LexLibris

New on LLRX.com for July 2007 at www.llrx.com

**Documents, Leaks and the Boundaries of Expression, by Susan Nevelow Mart
http://www.llrx.com/features/whistleblowing.htm

**Librarians as Change Agents, by Mary Alice Baish
http://www.llrx.com/features/changeagents.htm

**Scanning and OCR with Acrobat 8, by Rick Borstein
http://www.llrx.com/features/adobe8.htm

**Guide to Short Form Open Access Legal Publications, by Ken Strutin
http://www.llrx.com/features/shortformjournals.htm

**Elder Resources on the Internet, by Marcus P. Zillman
http://www.llrx.com/features/elderresources.htm

**Gay/Lesbian Law Pathfinder, by Mark Plotkin
http://www.llrx.com/features/gaylesbianlaw.htm

**The Government Domain: 'Insanely Useful' Legislative Sites, by Peggy Garvin
http://www.llrx.com/columns/govdomain28.htm

**CongressLine by GalleryWatch.com: The Congressional College – Caucuses and Boards, by Paul Jenks
http://www.llrx.com/columns/reference53.htm

**Reference from Coast to Coast: Jury Instructions Update, by Margi Heinen and Jan Bissett
http://www.llrx.com/columns/legaltech50.htm

**Burney's Legal Tech Reviews: Gadgets for Legal Pros A Keyboard to Show Off to your Friends and Safely Jogging with Music, by Brett Burney
http://www.llrx.com/columns/legaltech50.htm

**FOIA Facts: Understanding FBI Records, by Scott A. Hodes
http://www.llrx.com/columns/foia43.htm

**E-Discovery Update - Discovery of Ephemeral Digital Information, by Conrad J. Jacoby
http://www.llrx.com/columns/fios19.htm

**Commentary: The Showdown on Coal-to-Liquid Technology, by Beth Wellington
http://www.llrx.com/extras/coaltoliquid.htm

**LLRX Court Rules, Forms, and Dockets: the unique, free searchable database, maintained and continually updated by Margaret Berkland.
http://www.llrx.com/courtrules/

**See also beSpacific.com, http://www.beSpacific.com - The blog with daily updates on law and technology news (and a searchable database of over 14,000 entries from August 2002). Topics include: e-gov't, privacy, ID theft, copyright, government documents, web research, legislation, KM, FOIA, blogs, RSS, cybercrime and more.

**Subscribe to the free weekday e-mail update:
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/subscribe.html

---------------------------------------------------------------
CONTACT:
Sabrina I. Pacifici
Founder, Editor, Publisher
LLRX.com
http://www.llrx.com
email: spacific at earthlink dot net

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 08:12 AM | Permalink

Tae Kidd is a Library Assistant II, working partly at the circulation desk and partly as assistant to the Director of the library. She started in 2003. The most enjoyable part of her job is helping the patrons at the circ desk.

Tae recently completed her MS degree in library and information science from the University of North Texas. She enjoys reading, crafts, board games and playing with her two dogs. She also will be getting married soon!

Tae is leaving the library to take a faculty position at the Chungnam National University in Daejeon, South Korea as an English Instructor for both their university and their language institute. Her last day here will be Wednesday, August 15th and she leaves for Korea on August 20th.

If Tae could have lunch with anyone in the world, she would pick J.K. Rowling (author of the Harry Potter books) because JK "has done amazing things with her Harry Potter books in getting the world to read and bringing people into libraries."

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 09:45 AM | Permalink

The July issue of The World Almanac E-Newsletter features an article on the 60th anniversary of the creation of the CIA. The Langley, VA headquarters is pictured below (photo: CIA).

To excerpt:
"On July 26, 1947 - 60 years ago - U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 while aboard the presidential aircraft, the Sacred Cow. The act, which created the National Security Council (NSC), the National Military Establishment (the predecessor of the Department of Defense), and the Air Force, also laid out the groundwork for the establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The CIA officially began operating on September 18, 1947, when the National Security Act took effect."

Read the whole article at: http://www.worldalmanac.com/newsletter/200707WAE-Newsletter.html#06

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 08:15 AM | Permalink

From the LifeHacker Blog comes this useful list of resources:
"You can use the web to find lots of things: information, videos, books, music, games, and yes, even public records. While our most private information can (usually) not be found online, you can track down items like birth certificates, marriage and divorce information, obituaries and licenses on the web. Keep reading to learn where to find public records online." Read more...

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 04:59 PM | Permalink

For the legal history or trivia buffs out there, here is a site worth noting.

A collaboration between FindLaw and Justice Talking brings us Today in Legal History. This blog shares a daily legal history factoid along with links to related resources.

Source: Law Dawg Blawg via WisBlawg

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 10:27 AM | Permalink

News from the Educational Technology Department:

Five of the law schools seminar rooms have just had installations of projection equipment and computers with internet access. Rooms 473 & 475 on the fourth floor and rooms N202, N204 & N209 on the second.

This means that groups and classes will no longer have to reserve Laptops and LCD projectors for these 5 rooms, it will be as simple as bringing in your flash drive and pressing a button.

Glen Anderson put a great deal of effort into setting up the computers and with the physical installation.

Educational Technology Home Page: http://www.law.umn.edu/technology/edtech.html
The Educational Technology Office phone number is 612-625-6385 and the e-mail address is LawEdTec@umn.edu. The Control Room is Room 184, located by the Law Clinics.

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 02:19 PM | Permalink

Eight law librarians from the University of MN Law Library attended the annual conference of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) in New Orleans over the past week, July 14-17. Those attending:

Suzanne Thorpe, Associate Director for Faculty & Public Services, presided over the Academic Law Librarians Special Interest Section as President. She passed her gavel to the new President at the end of the Conference.

Mary Rumsey, Foreign, Comparative & International Law Librarian, presented a program on international law research: "Globalization Moved My Cheese: Or, How Do I Find International Law?" that attracted 200 people. Presenting with her was Jean Wenger, Government Documents/Foreign & International Law Librarian at Cook County Law Library.

David Zopfi-Jordan, I.L.L. / A.S.A.P. Copy & Retrieval Service Librarian, is webmaster of the Document Delivery Caucus for AALL.

Mila Rush, Automated Systems Librarian, is a member of the AALLNET Advisory Committee.

Vic Garces, Reference & Collection Development Librarian, attended a Computing Services Special Interest Section Round Table on organizing databases on library websites.

Connie Lenz, Associate Director for Collection Development, is Grants Committee Chair of AALL. She also presented the Lexis-Nexis Call for Papers Award-winning article “Does Form Follow Function? Academic Law Libraries’ Organizational Structures for Collection Development” with Helen Wohl, Assistant Library Director for Collection Development and Special Collections at the University of Miami Law Library.

Sarah Yates, above right, Cataloging Librarian, is a member of the Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals and Secretary/Treasurer of the Legal History and Rare Books Special Interest Section. She also led the Rare Book Cataloging Round Table as part of the Technical Services Special Interest Section and participated in the workshop "The Future Is Digital: Metadata Standards and Applications."

Paula Seeger, above left, Circulation Librarian, is a member of the Publications Committee of AALL and attended the New Academic Law Librarians/Mentoring Program. This was her first AALL annual conference experience, and she received a grant from the MN Association of Law Libraries to attend.

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 02:32 PM | Permalink

Collection: Human Rights Library (print and electronic)

Location: Many human rights works are shelved on the third floor of the Law Library around the call numbers K3240. You will also find other human rights materials in the Human Rights Library, which is located in the back of the third floor, in the corner farthest from the Library entrance.

Website: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/index.html

New Materials:
In addition to the continuous expansion of human rights materials and documents, the HRL has recently launched a new archive entitled "U.S Military Medicine in War on Terror Prisons", which can be found at http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/OathBetrayed/index.html.

This is a comprehensive collection of government documents revealing the procedural workings of medical personnel within the various prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

This archive was featured in the July-August 2007 issue of Minnesota (the magazine for UMN Alums) in the article "Taking on Torture" by Shelly Fling. Read the article at: http://www.alumni.umn.edu/Miles_Story.html

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 08:36 AM | Permalink

From the July 2007 World Almanac Newsletter:

Lost in Translation: A Rose By Any Other Name

Who are you planning to vote for in the presidential primaries? Virtue Soup? Oh Bus Horse? Sticky Rice? Massachusetts State Secretary William Galvin has pointed to these candidates names as a few of the ways identities are lost in translation when candidates’ names are translated into Chinese characters on the ballot as required by a justice department agreement. Finding no Chinese character for Romney, however, translators select characters that could be used to match the sound of each syllable, muddying the meaning of names. "Virtue Soup" is a potential transliteration of Fred Thompson. Barack Obama might be read as "Oh Bus Horse," and Mitt Romney could be either "Sticky Rice" or "Uncooked Rice." Galvin’s own name could be construed as "High Prominent Noble Educated," for one, or as "Stick Mosquito."

While the translations are amusing, there are serious issues at stake, most prominent among them keeping voters from being disenfranchised for lack of a readable ballot. Galvin advocates translating the ballots into Chinese for the most part, but wants the names to remain in Roman characters. But voting rights advocates say there are other options to avoid awkward translations, such as allowing candidates to offer their own character variations or mimicking the way Chinese newspapers transliterate the names.

Read the whole June newsletter: http://www.worldalmanac.com/newsletter/200707WAE-Newsletter.html

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 10:23 AM | Permalink

From the C-SPAN website, you can watch a video of a Q & A session with James Billington, Librarian of Congress.

A description:
James Billington discusses his 20 years as the Librarian of Congress and the Library's future. He was sworn in on September 14, 1987, and is the 13th person to hold the position since the Library of Congress was established in 1800. The interview takes place in the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library's Thomas Jefferson Building as part of the American Library Association's annual conference.

C-SPAN Q & A website

Library of Congress website

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 04:43 PM | Permalink

Here is the list of new titles the law library acquired in June 2007. The list is also on the library's home page.

June Acquisitions

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 10:35 AM | Permalink