| New Mexico Law School Librarians’ Fight For Faculty Status And Equal Voting Rights | A recent TaxProf Blog post highlights a new Law Library Journal article, published by AALL. “Based on research of over sixty years of archival records, this article presents a case study of the University of New Mexico School of Law librarians’ fight for respect, professional recognition, faculty status, and voting rights in the face of persistent opposition from law school administrators, faculty, and head librarians.” It poignantly acknowledges the “. . . challenges law librarians have confronted as they have sought to obtain rights and privileges within their institutions that their academic credentials and professional responsibilities warrant.”
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| Is Wikipedia A Reliable Legal Authority? (2018 Update) | The answer, as any good lawyer would tell you, is “it depends.” But links from a beSpacific post to articles on Associates Mind and the Chronicle of Higher education provide a more nuanced analysis!
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| The Citeable Opinion: A Quantitative Analysis of the Style and Impact of Judicial Decision | In a research paper available for download on SSRN, and linked in this beSpacific post, Nina Varsava provides a quantitative analysis judicial legal writing style and the “legal impact or precedential power.” Using regression analyses, Varsava suggests “. . . that readily measurable elements of style have strong associations with a decision’s precedential power.”
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| WPLLA member Joel Fishman forwarded an email on August 8, 2018 from the Legal Office Guru. The post provides multiple helpful links on the basics of the relatively new Microsoft Word function, Styles. Check the email for more info!
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| AALL 2018 Recap: 25 Free Technologies for Law Libraries: Second Edition | Avery Le (Emory University School of Law) and Eliza Fink (University of Tennessee College of Law) presented the top 25 free technologies they use, divided into three categories (instructional, practical, and cost). The list includes: – KnightLab (to make timelines or side-frame comparisons), – YouCanBook.me (appointment scheduler), – SlickPie (accounting software), – and our old favorite, Grammarly (corrects grammatical mistakes). Check out the blog post for the full list! |
| Are Targeted Ads Stalking You? Here’s How to Make Them Stop | Online ads have become “stalker ads,” as the tech piece from the New York Times claims. Ads are targeted and persistent. They use web cookies to collect information about our browsing activities; the data is compiled to target us across web-connected devices. This raises a host of privacy concerns. For ways to “sidestep” targeting ads, clear your cookies periodically and follow the rest of the suggestions in the article.
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| Automatically Create Website Citations For a Bibliography With This Chrome Extension | LifeHacker (a great website; check it out if you’re not already a regular) reviews Cite This For Me. This Chrome extension “. . . automatically creates website citations in APA, MLA, Chicago, or Harvard style with a quick click on its icon on your browser’s toolbar.”
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| New Superintendent of Documents Classification Guidelines | “Newly-revised Classification Guidelines for the Superintendent of Documents (SuDocs) classification system are now available.” Updates include: – updated SuDocs link to Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (“CGP”) catalog records, – new Table of Contents structure, – printer-friendly format, – and more. If you like what you see, or if you have any comments, questions, or concerns, send emails to Caroline Hassler or Fang Gao. |
| The Art and Science of Lawyering: Law 3.0 | Law Technology Today, in a post highlighted by beSpacific, laments that “[l]egal organizations have a well-deserved reputation for using technology and implementing business processes ineffectively at scale.” The issues can be traced back to “partner-focused business entities.” Read on for more info!
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| New CRS Reports – Judge Kavanaugh’s Jurisprudence, Supreme Court Nomination, Records, Papers and Decision | beSpacific links to five distinct articles analyzing not only the jurisprudence of Supreme Court Justice-nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh but also judicial ethics, fact-finding, and criminal sentencing. Click through each link for more detailed information.
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| Hardly living on a UC librarian salary | The University of California’s librarians’ union (UC-AFT) and the university system are currently in the middle of contract negotiations. This op-ed details some of the struggles UC librarians live with as their salaries seemingly shrink in the face of rising cost-of-living expenses in some of the most expensive areas of the country.
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Western Pennsylvania Law Library Association
A chapter of the American Association of Law Libraries.
Western Pennsylvania Law Library Association 