Criminal Law Library Blog

David Badertscher

"Why we need to move from thinking about Web pages to thinking about the information on those pages."

http://www.gcn.com/blogs/tech/45477.html

The above quote and link refer to a recent posting by Joab Jackson in which he discusses an idea recently put forward in a posting by the "father of the web" Sir Berners Lee. Berners Lee writes "The net links computers, the web links documents...now people are making another mental move. There is a realization now, its not the documents, its the things they are about which is important." He is proposing that we think to the web as not a www (World Wide Web) but as a GGG (Giant Global Graph). As I understand it, he believes that the www model places too much emphasis just on documents themselves, not enough emphasis on specific information or content within documents on the web and is proposing a different model (GGG) as a possible way of addressing these concerns.

In his own posting referenced above, Joab Jackson interprets Berners Lee's idea as ..."in other words, with the Web we think of web sites, but we really need to move toward thinking about specific information we are trying to retrieve from the Web." Joab also quotes Dr. James Hendler a professor of computer and cognitive science at the Rensslear Polytechnic Institute who who is familiar with Berners Lee's thinking. According to Dr. Hendler, "as we seek more on the spot information with our mobile devices, we increasingly need a more nuanced way of retrieving that information...For instance if we just need an address, we don't need an entire Web page, or database, that contains that addressd. We just need the address itself."

Reading through this material and the Berners Lee post, I was struck by the thought that librarians, who have become highly dependant on the web in their work as information specialists, have long been concerned about these and related issues and are also working to resolve them . As information of all types, both accurate and inaccurate, becomes increasingly accessible, librarians too have been concerned about the need for more nuanced methods of not only finding specific information but determining if that information is both reliable and meets the needs of their patrons. There is a need for real collaboration if the semantic web and other ideas being put forward by Tim Berners Lee and others to ensure that the information needs of society are truly addressed as the web continues to evolve.

Although the idea of changing the web from WWW to GGG is certainly provocative and perhaps beneficial in providing a clearer description of its evolving functions, it is the effective resolution of issues raised by SirTim Berners Lee and others in this discussion that are of paramount importance, regardless of what naming conventions are eventually adopted. Looking ahead, concerns about content within documents on the web will become progressively more urgent.

Those concerns include issues related to accuracy, accessibility, reliabiality, authenticity, and in terms of some legal information, whether the documents containig the information are official or unofficial. These are among the areas where librarians can be especially helpful in moving the web forward.

As many of you already know, significant changes, both stylistic and substantive, are being made to the federal judicial procedure and rules. We understand these changes will become effective on December 1.

Recently we have received some e-mails from the publisher Thomson West alerting us to the changes and providing a link to more substantive discussion and a video on their website. For your convenience we are reproducing two of the e-mails here. The first e-mail was sent of November 14 and the second on November 30.

First e-mail:

Dear Colleagues,

In response to the discussion about the far-reaching changes to the Federal Civil Rules of Procedure, we have posted a 5 minute video featuring the authors of the Federal Civil Rules Handbook. The authors, Steven Baicker-McKee and Professor William Janssen, discuss the dramatic amendments to the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure, and why every major rule and form is changing on December 1, 2007. The video can be found under the "What's New for Law Librarians" section at: www.west.thomson.com/librarian.

The changes have mostly come about as a result of a comprehensive overhaul by a federal style committee. There are stylistic and substantive changes, and all the forms have changed as well.

Thomson West has published the Federal Civil Rules Handbook just in time for the coming rule changes. All rule changes will be in this volume, along with all the new forms, and a great deal of annotated commentary. There will also be a "roadmap" at the end of each rule indicating the Style Project changes and the non-stylistic (substantive) changes to the rules.

We hope this information will be helpful to you.

Second e-mail:

Dear Colleagues,

Additional documentation has been added to the Librarian Relations Web site regarding the upcoming Rules changes. Please see http://west.thomson.com/librarian for a chart comparing the features of Federal Civil Judicial Procedure and Rules, 2007 Revised Ed., with those of the Federal Civil Rules Handbook 2008, plus an FAQ about the rules amendment process. You may also access in-depth information about the Handbook at this site.

Source Findlaw Constitutional Law Case Summaries:

To view these cases distributed by Findlaw.com you must first sign in to Findlaw.com. "Findlaw summaries [may] include opoinions that have not yet been released for publication and may be subject to modification, correction or withdrawl. Summaries were prepared by Findlaw.

U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, November 20, 2007

Amidon v. Student Ass'n of the State Univ. of N.Y. at Albany, No. 05-6623, 05-6664, 06-0117
Defendant Student Association violated the First Amendment by using an advisory student referendum to determine how to allocate funds from a mandatory student activity fee among student organizations. Read more...

U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, November 20, 2007
Ponce v. Socorro Indep. Sch. Dist., No. 06-50709

Student speech that threatens a Columbine-style attack on a school is not protected by the First Amendment, because such speech poses a direct threat to the physical safety of the school population. Read more...

U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, November 19, 2007
Joelner v. Village of Washington Park, No. 06-2901, 06-3252

In a dispute over the constitutionality of defendant-village's ordinance prospectively banning alcohol in strip clubs opened in the future, but permanently exempting existing clubs from the ban, a ruling striking the ordinance down as facially unconstitutional and requiring the village to award plaintiff licenses is affirmed where the district court did not clearly err in finding that the village passed the ordinance at issue for an impermissible purpose, as it was "predominantly motivated by concerns about revenue and/or political patronage." Read more...

U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, November 20, 2007
Fisher v. City of San Jose, No. 04-16095

In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action claiming constitutional violations stemming from a twelve-hour standoff at plaintiff's apartment between him and a large number of police officers, and his subsequent arrest, grant of judgment as a matter of law against the city on plaintiff's warrantless arrest claim is affirmed as a failure to obtain a warrant under the circumstances of the case constituted a constitutional violation as a matter of law. (Substituted opinion) Read more...

New York Court of Appeals, November 19, 2007

Property Clerk of the Police Dep't of the City of New York v. Harris, No. No. 138
The N.Y.P.D. is not required to prove at a post-seizure retention hearing that the co-owner of a seized vehicle is not an "innocent owner" when trying to impound a vehicle during the pendency of a civil forfeiture proceeding. However, due process does require that an innocent co-owner be given an opportunity to demonstrate that his/her present possessory interest in a seized vehicle outweighs the City's interest in continuing impoundment. Read more...

California Appellate Districts, November 20, 2007
Garretson v. Post, No. E041858

In action for wrongful foreclosure arising from purchase of real property, denial of defendant's anti-SLAPP motion is affirmed as nonjudicial foreclosure proceedings, including the notice of foreclosure, are not constitutionally protected activity under the anti-SLAPP statute. Read more...

To see the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division First Department decisions (including index) released on November 29, 2007, click on the links below:

Index of Opinions 11-29-07

Slip Opinions 11-29-07

JP Morgan Chase v. Motorola Inc.

To see the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division First Department decisions (including index) released on November 27, 2007, click on the links below:

Index of Opinions

Slip Opinions 11-27-07

Estate of Sylvia Lawrence

The following is an excerpt from the 4th Amendment.com blog:

"In what is a significant border search case from the Second Circuit, five men attended an Islamic conference in Toronto, and Homeland Security received intelligence information that people attending the conference had potential terrorist connections. So, the government watched for any coming into the U.S. near Toronto. The plaintiffs crossed at Buffalo and, without any individualized suspicion (and without any criminal history), they were subjected to Customs treatment expected for a suspected terrorist: forced patdowns and fingerprinting, photographing, and detention and questioning for up to six hours. After it was determined that they were not a threat, they were released and permitted entry, and their fingerprints and photographs were later purged. They sued, inter alia, under the First and Fourth Amendment. The Second Circuit held that, assuming the facts stated by the plaintiffs were true, the government had plenary authority at the border, and it was permissible based on the intelligence the government received"

Tabbaa v. Chertoff, 06-0119-cv, 2d Cir.

The following is from an article by Margaret Locher, published in the November 26, 2007 issue of CIO Insider. We especially call your attention to item 2 where she discusses the importance and usefulness of blogs in research:
________________________

Professional librarians and researchers will tell you that the Web has many unexplored opportunities for finding more information on business topics. Pursue these six techniques to improve your research results:

1. Use Search Engines and Wikipedia to Find Quality Research Sources
Search engines are a good place to begin. It makes sense to start at search sites like Google, Yahoo and Ask.com, and to see if there’s an article on Wikipedia. But use them to carry you to better places.

“Wikipedia itself is very hit or miss,” says Ann Cullen, an adjunct professor at Simmons College’s library science program and curriculum services librarian at Harvard Business School's Baker Library. “I have seen Wikipedia entries that shocked me because of what was not included. And others blew me away because they were so good.” Cullen adds that “Wikipedia is an excellent avenue for finding other resources, but Wikipedia itself should not be the source.”

Other search engines like GeniusFind and Beaucoup categorize topic-specific databases such as network solutions and software platforms, making them a good place to start.

2. Search Blogs for Specialized Experts Who Sift Through the Web for You
Blogs and forums are online homes for subject experts. One way to use Google as a jumping-off place is to perform a keyword search using its Blog Search function.

Blogs are a fantastic way to see what your colleagues around the world are thinking about on any given topic, from supply chain management to any kind of system implementation. But go in with eyes wide open: Google often brings you to sites that want to sell you something.

“It’s hard to separate ‘selling’ from trend discussion and learning,” says Jessamyn West, technology librarian and international speaker, who has a popular library blog (www.librarian.net) that keeps library professionals up to date on research and technology trends.

But again, Google isn’t the only search engine that allows you to move efficiently through blogs. Cullen at Harvard Business School’s Baker Library says, “The best blog search I’ve seen, which breaks it out by categories, is QuackTrack.” QuackTrack is a large browsable blog index, listing more than 11,000 blogs under technology and its subcategories.

If you can sift through the selling, a blog is a great way to get information, West says. Technorati, a site that aggregates user-generated content like blogs, has a popularity index for its material that is a good way to gauge how reliable the information you’re reading is. Cullen says, “If you can move through the noise on blogs, depending on the subject they might be a great way to get insight on what people are thinking.”

Blogs also save you time. “If you find people who blog on your topic, then they will link to other valuable and relevant sites. Then you don’t have to read 100 blogs, but you read the blog of the guy who reads 100 blogs,” says West.

Anther website that helps locate blogs is Blogdigger.

If you find a blog you like, subscribe to its RSS feed so you are alerted to updates. Checking to see how many subscribers or comments a blog has is another way to determine how much to trust what the blogger says.

Reading the comments can be as valuable as reading the blog itself. Blogs create an environment for dialog, so it isn’t just the author’s thoughts that are worth reading.

To that end, finding forums of real people's discussions is a great way to learn about trends and hot topics, as well as to get feedback on a specific software or company. For example, Cullen points to Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge, which is a forum for business innovation conversations, broken down by topic and industry. Vendors such as Oracle and Microsoft have user forums. And users have their own forums, for subjects like extreme programming and software quality assurance.

3. Study Business School Websites
Academic institutions share their knowledge online. If you locate a school with a good MBA program, one that has incorporated technology elements into its curriculum, you can read the information being released by the students or professors. “Academics are often the only people publishing statistics on business technology,” West says. “And if they are into a particular technology topic, they are likely to blog about it.”

You can use Google to look for business school websites and their library branches; there are more than 200 of these universities and associations, and more than 200 MBA blogs. Each site has different research resources. Cullen also directs Harvard MBA students to BizSeer, a free online database of academic business literature (that also allows you to search business schools).

Or, pick a business school and look at its library’s electronic resources page. For example, Harvard’s Baker Library has a website page that links to professional researchers, such as New York Public Library’s Express Research Service which charges a fee for research.

“Many of the research databases that a business school has will be resources that companies use,” Cullen says. “At Harvard Business School, the resources we select are often the resources our students will be using in their jobs.”

What's Trustworthy Online?
How do you know what information you can trust online? Here are five tips from a research librarian:

1. The URL domain: If a URL ends in .edu, .gov or .org, you can bet the information you’ll find there is primary. Primary sources are more authoritative than secondary sources.

2. Website audience size and reach. This is especially true for blogs. The more people who link to it or subscribe to it, the more you can trust it.

3. Membership ranks. For trade associations, check out what companies are listed as members. Big names that you recognize will tell you the association is reputable.

4. Source materials. Think about Wikipedia. Wikipedia itself is not trustworthy because it is written by anyone, not necessarily an expert, and includes articles by contributors with an agenda. Scroll to the bottom of the entry and go to the links that are cited under References. The more references (ideally to news articles or books), the more trustworthy the wiki entry.

5. Quality of links and listed resources. Generally, the more primary the information, the better. But you’re busy. So look for a good aggregator of firsthand information. For example, a blog might cite a book that cites a white paper. You can’t necessarily trust the blog, or even the book. And the white paper is the result of months of research.

If you can access that raw research itself, that’s the most perfect source of information, but “the white paper is where a CIO should go, not to the research,” says technology librarian Jessamyn West. “Half the trick of being CIO is finding good, secondary cultivators of primary sources.”

4. Find Statistical Data on Government Sources
Government sites publish public data. They may not have cutting-edge information on your topic of choice, but government sites are great for hard data and statistics, both current and historical.

Try the index at FedStats, or The Library of Congress’s Business Reference Services research center on science, technology and business. If you’re interested in greening your IT shop, check out the energy statistics on the Energy Information Administration's website.

And if you are searching for career or trend information, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has a wealth of it. Career Guide to Industries, and Overview of Statistics by Industry or Occupation are good places to check out.

5. Research Trade Groups and Online Publications for Current Topics, Best Practices
Trade magazines and trade associations update you on current trends in professional thinking. They also are great for research in hot topics. (CIO.com fits into this category.)

Associations are communities where people come together to share their ideas and problems. Cullen says that not only are associations and publications great resources for a business researcher, but their trade shows are often invaluable as well. If you are unable to attend, check out the show’s website for the topics that are being discussed to stay abreast of what’s on people’s minds. Ideally, the site will have downloadable material you can browse.

Try groups like the Business Technology Association. An example of a more narrowly focused group is the 1394 Trade Association, composed of companies and executives who are interested in supporting an IEEE standard for consumer electronics systems. Such groups can help your own research agenda.

To find others, go to the Business.com search site and select the industry you are interested in and then click on associations. You can also search at the Union of International Associations and the American Society of Association Executives’ Gateway to Industry Associations.

6. Visit the Library for More Research Sources and Online Data
Libraries and professional services organizations are trained to help researchers. You should consider visiting the physical library, or at least the webpage for your local library or for the library at a top business school.

It may sound archaic. But libraries, especially in larger urban areas, have access to subscription databases that contain a wealth of trustworthy information that you would be unlikely to find elsewhere (and unable to access without free use of the library’s subscription).

Popular research databases like OneSource, Hoover’s, Standard & Poor’s and Data Monitor are excellent business information hubs. Print news aggregators like Factiva and LexisNexis allow you to perform keyword searches on business publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Fortune and Harvard Business Review—three great publications for current business information.

If you’re overwhelmed, enlist the help of a real live librarian. If you’re short on time, visit Digital Librarian, a directory of online resources that are organized by topic. Virtual Library is a subject-specific catalog that is maintained by experts in each respective field.

While these sites are useful, nothing can replace a face-to-face interaction, says West. “Websites that organize information have very little in common with what you get when you talk to a real librarian.” She says, “They're both useful but I would never say, "If you don't have time to see a real librarian, go to a website and look through links." I'd tell you to visit one of the 24/7 reference sites where you can talk live to a real librarian.”

If you have the budget or need help preparing a report or presentation, consider enlisting the services of professional researchers, says Cullen.

If you are researching to improve your career, or you are interested in long-term tracking of particular business or technology topics, you should set aside time to research online. But you have to be strategic about your research approach or you can get overwhelmed, says Cullen. Generally, “it’s good to take an interest in research as part of your job,” she says, “because your competitors are doing it, so you too should keep as up to date as possible with public knowledge and opinion.”

Margaret Locher is a freelance writer who has a master’s degree in library science.

100 Notable Books of the Year
The Book Review has selected this list from books reviewed since the Holiday Books issue of Dec. 3, 2006.

Fiction & Poetry

THE ABSTINENCE TEACHER. By Tom Perrotta. (St. Martin’s, $24.95.) In this new novel by the author of “Little Children,” a sex-ed teacher faces off against a church bent on ridding her town of “moral decay.”

AFTER DARK. By Haruki Murakami. Translated by Jay Rubin. (Knopf, $22.95.) A tale of two sisters, one awake all night, one asleep for months.

THE BAD GIRL. By Mario Vargas Llosa. Translated by Edith Grossman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) This suspenseful novel transforms “Madame Bovary” into a vibrant exploration of the urban mores of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.

BEARING THE BODY. By Ehud Havazelet. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $24.) In this daring first novel, a man travels to California after his brother is killed in what may have been a drug transaction.

THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS THAT HEAVEN BEARS. By Dinaw Mengestu. (Riverhead, $22.95.) A first novel about an Ethiopian exile in Washington, D.C., evokes loss, hope, memory and the solace of friendship.

BRIDGE OF SIGHS. By Richard Russo. (Knopf, $26.95.) In his first novel since “Empire Falls,” Russo writes of a small town in New York riven by class differences and racial hatred.

THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO. By Junot Díaz. (Riverhead, $24.95.) A nerdy Dominican-American yearns to write and fall in love.

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME. By André Aciman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $23.) Aciman’s novel of love, desire, time and memory describes a passionate affair between two young men in Italy.

CHEATING AT CANASTA. By William Trevor. (Viking, $24.95.) Trevor’s dark, worldly short stories linger in the mind long after they’re finished.

THE COLLECTED POEMS, 1956-1998. By Zbigniew Herbert. Translated by Alissa Valles. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $34.95.) Herbert’s poetry echoes the quiet insubordination of his public life.

DANCING TO “ALMENDRA.” By Mayra Montero. Translated by Edith Grossman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) Fact and fiction rub together in this rhythmic story of a reporter on the trail of the Mafia, set mainly in 1950s Cuba.

EXIT GHOST. By Philip Roth. (Houghton Mifflin, $26.) In his latest novel Roth brings back Nathan Zuckerman, a protagonist whom we have known since his potent youth and who now must face his inevitable decline.

FALLING MAN. By Don DeLillo. (Scribner, $26.) Through the story of a lawyer and his estranged wife, DeLillo resurrects the world as it was on 9/11, in all its mortal dread, high anxiety and mass confusion.

FELLOW TRAVELERS. By Thomas Mallon. (Pantheon, $25.) In Mallon’s seventh novel, a State Department official navigates the anti-gay purges of the McCarthy era.

A FREE LIFE. By Ha Jin. (Pantheon, $26.) The Chinese-born author spins a tale of bravery and nobility in an American system built on risk and mutual exploitation. (Review will be available Friday evening, Nov. 23.)

THE GATHERING. By Anne Enright. (Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic, paper, $14.) An Irishwoman searches for clues to what set her brother on the path to suicide.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS. By J. K. Rowling. (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic, $34.99.) Rowling ties up all the loose ends in this conclusion to her grand wizarding saga.

HOUSE LIGHTS. By Leah Hager Cohen. (Norton, $24.95.) The heroine of Cohen’s third novel abandons her tarnished parents for the seductions of her grand-mother’s life in theater.

HOUSE OF MEETINGS. By Martin Amis. (Knopf, $23.) A Russian World War II veteran posthumously acquaints his stepdaughter with his grim past of rape and violence.

IN THE COUNTRY OF MEN. By Hisham Matar. (Dial, $22.) The boy narrator of this novel, set in Libya in 1979, learns about the convoluted roots of betrayal in a totalitarian society.

THE INDIAN CLERK. By David Leavitt. (Bloomsbury, $24.95.) Leavitt explores the intricate relationship between the Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy and a poor, self-taught genius from Madras, stranded in England during World War I.

KNOTS. By Nuruddin Farah. (Riverhead, $25.95.) After 20 years, a Somali woman returns home to Mogadishu from Canada, intent on reclaiming a family house from a warlord.

LATER, AT THE BAR: A Novel in Stories. By Rebecca Barry. (Simon & Schuster, $22.) The small-town regulars at Lucy’s Tavern carry their loneliness in “rough and beautiful” ways.

LET THE NORTHERN LIGHTS ERASE YOUR NAME. By Vendela Veda. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $23.95.) A young woman searches for the truth about her parentage amid the snow and ice of Lapland in this bleakly comic yet sad tale of a child’s futile struggle to be loved.

LIKE YOU’D UNDERSTAND, ANYWAY: Stories. By Jim Shepard. (Knopf, $23.) Shepard’s surprising tales feature such diverse characters as a Parisian executioner, a woman in space and two Nazi scientists searching for the yeti.

MAN GONE DOWN. By Michael Thomas. (Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic, paper, $14.) This first novel explores the fragmented personal histories behind four desperate days in a black writer’s life.

MATRIMONY. By Joshua Henkin. (Pantheon, $23.95.) Henkin follows a couple from college to their mid-30s, through crises of love and mortality.

THE MAYTREES. By Annie Dillard. (HarperCollins, $24.95.) A married couple find their way back to each other under unusual circumstances.

THE MINISTRY OF SPECIAL CASES. By Nathan Englander. (Knopf, $25.) A Jewish family is caught up in Argentina’s “Dirty War.”

MOTHERS AND SONS: Stories. By Colm Toibin. (Scribner, $24.) In this collection by the author of “The Master,” families are not so much reassuring and warm as they are settings for secrets, suspicion and missed connections.

NEXT LIFE. By Rae Armantrout. (Wesleyan University, $22.95.) Poetry that conveys the invention, the wit and the force of mind that contests all assumptions.

ON CHESIL BEACH. By Ian McEwan. (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $22.) Consisting largely of a single sex scene played out on a couple’s wedding night, this seeming novel of manners is as much a horror story as any McEwan has written.

OUT STEALING HORSES. By Per Petterson. Translated by Anne Born. (Graywolf Press, $22.) In this short yet spacious Norwegian novel, an Oslo professional hopes to cure his loneliness with a plunge into solitude.

THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST. By Mohsin Hamid. (Harcourt, $22.) Hamid’s chilling second novel is narrated by a Pakistani who tells his life story to an unnamed American after the attacks of 9/11.

REMAINDER. By Tom McCarthy. (Vintage, paper, $13.95.) In this debut, a Londoner emerges from a coma and seeks to reassure himself of the genuineness of his existence.

THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES. By Roberto Bolaño. Translated by Natasha Wimmer. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) A craftily autobiographical novel about a band of literary guerrillas.

SELECTED POEMS. By Derek Walcott. Edited by Edward Baugh. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) The Nobel Prize winner Walcott, who was born on St. Lucia, is a long-serving poet of exile, caught between two races and two worlds.

THE SEPTEMBERS OF SHIRAZ. By Dalia Sofer. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $24.95.) In this powerful first novel, the father of a prosperous Jewish family in Tehran is arrested shortly after the Iranian revolution.

SHORTCOMINGS. By Adrian Tomine. (Drawn & Quarterly, $19.95.) The Asian-American characters in this meticulously observed comic-book novella explicitly address the way in which they handle being in a minority.

SUNSTROKE: And Other Stories. By Tessa Hadley. (Picador, paper, $13.) These resonant tales encapsulate moments of hope and humiliation in a kind of shorthand of different lives lived.

THEN WE CAME TO THE END. By Joshua Ferris. (Little, Brown, $23.99.) Layoff notices fly in Ferris’s acidly funny first novel, set in a white-collar office in the wake of the dot-com debacle.

THROW LIKE A GIRL: Stories. By Jean Thompson. (Simon & Schuster, paper, $13.) The women here are smart and strong but drawn to losers.

TIME AND MATERIALS: Poems, 1997-2005. By Robert Hass. (Ecco/Harper-Collins, $22.95.) What Hass, a former poet laureate, has lost in Californian ease he has gained in stern self-restraint.

TREE OF SMOKE. By Denis Johnson. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) The author of “Jesus’ Son” offers a soulful novel about the travails of a large cast of characters during the Vietnam War.

TWENTY GRAND: And Other Tales of Love and Money. By Rebecca Curtis. (Harper Perennial, paper, $13.95.) In this debut collection, a crisp, blunt tone propels stories both surreal and realistic.

VARIETIES OF DISTURBANCE: Stories. By Lydia Davis. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, paper, $13.) Dispensing with straight narrative, Davis microscopically examines language and thought.

THE VIEW FROM CASTLE ROCK: Stories. By Alice Munro. (Knopf, $25.95.) This collection offers unusually explicit reflections of Munro’s life.

WHAT IS THE WHAT. The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng: A Novel. By Dave Eggers. (McSweeney’s, $26.) The horrors, injustices and follies in this novel are based on the experiences of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan.

WINTERTON BLUE. By Trezza Azzopardi. (Grove, $24.) An unhappy young woman meets an even unhappier drifter.

THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN’S UNION. By Michael Chabon. (HarperCollins, $26.95.) Cops, thugs, schemers, rabbis, chess fanatics and obsessives of every stripe populate this screwball, hard-boiled murder mystery set in an imagined Jewish settlement in Alaska.

Nonfiction

AGENT ZIGZAG: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal. By Ben Macintyre. (Harmony, $25.95.) The exploits of Eddie Chapman, a British criminal who became a double agent in World War II.

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE: A Life. By Hugh Brogan. (Yale University, $35.) Brogan’s combative biography takes issue with Tocqueville’s misgivings about democracy.

ALICE: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, From White House Princess to Washington Power Broker. By Stacy A. Cordery. (Viking, $32.95.) A biography of Theodore Roosevelt’s shrewd, tart-tongued older daughter.

AMERICAN CREATION: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic. By Joseph J. Ellis. (Knopf, $26.95.) This history explores an underappreciated point: that this country was constructed to foster arguments, not to settle them.

THE ARGUMENT: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics. By Matt Bai. (Penguin Press, $25.95.) An exhaustive account of the Democrats’ transformative efforts, by a political reporter for The New York Times Magazine.

ARSENALS OF FOLLY: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race. By Richard Rhodes. (Knopf, $28.95.) This artful history focuses on the events leading up to the pivotal 1986 Reykjavik summit meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev. (Review will be available Friday evening, Nov. 23.)

THE ART OF POLITICAL MURDER: Who Killed the Bishop? By Francisco Goldman. (Grove, $25.) The novelist returns to Guatemala, a major inspiration for his fiction, to try to solve the real-life killing of a Roman Catholic bishop.

BROTHER, I’M DYING. By Edwidge Danticat. (Knopf, $23.95.) Danticat’s cleareyed prose and unflinching adherence to the facts conceal an undercurrent of melancholy in this memoir of her Haitian family.

CIRCLING MY MOTHER. By Mary Gordon. (Pantheon, $24.) Gordon’s deeply personal memoir focuses on the engaged and lively Catholicism of her mother, a glamorous career woman who was also an alcoholic with a body afflicted by polio.

CLEOPATRA’S NOSE: 39 Varieties of Desire. By Judith Thurman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.95.) These surgically analytic essays of cultural criticism showcase themes of loss, hunger and motherhood.

CULTURAL AMNESIA: Necessary Memories From History and the Arts. By Clive James. (Norton, $35.) Essays on 20th-century luminaries by one of Britain’s leading public intellectuals.

THE DAY OF BATTLE: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944. Volume Two of the Liberation Trilogy. By Rick Atkinson. (Holt, $35.) A celebration of the American experience in these campaigns.

THE DIANA CHRONICLES. By Tina Brown. (Doubleday, $27.50.) The former New Yorker editor details the sordid domestic drama that pitted the Princess of Wales against Britain’s royal family.

THE DISCOVERY OF FRANCE: A Historical Geography From the Revolution to the First World War. By Graham Robb. (Norton, $27.95.) Robb presents France as a group of diverse regions, each with its own long history, intricate belief systems and singular customs.

DOWN THE NILE: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff. By Rosemary Mahoney. (Little, Brown, $23.99.) Mahoney juxtaposes her solo rowing journey with encounters with the Egyptians she met.

DRIVEN OUT: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans. By Jean Pfaelzer. (Random House, $27.95.) How the Chinese were brutalized and demonized in the 19th-century American West — and how they fought back.

DUE CONSIDERATIONS: Essays and Criticism. By John Updike. (Knopf, $40.) Updike’s first nonfiction collection in eight years displays breathtaking scope as well as the author’s seeming inability to write badly.

EASTER EVERYWHERE: A Memoir. By Darcey Steinke. (Bloomsbury, $24.95.) A minister’s daughter confronts her own spiritual rootlessness.

EDITH WHARTON. By Hermione Lee. (Knopf, $35.) This meticulous biography shows Wharton’s significance as a designer, decorator, gardener and traveler, as well as a writer.

THE FATHER OF ALL THINGS: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam. By Tom Bissell. (Pantheon, $25.) Bissell mixes rigorous narrative accounts of the war and emotionally powerful scenes of the distress it brought his own family.

THE FLORIST’S DAUGHTER. By Patricia Hampl. (Harcourt, $24.) In her fifth and most powerful memoir, Hampl looks hard at her relationship to her Midwestern roots as her mother lies dying in the hospital.

FORESKIN’S LAMENT: A Memoir. By Shalom Auslander. (Riverhead, $24.95.) With scathing humor and bitter irony, Auslander wrestles with his Jewish Orthodox roots.

GOMORRAH: A Personal Journey Into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organized Crime System. By Roberto Saviano. Translated by Virginia Jewiss. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) This powerful work of reportage started a national conversation in Italy when it was published there last year. (Review will be available Friday evening, Nov. 23.)

THE HOUSE THAT GEORGE BUILT: With a Little Help From Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty. By Wilfrid Sheed. (Random House, $29.95.) A rich homage to Gershwin, Berlin and other masters of the swinging jazz song.

HOW DOCTORS THINK. By Jerome Groopman. (Houghton Mifflin, $26.) Groopman takes a tough-minded look at the ways in which doctors and patients interact, and at the profound problems facing modern medicine.

HOW TO READ THE BIBLE: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now. By James L. Kugel. (Free Press, $35.) In this tour through the Jewish scriptures (i.e., the Old Testament, more or less), a former professor of Hebrew seeks to reclaim the Bible from the literalists and the skeptics.

HOW TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS YOU HAVEN’T READ. By Pierre Bayard.Translated by Jeffrey Mehlman. (Bloomsbury, $19.95.) A French literature professor wants to assuage our guilt over the ways we actually read and discuss books.

IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone. By Rajiv Chandrasekaran. (Knopf, $25.95.) The author, a Washington Post journalist, catalogs the arrogance and ineptitude that marked America’s governance of Iraq.

THE INVISIBLE CURE: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS. By Helen Epstein. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) Rigorous reporting unearths new findings among the old issues.

LEGACY OF ASHES: The History of the CIA. By Tim Weiner. (Doubleday, $27.95.) A comprehensive chronicle of the American intelligence agency, from the days of the Iron Curtain to Iraq, by a reporter for The New York Times.

LENI: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl. By Steven Bach. (Knopf, $30.) How Hitler’s favorite director made “Triumph of the Will” and convinced posterity that she didn’t know what the Nazis were up to.

LEONARD WOOLF: A Biography. By Victoria Glendinning. (Free Press, $30.) Glendinning shows Virginia Woolf’s accomplished husband as passionate, reserved and, above all, stoical.

A LIFE OF PICASSO: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932. By John Richardson. (Knopf, $40.) The third, penultimate installment in Richardson’s biography spans a dauntingly complicated time in Picasso’s life and in European history.

LITTLE HEATHENS: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression. By Mildred Armstrong Kalish. (Bantam, $22.) Kalish’s soaring love for her childhood memories saturates this memoir, which coaxes the reader into joy, wonder and even envy.

LONG WAY GONE: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. By Ishmael Beah. (Sarah Crichton/-Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $22.) A former child warrior gives literary voice to the violence and killings he both witnessed and perpetrated during the Sierra Leone civil war.

THE NINE: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. By Jeffrey Toobin. (Doubleday, $27.95.) An erudite outsider’s account of the cloistered court’s inner workings.

THE ORDEAL OF ELIZABETH MARSH: A Woman in World History. By Linda Colley. (Pantheon, $27.50.) Colley tracks the “compulsively itinerant” Marsh across the 18th century and several continents.

PORTRAIT OF A PRIESTESS: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece. By Joan Breton Connelly. (Princeton University, $39.50.) A scholar finds that religion meant power for Greek women.

RALPH ELLISON: A Biography. By Arnold Rampersad. (Knopf, $35.) Ellison was seemingly cursed by his failure to follow up “Invisible Man.”

THE REST IS NOISE: Listening to the Twentieth Century. By Alex Ross. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30.) In his own feat of orchestration, The New Yorker’s music critic presents a history of the last century as refracted through its classical music.

SCHULZ AND PEANUTS: A Biography. By David Michaelis. (Harper/ Harper-Collins, $34.95.) Actual “Peanuts” cartoons movingly illustrate this portrait of the strip’s creator, presented here as a profoundly lonely and unhappy man.

SERVICE INCLUDED: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter. By Phoebe Damrosch. (Morrow, $24.95.) A memoir about waiting tables at the acclaimed Manhattan restaurant Per Se.

SOLDIER’S HEART: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point. By Elizabeth D. Samet. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $23.) A civilian teacher at the Military Academy offers a significant perspective on a crucial social and political force: honor.

STANLEY: The Impossible Life of Africa’s Greatest Explorer. By Tim Jeal. (Yale University, $38.) Of the many biographies of Henry Morton Stanley, Jeal’s, which profits from his access to an immense new trove of material, is the most complete and readable.

THE STILLBORN GOD: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West. By Mark Lilla. (Knopf, $26.) With nuance and complexity, Lilla examines how we managed to separate, in a fashion, church and state.

THOMAS HARDY. By Claire Tomalin. (Penguin Press, $35.) Tomalin presents Hardy as a fascinating case study in mid-Victorian literary sociology.

TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN: The Audacious Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton. By Sara Wheeler. (Random House, $27.95.) The story of the man immortalized in “Out of Africa.”

TWO LIVES: Gertrude and Alice. By Janet Malcolm. (Yale University, $25.) Sharp criticism meets playful, absorbing biography in this study of Stein and Toklas.

THE WHISPERERS: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia. By Orlando Figes. (Metropolitan, $35.) An extraordinary look at the gulag’s impact on desperate individuals and families struggling to survive. (Review will be available Friday evening, Nov. 23.)

THE YEARS OF EXTERMINATION: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945. By Saul Friedländer. (HarperCollins, $39.95.) Individual testimony and broader events are skillfully interwoven.

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As part of its mission, OCLC a worldwide library cooperative prepares in depth studies and topical surveys of issues and trends of interest and concern to all types of libraries, including law libraries. One of their latest reports addresses the topic of sharing, privacy and trust in our networked world
.
Although this report was prepared primarily for OCLC member libraries the topic being addressed is of obvious importance to all of us, regardless of occupation, who are working in this highly interractive world of networks and are confronted daily with the necessity of reconciling matters related to information sharing, information security, and privacy. Recognizing this importance we are posting the entire document below. Since it is quite large we have created three links for your convenience. The first links only to the Introduction, the second only to the Conclusion, and the third links to the complete report in pdf format.

The report is divided into 15 sections including the following:

Introduction

Our Digital Lives

Our Social Spaces

Privacy, Security and Trust

U.S. Library Directors

Libraries and Social Networking

Beyond the Numbers

Conclusions

Six Appencices

The following is an brief introductory statement prepared by OCLC:

The practice of using a social network to establish and enhance relationships based on some common ground—shared interests, related skills, or a common geographic location—is as old as human societies, but social networking has flourished due to the ease of connecting on the Web. This OCLC membership report explores this web of social participation and cooperation on the Internet and how it may impact the library’s role, including:

The use of social networking, social media, commercial and library services on the Web

How and what users and librarians share on the Web and their attitudes toward related privacy issues

Opinions on privacy online

Libraries’ current and future roles in social networking

The report is based on a survey (by Harris Interactive on behalf of OCLC) of the general public from six countries—Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States—and of library directors from the U.S. The research provides insights into the values and social-networking habits of library users.

LINKS;

Introduction

Conclusion

Click here to see the entire report.

To see the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division First Department decisions (including index) released on November 20, 2007, click on the links below:

Index of Decisions

Decisions Announced on 11-20=07

Kenneth Lipper et. al.

People v. Dwight Giles

In Matter of Jerome Goldman

In Matter of Morgan Kennedy

In Matter of David J. Nuzzio

On October 18, 2007 a coalition of major media and technology companies released a set of guidelines designed to halt online piracy. Media companies involved include CBS, NewsCorp, Fox Enertainment Group, NBC Universal, Viacom Disney, and MySpace. Google was notable absent from the list. A You Tube spokesperson who asked not to be named said that Google had talked to Disney and You Tube about the guidelines but decided not to join the group out of concdrn that ' "industry-wide mandates would stifle innovation' ". I

In a posting on LEXOLOGY by four attorneys from Arent Fox LLP "...The joint collaboration aims to eliminate infringing content on services providing user-uploaded and user-generated audio and video content (UGC) services, encourage uploads of wholly original and authorized user-generated content, and accommodate fair use of copyrighted content, and protect user privacy interests." It is interesting to note that many of the concerns reflected in the guidelines are similar (except perhaps in context) to those confronted by libraries in their own efforts to resolve issues the reproduction and transfer of materials.

To provide added context for those interested in this topic, this posting includes the full text of an article published on FindLaw Corporate Counsel by Julie Hilden. Finally,some additional links to other sources are listed.

David Badertscher

The New Guidelines for User-Generated Content Services such as MySpace: Why Some Will Predictably Inhibit "Fair Use"
By JULIE HILDEN
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Monday, Nov. 12, 2007

Recently, a number of content producers (CBS, Disney, Fox, NBC Universal, and Viacom) and a number of websites hosting user-generated content (Daily Motion, MySpace, and Veoh) -- voluntarily agreed among themselves to abide by a set of principles governing user-generated content (UGC). Microsoft, too, has signed on.

Some of these principles are plainly correct and in everyone's (including users') interest, as I will explain. However, others will predictably end up curtailing the amount of "fair use" of copyrighted material that occurs on UGC sites, and thus inhibiting freedom of speech and artistic freedom. (For more on "fair use," see my column from May 16). Thus, while these latter principles may still arguably be the best way to police infringement, it is important to note that their effectiveness comes at a potentially high price.

Crucially, while these principles are the result of a voluntary agreement, that agreement left out a major interested party -- the group of all users of UGC services. Since it is the users that stand to lose the most if "fair use" is inhibited, the exclusion of this group is significant. Users have no practical ability to modify a site's Terms of Use -- the boilerplate language that websites require users to agree to by checking a box and clicking a submit button before they are allowed to post on a website, and that is offered on a "take it or leave it" basis. Thus, if users are not formally represented in Guidelines negotiations (and it seems they were not), then they are not represented at all.

Put another way, if users had had a formal seat at the negotiation table, the Guidelines might have tilted much more strongly toward "fair use." The content producers' interest was to protect copyright. The UGC sites had the mixed interest of avoiding lawsuits for vicarious and contributory copyright infringement (theories I discussed in a previous column), and also pleasing users. Only users, however, had a direct, unqualified interest in ensuring that they could make "fair use" of copyrighted material in uploading their work to UGC services.

The Part of the Guidelines that Should Be Uncontroversial

Let's start with that part of the Guidelines that is, plain and simple, a set of good ideas that actually will benefit everyone, including users.

In my view, the Guidelines are entirely correct in asking UGC services to conspicuously warn users not to violate copyright law with their uploads, and to prohibit copyright-infringing uploads via their Terms of Use. Everyone benefits by knowing the law. Also, because of the doctrines of vicarious and contributory copyright infringement, UGC services might become liable for their users' infringement if they did not prohibit such infringement in their Terms of Use. Thus, in this respect, the Guidelines simply reflect what the law requires.

It also makes a great deal of sense for the Guidelines to ask UGC services to continually update the software that they use to find potentially copyright-infringing uploads, as the relevant technology advances and improves. Relying solely on personnel to review vast numbers of uploads would be obviously costly and ineffective, and UGC services should keep up with the pace of advancing technology in policing their uploads for genuine copyright infringement.

Conversely, too, the Guidelines are wise to allow UGC services to use personnel to review uploads in cases where the application of technology is not leading to the best results. Where "fair use" is at issue, the decision may ultimately be a judgment call that only a person can make.

Unfortunately, however, allowing actual human beings to decide "fair use" issues is virtually the only way in which the Guidelines cut in favor of "fair use." In every other way, they cut against it in practice, while still, in several instances, paying lip service to the idea.

The First Threat to "Fair Use": Filtering of Uploads

Here are several key ways in which the Guidelines put "fair use" in jeopardy:

First, the Guidelines advocate filtering content at the upload stage, not once it has already appeared on the UGC service. The obligation, as the Guidelines put it, is to "block… content [that falls under known copyrights] before that content would otherwise be made available."

The pragmatic reason for this rule is clear: When infringing content is uploaded, and can be copied, any later remedies may be, in effect, closing the barn door once the horses are already gone.

Yet the barn door/horses argument may prove too much, because arguably the entire Internet is the barn, and the door will always be open somewhere. If popular sites filter uploads, then less popular sites may become more popular by employing retrospective remedies (that is, by searching what is uploaded, rather than filtering and blocking uploads) and thus hosting sexier, more cutting-edge "fair use" content that cannot be found elsewhere. Moreover, scofflaw and offshore sites may become popular by simply promising not to filter or block. If MySpace becomes tame or if there are myriad complaints about blocking, then fickle teens could easily switch their allegiance to another site.

Thus, the upshot of the decision to opt for filtering of uploads may be to simply harm MySpace and its users, while offering copyright owners no meaningful protection. (Why, then, did MySpace agree to filtering? The reason may simply have been the fear of an incredibly costly vicarious and contributory copyright infringement suit. It's not a defense to infringement that the infringing material is easily available all over the rest of the Internet.)

Does filtering actually hurt MySpace users? Heck, yes -- and it will predictably hurt the "marketplace of ideas" too. When it comes to free speech, delay in dissemination can be disastrous: Suppose a MySpace user wants to upload a commentary on the previous night's Presidential debate that makes "fair use" of copyrighted material. The ability to upload that same commentary a week later, when the news cycle has moved on, is far less valuable from a free speech perspective. Thus, the choice of filtering ahead of time prevents infringement, but only at the cost of inhibiting speech.

Granted, the Guidelines also say that "Copyright Owners and UGC Services should cooperate in developing reasonable procedures for promptly addressing conflicting claims with respect to Reference Material and user claims that content that was blocked by the Filtering Process was not infringing or was blocked in error." (Emphasis added). But what does "promptly" mean, exactly?

I wouldn't be very optimistic about the chance of a truly prompt resolution here. After all, a wise UGC service would need to get attorneys involved at some point, with certain materials, since a "fair use" determination is ultimately an instance of application of law to fact. And everyone knows that as soon as attorneys are involved, things tend to proceed quite slowly. Granted, the use of attorneys is costly, so a more realistic and likely solution is to have staff make the call in the first instance, and then pass difficult issues on to attorneys. Still, in difficult cases, when attorneys are indeed involved, time may tick away.

After all, from the attorney's perspective, quickly approving copyright-infringing material, based on an erroneous call that it is "fair use" may result in a multimillion dollar malpractice suit when millions of users view the infringing material and the copyright owner sues the UGC service. (Other legal questions remain, as well; in some cases, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbor for sites that simply host content may protect a UGC service site, even if the "fair use" exception to copyright law does not.)

By comparison, if MySpace were a government entity controlled by the First Amendment, it simply would not be able to pre-filter speech this way. Rather, because "prior restraints" are disfavored, it would have to allow speech to happen, and then later order the speaker to pay damages if necessary. Obviously, MySpace is not a government entity, so the First Amendment does not apply. But it's still notable when, in the free speech arena, private companies agree to do something that a government agency could not impose. Moreover, it's also worth noting that if we have a modern town square for Generation Y, it's probably MySpace -- suggesting that private entities now operate the kind of forum that the government once hosted, and in which First Amendment rules once applied.

The Second Threat to "Fair Use": The Sweep-In System

Second, the Guidelines adopt a "sweep in" system that says material cannot be licensed unless the copyright owner expressly says it can be. More precisely, they state that if the copyright owner is silent, then the UGC service "should block content" that matches the copyrighted material. In order to allow certain users to avoid the blocking, the copyright owner can provide a "white list," but if it does not, then all would-be users are out of luck.

In litigation I discussed in a prior column, the Stanford Center for Internet and Society (CIS) challenged the current U.S. copyright system insofar as it automatically sweeps in all material -- even a napkin doodle -- unless the author expressly states an intention to have the material come under a "creative commons" license. CIS argued in that case that the "sweep in" system was a mistake, and similar arguments can be made here as well.

Few copyright owners, for example, are likely to take the trouble to affirmatively "white list" college students' class projects, but if there were categories to check off, one would hope that few would actually "black list" educational uses either.

In sum, inertia is a powerful force, and the Guidelines' inertial pull is in favor of filtering content that will then never see the light of day (or emerge only after the event on which it comments is long past). That pull is also in favor of automatically blacklisting content that copyright holders might happily white-list if they were required to focus on the issue. In the Internet's new ocean of content, we deserve different -- and more pro-free-speech -- tides.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Julie Hilden, who graduated from Yale Law School in 1992, practiced First Amendment law at the D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly from 1996-99. Hilden is also a novelist. In reviewing Hilden's novel, 3, Kirkus Reviews praised Hilden's "rather uncanny abilities," and Counterpunch called it "a must read.... a work of art." Hilden's website, www.juliehilden.com, includes free MP3 and text downloads of the novel's first chapter.

SOME ADDITIONAL SOURCES:

Some Internet and media companies push for principles on user content
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.20/user-generated-content-principles

Internet and Media Industry Leaders Unveil Principles to Foster Online Innovation While Protecting Copyrights - Press Release (18.10.2007)
http://www.ugcprinciples.com/press_release.html

Principles for User Generated Content Services
http://www.ugcprinciples.com/

LEXOLOGY: Internet and media companies unveil guidelines to protect copyrights while still fostering online innovation
http://www.arentfox.com/publications/index.cfm?fa=legalUpdateDisp&content_id=1337#page=1