After more than eight decades of 50 titles in the U.S. Code, there is a new neighbor on the block. Bill H.R. 3237 was signed by President Barack Obama in December 18, 2010, and became Public Law 111-314. Title 51, also known as “National and Commercial Space Programs,” is a compilation of existing general law related to space programs.

The Office of Law Revision Counsel explains…

Over the past five decades, a substantial amount of legislation was enacted relating to national and commercial space programs. In the United States Code, some of these provisions appeared in title 15 (Commerce and Trade), some in title 42 (The Public Health and Welfare), and some in title 49 (Transportation). No distinct title for national and commercial space programs existed in the United States Code because the organizational scheme for the Code was originally established in 1926, before such programs were contemplated.

Public Law 111-314 gathers provisions relating to national and commercial space programs, and restates the provisions as title 51, United States Code, “National and Commercial Space Programs”. Public Law 111-314 does not provide for any new programs. Nor does it modify or repeal any existing programs. Rather, the Act restates existing law in a manner adhering to the policy, intent, and purpose of the original enactments, while improving the organizational structure of the law and removing ambiguities, contradictions, and other imperfections.

But wait…there’s more. Titles 52 – 55 are also in the works. These proposed titles are:  Title 52 Voting and Elections, Title 53 Small Business, Title 54 National Park System and Title 55 Environment. As with Title 51, these titles will be comprised of exiting law and will become positive law upon enactment.

In many law firms, come September, a new crop of eager first year associates joins the ranks.  As librarians, we often think of training our new associates on CALR techniques or outlining procedures for making research requests, but we don’t always think of how we might be of assistance to these new lawyers in building their future books of business.  Below are three pieces of advice for new associates looking to build their practices, and suggestions for librarians on how to assist in these endeavors.

1.  Become an amazing lawyer. When law students graduate, they are not yet superstars in their field.  They still have to learn the substantive practice area they have chosen, as well as related skills, like negotiating or trial techniques.  One of the major sources of new business for lawyers is referrals.  Becoming an expert in a particular substantive area is a great way to get those referrals.

If a new lawyer is interested in becoming a white collar trial attorney, refer her to sources such as Mauet’s Trial Technique, Courtroom Criminal Evidence by Edward J. Imwinkelried, or Lafave’s Criminal Procedure to help her develop a strong foundation in the practice area of her choice.  Assist her in setting up current alerts for developments in criminal law.  Offer to put her on the route list for any relevant publications the library might receive.  In short, help her to expand her substantive knowledge of her chosen area, so that she can build her expertise, which she can then sell to potential clients.

2.  Keep your networks warm, warmly. Again, referrals are critical for attorneys, so new associates should plan to keep their networks warm.  Of course social media is a great way to do this (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), but a personalized message can go a long way in making a lasting impression.  Such personal touches might include a congratulatory letter when a former classmate changes positions or a copy of a recent article about a subject a contact is passionate about.

Remind new lawyers that they can set up free news alerts on Google or other services about companies, colleagues, or subjects.  Offer to help associates with specific business development information requests for keeping in touch with contacts.  This can be as simple as assisting in locating a snail mail address if an associate wishes to forward a hard copy of an article and has only electronic contact information for a potential client.

3. Join one organization where you will interact with people who are in a position to refer work to you. Again, referrals are a primary source of business development, so a new associate should consider joining one organization where he will come into contact with people who are in a position to hire him or refer clients to him.

For example, if an associate wishes to pursue a career in estate planning, she might volunteer to assist a non-profit organization with a legacy gifts program.  This would give her experience with structuring legacy gifts, and would bring her into contact with individuals in a position to hire her to counsel on other estate planning matters.  A librarian may offer to assist the attorney in locating a few possible organizations, based upon the attorney’s interests and chosen area of law.

While there are many other strategies associates may pursue in becoming rainmakers for their firms, these three provide opportunities for librarians to assist in building the future leaders of their law firms, and, in turn, educate new patrons on the breadth of library services available to them.

Anna Ella Carroll

“Once in a while, a real hero is forgotten.”

Maryland honored one of those forgotten heroes, as November 20, 2010 was designated Anna Ella Carroll Day.

Anna, long footnoted in history, was a secret member of Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet. Cloaked in obscurity and forgotten by all but a few for over 150 years,  Ann, as she was known by her contemporaries, was recognized in her home county of Dorchester with a day of festivities.  A ceremonial wreath laying (by Brig. Gen. Wilma L Vaught, USAF Ret), unveiling of a special painting, and the premiere of a movie entitled Lost River: Lincoln’s Secret Revealed.

Ann was born in 1815, and was the granddaughter of Charles Carroll and the daughter of Maryland Governor Thomas King Carroll.  Her father educated her in law and politics, which was very unusual for a woman in that era, for as a woman she could neither vote nor hold office.  Though only 15, she ran the family business and the household while her father was governor.  She was a pamphleteer and lobbyist, and she naturally gravitated towards politics.  She got a job at the National Intelligencer, a Washington investigative  newspaper.

Not satisfied with political parties of the time, she helped to form the American Party (known in history as the Know Nothing Party), noted for their nativist policies.  They backed Millard Fillmore, who lost to James Buchanan.  In 1860, the party merged with the Republican Party and helped to make the deals that led to Abraham Lincoln’s nomination as the candidate.  Ann was instrumental in suggesting to Lincoln the strategy that he used to keep Maryland from seceding; she prepared a brief for him of his presidential powers.  She continued to prepare briefs on relevant issues, including battle strategies.  Travelling to the west to visit relatives, Anna talked to troops and generals and researched the rivers in the area.  She developed the battle strategy for the Tennessee River campaign (1861) and suggested General Grant as commander. Her strategy  was accepted and used, and the victory is credited with shortening the war and saving lives.  President Lincoln couldn’t give her credit during the war for morale purposes, because she was a civilian and a woman, but promised her that he would do so after the war.  She was accepted by other members of Lincoln’s cabinet but not by the First Lady, Mary Lincoln, who was jealous of the attention that was paid to her.  When artist Francis Bicknell Carpenter painted “Signing of the Emancipation Proclamation” in 1862,  originally Ann was part of the painting as part of Lincoln’s cabinet.

One mission of the GPO (Government Printing Office) is to provide for, in partnership with the Federal depository libraries, perpetual, free, and ready public access to the print and digital publications of the Government.

In keeping with this mission FDsys http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ continues to give the American people a one-stop site to authentic, published information, while enhancing the searching and browsing capabilities found on GPO Access. Transition to FDsys was completed in January 2011, with more collections to be added in updates.

FDsys provides free online access to official Federal Government publications. Through FDsys you are able to search for documents and publications; browse for documents and publications; access metadata and download documents in multiple file formats. FDsys contains almost 50 collections of Government information ranging from Congressional materials, to Presidential materials, and materials from Federal agencies. For a full list of FDsys collections visit http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collectiontab.action

In many ways, using FDsys is similar to conducting a typical Web search. One of the changes from GPO Access is that you can easily search across multiple publications or collections from a single search box. When you enter a search query, FDsys will locate relevant information for you, just as if you were using any other search tool. After inputting your search terms, you will be provided with a list of relevant results, which can be narrowed down and filtered.

FDsys enables GPO to manage Government publications from Congress and Federal agencies that are submitted to GPO in digital form, gathered from the Federal web sites, and created by scanning previously printed publications.

FDsys will allow Federal content creators to easily create and submit content which will then be preserved, authenticated, managed and delivered upon request.

For almost 150 years, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) has been the official disseminator of government documents and has assured users of their authenticity. In the 21st century, the increasing use of electronic documents poses special challenges in verifying authenticity, because digital technology makes such documents easy to alter or copy, leading to multiple non-identical versions that can be used in unauthorized or illegitimate ways

To help meet the challenge of the digital age, GPO has begun implementing digital signatures to certain electronic documents on GPO Access that not only establish GPO as the trusted information disseminator, but also provide the assurance that an electronic document has not been altered since GPO disseminated it.

Currently, the following documents are signed in FDsys:

GPO uses a digital certificate to apply digital signatures to PDF documents. In order for users to validate the certificate that was used by GPO to apply a digital signature to document, a chain of certificates or a certification path between the certificate and an established point of trust must be established, and every certificate within that path must be checked

What is GPO’s Seal of Authenticity?

The GPO Seal of Authenticity is a graphic of an eagle next to the words “Authenticated U.S. Government Information.”

What are validation icons?

Validation icons appear next to the GPO Seal of Authenticity to notify users of the content’s validity status. The following is a list of icons that are used by Adobe to convey information about digital signatures.

There are tutorials, help screens, FAQs and a manual to help with use of FDsys, as well as ask GPO functions.

NPR headquarters is located in downtown DC near the DC Convention Center, and this is where many of its news programs, such as Morning Edition and All Things Considered, are produced.  About 15 LLAM members were taken on a tour of their facilities guided by NPR librarians.  The librarians took us though the building, pointing out high points of the NPR news process while describing the varied duties of the librarians themselves.

The tour started in the Broadcast Library.  The Broadcast library is where most of the NPR library collections are housed.  The major collection is the recordings of NPR- produced shows.  For many years, there was only 1 copy of the shows, and they were stored on analog tape.  These reels are now kept in a climate-controlled archive connected to the library, and earlier years can be found at the National Archives.  In 1999, NPR began making show copies on CD-ROM, with both a circulating and an archival copy.  One major reason why this was done is because analog tape can get a condition called “sticky-shed syndrome”.  This is when the layers that make up the tape separate and become sticky resulting in shedding when the tape is played.  NPR actually uses a convection oven to “bake” these tapes, which fuses the layers back in place temporarily, allowing a copy to be made. Now the CDs are in the process of being saved to servers as backup to the CD copies.

The other two major collections housed in the Broadcast Library are the music and the spoken word collections.  There is a music librarian who helps directors and reporters make selections of the music that is played within segments and through the shows. As you can imagine, NPR has several thousand CDs to choose from, as well as several online sources.  Spoken Word is a collection of historical sound ranging from old radio newscasts to early TV programs, commercials, and political speeches.  Anytime you hear archival sound in an NPR program, the chances are it came from the Spoken Word collection.  If the library does not have something a producer or reporter needs, the Broadcast librarian will make every effort to find it.  The Broadcast librarians rotate manning the main information desk, and when they aren’t on reference, some are cataloging NPR programs, working on digital projects, and gearing up for a migration to a new library system.  Selection of a new system for their catalog has been quite complicated as they are trying to find a system that can work with all the other systems throughout NPR.

Inside Studio 4E.

There are also reference librarians “embedded” throughout the News division, and we met some of them as we moved on through the building.  The NPR News division is divided up between both shows and units; e.g. there is an area where all the Morning Edition staff works and another area for the Science unit, etc.  The News Division is spread over four floors and there are five librarians located throughout.

Other stops along the tour included Master Control.  This is the central area where all NPR’s input and output gets coordinated.  It looks like a space ship with hundreds of blinking lights & buttons.  It is continually manned by engineers making sure everything gets where it needs to be.  We were also able to go to one of the studios while the show Talk of the Nation was on the air.  There is a viewing area for guests where you can see both the director and the show host.  We saw their state-of-the-art Studio 4A that is used for live interviews with recording artists.  As you can imagine the digital revolution is huge at NPR, so we stopped by two projects that focus heavily on the digital world.  One was called NPR Labs and the other was Digital Music.  NPR Labs’ sole purpose is to explore new technologies and their possible uses throughout the NPR system, and Digital Music allows for a central location for musical genres and a variety of media platforms.  Lastly, we stopped by Morning Edition and heard how a show is produced, including how the various news pieces come in and how they piece together the segments.

It was fascinating journey into the behind-the-scenes action at NPR, highlighting the news, music, digital, and library missions.

Janet Camillo, the Director of the Montgomery County Circuit Court Law Library and active member of LLAM, will be retiring at the end of this year.

Janet’s library experience began in high school and continued through college and law school.  Her first job after law school was as a research librarian at her law school law library.  Janet pursued a legal career as a public interest attorney working for Neighborhood Legal Services and Legal Aid, but took a break from lawyering with the birth of her two sons.  She decided that it would be a good time to go to library school and pursue a career that might fit better with her new role as a mother.  While in library school, Janet was able to work part-time for the law firm Linowes and Blocher, and became the head librarian there after graduation.  After 11 years, she moved to the court library sector as head of the Arlington Circuit Court library.  Janet later moved to the Montgomery County Circuit Court Law Library as assistant librarian and eventually became the director.

It will be hard to say goodbye to someone who has done so much for LLAM.  Janet has served as Secretary, Vice President, and President.  She has chaired and served on many LLAM committees as well, most recently Archives, Nominations, and Awards.  She is responsible for getting the LLAM Procedure Manual together; she served on the 25^th Anniversary Committee; and she worked on the bylaws revisions and researching LLAM’s tax status.  Janet was also part of LLAM’s planning committee for the Northeast Regional Conference held in Toronto in 2007.

It will be hard to day goodbye to someone who has contributed so much on the national level as well.  As the photo attests, Janet worked as a function coordinator at the AALL Annual Meeting held in Baltimore.  You can find Janet’s name on the roster of various AALL SIS committees: Nominations for SCCLL, Awards and the Ad Hoc Professional Development Committee for TS-SIS, and the Patron Services Committee for RIPS.  She co-authored the LISP Public Librarian’s toolkit it for Maryland.  Janet is now a member of the AALL Maryland Working Group and is contributing to the National Inventory of Primary Legal Materials.

It will be hard to say goodbye to someone who has taken such an active role in the formation of the official Conference of Maryland Court Law Library Directors.  Janet was instrumental in getting this conference going.  We will miss her as the current chair of the conference.

It will be hard to say goodbye to someone who always had an idea for a program, whether local, regional, or national.  Janet shared her expertise on preservation with LLAM, and joined me at Jessup to teach legal research to the women there. Janet got the Conference of Court Library Directors to present at MACCM and coordinated a program for the SEAALL annual meeting.

It will be hard to say goodbye to our social coordinator at AALL.  Janet was always able to organize the LLAM Dine Around and get the LLAM runners together for the Hein Fun Run.

Looking at all of Janet’s accomplishments, we might easily see why she would want to retire.  Still, I had to ask her what she will do with her new found time.  Janet will be jumping right into a big home renovation project.  She looks forward to travel with her husband, Larry, taking classes, and continuing her volunteer work with therapeutic riding.  Janet will be careful that she doesn’t end up with too many commitments at the start of her retirement.  She will be available to help with the transition of the new library director in Montgomery County.

When asked what she will miss most, Janet was quick to say that she will miss more than anything the people she has worked with over the years: her staff and colleagues in Montgomery County, and all of the members of LLAM she has worked with and gotten to know.  When asked what she will miss the least, Janet answered that she is not sorry that she will no longer have to negotiate contracts with vendors.

I asked Janet if she had a “best” memory of her years as a law librarian.  She could not boil it all down to just one memory, but helping people is what made it all meaningful.  Janet remembers an Asian couple who returned to the library to thank her for all of the help she was able to provide in the library.  They insisted on a gift of a small Vietnamese bowl which serves as a lovely reminder of what Janet loved most about her career.

It will be hard to say goodbye to someone who is such good friend.  I know we will all miss her and hope that Janet keeps in touch as she begins this new and exciting phase of her life.

LLAM volunteers pictured l to r: Pat Behles, Univ. of Balto.; Jean Hessenauer, Tydings & Rosenberg; Sara Thomas, Whiteford Taylor; and Kathy Sweeney, Semmes, Bowen & Semmes

For the past two years, LLAM has been serving dinner twice a year at the Ronald McDonald House.  Each time we serve, four or five LLAM Members have volunteered.  We purchase the food, transport it to the house, prepare it, and then serve it.  The house holds approximately forty people, and it is usually full.  The Ronald McDonald House is set up like a small hotel.  On the first floor there is a nice family room with a large TV, a playroom, and a game room.  The second and third floors each have kitchens and hotel type rooms.  The kitchens were recently  remodeled and  are very well equipped.  We try to serve several choices of nutritious food and our “bakers” always whip up tasty desserts.

I have been serving dinner at the House for about eight years, and I think everyone who has participated will say how rewarding it is.  The families are so appreciative to have dinner waiting for them when they return from the hospital.  Last month, one dad said, “it is so nice to come back here at night and not have to worry about preparing dinner for my daughter and me.”  Having a very sick child is stressful, so it is nice to be able to take some of the burden from these families.

◊AACC Offers CEU Classes in Legal Research
◊AALL Maryland Working Group Update
◊NPR Tour
◊It’s Going to be Hard to Say Goodbye to Janet Camillo
◊Dinner at Ronald McDonald House
◊Holiday Party

Anne Arundel Community College, known for its strong paralegal program, began offering continuing education unit (CEU) classes this fall in the areas of legal research, negotiation, and mediation.

The legal research classes were taught by Mary Jo Lazun of the Maryland State Law Library. The first class focused on print sources and the second class on using online resources. Ten people got up early on a Saturday morning to attended the first session and fourteen for the second. About half the class were practicing attorneys and the rest were a mixture of paralegals, students and even a librarian!

In the first class, held at the State law library, focused on the print sources. Mary Jo taught students how to maximize the use of secondary sources and how to locate superseded Maryland Code and COMAR and do a basic legislative history.The session was designed so that over 50% of the class time was devoted to using the materials in the library. Students quickly learned their way around the library and were impressed the library’s collections, particularly its superseded codes.

The online class, offered in one of the college’s computer labs, gave students a hands-on opportunity to compare Lexis and Westlaw while learning the basics of Boolean searches and locating case law by topic and headnote. Having access to both databases was a major plus. Students either focused their attention on the database they used the most or used the class as an opportunity to learn a new system. Like the “print” class, most of the time was devoted to hands on exercises and kept Mary Jo very busy answering moving from computer to computer.

According to Karen Cook, the director of the Legal Studies Program at AACC, “The feedback from the courses has been wonderful!.” The college is working on its fall schedule of CEU classes and both legal research classes offered again.