AALL Annual Meeting Picture Gallery

LLAM Dine Around in Philadelphia

 LLAM’s 2011 Annual Meeting Grant Recipient Reports  on AALL in Philadelphia

AALL Program Review: The New Generation of Legal Research Databases: Eighteen Months Later

AALL Program Review:  Copyright Hell: Sites to Get You Out of the Inferno

AALL Program Review: “Can the FCC Regulate the Internet?”

AALL Program Review: Advocacy at AALL 2011

AALL Program Review: PLL Change as Action Summit

AALL Program Review: Value of a Public Law Library

AALL Program Review: Peeping Thomas: A Little Look at a Big System

There were a number of opportunities for learning about AALL’s Advocacy efforts at the meeting and conference held in Philadelphia this summer.  There was a half day training on Saturday, “Legislative Advocacy Training 2011: Turning Challenges into Opportunities,” two programs, “AALL Public Policy Update: Shining the Spotlight on Advocacy” and “Authentication: The Evolution Continues,” and the Chapter Leadership Roundtable on Government Relations.  I was able to attend all but the Authentication program that was scheduled during the same time slot as the program I was moderating.  (I do plan to take advantage of AALL2go for this program later.)

The advocacy and public policy programs concerned issues of significance to AALL and law librarians and provided strategies for advocating for these issues.  We were able to meet Julie Strandlie, the new Director of Government Relations, who with Emily Feldman, Advocacy Communications Assistant, began the Saturday morning advocacy training with advocacy strategies.  Emily and Julie are AALL’s lobbyists who advocate for us in Washington, D.C.  However, members are needed to aid in their advocacy efforts as the opinions of constituents are of more significance to our representatives at the state and federal levels of government.  When we personally contact our representatives, we can make more of an impression than a lobbyist.  Ways of contacting our representatives should include in-person visits, the number one way to get your message heard, individual phone calls, letters and e-mail. It is always helpful to know the staff of the representative and it was suggested that we poll our chapter members to see who might have such contacts.  It is important that it be determined who knows whom before a crisis.  It would be good to know which members reside in which legislative districts so that they can be easily called upon when needed.

The rest of the training dealt with the issues for which we are encouraged to advocate and updates on legal information policy and programs.  Legal information issues were further detailed at the Monday morning program.  Federal level issues mentioned include GPO, FDLP and the Library and Law Library of Congress funding, section 215 of the Patriot Act, Net Neutrality, copyright, and PACER.  Other issues such as the Uniform Electronic Legal Information Act  must be dealt with on the local or state level while some issues such as  citation format  and the work of the AALL Working Groups on the national inventory could be considered national issues to be tackled at both the federal and local level.  I will report on just some of the issues and topics covered at the programs I attended.  I encourage members to become acquainted with AALL’s Advocacy pages for more detailed information on these and other issues of importance to law librarians.

As a part of the advocacy training, Larry Meyer, Director of the Law Library for San Bernardino County in California, reported on the PACER pilot project in which his library is participating.  This program is designed to educate the public on the use of and access to PACER.  San Bernardino has created training guides describing PACER and providing instructions on creating a PACER account.  Leslie Street, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Law Library, talked about the creation of PACER training and resource guides  that provide information on setting up PACER accounts, performing simple searches and a description of PACER and its scope.

After our AALL Working Group worked so hard on our Inventory of Maryland Legal Materials it was good to hear what the results of this project might be.  Tim Coggins, 2010 Chair of DALIC, reported on some of the findings so far.  There has been no change in the number of authenticated legal materials since the 2009-2010 report found on the Digital Authentication page of AALL’s Advocacy pages. (I should  mention that  DALIC or the Digital Access to Legal Information Committee is the new name for ELIAC or the Electronic Legal Information Access & Citation Committee.)  More online publications have been designated as official since that 2009 report.  It was found that 25 states now have a copyright on their digital material.  There are some states that have made provisions for preservation and permanent pubic access. The inventory shows a trend to charging for access to online versions. Other trends found more states making the digital version the official version and restrictions on commercial use and use affecting privacy.  Emily Carr, the Federal Inventory Coordinator, reported on the Federal Inventory that is modeled after the state inventory.  The data collected from the inventories will be used to update AALL reports on authentication and permanent public access.  The data will be shared with the Law Library of Congress as they build law.gov.  It must be noted that the inventory is an ongoing project and volunteers will be needed to check links and update the spreadsheets periodically.

The national inventory will provide important background information as members seek to have their states pass the new Uniform Electronic Legal Information Act.  Keith Ann Stiverson, AALL Observer to the NCCUSL Drafting Committee on the UELMA, briefed the group on the status of the Act.  UELMA had been approved by the Commission as of July, 12, 2011.  This approved version will be subject to style changes and the addition of new, revised comments. The Act provides a framework for authentication, preservation and permanent public access for online legal material.  The final version is expected soon and then the NCCUSL Enactment Committee will begin to act in all states.  I will be sure to notify LLAM members when the Act is introduced in Maryland.  Links to the Act and supporting information can be found on the Digital Authentication page of AALL’s Advocacy pages.

Although it was late in the day, LLAM was well represented by President, Sara Witman, and Vice President/President Elect, Mary Jo Lazun and me at the Chapter Leadership Roundtable: Government Relations.  The Roundtable provided a venue for new chapter leadership to become acquainted with AALL policy and strategies for local advocacy and to share advocacy ideas.  Participation in the roundtable, the training and the programs should provide me with a good base on which to begin a new year as Government Relations Chair.  I look forward to LLAM’s continued support in advocating for legal information issues.

By Katherine Baer

There was one session at AALL that gave some real nuts & bolts information on copyright called “Copyright Hell: Sites to Get You Out of the Inferno.”  This talk was delivered by George Pike, Director of the Barco Law Library at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Steven Melmut, Informational Technology Services Librarian at the University of North Carolina School of Law.  They gave a nice introduction to copyright and then went into the finer points of fair use, researching copyright, and licensing.

Here are a few of the sites they recommended:

The Basics

US Copyright Office: www.copyright.gov

Copyright Laws: www.copyrightlaws.com

Fair Use

Stanford Copyright & Fair Use Center: fairuse.stanford.edu

Electronic Frontier Foundation: www.eff.org

Columbia University Copyright Advisory Office: copyright.columbia.edu/copyright

Research

Stanford Copyright Renewal Database: collections.stanford.edu/copyrightrenewals

US Copyright Office Online Records Search: www.copyright.gov/records

Licensing

Creative Commons: www.creativecommons.org

Copyright Clearance Center: www.copyright.com

Copyright Tutorials

Copyright Information Center: www.copyright.cornell.edu

By Sara Witman
Research Librarian
Gordon, Feinblatt, Rothman, Hoffberger & Hollander

Just about every AALL conference veteran will give you the same advice: wear comfortable shoes and go to at least one session that has nothing to do with your job.

This year, I finally followed the latter half of that recommendation, and I wish I had listened to it earlier; the program I took a gamble on was the most interesting and informative one I attended this year.

The Monday morning session, “Can the FCC Regulate the Internet?,” featured two panelists: Dan Brenner, a partner at Hogan Lovells US LLP and adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School, and Markham Erickson, a founding partner at Holch & Erickson LLP and lead counsel to the Open Internet Coalition. Brenner and Erickson described the current legal situation of “network neutrality” in the United States. In essence, “network neutrality” would prevent Internet service providers or the government from restricting content or access to consumers. The speakers offered different viewpoints on how the issue may be (and possibly should be) resolved. Ryan Harrington, a reference librarian at Yale Law School, introduced the speakers, provided a background on the issues, and asked some first-class questions.

Basically, if I understand this correctly, the FCC got involved with the management of Comcast a few years ago. Comcast was discriminating against customers who were using BitTorrent, a service that uses a great deal of bandwidth. In April 2010, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found in favor of Comcast, and specifically that there was no statutory authority for the FCC to deal with “network management” on the Internet (see Comcast Corp. v. F.C.C., 600 F.3d 642).

Then, in December of last year, the FCC issued network neutrality rules. These rules cover three areas: the first states that a company must be transparent; the second prohibits blocking websites and applications such as Skype; the third prohibits discrimination.

The problem? The FCC rules are based on the same statutory authority that the D.C. Circuit said was insufficient. The rules have still not been published in the Federal Register; once they are, the lawsuits are coming right behind them, given the D.C. Circuit ruling.

Both speakers noted that, interestingly, Comcast had resolved its violation before the FCC decided to “take out the sledgehammer and iron maiden,” as Brenner eloquently put it, and pursue its case.

The speakers took very different stances on the FCC/network neutrality situation. Erickson works for Internet companies that provide content and want as little restriction as possible from consumers to that content. Brenner, on the other hand, thought that, in general, the FCC rules were a “solution in need of a problem,” since only two complaints have been filed on network neutrality and recent studies have shown that customers have been getting advertised Internet speeds. That said, Brenner stated that he does think that the general idea of network neutrality is important and that a company such as Comcast should not be blocking content based on what that content is or says.

The rules do not prohibit usage-based pricing. Erickson, who has represented Netflix, said that Netflix has worried publicly about this since they believe that usage-based pricing can be used against them in an anti-competitive way. For example, Comcast might charge more for heavy Internet users to ensure that customers won’t substitute Netflix for Comcast content.

Legislation could solve some problems surrounding network neutrality. However, Brenner points out that he doesn’t think “this Congress could pass an intelligent Internet law.” “It’s just not happening,” he said. “When you do get something, it’s about ordering the Commission to lower the sound of TV commercials. That’s what they’re able to pass.” Erickson agreed, “It’s really become so dysfunctional.” The House has already voted to use the Congressional Review Act to overturn the net neutrality rules.

So where will this issue go next? Apparently, no one really knows. Since the rules haven’t been published, they can’t be challenged in court yet. Will the D.C. Circuit’s opinion be overturned, or will the case be tried in a different jurisdiction creating a split that would be decided by the Supreme Court? Is this a completely unregulated field? How much authority does the FCC have over Internet service providers?

Thanks to this fascinating program, I will be paying much closer attention to these questions and how they are answered in the coming months and years.

When this program was accepted for the Annual Meeting, the panel was hoping to present a comparison of WestlawNext and Lexis Advance.  Since Lexis Advance has not been released, the panel presented the results of a survey of law librarians about WestlawNext with commentary from the panelists.

•  More law firms than law school libraries are using WestlawNext. Very few corporate, government, or courts libraries are using WestlawNext.

•  Most firms did see increased costs in using WestlawNext, but some saw a price decrease. Overall the pricing model seems simpler to understand.

•  WestlawNext searchers liked:

Ease of use
Federated search
Folder and folder sharing
Faceted and aggregated results that show new material
Librarians liked that searchers saw not only primary sources but valuable secondary sources.

• WestlawNext searchers disliked:

Oversimplification of research
Lack of precision
Unclear, inconsistent search algorithm
Exclusion of some Westlaw materials
Difficulty knowing what content is (and is not) included
Difficulty constructing Boolean searches
Difficulty constructing narrow issue searches
Unavailability of field searching
Tendency to get too many search results

A podcast of the presentation and handouts are available to AALL members at: www.softconference.com/aall/sessionDetail.asp?SID=250810

Program Coordinator:
Caren Biberman, Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP

Moderator:
Victoria J. Szymczak, Brooklyn Law School Library

Participants:
Lisa A. Spar, Hofstra University Law School Library
Jean P. O’Grady, DLA Piper
Denise A. Pagh, Kronick, Moskovitz, Tiedemann & Girard

Niles, Barton & Wilmer

As the recipient of the AALL/LLAM Grant, I was able to attend the entire AALL Annual Conference and Meeting in  Philadelphia this summer. I found this to be a wonderful opportunity. My adventure began with the train ride from Baltimore to Philadelphia on Friday, July 22^nd; Amtrak trains were delayed throughout the northeast corridor due to the extreme heat. Luckily, I arrived in time to attend part of the PLL-SIS welcome reception that evening at the Union League Club of Philadelphia. I attended the PLL Change as Action Summit on Saturday and have written a separate article about the experience. The Summit was followed by the Exhibit Hall Ribbon Cutting/Opening Reception. Attendees had the opportunity to sample some local fare (including soft pretzels, philly cheesesteak and Tastycake products) and there was ample time to visit exhibitors and to network with colleagues.

Conference programming began Sunday morning with the Opening General Session/Keynote Speaker. Dahlia Lithwick, a senior editor at Slate, gave a very engaging and informative talk on the Supreme Court and current free speech issues. Following the opening session, I made a last minute decision to attend the Animal Law Caucus Presentation at noon (I had somehow forgotten to sign up for the PLL-SIS luncheon when I registered for AALL and it was full by the time I realized this). Dr. James A. Serpell gave a very interesting talk entitled “The Development of Human Attitudes Toward Animals and Animal-Assisted Therapeutic Interventions.”

Sunday afternoon was filled with interesting programs. I selected “Delaware: The First State for Corporation Law” for the first session and followed this with “Electronic Resources Management (ERM) Systems Showcase.” Both proved to be good choices as much of the information the speakers presented was new to me. I closed out the day at the BNA reception which included a very nice dinner, a great view of the downtown, and many opportunities to meet new people and to network.

Monday was another full day that included programs, meetings, and time at the exhibit hall. I began the day with a PLL-SIS Program, “Through the Looking Glass: Harnessing Technology in Today’s Law Firm Library.” This session provided a very helpful overview of current technology. I attended several additional programs on Monday, including “Can the FCC Regulate the Internet?” and “To Recover or Not to Recover: Trends, Solutions and Alternatives for Taming Online Research Costs.”  At the conclusion of the programming portion of the day, I attended, for the first time, the PLL-SIS One-Person Law Libraries Group Meeting. I was pleased to have the opportunity to become involved with this group. The evening festivities were hosted by Westlaw at the Reading Terminal Market, which is closed to the public in the evenings. Many of the merchants kept their stands open so attendees were able to sample a variety of cuisines.  

Tuesday, July 26^th was the final day of the conference and included programs, more opportunities to meet with vendors, and the Exhibit Hall Reception. I wrote an article for PLL Perspectives on one of the programs I attended Tuesday morning – “Getting to Yes for Your Library: Negotiating Vendor Contracts in Your Favor.” This session was sponsored by the Private Law Libraries SIS and the Committee on Relations with Information Vendors. My trip home was less eventful than the one to Philadelphia, although the MARC train did break down in the tunnel shortly after leaving Penn Station. Luckily, it was not too long before the train was repaired and we were on our way! All in all, attending the entire AALL Annual Conference was an excellent experience for me, and the AALL/LLAM grant made this possible.

VALUE OF A PUBLIC LAW LIBRARY:  How County Law Librarians in Pennsylvania Collaborated with Courts to Provide Services to Self-Represented Litigants

Two Pennsylvania law librarians, Eleanor Gerlott from Lancaster County Law Library, and Melanie Solon from Berks County Law Library, described how they and other county law librarians collaborated with the courts to provide services for pro se litigants in their counties.  Eleanor established a separate self-help center in her courthouse, while Melanie handled pro se questions by handing out informational packets and forms.  They described the process they went though and gave hints on what worked well for them.  They also pointed out some sticking points and problems that they encountered.

Both Eleanor and Melanie found public use in their libraries increasing and were asked the same questions repeatedly.  In response, both worked with their chief judges to establish a task force of interested parties to deal with the problem of pro ses in the courts.  Collaborating with all interested parties and having court backing was absolutely essential. Fortunately both librarians had the support of their chief judges, as well as court administrators and clerks, which brought other judges on board and made for smooth referrals and practical help in the form of space and furniture.  They involved the local bar members to help develop appropriate and accurate forms and answer concerns about loss of business. Other important partners included the public defender, district attorneys, domestic relations offices, legal services, and public librarians.

Both librarians faced similar objections and issues.   Skeptical judges had to be won over with the help of the chief judge.  Attorneys who thought they would lose business found that once unrepresented litigants were educated, the court process was smoother and took less time.  In fact, educated patrons sometimes hired attorneys once they saw how complicated their cases actually were.  Melanie found she had to deal with some noise and child care issues in her library.  Both librarians had to develop clear notices about unauthorized practice after finding that patrons occasionally asked attorneys or librarians for help filling out forms.

The speakers emphasized the importance of marketing, including developing a good web site to insure a successful project, and the necessity of keeping good statistics.  They both continue to review the information that they provide to patrons and to add more forms as issues and questions come up.   In the future, forms for non-English speakers still need to be developed.

Joan Bellistri moderated this SCCLL sponsored program, which was well attended.  The speakers were informative, and their emphasis on collaboration, careful statistics, and marketing was valuable for all types of librarians.

Since I found the Private Law Library Change as Opportunity Summit, held last year in Denver, to be such a great learning experience, I decided to attend the PLL Change as Action Summit on July 23^rd in Philadelphia. The Change as Action Summit was the culmination of a two-year initiative by the Private Law Libraries SIS. I found the programs at this year’s Summit to be replete with valuable information and ideas.

The Change as Action Summit began with a reception at the Union League Club of Philadelphia.  Although Amtrak trains to Philadelphia and other points along the Eastern Corridor were delayed due to the extreme heat, I arrived in time to attend part of the reception.  There was still to time to network with colleagues and to sample some local fare, including soft pretzels, Philly cheesesteak, and a variety of pizzas.

The Summit continued on Saturday with two morning speakers.  The first speaker was James Jones, Senior Vice President at Hildebrandt Baker Robbins, the world’s largest provider of management consulting services to law firms and corporate law departments, who gave a very informative talk on understanding law firm trends. Esther Dyson, the founder and chairman of Edventure and considered one of the most influential voices in the Internet industry, provided her insight on technology changes in business and libraries.

The morning speakers were followed by break-out sessions that provided attendees with the opportunity to discuss the series of Law Firm Management webinar programs held throughout the past year.  There was time to attend two of the five sessions and I selected “Technology and the Law Firm Library” (Greg Lambert and Scott Preston, moderators) and “Moving Beyond the Library Walls to Support Strategic Knowledge Management” (Steve Lastres and Julie Bozzell, moderators). All the moderators were very knowledgeable about these constantly changing aspects of law firm library management.

Greg Castanias, Partner, Jones Day, spoke at the PLL Summit luncheon. His talk, entitled “How Librarians Add Value to Their Law Firms”, probably elicited the most intense reaction of any program at the Summit.   The full text of his talk can be found on the On Firmer Ground blog: http://firmerground.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/how-librarians-add-value-to-their-law-firms-advice-from-greg-castanias-jones-day-library-partner/.  At least two out of the three individuals behind Three Geeks and a Law Blog followed with a lively and interesting talk on “Trends, Tempests and Teapots.”  Although some of the posts admittedly sort of go over my head, their blog is sure to help law librarians keep up with legal technology: http://www.geeklawblog.com/.

The afternoon programming consisted of three concurrent tracks focused on administration, reference/research and technology/tech services. I found it difficult to select only three of the total of nine sessions offered. I ended up attending two of the technology/tech services programs – David Curle on transformations in the legal publishing industry and Joelle Coachman on integrating new technology into your library. I also attended one of the reference/research programs  – Gary Price on finding and evaluating web-based resources. I found these programs all to be very interesting and informative.

Once again, I found the PLL Summit to be well worth the investment and I would highly recommend any future PLL-SIS programs of a similar nature.

AALL Program Preview:  Chinese and American Forum on Legal Information and Law Libraries (CAFLL) Conference

AALL Program Preview:  Services for Self Represented Litigants In Pennsylvania

Ideas in Client Service: Lessons from the Union Square Café

Document Delivery at the Maryland State Law Library

Looking to Beef Up your Resume?

UB Law Collection Development Reflects Changing Trends in Librarianship

“Link Rot” and Legal Resources on the Web:  Have We Reached a Plateau?

Dee Van Nest Retires from the Maryland State Law Library

AALL Working Group Update

Legal Research “Demystified” at MLA pre-conference in Ocean City

2011 Spring Fling Gallery

The Maryland Inventory of Primary Legal Information is Done!

The Maryland Working Group has completed the Maryland section of the National Inventory of Primary Legal Information. The Maryland Working Group is one of many AALL working groups working to collect information on the availability of all primary legal resources in the United States at every level of government. Each state has been working to enter this information into their own Google spreadsheet. According the Government Relations Office Issue Brief,  once information from all fifty states, D.C., and the federal government has been collected, the results will be analyzed and used as needed by experts who will be working with LAW.gov, the Law Library of Congress and AALL public policy committees.

The Maryland Working Group has been working since last August to collect information for all Maryland primary law. We had a “final push entry party” on May 12 at the Maryland State Law Library to work entering the information for the municipalities. I joined Susan Herrick, Mary Rice, Vickie Yiannoulou, Andy Zimmerman and Mary Jo Lazun for our “party.” Meeting at the State Law Library allowed us to all work together with laptops accessing the online information via the wifi there. We also had easy access to the library’s collection of municipal print codes. Working as a group we were able to discuss and resolve any questions as they arose.

The working group began work with the state level of primary materials. After the first “party” in August where the spreadsheet and entry form were demonstrated, each member of the group volunteered to collect information for the various branches of government. The next step involved collecting the information for all levels of county government. Members of the Conference of Maryland Court Law Library Directors volunteered to enter information for their respective counties. Since there are many more counties than conference members, it was great that Mary Rice was willing to work on most of the other counties.

There are more than 150 municipalities in Maryland. This next step presented a challenge for meeting the June 2011 deadline. Mary Rice and Janet Camillo began work on the municipalities as soon as the counties were done. In order to meet the deadline, I planned another group entry “party.”  After May 12, we all agreed to continue until all municipalities on the list had been entered. (We used another Google spreadsheet to keep track of who had done which municipality so that we would not duplicate efforts.)

I am happy to report that we were finished by June 1. I want to thank everyone who contributed to this major project: Steve Anderson,  Janet Camillo (who continued to work after her retirement), Pat Behles, Joanne Colvin, Tonya Baroudi, Katherine Baer, Susan Herrick, Mary Jo Lazun, Carol Mundorf, Andy Zimmerman, Flossie Barnes, Errin Roby, and Vickie Yiannoulou.  And a special thanks to Mary Rice, who did far more than her fair share, and also took on the task of  reviewing the inventory after all was entered.