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Monday, August 12, 2002
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Librarians Are Natural Newscasters.
Breaking News: Law Librarians as Newscasters
"If librarian newscasting is the solution to the problem of information overload for legal professionals, how is it accomplished? By using any and all media available....
The hottest new method of sharing information on the Internet -- known as 'blogging' -- could be adapted by law librarians in order to share news with members of their organization. Blogging, or a Weblog, can be a type of online diary used to share some details of their personal lives or summaries of entire industries with links to full news stories published elsewhere on the Internet.
For example, as a librarian surfs the Web, he can instantly post information concerning newly discovered Web sites to the log. Later, as time permits, this information can be transferred to sections of the intranet as official, categorized and organized 'links.'
Or, a librarian could conduct ongoing discussions with members of a particular practice group. By posting questions to the group and gathering answers in one place, the information will be useful not only to members of that group but also to members of other practice groups with similar interests.
By producing a type of Weblog, a law librarian can quickly provide ever-changing information to information hungry, time-pressured legal professionals." [Law.com, via Morgan's Web Wanderings, via Ernie the Attorney]
This is true for any library, not just law libraries. Academic and school libraries could provide subject-based blogs in support of specific classes or departments. Other specials such as newspaper, government, or medical libraries could follow the model noted above for law libraries. And public libraries can provide a general blog for their patrons. [The Shifted Librarian]
This is another one of those articles I want my boss and others to read about how the usefulness and the future of blogging. I'm also responsible for the News and Events portion of the College of Law's website and, as of this week, of putting the weekly bulletin in HTML and on the website. How much easier this would be if I could just post this information on a limited-access blog and point faculty and students to it. Still wishful thinking, but maybe next year?
4:45:43 PM 
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Via Library Stuff:
Libraries and the FBI. - Slashdot has a discussion going on public libraries and the FBI. Also, there was a report on this topic on All Things Considered (.ram format) this weekend.
I don't read stuff from Slashdot much because of the rants and flames. It's one of the advantages of blogging that you can avoid a lot of that kind of stuff (check out an interesting article discussing this on Ray Ozzie's Weblog). The main theme of the Slashdot serious comments is how to build "anonymous-friendly computer libraries."
3:13:14 PM
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Via How Appealing:
Ninth Circuit reverses dismissal of suit challenging Arizona prison ban on same-sex snuggling in the visiting room: A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today reversed a trial court's dismissal of a lawsuit challenging as unconstitutional a policy of the Arizona Department of Corrections that prohibits same-sex kissing and hugging during prison visits unless the visitor in question is a member of the inmate's family. You can access the Ninth Circuit's opinion here.
I watched a videotape of the oral argument in this case aired by C-SPAN and, I must admit, am not surprised with the result. The prison maintained that its policy protected inmates from being labeled as homosexuals and from being targeted for abuse. The plaintiff, however, countered that prisoners who wish to hide their sexual orientation will not openly display same-sex affection during visits, and thus the policy only punishes those prisoners who are already open about their sexual orientation. The Ninth Circuit's ruling does not mean that the policy necessarily will be invalidated, but it does mean that the prison's victory in getting the suit dismissed at a very early stage of the litigation has been reversed.
2:03:58 PM
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© Copyright 2002 Leah Sandwell-Weiss.
Last update: 9/3/2002; 3:44:29 PM.
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