531/.

While the video store had a good clientele, it couldn’t completely prepare me for the wide spectrum of patrons that I’ve encountered in my chosen career. Thankfully, I had another stepping stone – the 24 hour convenience store. Not everyone rents movies. EVERYBODY buys gas, and this wasn’t in the wishy-washy days of pay at the pump. During cashier training, you learn that when you’re dealing with 800 customers a day, you get to experience pretty much all ages, races, and creeds. There are lessons on how to handle transactions with customers who may have language barriers or disabilities. There is also training that teaches one how to “suggestive sell” customers a flea collar to go with their motor oil. However, no training can adequately prepare you for what may come in search of fuel, milk, and chili dogs after the Witching Hour. Most customers were non-descript, but some? For good taste’s sake, let’s just say they stood out! We all have problem patrons from time to time. However, to this point (knock on wood), all of my library patrons have been clothed. During those interesting evenings, in between mopping and counting cigarettes, I quickly learned that:

(1) it’s a good practice to look people in the eye;

(2) you can’t control how your customers behave, but you can control how you do;

(3) and most people will appreciate it if you take the time to help them, no matter who they are.

One morning during my first academic library job, I could see a student taking the short (I don’t want to interrupt) steps toward my office. I motioned for her to come inside my office. I’ll never forget her next words. She told me “I know you aren’t on duty, but you’re just so good at listening to questions.” I can’t imagine a better compliment. Our patrons are better served when librarians have that air of approachability. While I believe it to be a common trait in our profession, it can still be honed. I don’t know whether my attitude toward the customer either sprung from my odd jobs of the past, or was just honed by them. However, to this day, I will be shopping in a store and, no matter what I’m wearing, someone will ask me if I work there. I used to wear a smock that read “Ask Me. I like to help.” I guess it rubbed off.

Robb Farmer,

RIPS-SIS Vice-Chair

Faulkner University Jones School of Law Library

"It's great to learn, because knowledge is power!"

Schoolhouse Rocky (1972)

Is your library on hard times? Then listen to this ...

2009-01-07T15:53:00.002-07:00

Today's Diane Rehm show addresses how hard economic times affect libraries. If the economic climate has your library down, you might want to give the audio file a listen.

ACRL's Standards for Instructional Librarians: How do you measure up?

2009-01-06T12:20:00.002-07:00

It's always interesting to see what is going on with other library-related associations that are not law affiliated. In navigating the Association for College and Research Libraries website, I ran across this list of competencies for an instructional librarian that is really applicable to most any librarian involved in instruction regardless of the library type.

Looking for education-related blogs?

2008-12-26T10:51:00.003-07:00

Here is a great overview of the top 100 education-related blogs. There just might be something in here to make your next class the best one yet!

Legal Writing Bibliography

2008-12-19T15:00:00.003-07:00

Check out this new bibliography on legal writing: Legal Writing Beyond Memos and Briefs: An Annotated Bibliography.

What came first - the plan or the strategy?

2008-11-03T19:37:00.002-07:00

The RIPS Executive Board is updating the RIPS Strategic Plan. Never seen it before? Take a peek at it online and let me know if you have feedback on what YOU would like to see in the plan. You can find the plan linked from the text on the RIPS home page:
http://www.aallnet.org/sis/ripssis/
Or directly linked here:
http://www.aallnet.org/sis/ripssis/PDFs/StrategicPlan2006_2008.pdf

RIPS Programs Coming at You in 2009!

2008-11-03T19:31:00.003-07:00

Thanks to the hard work of Robb Farmer, RIPS Program Committee Chair, and his committee, RIPS had another successful year of program selection through the AALL Annual Meeting Program Committee. The following RIPS sponsored or co-sponsored programs have been selected:

Emerging from the Cocoon: Innovative Ways to Reteach Legal Research to Externs & Summer Associates
B-1
Sunday, July 26, 2009
3:00 PM
60 Minutes
Reporting For Duty: Military Information and its Application to Legal Research
C-5
Sunday, July 26, 2009
4:15 PM
60 Minutes
Chat 2.0 Renovating Virtual Reference
E-2
Monday, July 27, 2009
10:00 AM
30 Minutes
Unmasking A Marvel of an Idea in DC: How Graphic Novels Can Be Supertools for Law Librarians
G-2
Monday, July 27, 2009
4:00 PM
75 Minutes
So You Think You Can Teach: Keeping the Audience Awake and Learning Alive
H-1
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
9:00 AM
90 Minutes

A big RIPS thanks goes to Robb’s Program Committee members:
Ed Beltz, Texas Tech
Michelle Rigual, University of New Mexico
June Casey, Harvard
Jane Underwood, Capital University Law School
Sarah Glassmeyer, University of Kentucky
Beth DiFelice, ASU
Beth Given, Notre Dame
Christine Demetros, Syracuse
Jim Kelly, Vanderbilt
Hollie White, University of North Carolina Metadata Research Center
Bill Magee, Regent University
David Armond, Brigham Young