At the beginning of 2007, the steering committee of OpenTheGovernment.org put a spotlignt on the importance of developing recommendations for the next administration and Congress to strengthen government transparency. OMB Watch agreed to spearhead such a project and to work with the OpenTheGovernment.org coalition and others including the AALL Government…
TITLE: Anatomy of a Trial SUBTITLE: Public Loss, Lessons Learned from The People vs. O.J. Simpson AUTHOR: Jerrianne Hayslett PUBLICATION DATE: December 2008 PUBLISHER: University of Missouri Press PAGE COUNT: 256 pp. ISBN: 978-0-8262-1822-3 PRICE: $29.95 The author was the information officer and media liason for Los Angeles Superior Court…
According to an NBC report on MSNBC, use of library has gone “way up” during the present economic downturn; circulation is “skyrocketing”. All of this at a time when the budgets of many of these libraries are being cut.. When you go to the above link, be patient, You will…
TITLE: Legacy And Legitimacy SUBTITLE: Black Americans And The Supreme Court AUTHORS: Rosalee A. Clawson and Eric N. Waltenburg PUBLICATION DATE: December 2008 PUBLISHER: Temple University Press PAGE COUNT: 224 pp. ISBN: 978-1-59213-903-3 PRICE: $23.95 The U. S. Supreme Court’s Warren-era revolution in the areas of civil, individual, and privacy…
One of the historic functions of libraries has been preserving and providing access to information in various media. In many ways, digitization of information has positively altered the information landscape. However, with the dynamic nature of such information, vital information preservation issues arise. In a timely September 13, 2008, New…
The e-newsletter of the American Library Association*. Critics revisit library incident that paints Palin as censor “Journalists and bloggers scrutinizing Sarah Palin’s record of public service have made national news out of a 1996 library incident in Wasilla, Alaska, where the Republican vice-presidential nominee was then mayor. The story that…
TITLE: Three Generations, No Imbeciles SUBTITLE: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell AUTHOR: Paul A. Lombardo PUBLICATION DATE: October 2008 PUBLISHER: The Johns Hopkins University Press PAGE COUNT: 375 pp . ISBN-13: 978-0-8018-9010-9 ISBN-10: 0-8018-9010-1 PRICE: $29.95 Lombardo is an activist law professor who traces a seminal 1927…
From the American Library Association (ALA).* Midwest libraries endure rising floodwaters “Days of sandbagging could not keep the Cedar River out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Overflowing barriers on June 12, it deluged more than 100 blocks of the city’s eastern side, including the Cedar Rapids Public Library (a YouTube video,…
David Badertscher* How trustworthy are state-level primary legal resources on the Web? The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) published the State-by-State Report on Authentication of Online Legal Resources (Authentication Report) that answers this very important and timely question. The comprehensive report examines and draws conclusions from the results of…
The May 13, 2008 issue of the Library Journal Academic Newswire reports that Harvard University Law School (HLS) has adopted an open access policy for making its scholarly publications available online. Quoting from the Academic Newswire report: “The Harvard University Law School (HLS) faculty last week followed the lead of…