by Mary Whisner
This post has been adapted from a post on the Trial Ad (and other) Notes blog.
It’s tough enough to handle litigation when you’re a lawyer, but it’s incredibly stressful and daunting when you don’t.
CBC’s Day Six has a 15-minute story on self-represented litigants (May 18, 2013). It begins with a moving interview of middle-class Vancouver woman who ran out of money for her lawyer about five months and $50,000 into her case. She’s well-spoken and well-educated (master’s degree) and was still overwhelmed.
Next the host interviews Julie Macfarlane, a law professor who conducted a study of unrepresented litigants in three provinces (BC, Alberta, Ontario). The report: Julie Macfarlane, The National Self-Represented Litigants Project: Identifying and Meeting the Needs of Self-Represented Litigants: Final Report (May 2013). One of the researchers on the report was a librarian who surveyed the court materials available to self-represented litigants.
I have just scrolled through the report quickly, but it looks very interesting. Canadians and the Canadian court system are similar enough to US folks and the US legal system that the report is very relevant to our access-to-justice issues.
Julie Macfarlane teaches law at the University of Windsor. Her faculty bio is here.
by Tal Noznisky
The San Francisco Law Library is facing a less than desirable relocation. Scheduled for eviction from its current location, it has stayed put by challenging the legal grounds of the city’s plan. Last month, however, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance subcommittee approved a decision to grant the library 20,000 square feet, significantly less than the 30,000—35,000 requested.
According to San Francisco’s City Charter, the library must be allotted adequate space for its collection of 250,000 books. All of those books and print materials, argued the library and its supporters, are essential, costly, and potentially unattainable.
The Law Library currently lives at the War Veterans Memorial Building, across the street from City Hall. It landed there almost 20 years ago as a temporary arrangement. The Memorial Building location only has 14,310 sq. ft. Two-thirds of the library’s collection must be stored in a nearby basement facility. When the city secured funds to renovate the Memorial Building in 2010, finding a sustainable storage and location solution became urgent.The Law Library is currently awaiting a judge’s decision on whether it may remain at its current location until some significant issues are permanently resolved. Though the city-approved 20,000 sq. ft. would seem like an improvement, Jon Streeter, another supportive voice from San Francisco’s legal community, disagrees. “It is not a matter of a stack of old dusty books being warehoused somewhere,” he said, “It is a matter of providing basic access to the courthouse to the public.”
by Grace Feldman
Public access to legal materials, digitization and authentication of legal materials, and budget cuts are frequent topics covered in conferences, literature and blogs like this one. These interrelated issues have been discussed and debated ad nauseum, so when Hollee Schwartz Temple’s Are Digitization and Budget Cuts Compromising History? was published in the ABA Journal, the article may have looked like one you already read several times. While some of the stories were familiar, Temple’s coverage of LLMC’s preserved print collection in salt mines 650 feet below ground gave a whole new meaning to the expression, “back to the salt mines.”
Recognizing debates over public access, digitization, authentication and budget cuts will continue indefinitely, for a moment let’s appreciate the ingenuity these problems have inspired: preservation in salt mines, UELMA, collaboration (like that between California and LLMC to digitize all of the state’s session laws), etc.
Okay, now back to the salt mines… really.
by Anna L. Endter
This post has been reposted on the Gallagher Law Library blog
Gary Somerset of the Government Printing Office reports that FDsys has achieved 500 million retrievals:
The U.S. Government Printing Office’s (GPO) Federal Digital System (FDsys) has achieved the milestone of 500 million document retrievals. FDsys is a one-stop site for authentic, published information on the three branches of the Federal Government. Retrievals are measured by the number of times content is viewed or downloaded from FDsys. GPO launched FDsys in January 2009 and since that time it has expanded to include 800 thousand searchable titles. Examples of content found on FDsys include: the post-President Kennedy’s assassination tape recordings, President Nixon’s Watergate grand jury testimony, the Budget of the U.S. Government, the Congressional Record, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, and congressional bills, hearings, and reports. GPO is continually adding content and working with agencies on new collection opportunities.
Don’t overlook FDsys when researching federal material. There are a few ways to search FDsys (search box, browsing, by citation, etc.) and the underlying documents are authentic and free.
by Tal Noznisky
Last March, Canadian libraries got caught in a quick swell of fear and worry over the freedom of expression. The Library and Archives Canada (“LAC”), employer of public service librarians, served their staff with a new set of professional guidelines. Many who commented on the new rules, entitled “Code of Conduct: Values and Ethics” reviled it. Boing Boing’s (and former Canadian library-worker) Cory Doctorow tagged it “censorship” and “surveillance.” Library Journal’s Annoyed Librarian called it totalitarian. What happened?
National Archives of Canada
Continue reading 'Library and Archives Canada vs. Librarians and Archivists in Canada'»
by Grace Feldman
This post has been adapted from a post on the Gallagher Law Library blog.
Do you remember the hilarious “Friends” episode where Joey wants to buy an encyclopedia set but can only afford to buy one volume, so he chooses the “V” volume and learns everything beginning with the letter “V”? With an encyclopedia, he became an unstoppable force of interesting facts, beginning with the letter “V”!
Continue reading 'The Wonderful World of Online Encyclopedias'»
Washington: 2010 Population and Housing Unit Counts
by Grace Feldman
Did you know that the first U.S. Census in 1790 counted a population of 3.9 million (including slaves but not Native Americans), and the recent 2010 census counted over 308 million people! The Decennial Census is a fantastic resource and there are probably about 308 millions reasons why.
Continue reading 'Washington: 2010 Population and Housing Unit Counts'»
by Tal Noznisky
Library-publisher relations reappeared slightly in the tech news circuit last week. The Journal of Library Administration’s editorial board resigned amid a stalemate with their publisher, Taylor and Francis, over licensing terms. Tech-happy blogs inferred hacktivist intent behind the board’s decision. They vilified T&F and praised JLA’s editors as open access heroes. A thin parallel to Aaron Schwartz was also drawn into the narrative.
Continue reading 'A Game of Terms'»
by Tal Noznisky
In her recent AALL Spectrum article “Cheaper Online? Our library’s gradual move to all electronic,” LaJean Humphries describes what looks like the road ahead for many libraries. Her library at Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt in downtown Portland had to drastically downsize their print collection and go online as much as possible. Deselection and divestment was easy. Relocating the remaining print resources was almost as easy. The difficulty is in the intangible stuff of the Internet. I went to Portland last week, where LaJean was nice enough to fill me on the web-ward transition’s outlook and prospects.
In her article, she concludes that the migration is incomplete. As she explained it to me, three issues stand in the way. The first is access. The library crew made early leeway there by updating their web catalog by spotlighting their digital resources and recasting ebooks’ URLs with plain, descriptive English. Every publisher, however, requires a more or less convoluted way of accessing their ebooks. LaJean expects to seal a deal with Lexis in the next few months that will provide streamlined access to a fairly consummate digital collection. But it won’t simplify resource delivery through OverDrive, or support maintenance of historical materials. Continue reading 'Printless in Portland?'»
by Philippe Cloutier
A great many things are bubbling for AALL. The PLL Summit’s registration is open: SOS: Shaping our Success as is the Conference of Newer Law Librarians (CONELL). I highly recommend CONELL not only for the peer-to-peer networking, mentoring, and scheduled touring; but also for the sheer fun!
Happy CONELL faces
Continue reading 'AALL Announcements'»
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