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Leah's Law Library Weblog
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Monday, September 30, 2002
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Via The Shifted Librarian:
Another newspaper hops on the clue bandwagon. The Arizona Daily Star is offering several different RSS feeds for personal and non-commercial use. They give special mention to blogs, too. [via BlogRoots]
This has the potential to be incredibly cool, as this is my local newspaper. So I've added two of the feeds to my news aggregator to test it out. My main concern is that the links will go bad in a week; this paper charges for articles more than a week old, so I've hesitated to link to their articles in the past. I'll be a little surprised it they change their policy on that. So I may not use it much for the blog, but it will help me in providing articles for our College of Law archives.
3:50:31 PM 
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Saturday, September 28, 2002
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Library Stuff found this note about the OMB/GPO controversy and had this to say about it: LS Thoughts - I wonder how/if this will effect government repository libraries who recieve government publications from the GPO? Will these libraries have to work with the various printing companies to ensure that they are notified of and mailed certain government documents? Or am I way off here and it will have no effect at all.
White House rejects order to use printing office. - "Congress on Thursday ordered executive branch agencies to continue to use the Government Printing Office for most printing services. But the White House Friday said agencies could ignore the order."
"Lawmakers included the order in the continuing resolution that funds federal agencies from Oct. 1, when the new fiscal year begins, through Oct. 4."
"But Office of Management and Budget spokeswoman Amy Call pointed to a 1996 Justice Department opinion that said Congress cannot force the executive branch to go through the Government Printing Office, which is a legislative branch agency."
“The provision is unconstitutional and will therefore be treated as nonbinding,” Call said."
"The disagreement comes as the Office of Management and Budget and procurement chiefs in the executive branch are working out a change to federal regulations that would eliminate a long-standing rule requiring many agencies to go through the Government Printing Office for printing services. OMB Director Mitch Daniels announced this spring that the Bush administration would eliminate the rule so that agencies could contract directly with printing firms. Daniels estimated the change would save agencies $50 million to $70 million a year." (from Government Executive Magazine)
Steven, take a look at my posts here and here for more info. As the article pointed out, Congress (and library associations) believe that OMB's change doesn't eliminate a "long-standing rule," but attempts to change a statute, something that can't be done by a regulation or executive order. And yes, if OMB and the White House win, it does have a potentially large impact on the Federal Depository Library Program.
BTW, the Continuing Resolution containing Section 117 requiring compliance with 44 U.S.C. 501 was passed by the House and Senate on Thursday, September 26, and sent to the President Friday.
9:25:52 PM
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Thursday, September 26, 2002
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A follow-up to my earlier post on the OMB's plans to de-centralize the GPO's printing of federal agency publications. The House's continuing resolution, H. J. Res. 111, was introduced yesterday and contains the following language:
SEC. 117. None of the funds made available under this Act, or any other Act, shall be used by an Executive agency to implement any activity in violation of section 501 of title 44, United States Code.
This is a bit cryptic, but 44 U.S.C. 501 is the statute requiring that government printing be done through the GPO. OMB's plan violates the statute.
9:04:16 PM
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Friday, September 20, 2002
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AALL, ALA,and other library organizations are sponsoring a teleconference on December 11, 2002, entitled Safeguarding our Patrons' Privacy: What Every Librarian Needs to Know about the USA PATRIOT Act & Related Anti-Terrorism Measures. The intended audiences goes beyond librarians to include legal counsels, library administrators/executives and governing board members, information technologists, and state networks/consortia staff. More details are available here and site registration is here. I expect we'll have a site here, and other universities will/should have sites as well. It looks like AALL will maintain a list of sites willing to accept guests, so interested parties should check in the site later in the fall for more information.
8:35:47 AM
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Wednesday, September 18, 2002
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Tuesday, September 10, 2002
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Via JURIST:
Civil liberties lost since Sept. 11. The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights has released a detailed report chronicling actions taken by the United States government since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 that it says have gradually eroded basic human rights protections, including fundamental guarantees that have been central to the U.S. constitutional system for more than 200 years.
I actually heard about this report last week through the law-lib listserv. I want to recommend that other libraries do what I did: print out the report, send it to your copy center for binding, and add it to your collection. Folks will want to read this stuff at some point, if not now. On the main page is also a link to a PowerPoint presentation of a chronology of changes to U.S. law, which I also added to the collection. It's now also available in PDF. Finally, the main page contains a link to a PDF list of court cases related to Sept. 11.
3:59:06 PM
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Saturday, September 07, 2002
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Taking Out the GPO. The OMB says closing the GPO will save taxpayer money. Barbara Quint opines that not only will it cost taxpayers and libraries more money to obtain government documents, it will make them more difficult to find and track. [TVC Alert]
This is (or should be) a hot topic for all librarians. The current FDLP could be improved, but what the OMB proposes results in even more government information going missing. Here are some more links relating to this issue:
4:21:54 PM
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"Computers may eventually be powerful and flexible enough to do this type of work. But, for now, the electronic delivery of cases still requires the human touch." The Humans Behind the Headnotes.
This quote comes from the end of an interesting article about the attorneys who write West headnotes. It starts off with a discussion of the man who had to write the notes for Bush v. Gore; it took him four hours, when a case that size normally would take about an hour. How many folks out there think of these guys?
More importantly, how many attorneys and law students still use headnotes. I have to admit that I'd forgotten most of what I'd learned about digests until I started working in a law library. Yet many commentators have noted how using electronic keyword searching alone can be so misleading. We try to teach this to our first-year students, but it helps to have good examples. Anyone got any? I've heard of folks quoting dissents as the law of the case. Some specifics might be helpful.
1:16:28 PM
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Tuesday, September 03, 2002
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I found this link to JAG HUNTERS, a new military law blog, through TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime. I have to say I have very mixed feelings about this blog. First and foremost, I couldn't find any information about who the author is. After reviewing the posts, I'm not sure if the blogger is even an attorney, much less had/has any connection with the JAG department of any service. He/she clearly has some axes to grind, which in the blog world is perfectly fine. But I am always concerned when someone advocates "dropping a dime" on "bad JAGs", defined as "A uniformed trial lawyer, past or present," especially when we don't know what his/her background and experience is.
Obviously, I have my own bias here, but even I meet this definition, even though I only did a few courts-martial. The JAGs I worked worth over 14 years were on the whole, honorable men and women trying to do a sometimes very difficult job. At least two of them risked their lives in hostage situations. These men were defense counsels at the time, but at other times in their careers, they were also prosecutors. I don't have the time now to go into the differences between the military justice system and the civilian system, but in many cases, a military defendant has more rights than a civilian one.
One other point: JAGs in all the services except the Marines do a lot more than military justice. In my career alone, I assisted with aircraft accident investigations, handled Federal Tort Claims Act cases, and prepared labor law cases for the Merit Systems Protection Board and the EEOC. Other JAGs go to federal court on contractor bankruptcy hearings or handle environmental law cases. A real military law blog would cover these other areas as well. So if you read this blog, understand that you take what the blogger writes with a large grain of salt.
4:39:56 PM
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Via tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog:
Al Macintyre's Radio Docs.
Al Macintyre's Radio Doc Sources. A great collection of links to Radio documentation, tips, tools, experts. I keep finding new, juicy things and ripe, proven resources. High editorial value. Thanks, Al. [a klog apart]
I'll second Terry's endorsement. If you're looking for a good place for Radio tips and tricks, Al's list is a great resource.
This looks very useful. I just wish I had time to check everything out. Rick's been doing wonderful things with his blog (check out his posts on Radio) that I wish I had the type to play with. Maybe someday?
3:44:17 PM
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© Copyright 2002 Leah Sandwell-Weiss.
Last update: 9/30/2002; 3:50:37 PM.
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