| FDLP MODERNIZATION ACT OF 2018 WOULD ENSURE GREATER ACCESS TO GOVERNMENT INFORMATION | The April 2018 AALL Washington EBulletin, forwarded by Joel Fishman, reviews the FLP Modernization Act of 2018 and provides a section-by-section analysis of the bill as well as information on how the GPO, Copyright Office, Congressional Research Service, and Library of Congress budgets will fare under the Omnibus spending bill.
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| Judge Declares Some PACER Fees Illegal but Does Not Go Far Enough | On March 31, 2018, Judge Huvelle of the US District Court for the District of Columbia rules that approximately $200 million will likely be returned to people who paid PACER fees from 2010 to 2016. The author of the linked blog post believes that this is a first step towards determining that PACER fees are prohibitively expensive and/or unconstitutional – though Judge Huvelle does not approach that ideological decision in the opinion.
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| Can Law Librarian/Vendors Relations Ever Be a Win-Win Relationship Again? | In a 3 Geeks and a Law Blog post forwarded by Joel Fishman (and linked within the email), the current AALL president muses on the current state of the relationship between “legal information providers (vendors) and legal information professionals (law librarians)” and how it’s going to change in the future.
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| Massive restructuring at the ABA will rehouse entities under 9 centers | An announcement from the executive director of the ABA details a “major restructuring of the organization,” complete with the creation of nine new Centers falling under one of the four main goals of the ABA umbrella: “serving members; improving the profession; eliminating bias and enhancing diversity; and advancing the rule of law.” Read the article for a full list of the names and aims of the new Centers.
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| Why RSS Still Beats Facebook and Twitter for Tracking News | RSS hasn’t gone away; according to a beSpacific link to a Gizmodo article, it’s “faster, more efficient, and you won’t have to worry as much about accidentally leaking your news reading habit to all your Facebook friends.”
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| “The Board will be gathering more facts in order to determine how to effectively respond” to LexisNexis’ tying ultimatum | Read this post on the Law Librarian Blog for information on “recent LexisNexis tie-in attempts”: “the Company refuses to sell print or ancillary products in retaliation for cancelling Lexis Advance as if this may be a new company sales policy.”
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| CRS – Sexual Harassment and Title VII: Selected Legal Issues | The CRS report, linked through beSpacific, to examine Supreme Court precedent addressing Title VII sexual harassment claims, the statutory interpretation and rationales reflected in these decisions, and examples of lower federal court decisions applying this precedent. The report also discusses various types of harassment recognized by the Supreme Court (such as “hostile work environment,” quid pro quo, constructive discharge, and same-sex harassment) as well as sexual harassment in the context of retaliation.
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| CRS – Statutory Interpretation: Theories, Tools, and Trends | A link on beSpacific to a CRS paper explaining the tools judges use to gather evidence of statutory meaning.
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| An email forwarded by Cindy Cicco explains House Bill 1937: a proposal to divert court filing fees from funding the Jenkins Law Library to the First Judicial District’s general fund. The Philadelphia Bar Association is considering a resolution in support of this legislation. The message provides additional information to help concerned citizens oppose the Philadelphia Bar Associations potential resolution and the House Bill.
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| 4 Ways to Deal With a Toxic Coworker | If you’re having a rough day (or if someone in particular is really getting on your nerves), take a look at this Harvard Business Review study to identify toxic team members and come up with constructive ways to deal with him/her.
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| GPO COMPLETES DIGITIZING ALL ISSUES OF THE FEDERAL REGISTER |
In an April 11, 2018 Press Release, the U.S. Government Publishing Office announced it, along with the National Archives’ Office of the Federal Register have “digitized every issue of the Federal Register, dating back to the first one published in 1936. A total of 14,587 individual issues, which is nearly two million pages, has been digitized.” See the email forwarded by Joel Fishman for an attachment of the Press Release and the URL for the new home of the digitized works.
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| This is the new Gmail design | Check out the new Gmail redesign before its implemented!
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| House Committee Markups: Manual of Procedures and Procedural Strategies | A recently released CRS report “examines procedures and strategy related to committee markups and provides sample procedural scripts.”
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| GOODBYE FDSYS, HELLO GOVINFO | This blog post notes (with unanticipated gusto, I might add) that sometime in late 2018, Fdsys will be officially and formally replaced by Govinfo. Read the full post to learn the differences and nuances between the two, and get ready for the switch.
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| New on LLRX – Can Legal Research Be Taught? Part 3: Pushing Ourselves Further | Legal research experts conclude “to be the experts in legal research we must also be leaders in developing knowledge in our field, furthering the understanding of the legal domain and of our own place within it.”
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| Papers of Benjamin Franklin Now Online | In an email forwarded by Joel Fishman, Benjamin Franklin’s papers are now posted online. Visit the Library of Congress’ website to peruse at your leisure!
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| First Draft and fake news | Forwarded by Joel Fishman, this email links to a project from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center; it includes a PDF download of A Field Guide to Fake News and Other Information Disorders and a free online course to help readers better identify misinformation.
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| Navigating through Wikipedia articles on desktop just got a lot easier | The new “page previews” feature allows users to get a quick grasp of what’s behind a link without committing to a click-through.
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| Five Books To Help You Be More Productive And Organized | Tips, tricks, and newfangled apps only go so far. For more detailed info on organization and productivity, check out the books listed in this Fast Company article.
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| Points of Law Wins 2018 AALL New Product Award | Excerpted from the beSpacific blog post: “The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) has named Points of Law as its 2018 New Product Award winner. Introduced in 2016 using artificial intelligence and machine learning to assist in legal research, Points of Law is a product of Bloomberg Law. Points of Law allows users to quickly identify and analyze language in a judicial opinion. The product adds a layer of automated indexing to its 1 3 million—and counting—library of published and unpublished state and federal court opinions to provide users with a decision’s legal points and identify legal precedents. In addition, researchers can conduct keyword searches across all case law or specific jurisdictions within the content library.” |
| Library of Congress Posts U.S. Supreme Court Cases collection | The Library of Congress has posted “more than 225 years of decisions” and this beSpacific blog post also links to other helpful sites where a reader can translate citations from a nominative reporter to a volume of the U.S. Report.
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Western Pennsylvania Law Library Association 