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SPECIAL LIBRARIES
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Leadership and Organization |
Legal Division Quarterly Special Libraries Association Spring, 2001 - Vol. 7, No. 4 Intranets: Accessorize Your Wardrobe Editors' Notes From the Boardroom An Interview with Laura Gasaway Scholarships and Grants Committee Plan to Attend the SLA Annual Conference! LOOKING TOWARD LOS ANGELES Get Your Berrings Taking Small Steps: Learning To Work Together with the American Bar Association SLA Legal Division 2000 - 2001 In Search of Telephone Numbers at the "Modernized" IRS Rebalancing and Reducing the Collection In Case of Emergency, Break Glass Keeping the Backroom Staff Happy KeyCite Notes Peer Relations and Professional Activism NET RESULTS Law Library News from Australia Letter from Canada - CALLing all to CALL! Letter from Europe Member News Legal Division Treasurer's Report
Intranets: Accessorize Your Wardrobe Free intranet services and "gadgets" are beginning to charge fees because of the dot com meltdown. There still seem to be some alternative sources for free counters, message boards, and poll servers, but the intranet maintenance workload this quarter has been driven more by cutbacks in service and free tools than by implementing and deploying new bells and whistles. Fallout from the Dot Com Debacle One of my Web pages contained a link to a Message Board, a Poll, and a Counter, all provided for free and supported by advertising by MyComputer.com. This past quarter MyComputer.com decided that they would have to charge $19.95 a month or $119.95 a year for each of those items. Clearly, that is an expense which we would like to save, so those features have been replaced by less fancy but totally free substitutes. The substituted features are not all alike, so this development is one that forces us to make changes to our Web pages. Will other sources of free content start to dry up in the dot com debacle and materially reduce the quality, usefulness and "stickiness" of our Web pages? Moreover.com, as an example, continues to provide outstanding headline and breaking news content for free. They have even increased the number and diversity of their news feeds to 330 as of this writing. The Java code that Moreover.com uses slows things down to a crawl, but if you limit your use to one newsfeed per Web page, it is acceptable. We have used Moreover.com headlines as the focal point of some of our highest viewed Web pages. Without this content, it would be hard to find continuously updated news material at a low labor cost to bring people back to the Web page. Brits and Yanks: We Won the War Together We have begun working with the British Library inside Web service for document delivery and for monitoring the tables of contents of their vast periodical subscriptions for certain current awareness subjects. The current awareness service enables you to craft a search strategy and let it run automatically every day, week, month or on whatever schedule you select. The search can only scan the titles or author names from the tables of contents, but it is certainly enough to pull good material if your search is sufficiently broad. The system sends you an e-mail at each interval with HTML attachments for the TOC if your search finds hits. If there are no hits, you get an e-mail to that effect so you know your search is being run. You can then use their inside Web document delivery service to obtain a copy of the article or you can get it any other way you prefer. The annual fee for a subscription is 500 Pounds Sterling (about $750 U.S.), but the BL is generously waiving this annual fee to professional librarians to gauge market acceptance. Therefore, all this searching and current awareness monitoring is free to members with accounts unless and until you order a document. The only charges are for document delivery. They will send a document in two hours electronically, or via slower methods for lower fees. The price separately states the amount set by the publisher (and collected by the BL) for copyright clearance so you know you are covered for copyright compliance purposes. This service operates 20 hours a day between 8 a.m. and 4 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time. You could send off your request in the evening and have it delivered to your end user or your own computer or fax the following morning. This is an impressive service. Look for Graham, Ian, or Ed from the British Library at the annual SLA meeting and get signed up with this great service. Another unique feature, which we have yet to implement in our shop, is the ability for your technical services group to go into the British Library inside Web database and tag each title to which your library subscribes. Thereafter, when your end user runs a search through a link from your intranet and finds, say, the Industry Standard, a little signal will appear to inform them that this title is available in your corporate, firm or company library. You can fill the document requests in house and not have to buy from the BL. This seems a rather thoughtful and generous feature. It shows a commitment to service, rather than a commitment to commerce, revenue, or - no pun intended - empire building. Now for Something Completely Different This librarian has been using the British Library Web site a fair amount. Obviously, it is packed with a wealth of fascinating information and is particularly well designed. You have full color images of the Gutenberg Bible, page by page, the Magna Carta, and several gorgeous illuminated books. Admittedly, these are not of overwhelming demand in our business libraries. However, there is a very interesting and probably controversial feature there in the British Library Web site, at least for Americans, which I doubt we could implement very easily in this country: Advertising. Yes, while the great British Broadcasting Corporation has no commercial messages and is funded by expensive annual license fees on television and radio receivers, the British Library does have advertising. They have implemented commercial elements in a clever and ingenious way to provide convenience to their constituency and actually add value. At the lower left of the page on the British Library Public Catalogue1, a yellow Amazon.co.uk logo reminds one "Over 1.5 million U.K. and U.S. books. Save up to 40%." Under that box, "Buy books NOW from our sponsors." This looks like the standard Amazon advertising link, but there is a twist. When you run a search in the BL catalog and you have your results displayed (we tried Stephen King), a click on the Amazon.co.uk logo opens an Amazon page with the Stephen King titles available ready for you to click on to purchase. About a year or two ago, some of us were brainstorming, and I suggested that Amazon would do a fine public service if they could put links into their database that could identify the user by ZIP code and show a searcher, "This book is available in your Dade County Public Library." I thought that might give Amazon a lot of credibility and brownie points with librarians and local government. Library patrons would glean the great reader advisory benefits of Amazon's reader reviews and "other titles bought" features. These things would be wonderful enhancements for any library catalog. Studies have shown that public lending libraries increase the sale of books and do not reduce them, so Amazon would not likely lose sales by offering this community service. Now years later, I find that it is being done one better than my idea. They have actually incorporated and made Amazon a rich feature of the Library catalog itself. As a taxpayer faced with perennial public library funding debates, I would find it most interesting to learn how this came about. I am vastly curious to know whether Barnes & Noble, Blackwell's, Border's, and other booksellers were able to bid on this advertising link in the BLPC or whether Amazon had thought up the idea, and no one else could figure out quite how to bid for it or implement it. It would be interesting to know how much revenue this linking brings in to the British Library and whether even with this incredible outlet Amazon can still not turn a profit. And if not, will this great feature disappear from the BLPC like MyComputer.com polls and hit counters have disappeared from Web sites? On the other hand, if it is an economic success, could this be as realistic and useful a funding source for U.S. libraries as newsstands and gift shops are for U.S. airports? I, for one, am not yet ready to put Amazon logos and links into my intranet and its OPAC, but we are putting in tables of contents that we grab from publisher's Web sites or from IndexMaster. Perhaps Amazon and the British Library will allow new ways of thinking (and linking) for us in the United States, too. Will any American libraries link to a bookstore from their catalog? Terry Seale is President of the South Florida Association of Law Libraries and is Associate Director of the Greenberg Traurig Legal Research Center in Miami, Florida and head of cataloging. You can e-mail Terry at sealet@gtlaw.com.
1The author indulges a pet peeve about the correct American spelling of the word catalog. Despite the fact that the well-settled American authority for the art or science of cataloging is the Cataloging Division of the Library of Congress, the New York Times Style Manual, the Washington Post Style Manual, and certain American professional librarians (but not other press style manuals) persist in preferring the British/Canadian spelling catalogue, cataloguer, cataloguing. I only use the British spelling when referring to the proper name, where the proper name includes the word Catalogue. This pre-conference issue has a lot in store for you. In addition to our regular contributors, who are formidable, look for interesting reports from some of our committees, specifically ABA Liaison and Scholarships/Grants. The ABA article is really food for thought, so I hope it captures the imagination of many of you out there. Other Division business falls into the category of Annual Conferences. Take a final peek at the upcoming conference activities and put on your thinking cap for the upcoming Los Angeles conference - the Board is looking for input to better serve you. On the Web site we have an interesting article from Lynn Fogle on downsizing with what we believe is an appropriate approach for librarians to take. With this issue we must bid a fond farewell and offer many thanks to Ruth Bird, columnist for the International Corner's Australia section. Thank you for keeping us up to date on so many law library issues from down under. To replace her, she went out and found no less than three other librarians who have agreed to carry on for the good of the order. Therefore, we extend a warm welcome to Dennis Warren, Emma Thomas, and Josephine Timcke. Look for their articles! We hope many of you are able to attend the conference in San Antonio; it should be fantastic! Till next time,
Barbara W. Silbersack
Mary Lynn Wagner
From the Boardroom My year as Chair of the Legal Division has come to a close. How quickly this has passed! It has been an enjoyable year and there are plenty of accomplishments to report. The Legal Division is now eight years old. Hey, it's time to start planning for our first decade party at Conference. First, thanks to all of the members of the Division for your involvement and interest in the Division. Even though I may not have spoken with all of you during the year, I could feel your support. I heard so many suggestions and comments from individual members this year. We have tried to act on every one. I would like to thank all of the Committee Chairs. This is how the work of the Division gets done throughout the year. Each Chair took their charge seriously and helped to advance the Division in depth and substance. Please take a minute to review the Committee list in this issue. Give a small thanks to the wind on their behalf. Also, consider what you would like to do next year to help out the Division. It was through this work of the Committees that I have the highest priority accomplishments to report to you now. Of course, the most obvious achievement for the year is the outstanding Annual Conference program. We had a full slate of exciting programs filled in with Business Meetings and social events. More this year than in the past, this was truly a joint effort of dozens of people who planned programs, assisted in person, provided ideas, edited material, and all of the rest of the tasks. Gayle Lynn-Nelson spearheaded this effort. The programs would not have been possible without the outstanding efforts of our Vendor Sponsorship Committee co-chaired by Gitelle Seer and Loretta Mak. They helped to keep the Division solvent and took on this enormous task with little effort needed on my part. I am proud to say that this is the initial year of the Legal Division Scholarship. Through the drive of Joni Cassidy, we were able to get this program started and give out our first award. I hope this will become an annual and valuable tradition for the Division. We have maintained a stable membership throughout the year. Although our staggering growth has diminished a bit, we are strong and continue to grow. Please do not forget to renew your membership, renew on time (it saves money on overdue notices), and encourage your colleagues to join as well. The Legal Division finally has a Manual! Thanks to the outstanding, beyond the call of duty, efforts of Karen Krupka and her Committee, we now have the beginning of a legend and a tool to guide us into the future. I hope that you will see the Manual appear on the Web page soon and refer to it often (at least if you take my advice and volunteer for a Committee position). As you may remember, my theme for the year has been communication and learning or more specifically: "New Tools for the New Century: Utilizing Emerging Technologies for Continuous Learning." I wrote about enhancing your professional life with learning opportunities and methods to keep learning every day. I try to emulate these lessons in every e-mail message or voice mail message or remark in the hallway and I hope you will as well. Thanks for reading, and I hope you found these nuggets to be helpful. Another thanks to all of the former Chairs of the Division. I can't say too much for the advice and example that they have provided for me. Special thanks to former Chair Barbara Silbersack for being my sounding board on many important issues as well as a good friend for more years than either of us can count. I got her into trouble years ago by encouraging her to become involved in the Legal Division, and now we both have fond memories to recount. This is the first year that all the former Chairs have gathered together at Annual Conference to celebrate the Division at a luncheon. I hope that this will become an annual tradition and this meritorious group will continue to expand in size. I hope that all of you will consider giving back to the Division and setting your sites to become a part of this exclusive group. Finally, I wish to thank the Executive Board for their encouragement and support throughout the year. This was probably our most active Executive Board in the history of the Division. Not only did we meet at Annual Conference; we added a new session at Winter Meeting in January, which allowed us to accomplish even more this year. The Executive Board has been responsive to my requests and each member has fulfilled their duties in an exemplary fashion. Particular thanks to Carol Furnish as she ends her tenure as Treasurer and Past Chair Larry Guthrie as he also passes off the Board. Secretary Jenny Kanji took copious notes at all of our meetings. Linda Fowlie helped us to continue to define the role of Director. Jeff Stickle has been extremely helpful and supportive in his training year as Chair Elect Elect. Best of luck to incoming Chair Jeanne Korman in her exciting year. She has been a wonderful resource to me as well. Please support her as well as you have me. Thanks, and good luck to all of you.
Anne K. Abate
head o' (the) PAC Laura "Lolly" Gasaway is one of the foremost experts on library copyright law. She is also the Director of the Law Library at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. You've been a library leader in copyright issues for many years. What prompted you to travel down this path? I entered college planning to be a librarian. In my freshman year, I took a survey course in librarianship in which each week there was a speaker from a different type of library. After that course, I knew that I wanted to be a law librarian. Everything I had done related to being a librarian, including my interest in copyright. I worked as a librarian in an academic law library while I was in law school. In my final semester in the fall of 1973, I took a course in business torts, which covered copyright. The Williams and Wilkins decision (487 F.2d 1345 (Ct. Cl. 1973), aff'd per curiam 420 U.S. 376 (1975)) was on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court at that time, and we discussed that case in class. I could see how important copyright was to the regular operations of a library, so that is how I selected intellectual property as one of the two areas in which I would teach. Actually, the other area in which I initially taught also related to librarianship - employment rights and later courses in employment discrimination and in women and the law. In the early 1990s, I realized that I simply could not keep up in two such rapidly developing substantive areas of the law and continue as a librarian. I chose to focus solely on intellectual property - a good decision on my part! On what print resources do you rely to keep you updated on intellectual property issues? I use a number of resources, but primarily BNA's Patent, Copyright and Trademark Journal. I look at it each week. I also use the National Law Journal and the Legal Times for current IP issues when disputes are making their way to the courts. I also use the CCH Copyright Law Reporter and the advance sheets to U.S. Patent Quarterly. Annually I review the updates to Nimmer and Goldstein on Copyright. For cyberspace issues I use the weekly BNA Electronic Commerce and Law Report along with legal newspapers and The Computer Lawyer. On what online services, discussion lists or Web sites do you depend to inform you of intellectual property issues? I rely on Current Index to Legal Periodicals online for alerts to current scholarly articles. Although there are a number of excellent copyright Web sites that I use in my classes, I do not rely on them for keeping current. I find that discussion lists really work best for me. There are several in the IP area; most useful to me is "Cyberprof" which is restricted to intellectual property and cyberspace law faculty members. I used to subscribe to "Cyberia," an open list, but the traffic on it really became too overwhelming. I am also on the Trademark listserv, which is primarily practitioner oriented. The final listserv in which I participate is "CNI-copyright," but I learn less on that list. I participate in order to try to help folks who have library-related copyright questions. What do you view as the most critical problem in copyright law as it relates to libraries and library services? To me the most critical problem is what I call the great "copyright grab." Publishers and producers are now moving away from traditional copyright law protection and relying instead on restrictive license agreements and technological measures to control not only access but also the use of their works. The problem is a combination of publisher activities all designed to do away with fair use and to lock up their works. UCITA actually contributes to this with its self-help provisions and restrictions on criticizing works that are protected by a uniform contract. When the president of the Association of American Publishers publicly refers to librarians as "the enemy," it is clear those relations between copyright owners and the users of these works are worse than ever before. So the sad thing about this problem is that there seems to be little hope for improving the situation. There's been much discussion lately about the difficulty in applying current copyright law to the Internet. Are we about to see a wholesale change in copyright law? I don't think so. There will be some amendments to the law just as there has been regularly since the first Copyright Act of 1790. Some amendments may relate to new technology, but others will respond to other changes in society. Copyright does and can protect digital works just as it has in the print environment, and there is no reason to change the law wholesale. Publishers will continue to push for legislative change to strengthen their rights through a variety of means. They likely will try to move to a pay-per-use system, but this will be through contract law rather than copyright. You're also the Director of the Law Library at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. What print and online resources do you use in your daily management of this large, academic law library? Interestingly, even though I teach using a whole variety of classroom technology and spend a good bit of time on the Internet, I tend to rely on printed sources primarily for management help. Law Library Journal, the Journal of Academic Librarianship and The Bottom Line are all journals that I read regularly. For online help, I find the academic law library directors' listserv helpful. Is there any "information gap" that you perceive? If so, describe the perfect Web site or publication that would fill that information need. None I can think of. I think the existing publications do a very good job of informing my colleagues and me.
Scholarships and Grants Committee The mission of the Legal Division's Scholarships and Grants Committee (SGA), made up of Joni Cassidy of Cassidy Cataloguing Services and Faye Couture of Pope Air Force Base, is to award scholarships that will benefit the profession as a whole. A secondary function of the committee is to research other divisions' scholarship committees with hopes of creating a more unified system throughout the SLA. SGA suggested creating one place on SLA's Web site where all division stipends and awards could be listed together, thus increasing the pool of applicants. Using models from other divisions, SGA created a grant application and developed criteria for eligibility and post-award requirements. Approved by the executive board, this information was published on the SLA Legal Division Web site. This year, SGA is awarding a scholarship for attendance to the SLA Annual 2001 meeting to be held in San Antonio, TX June 14-19, 2001. The prize is a reimbursement of expenses to the attendee up to $1,000.00. To be considered, the applicant must submit an essay to SGA by April 1, 2001 detailing the significance of the grant to their professional growth in law librarianship. The award will be presented to the winner on site at the conference. If you have any comments or suggestions regarding the subject of Grants and Scholarships, please direct them to Joni@cassidycat.com.
your pr update
San Antonio - 2001
With the receipt of the preliminary program for the SLA Annual Conference - 2001 An Information Odyssey - you should be well on your way to planning your conference attendance. The conference is a perfect opportunity to learn new topics and techniques, to network, and to learn about new products from information vendors.
The Legal Division is offering a dynamic program for conference attendees:
Legal Research for Non-Law Librarians - Continuing Education Program.
County, Court and Province/State Library (CCAPS) Roundtable
Current Internet Legal Issues
Fun in the Stacks: Creating a Dynamic Environment
The Key to Success: Keeping the Customer Satisfied
Legal Issues of Presentations
Managing a Value-Driven Tax Information Service
Mastering the Organizational Map
Personal to Virtual Communication in an Ever-Changing World
60 Sites in 60 Minutes
International Roundtable
Tax Roundtable
Working with MIS Professionals
The Legal Division is co-sponsoring the following programs:
Environmental Law
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's) - Regulatory and Environmental Concerns
Risk Issues and the Internet: CyberRisk
Social Science Research: An International Perspective
Legal Division networking opportunities include:
Annual Luncheon and Business Meeting
Emerging Technologies Breakfast
Ice Cream Social
Legal Division Open House
No Host Dinner
Networking Breakfast
Tuesday Evening Social Event
Volunteer Opportunities
The Public Relations Committee is coordinating the summary of programs for use on our Web site as well as in follow-up articles after the Conference. If you are interested in writing a short review of the Legal Division program(s) you plan to attend at the conference, please contact Cindy Spohr at cindy.spohr@lexis-nexis.com.
The SLA Online Conference Planner is already available online at http://www.sla.org and will continue to be updated as conference details become final. It provides a variety of options for your personal schedule planning, including the ability to search programs by topic, track, day, SLA unit, presenter and moderator. It also includes a Virtual Exhibit Hall - you can determine which exhibitors you would like to visit at the conference and establish your own map. You can also visit the exhibitor's Virtual Booths.
Los Angeles - 2002
Planning is beginning for the 2002 SLA Conference in Los Angeles. Chair Elect Jeanne Korman, Chair Elect Elect Jeff Stickle, and Program Planning Chair Cindy Spohr are interested in your feedback as the development of the Los Angeles program begins. Please take a moment to complete this survey and return by June 1, 2001:
You may fax, e-mail or mail your responses to:
Cindy Spohr
Did you know that most of the programs for next year's SLA conference in Los Angeles will be decided upon in the next two months? That's right, planning for a conference the size of ours is done far in advance because of the myriad details that must be worked out by the folks proposing programs and the conference planners.
If you have an idea for a program, now is the time to communicate. You need to contact Jeanne Korman, our incoming Legal Division Chair or the Legal Division Program Planner for Los Angeles, Cindy Spohr of Lexis-Nexis. Jeanne can be contacted at jeanne.korman@weil.com or by phone at 305-577-3118. Cindy can be contacted at cindy.spohr@lexis-nexis.com or by phone at 219-436-1944.
In the past, the Legal Division has put on quite a few programs. During the upcoming years, we want to have the best quality programs we can get. There may not be as many programs, but we expect they will be on the topics that will be of interest to you and of practical use in your library. Communicate your ideas and get involved with the Legal Division.
In 2003, we will be in New York City. Jeff Stickle, the Chair-Elect, will be leading the Division planning effort and Lori Hedstrom of West Group Librarian Relations is the Program Planner. Please send your ideas to Jeff at jeffrey.stickle@wcom.com or by phone at 202-736-6366, or to Lori at lori.hedstrom@westgroup.com or by phone at 651-687-5891.
Get Your Berrings
As I write this column, it is early April 2001. The explosive dot com boom has fizzled and the economy seems to be shaking its collective head like a Jim Carrey character the morning after a long binge. But beneath all of the fallout, the Internet plunges ahead. There will be no retreat from the conversion of our lives, and more importantly for us, our careers, into a digital age.
Given the recent craziness though, I thought that it might be fun to look at cold hard truths. What I needed was a chunk of good old-fashioned information. Amazingly enough, it dropped into my hand. An old friend asked me if I subscribed to Harpers. The answer was no. She pressed an issue in my hand and said, "You have to read this, it is meant for you." Sometimes life is like a movie. You need something and someone hands it to you. She was right. The April 2001 issue of Harpers is pure gold.
While I actually enjoyed this entire issue, there was one part that struck deep notes within me. First, Michael Korda reviews two new books on the publishing industry. Just as we librarians have had to cope with wave after wave of change, so have the book publishers. They have been as clueless as we have been about where change is going and to how to handle it best. The two books that Mr. Korda reviews provide two takes on the publishing industry. One, The Business of Books by Andre' Schiffrin, is an old time religion sermon on how the world has fallen into perdition. The other, Book Business by Jason Epstein, is a tract on how much fun the book business used to be, and how it can come out the other side of the storm re-invented but alive. Korda writes so well that you can pretend that you have read both of these after you finish with his piece, but I have to confess I have already ordered the Epstein book. It helps to see the inside of the book industry. I should also note that Michael Korda has written an urbane and quite delightful autobiography of his own life in the book trade, Another Life.
I confess that I love books. The world of print was always magical for me. One would think that a love of books would have been pretty standard among librarians, but I know that in the past few decades it has been viewed by some as a dangerous affectation. When I was the Dean of the Library School at Berkeley, I was at a faculty meeting where someone sniffed, "We certainly don't need any more of those students who come here because they love books." Trust me, I used humor to slice said sniffer up, but the comment had power. We have been ashamed of loving books for too long. Now that we are letting go of them in so many parts of our life, we should confess the truth.
Nor is the book dead in application. Each year I see hundreds of students in Advanced Legal Research, a course that Kathleen Vanden Heuvel, Michael Levy and I teach at Boalt Hall Law School. These are second and third year law students, taking a three credit course that is graded on the curve. We give them four sets of open-ended research assignments. This means a lot of grading, but we believe in what we do. We have noticed something this year. The students are becoming rational consumers. Twenty years ago (sigh, I am that old) we had to entreat them to use computers, many of them could not even type. Ten years ago, we had to entreat them to use books; no one wanted to leave the computer. Now they seem open to persuasion. They will use books, or indexes, when it makes sense. They do not love books as I did, but they see the practical appeal of USCA® and USCS in paper.
All of this made me love Korda's review. This issue of Harpers also contains a long article by David Foster Wallace about the new Dictionary of Modern American Usage. If you know Wallace's work, you would recognize the over the top, self indulgent, deeply intelligent childishness of the piece, but it is fun. It is about prescriptive usage versus descriptive usage and I think that it has many lessons for us. It is too complex for me to even try to summarize, but the article practically canonizes Bryan Garner for writing it. That's right, Bryan Garner: the fellow who did the new edition of Black's Law Dictionary®. Looks to me like Bryan is taking over the world. We could do worse. There is also an article on SUVs. If you own one, sorry, but hey, just check it out.
So there you are: the April issue of Harpers. All of the answers to my problems. At least for today.
Taking Small Steps: Learning To Work Together with the American Bar Association
A liaison is usually thought of as a go-between, or as someone who facilitates communication between two entities. I favor the analogy offered by the definition significant to the French language. From the Old French, lier, "to bind," a liaison is the phenomenon which occurs when the usually silent final consonant of a word, when immediately followed by a word beginning with a vowel, is permitted to sound. Not only does the consonant sound, but it also creates a seamless blending of two words.
The idea of creating a relationship between the SLA Legal Division and the American Bar Association is an exciting one. However, creating a relationship where the two entities become so entwined that they appear to be inseparable will be daunting. Although the Legal Division is the fourth largest division of SLA, it is a young division. To the American Bar Association, with its sophisticated infrastructure, our division may indeed appear so unobtrusive as to be "silent." My vision, as the SLA Legal Division Liaison to the ABA, must begin by taking little steps. I would like to know your expectations and would welcome your suggestions regarding how to initiate the relationship.
As information professionals, each of us has liaison experience. Collectively, we are our best resource. Our members have forged teams with their respective IT departments and have collaborated with regional bar associations to produce technology conferences. Others have allied themselves with vendors or state bar associations and have evaluated products or designed continuing legal education presentations. Many have partnered with other library associations in order to create professional development activities.
I believe that the common ground between the SLA Legal Division and the ABA lies in the areas of technology, training and education. I have attempted to identify the key entities on which we should concentrate our energy. Again, I welcome suggestions regarding units I may have missed while attempting to navigate my way through the complexities of the committees, commissions, divisions, sections and forums that comprise the ABA.
As Chair, Anne Abate has emphasized a technology theme. It seems appropriate to investigate a relationship with the Standing Committee on Technology and Information Systems. The responsibilities of the committee include establishing liaisons with ABA entities and bar associations, so it's likely the Committee would be receptive to developing another relationship. In addition, this committee coordinates the activities of other ABA entities, notably the Legal Technology Resource Center. The staff of the Research Center, which includes law librarians, is available to answer questions, give presentations and provide consulting services. (The Center recently surveyed our Division in an effort to learn more regarding trends, attitudes and an understanding of digital resources.)
Technology has also impacted training and education. Technology has created new formats for accessing information and innovative methods for delivery. Law librarians have increasingly become responsible for providing attorneys and staff with the opportunities for renewing old skills and embracing new ones. As software is perennially upgraded and products are continually enhanced, librarians have become the coordinators between staff, attorneys, law students and information technologists.
The Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar and the ABA Center for Continuing Legal Education are other entities worth exploring. The focus of the Section of Legal Education is to improve legal education and effective writing and to encourage the involvement of law schools in continuing education. The section achieves this by encouraging cooperation among lawyers, educators and judges. Law librarians have long shared these concerns and endeavors. It's time to initiate a formal, ongoing relationship.
There are many additional ABA units whose interests overlap those of our Division. For example, the Law Practice Management Section sponsors a variety of educational programs across the country and is the force behind the ABA TechShow. The Young Lawyers Division not only addresses the concerns of associates under the age of 36, but also sponsors a number of CLE opportunities. The ABA Law Student Division encourages its members to attend conferences and meetings and to participate in national competitions and contests. Please contact me with your recommendations at susan.catterall@leonard.com or 612-335-1742. Hopefully, our little steps will take us far.
SLA Legal Division 2000 - 2001
Executive Board
Chair
Chair-Elect
Chair Elect-Elect
Director 2000-2002
Secretary 2000-2002
Treasurer 1999-2001
Past Chair
Affirmative Action
Archivist
Bylaws
Division Directory Editor
Division Manual
Division Photographer
Employment
European Liaison
Government Relations
International Relations
Legal Division Quarterly
Advertising Manager
Co-Editors
Mary Lynn Wagner
Design, Layout, Printing and Mailing
Liaison to AALL and Other SLA Divisions
Liaison to the ABA
Membership
Nominating
Professional Development Chair
Program Chair 2001
Public Relations
Regional Meeting Coordinator
Scholarships and Grants
Strategic Planning
Committee Member
Student Chair
Vendor Relations
Loretta Mak
Web Site Content Manager
Web Site and Listserv Administrator
Yearbook Editor
County, Courts and Provinces/State Librarians (CCAPS)
Emerging Technologies in the Law
Dina Dreifuerst
International
Tax
tax file
Practitioners need to be able to contact IRS staff, but the current restructuring has made it difficult to have access to current numbers. This column takes a look at the restructuring and some Web directory sources.
The IRS has begun a major restructuring as a result of the passage of the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998. The modernized IRS is arranged around specific groups of taxpayers. Four operating divisions are responsible for serving specific groups of taxpayers. Four functional organizations are responsible for specific issues and cases. Two support organizations are responsible for providing common services across the entire agency. The National Office will become much smaller and will set broad policy, review plans and goals of the operating units, and develop major improvement initiatives. The IRS had been organized in a three-tier geographic structure. The reorganization began in the fall of 1998 and is still in progress. In the reorganization, groups are being moved around and given new offices and new telephone numbers. For example, the National Office's exempt organizations people were ALL moved to a new address. All of their phone numbers were changed.
During the reorganization it will be harder to contact individuals at the IRS. The directories on the reference shelf will probably be out of date. This means that we'll have to first spend time finding the phone number for an IRS source before we can get an answer to our research.
Is the Web a resource for contacts?
Here is a rundown on two Web sites that I found with IRS contact information in them. The IRS Web Site -Tax Professional's Corner provides links to items on the Digital Daily, which are helpful to the tax professional. According to the site, the Tax Professional's Corner Administrative Information & Resources "has names, numbers, lists and other information that will help practitioners work with IRS more effectively." Some telephone numbers are arranged under the new organization chart at http://www.irs.gov/bus_info/tax_pro/iod/1/index.html. The list, however, is not complete or up to date. For most of the lists here, there haven't been any updates since December 2000.
The TimeValue Software site also has an IRS Phone Directory, located at: http://www.timevalue.com/irsindex.htm. TimeValue informed me that the information was being offered free to browsers because the data was from fourth quarter 1999. The staff contacts are arranged by district, regional and national offices. This district, regional and national office structure doesn't exist anymore. However, if you know who you are looking for, you can browse by name to find their telephone number. So, this list can still provide a starting point for finding contacts. This is a fee-based service, but will be free while TimeValue waits for updated information from the IRS. CCH has a link to the TimeValue information at:
http://tax.cch.com/scripts/irsp/irsp.dll?ReSet?tx=1&h=1&pb=1&nm=25.
How are the publishers dealing with this?
Tax Analysts Tax Directory staff publishes a directory of contact information for federal, state and international governments. This directory is updated quarterly and is available in print, on CD-ROM and on the Web. The Tax Directory staff is well aware of the need to have current telephone numbers for IRS personnel. The IRS Communications Liaison Officer and the Directory staff have an ongoing relationship and an established, regular procedure to get updated information. However, with the reorganization, this information is often out of date. During the reorganizing, the Directory staff is faced with the enormous task of collecting, verifying and checking contact information they receive from the IRS and other sources. Amie Chant, editor of the Tax Directory, suggests keeping the IRS Personnel Locator number handy during the restructuring: (202) 622-5000. However, the Tax Directory staff has had 50-50 success locating staff with this number.
In conclusion, librarians are resourceful and are used to searching for information, so the restructuring should prove to be only a minor inconvenience.
Rebalancing and Reducing the Collection
This article evolved from a presentation at Ohio Regional Association of Law Libraries, October 2000, called "The Incredible Shrinking Library." The other two librarians on that program had both endured very aggressive downsizing projects - one based on costs reduction, the other based on space. I provided a different view, concentrating on reducing the printed collection by controlled rebalancing.
Several years ago, when many firm librarians were discussing forced downsizing on the listservs, I read their postings but had the attitude that this really didn't affect me. After all, I was a branch librarian; I had plenty of physical space with two large libraries and plenty of attorney support. When we did run short of shelf space, I canceled a few small titles, shifted some materials and sent a few things to off-site storage. The first large sets to go were the ALR's, which we replaced with CD-ROMs. But still, the reporters were growing at such a phenomenal rate, I knew this was a temporary measure. So, I started paying closer attention to those listserv postings!
The turning point for me was a law-lib posting a few years ago during a space-reduction thread. The librarian's points were:
This made perfect sense to me. By then, I was the head librarian for the firm and had introduced the idea of collection rebalancing/reduction to our administration. They appreciated my ideas and supported me. It made them think I was progressive, a team player and willing to work for the financial bottom line.
During the past three years, we've evaluated most of our collection for content and format, concentrating our efforts on one practice group at a time. Although we experimented with CD-ROM, we've moved most of those subscriptions to Web versions, having good success with products from CCH and BNA. These subscriptions were helpful in providing information to attorneys in practice groups that are physically dispersed in multiple offices. These transitions have worked pretty well for practice areas such as corporate, commercial, tax, benefits and environmental. We quickly reduced the number of large loose-leafs in all offices. The transition seemed to be easiest for the smaller offices, where there were never large print collections, anyway.
Our biggest challenges are our two larger litigation departments, which are accustomed to large printed collections. We've had several "difficult" meetings with these departments to discuss the cost and size of the reporter collections and, also, the problems and advantages of using online sources for this information. The primary resistance comes from the older attorneys who still actively perform research. I confess, I have trouble denying these attorneys the collection of their choice when they perform high-quality, efficient research with those materials.
Training and user comfort are our big issues. For all of the product changes, we have provided training classes, one-on-one, and reference materials in paper and on the Intranet. We have also used Web tools such as West's Find&Print, Lexis-Nexis Practice Group pages and Transparent Authentication for certain materials. We're walking the fine line of providing useful, usable resources for legal research while controlling growth and cost.
What have we accomplished? In the Lexington location, we've reduced the print collection by 30 percent. Most of this was journals that could be found locally or online, and material from securities, tax and environmental, which was replaced by Web subscriptions. Our Louisville office recently agreed to cancel most of the National Reporter system, which eliminated about 50 percent of their print reporters. We continue to move the loose-leaf subscriptions to the Web, which has allowed us to cancel quite a few of the corresponding print. We've maintained zero growth in our smaller offices. With renovation projects in the larger offices during the next two years, we expect to reduce the physical collection even further.
By taking the lead, the library has made progress in reducing the collection size. By doing it over a period of time, it has been easier to make appropriate information choices and acclimate the attorneys to new products. We are finding the balance of meeting the firm's goals and providing our legal staff with good resources.
Rebalancing and Reducing the Collection
This article evolved from a presentation at Ohio Regional Association of Law Libraries, October 2000, called "The Incredible Shrinking Library." The other two librarians on that program had both endured very aggressive downsizing projects - one based on costs reduction, the other based on space. I provided a different view, concentrating on reducing the printed collection by controlled rebalancing.
Several years ago, when many firm librarians were discussing forced downsizing on the listservs, I read their postings but had the attitude that this really didn't affect me. After all, I was a branch librarian; I had plenty of physical space with two large libraries and plenty of attorney support. When we did run short of shelf space, I canceled a few small titles, shifted some materials and sent a few things to off-site storage. The first large sets to go were the ALR's, which we replaced with CD-ROMs. But still, the reporters were growing at such a phenomenal rate, I knew this was a temporary measure. So, I started paying closer attention to those listserv postings!
The turning point for me was a law-lib posting a few years ago during a space-reduction thread. The librarian's points were:
This made perfect sense to me. By then, I was the head librarian for the firm and had introduced the idea of collection rebalancing/reduction to our administration. They appreciated my ideas and supported me. It made them think I was progressive, a team player and willing to work for the financial bottom line.
During the past three years, we've evaluated most of our collection for content and format, concentrating our efforts on one practice group at a time. Although we experimented with CD-ROM, we've moved most of those subscriptions to Web versions, having good success with products from CCH and BNA. These subscriptions were helpful in providing information to attorneys in practice groups that are physically dispersed in multiple offices. These transitions have worked pretty well for practice areas such as corporate, commercial, tax, benefits and environmental. We quickly reduced the number of large loose-leafs in all offices. The transition seemed to be easiest for the smaller offices, where there were never large print collections, anyway.
Our biggest challenges are our two larger litigation departments, which are accustomed to large printed collections. We've had several "difficult" meetings with these departments to discuss the cost and size of the reporter collections and, also, the problems and advantages of using online sources for this information. The primary resistance comes from the older attorneys who still actively perform research. I confess, I have trouble denying these attorneys the collection of their choice when they perform high-quality, efficient research with those materials.
Training and user comfort are our big issues. For all of the product changes, we have provided training classes, one-on-one, and reference materials in paper and on the Intranet. We have also used Web tools such as West's Find&Print, Lexis-Nexis Practice Group pages and Transparent Authentication for certain materials. We're walking the fine line of providing useful, usable resources for legal research while controlling growth and cost.
What have we accomplished? In the Lexington location, we've reduced the print collection by 30 percent. Most of this was journals that could be found locally or online, and material from securities, tax and environmental, which was replaced by Web subscriptions. Our Louisville office recently agreed to cancel most of the National Reporter system, which eliminated about 50 percent of their print reporters. We continue to move the loose-leaf subscriptions to the Web, which has allowed us to cancel quite a few of the corresponding print. We've maintained zero growth in our smaller offices. With renovation projects in the larger offices during the next two years, we expect to reduce the physical collection even further.
By taking the lead, the library has made progress in reducing the collection size. By doing it over a period of time, it has been easier to make appropriate information choices and acclimate the attorneys to new products. We are finding the balance of meeting the firm's goals and providing our legal staff with good resources.
In Case of Emergency, Break Glass
I give up ... I'm tired of trying to explain, justify, and defend what law librarians do. We have been talking for years about how we need to demonstrate to management how we can add value, contribute to the bottom line, and, most recently, deliver returns on our organization's investment. Has anyone outside of our own profession actually heard us? We are still getting laid off, fighting old-fashioned stereotypes and not getting the recognition or pay we deserve. I'd say that our profession is on the verge of extinction! If we are to survive, each one of us must take action - now - before it's too late! It's a dangerous mission, but we all have to do it! To help you on your mission, I've put together a little survival kit for you:
back room It's time for attending annual conference and renewing memberships to various organizations. It crosses my mind that part of keeping backroom staff happy and part of the "library" is to include them in memberships available at the local level and to get them training where needed. But - if I spend the money to pay for a membership, what can I fairly expect in return? In D.C., we are lucky that there are a number of special interest groups in the AALL chapter here that staff can belong to and participate in. Should their continued membership hinge on participation and attendance at various functions? What value is their membership to the firm if they won't attend various programs? I can always offer to give time and money to the idea of getting them involved, but the person must then take the initiative. Perhaps to them just being able to say they are a member of the professional organization is enough. But for me, I want some return on my dollar. What do you think? Another way I am interested in keeping the backroom staff involved is to give them tasks that are in the direct line of contact with the library users. Sometimes this works and sometimes not. Having the technical services librarian fill in at the front desk during one hour around lunch worked great at one firm. She got out of the back area, actually met some of the folks she had spoken to over the phone and felt like she was participating in the library interaction with the firm a lot more. But does everyone who works the backroom want the exposure? What criteria should be used to decide who gets to be the public face of the library? I might hire someone with spiked green hair to do photocopying, but do I want them at the front desk? Perhaps I'm too conformist for that. I want the folks who work with me to buy into the attitude that they are important to the library and the way it runs whether they are the reference staff or the backroom staff.
KeyCite Notes The newest feature available on westlaw.com is KeyCite Notes™, a research tool that integrates the power and functionality of KeyCite with West's headnotes. Researchers can find other sources such as cases, administrative materials, treatises, encyclopedias, law reviews and journals. Researchers can jump from a headnote into one or more citing publications. They can also jump instantly to a KeyCite result that is limited to the cited case, legal issue and publication. Instantaneous access to seminal cases for a particular point of law is now quickly obtained through Most Cited Cases®, available on westlaw.com. Most Cited Cases leverages the power of KeyCite®, Westlaw® linking, Headnotes, Key Numbers and the Custom Digest. Researchers simply click on a Most Cited Cases link on the desired headnote to receive a list of most-cited cases for a particular legal proposition. In addition, KeyCite is now also available in new content areas including the following:
water cooler It's been that kind of day, month, year. You know, the kind where you are so busy with work, that it's easy to forget you are part of a larger community, a professional library community. It seems that I've had a hard time remembering that since I moved to Louisville. There is no local law librarian community that meets on a regular basis, and I'm one of a few members of SLA, as opposed to AALL. I'm also the new kid on the block, so I'm still learning my way. It's times like these when you need a lunch meeting with people who do what you do every day to share horror stories and accomplishments. The understanding and camaraderie in a community such as that is irreplaceable. The stress relief provided by this sharing is unimaginable. Professionalism and enthusiasm blossom in a community of sharing. It seems your energy level stays high and your activism grows. You make valuable connections that pay off by the free flow of sharing when a colleague is in need. The thing about peer relations is that if you don't challenge yourself or those around you, no one else will. If no one else is challenging their level of activism in the professional community or even within their own environment, the chances are great that the status quo remains. You and your peers focus on the work in front of you and forget to look outside your box to meet new challenges. This can lead to job boredom and a stagnant professionalism that leave you complacent. You resemble the old but reliable reference volume that everyone likes having but doesn't miss if it's gone. If you and your peers don't challenge one another and the people within your work environment with what can be done, then you may not get a chance to do what should be done. Keep your peer relations open and challenging and your professionalism will grow. Along with the professionalism will be newfound respect from your peers and those non peers at your job.
NET RESULTS Generic Top-Level Domains as of November 1999
COM (commercial)
Generic Top-Level Domain Changes as of March 2001 Network Solutions,Inc. and ICANN reached an agreement where Network Solutions, Inc. will remain in charge of current commercial Web addresses for at least four more years. ICANN will receive $1.25 million from Network Solutions and can now focus on adding new TLD addresses. ICANN has a list of seven new TLD proposals selected as of its meeting on November 16, 2000. The new TLDs and their purposes are listed below.
See ICANN's press release for additional details. The new TLDs are not expected to be operational until at least the second quarter of 2001.
.TV Top-Level Domain Name
The nation of Tuvalu sold their TLD to a company called dotTV for the sum of $4 million ($ U.S.) per year over the next 10 years. There are approximately 10,000 citizens of the island of Tuvalu. Network Solutions, Inc. is now selling domain names with the .tv TLD.
International Corner
Ruth Bird has accepted a newly created position at Phillips Fox as National Precedents Manager, and left the University of Melbourne Law Library late in March. She has passed on responsibility for writing this column to a group of three law librarians in Melbourne, and you will be hearing from each of us, in turn, in the coming months.
Our newspapers at the moment are filled with stories of how the value of the Australian dollar continues to fall relative to the U.S. dollar. In April last year, the dollar fell below 60 cents for the first time. Stories with headlines such as "Fears mount as dollar hits another low" (The Age, 12 April 200) and "Australian peso" sliding to record low (The Age, 21 May 2000) documented the rapid loss in value of the Australian dollar. From being worth 66.5 cents in January 2000, the dollar has continued its downward spiral. In late March 2001, the dollar reached another all-time low of 48.80 cents relative to the US dollar.
Whilst this is good news for Australian exporters who are in a much stronger position to trade in international markets (and good news if you enjoy Australian wines!), it is bad news for those of us trying to acquire U.S. materials for our libraries. Libraries seem to spend a good deal of their budget on information technology hardware and software, and, once again, the buying power has been rapidly eroded. It is indeed a gloomy environment to be operating in, and we have all been forced to review our holdings of U.S. materials!
Melbourne will be hosting the Ninth Special, Health & Law Libraries conference from 26-29 August 2001. This biennial conference has as its theme "Rivers of Knowledge" and the program committee have been busy developing a program that has appeal to special librarians in general, and health and law librarians in particular. The Web site at http://www.alia.org.au/conferences/shllc/2001/ is being regularly updated as details of the program are finalised.
How do you keep those pages of Internet sites current and focused? Are you meeting the needs of your users or are you simply providing a "mixed bag" of links, in the hope that there is something there for everyone? An interesting project known as Weblaw is starting to take shape in Australia. The aim of this project is to produce quality Web pages covering resources in specific subject areas. The topics covered to date include intellectual property law, corporations law, human rights law, media and telecommunications law and so far 21 topics have been covered. Participating organisations take responsibility for a subject area, and provide annotated links to quality-assessed resources in this area. Each organisation maintains their own legal subject guide page(s), thus spreading the tasks of providing focused resources amongst a range of people. The project has been managed by the Law and Justice Foundation of NSW. La Trobe University's contribution to the project is the Health Law page (http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/reference/dw-healthweblaw.html), and a full list of all subjects covered is available from the Law and Justice Foundation of New South Wales (http://www.lawfoundation.net.au/olap/pathways/weblawou.html). The project team has recently received a $100,000 Australian Research Council Research Equipment and Infrastructure Funding
(REIF) grant to further develop the project.
International Corner
Once again, law librarians from all across Canada met recently to embark on their primary continuing legal education opportunity - the annual Canadian Association of Law Libraries/Association Canadienne des Bibliotheques de Droit conference http://www.callacbd.ca/call.html. This year, the Annual General Meeting and conference was held in London, Ontario (the Garden City).
From May 27 through May 30, 2001, approximately 350 law librarians from Whitehorse (Yukon Territory) to British Columbia, the Prairies, Iqaluit (Nunavut) through Ontario and Quebec to Nova Scotia and the Atlantic Provinces gathered to schmooze, catch up with colleagues, meet new friends, participate in workshops, work with their colleagues on committees and in their Special Interest Groups and listen to experts in various fields of law.
For SLA Legal Division colleagues, there is a good deal that happened that will appeal to your educational needs. I recommend you look at the conference Web site at:
http://www.uwo.ca/law/call2001/index.html for papers to be posted.
This year's theme, "Flexing the Right Muscle," had sports and health law as the underlying message. The three plenary sessions: Pumping Iron 3: The Librarians, or The Best of the Web for Researching Foreign and International Law; The Medical Law Workout: The Exponential Growth of Medical Knowledge and the Legal Implications; and Who or What is a Bloomberg?: Beefing Up Your Knowledge of Business Sources for Law Librarians all supported this theme.
In addition to the above, there were very informative sessions on Digital Copyright Issues; Electronic Commerce & Canadian Privacy Issues; Legislation on the Web: Who, What, Where, How, and How Much?; CANLII: Panacea or Pandora's Box?; and Merger 101.
It constantly amazes and impresses me how hard our Association's members work! Even though there were many social activities - a grand opening reception at the Covent Garden Market, a brewery tour, a pub night and a wonderful closing banquet at the Great Hall at the University of Western Ontario - over 20 official meetings of Special Interest Groups and Committees were held as well as the always interesting Annual General Meeting (which, though totaling five hours and spread over the three days, is attended by all).
Next year, the Annual Conference will be held in Victoria, British Columbia, May 26 through 29, 2002. I encourage Legal Division members to attend if you can swing it. I assure you it will be another fruitful and fun(!) time.
Suzan is a Past President of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries / Association Canadienne des bibliotheques de droit.
International Corner
I am bursting with news this time, but I will start with the personal, and therefore obviously the most enjoyable. I have been networking like mad and made a very useful contact. I hope she will find me useful as well. I met for lunch in mid-March with Donna Tuke Heroy, publisher and editor of Alert Publications. Now, you on the other side of the Atlantic are probably familiar with the Alert Publications, particularly the Legal Information Alert, but they are new to me and to the colleagues whom Donna and I joined for lunch. Of particular interest to me was the regular Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw column. I find it useful. What a nice way to pit them head-to-head. The lunch too was very enjoyable, with excellent wine and very pleasant conversation. I shall definitely be keeping in touch with Donna and hope to see her in San Antonio.
Now, on to the rest of my news ...
The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), a strategic advisory body that promotes the application and use of information systems and information technology in Higher and Further education in the UK, has funded the development of a pilot Legal Information Service (LIS). The new LIS is based at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland and its main aim will be to bring together legal references and resources relating to the use of information technology. The backbone of the LIS will be its Web site, which in addition to the legal information and resources will also provide relevant legal news, links to useful sites and discussion lists. However, the service does not purport to give professional legal advice, as that is not its remit.
Our own Elaine Blaxter, past Chairperson of BIALL with whom the Legal Division has a formal liaison, will be working at the LIS on a part-time basis. Visit the holding page for the pilot Web site at www.jisc.ac.uk/legal/.
Staying on matters legal, on 14 February the European Parliament adopted the EU Copyright Directive. This directive has far-reaching implications for all, from large European companies to individual citizens. It is one of the Information Society Directives, along with the E-Commerce Directive, and together they are aimed at encouraging the development of the European Information Society. The adoption of the directive means that member states of the EU will accede to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Copyright Treaty of 1996, which brings international copyright law into the digital age.
Also, on 30 January, the office of the Data Protection Commissioner in the UK became known as the Office of the Information Commissioner. As well as continuing to enforce the 1998 Data Protection Act, it is now also responsible for Freedom of Information, which as I mentioned last time has now finally been enacted in UK legislation.
On 31 March 2002, the CCTA (part of the Office of Government Commerce), which runs the open.gov.uk Web site, will stop hosting local and central government websites, as it will be abolished. This is part of the rationalisation of the activities of the Office of Government Commerce. The open.gov.uk Web site will therefore close, but the services it hosted will be available on the new UKonline.gov.uk when it becomes live.
New services launched recently include the European Commission's Press Room Web site. This gives access to breaking headline news from the Commission, as well as the latest press releases, and the Europe by Satellite (EbS) service, which provides live transmissions of press briefings, European parliament sessions and other events (http://europa.eu.int/comm/press_room/index_en.cfm).
Lawtel has also enhanced its transcript service by offering access to full-text court transcripts online. They previously only offered summaries; full-text transcripts had to be ordered for delivery by e-mail, fax or post.
To add to the Butterworths Direct suite of products, Electronic Business Law, EBLDirect, has been launched to cover e-commerce law. It provides news on e-commerce issues, national and international legislation overviews and analysis, plus case law reports and a glossary of terms (www.ebldirect.com).
And now to something not quite legal - Oops, didn't mean it like that!! A thousand apologies!! The truly pukka British Library has launched its online public catalogue at http://blpc.bl.uk/. The British Library Public Catalogue (BLPC) provides simple and advanced searching and ordering of documents from the British Library's vast collections. The idea is that one can search and, if necessary, order material in order to reduce waiting times at visits to the library. The site is sponsored by Amazon, and there has been a healthy exchange on lis-link as to whether the British Library has sold its soul to the devil, so to speak. My own personal opinion is that if by seeking a sponsor, the British Library can provide a free service that obviously needs resourcing to continue, then so be it. I thought there was a word for it ... Entrepreneurial?
I said at the beginning I was bursting with news. Hope you are not disappointed. Had to get it all in, as it's probably the last column before the conference. If you want to continue the discussion in San Antonio ...
Hi! Welcome to Spring and to your Member News column. This is the last member news column before the San Antonio conference and I hope lots of you have news that you can share in person there. Meantime ...
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Carol Furnish, Assistant Director for Instruction & Outreach Services at Northern Kentucky University Chase College of Law Library (and Legal Division Treasurer), has been promoted from Associate Professor to Professor of Library Services effective July 2001.
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Bridget MacMillan is the new Librarian Relations Consultant in Illinois and Wisconsin for Lexis-Nexis. This is a new position; Bridget joins Priscilla Stultz on the Chicago-based Librarian Relations Group staff. Bridget can be reached as follows:
Bridget MacMillan, Librarian Relations Consultant
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Ruth Bird, formerly of the University of Melbourne, has accepted a position at Phillips Fox as National Precedents Manager. Ruth has been writing the "Notes from Down Under" in this newsletter, and we thank her for her contributions and wish her well in her new position.
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LaJean Humphries, Librarian, Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt, and Angela Hodge of Perkins Coie presented "Internet Strategies for the Paralegal in Oregon" to about 40 paralegals, attorneys and others on March 21, 2001, in Portland. The seminar was sponsored by the Institute for Paralegal Education (National Institute of Business). The seminar covered an introduction to the information superhighway, strategic use of the WWW, using the Internet for substantive legal research, where and how to find specific legal information, other Internet resources for the paralegal and how to become your firm's vital link to cyberspace.
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Joan M. Ogden, Law Librarian of McGuireWoods LLP in Chicago, recently had an article published on the new Martindale-Hubbell "LegalBiz Online" Web site. The article "Librarians Can Add to the Bottom Line in Many Ways," is at http://www.martindale.com/xp/Martindale/Professional_Resources/LegalBiz_Online/Law_Library/00_12_2.xml.
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John J. DiGilio, Legal & Business Research Librarian/Instructor at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, LLP in Pittsburgh, has been appointed as a visiting lecturer to Carlow College in Pittsburgh. He is teaching a class titled "Legal Aspects of Business" in the college's adult program.
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Please send your contributions to me at any time:
Karen Krupka
I look forward to seeing lots of you at the Annual Conference!
Legal Division Treasurer's Report
September 1, 2000 to February 28, 2001
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