Articles Posted in Library News and Views

February 27, 2008.

Supreme Court rejects wiretapping suit

“The U.S. Supreme Court declined February 18 to consider whether plaintiffs who believed they had been spied on without a court order could challenge the legality of such surveillance without tangible proof-even if the proof is classified as a state secret. The rejection of the ACLU v. NSA appeal came two days after the expiration of the Protect America Act, which from August 2007 until February 16 legalized warrantless eavesdropping on phone and internet communications to U.S. homes, workplaces, libraries, and elsewhere….”

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is the world’d largest developer and publisher of international standards. Many of these standards relate to matters of interest and concern to law libraries and law librarians. Part of their process for standards development is to prepare drafts to various interested groups for comment and review. The following are among the standards currently under review by various groups, including the American Association of Law Libraries.:*

ISO TC 46 Open Ballots These ballots are in progress. Please send your vote and comments to: nisohq@niso.org

ISO/DIS 23081-2, Information and documentation — Records management processes for Metadata — Part 2: Conceptual and implementation issues

From: OCLC Updates. February 26, 2008.

WorldCat.org users who want to keep tabs on lists of items created by fellow users can now do so without having to return to the site: Public WorldCat lists are available as RSS feeds that can be monitored using any RSS-capable service or software.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an information format used by news-media sites, blogs and other Web services that are frequently updated. RSS feeds typically carry brief summaries of the information currently available at a specific Web location, so you can see what’s new without having to view the site in a browser.

News from the American Library Association:

House allows warrantless wiretaps law to expire

A dramatic showdown between House Republicans and Democrats February 14 has led to Congress beginning a one-week break without sending any surveillance legislation to the White House. The result is the February 16 expiration of the Protect America Act, which since its enactment in August 2007 has permitted the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a court order on foreign communications, including phone calls and email exchanges, between someone “reasonably believed to be outside the United States” and a person on U.S. soil, as well as communications traveling to or from U.S. libraries…

“(U.S. 6th Cir., Feb. 5, 2008) – Defendants’ sentences resulting from their clumsy robbery of rare books from a university and attempts to sell them at auction are vacated and remanded for re-sentencing, where the district court erred by excluding books dropped and abandoned in the library stairwell from the valuation of loss and computation of the sentencing range. The court held that the defendant-robbers “took” the books, under USSG, 2B3.1, when they exercised dominion and control over them, such that they completed the acts necessary to seize the books.”

U.S. Charles Thomas Allen II et. al.

New Maryland Rules Now Free Online http://marylandlaw.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-maryland-rules-now-free-online.html *
————————————————–
*Thanks to Trevor Rosen, Librarian at Shapiro Sher Guinot & Rosen in Baltimore, MD for sending this.

From LexisNexis, In the Know:

In an exciting move, LexisNexis has been able to work with numerous cities, municipalities, and villages to obtain the right to publish their local codes, statutes or ordinances (depending on the term that the location uses). These sources are currently scheduled for updates twice a year, but some municipalities are working to enable us to update their ordinances with greater frequency.

We currently have ordinances from 35 states, including Illinois, Florida, Georgia, Texas, California, Ohio, and Washington. The number of cities included for each state varies, and we are looking forward to adding more cities in the future.

From Cassidy Cataloguing Inc.

“We are pleased to announce that… Cassidy Cataloguing [is offering] MARC21 records for the World Trials Library. The MARC21 records for this collection will be developed and managed wholly by Cassidy Cataloguing, who is offering the records at a one-time subscription price. A subscription will include MARC21 records for up to 1,900 titles comprising Phase I of the World Trials Library. It will also include monthly updates that will coincide with new content released in Phase I of this library in HeinOnline. On average, we have been adding approximately 100 titles per month to the World Trials Collection and will continue to do so until the digitization of the Cornell Law collection is completed. After the digitization of Phase I is complete, we plan to further develop this library by adding additional historically significant trial collections, providing even greater access to trials that have been locked away for hundreds of years!”

If you have any questions about this service, please contact Cassidy Cataloguing at info@cassidycat.com or 973-586-3200

From William S. Hein and Company, Inc.:

1. Dahl’s Law Dictionary – Spanish/English 4th Edition

Now in its fourth edition, Dahl’s was the first bilingual dictionary containing encyclopedic definitions. This new edition includes more than 11,000 words and phrases to aid researchers in defining legal terms in both English and Spanish.

Contact Information