David Badertscher

June 3, 2022

David Badertscher Presented With Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award

March 27, 2018 /24-7PressRelease/ — Marquis Who’s Who, the world’s premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present David Badertscher with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Mr. Badertscher celebrates many years’ experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who’s Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.

As a historian, former educator and retired principal law librarian for the New York Supreme Court Library, Mr. Badertscher understands the importance of keeping accurate and detailed records. Whether cataloguing materials or conducting research, he maintained a commitment to professional excellence that lasted the duration of his career. After earning a Bachelor of Science from Indiana State University in 1957, he went on to teach at Rockville High School in Indiana, Medinah Elementary School in Illinois and Beachwood High School in Ohio. He then began working in the Chicago Public Library system before becoming an assistant reference and circulation librarian at the University of Chicago Law School, where he laid the groundwork for the next portion of his professional life. He also obtained a MS from Indiana State University in Social Science and later an MALS in library and information science from Rosary College, now Dominican University.

In 1973, Mr. Badertscher left the Midwest for Washington, DC, where he served as Executive Law Librarian of Georgetown University Law Center until 1978. He briefly served as library director for the firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP before becoming a Principal Law Librarian of the State of New York Unified Court System a position he held from 1980 until 2012. While there, he also taught at Baruch College and for ten years was a member of the Board of Trustees of the New York Metropolitan Reference and Research Library Agency, now the Metropolitan New York Library Council where he served as chairman of the Board Personnel Committee. It was during his time working with the court system that he helped to introduce computer-assisted legal research in the trial courts, implemented a new method for handling transcripts, and developed blogging research services for the courts. These contributions, in addition to the experience he gained alongside a number of high-caliber professionals at the University of Chicago, have been the highlights of Mr. Badertscher’s impressive career.

August 12, 2012

State Advocacy Strategies: The New York Story

by David Badertscher

Included below are my introductory remarks delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries on July 23, 2012 as part Program E-1 State Advocacy Strategies: Learning to Connect, Grow and Survive. The material below includes only my introductory remarks and a series of slides (see link below) not included as AALL handouts. See added explanation below.

David Badertscher

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

March 8, 2011

Gangs in a New Jersey County

by David Badertscher

The following is a link to a a listing of towns in Union County New Jersey and the number of gangs reported to be established in each town, even many of the smaller ones. One reason for publishing this post is that we suspect this particular article may point to a very small representation of a much larger problem throughout the nation that should concern us all.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/01/nj_gangs_have_presence_in_all.html?appSession=82694619262727

David Badertsher

February 1, 2011

AALL: Network Neutrality Update – January 2011

by David Badertscher

David Badertscher

Network Neutrality (Net neutrality) is a principle that expresses the concept that all Internet traffic must be treated equally regardless of possible economic and other incentives to do otherwise. The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) strongly supports Net neutrality and is a member of Save the Internet Coalition and the Open Internet, both working to bring together individuals, non-profit organizations, businesses, and bloggers who strongly support this priciple.

As part of its leadership role in raising and clarifying issues related to Network Neutrality, AALL prepared a Newwork Neutrality Issue Brief, published in December 2008. Since that time there has been sufficient debate, discussion, rule changes (both actual and proposed), and litigation surrounding this issue to make it necessary for AALL to update its 2008 Network Neutrality Issue Brief, resulting the 2011 AALL Network Neturalty Issue Brief linked to below.

December 14, 2010

Library Announcement: Online Access to Temporary Comission on Revision of New York Penal Law and Criminal Code (1961-1970) Papers Held by Library

by David Badertscher

David Badertscher

The New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library (New York County) is pleased to announce a major enhancement regarding access to those Temporary Commission on Revision of New York Penal Law and Criminal Code (1961-1970) papers held by the New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library (New York County). During the past year we in the library have been working with professional interns, archivists, and especially Philip Yow and his web design team at the State of New York Unified Court System to find ways to preserving these materials, many of which were beginning to deteriorate significantly. After confronting various obstacles, technical and otherwise, we settled on digitizing the material as a number of separate and searchable pdf files and then placing all of them on the library website with an overlay of google searchability. Although this may not be perfect it does make the documents accessible on the web in a cost effective manner.

A word of further explanation. these papers primarily consisting of documents submitted to and documents produced by the Temporary Commission on Revision of Penal Laws and Criminal Code (1961-1970) were collected by our former Administrative Judge Peter Mcquillan who served on the staff of the Commission. Justice Mcquillan left the Papers in my custody when he retired and we first put up an index to the papers on the web and now the full text of these materials. In addition we have included The Proposed New York Criminal Procedure Law of 1969 because in addition to the text of the proposed law, it includes valuable additional materials related to the work of the Commission and derivation tables for use in comparing the current Code with the earlier Code. Special permission was obtained from Thomson Reuters before publishing the latter segment.

November 15, 2010

The WWW at 20

by David Badertscher

November 12. 2010 is the twentieth anniversary of a research proposal that is remaking our world. As Ben Zimmer tells it in his November 14 On Language column, WWW: The 20th Anniversary of a Research Proposal That Remande the Language in the New York Times, Tim Berners-Lee, a British software programmer working at CERN outside Geneva, was attempting to “sketch out a global system for sharing information over the Internet. After submitting a document in 1989 on the topic which generated little interest, Berners-Lee tried again in 1990, collaborating with a Belgian engineer Robert Cailliau. It was this paper, WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a Hyper Text Project, submitted on November 12, 2010, that is the true basis of the World Wide Web as we know of it today. There are a number of articles, papers, and media events commemorating this seminal event, but for a quick read that is also informative, Mr. Zimmer’s colum in the Sunday November 14, 2010 New York Times comes highly recommended.

David Badertscher

October 15, 2010

Chief Judge Lippman Announces Creation of Permanent Sentencing Commission for New York State

by David Badertscher

Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman on October 13, 2010 announced the establishment of the New York State Permanent Sentencing Commission, charged with conducting a comprehensive and ongoing evaluation of sentencing laws and practices and recommending reforms to improve the quality and effectiveness of statewide sentencing policy. A very important aspect of this Commission is that has been designated as permanent. There have been previous commissions created to look into these matters in New York State but they were designated as temporary. Hopefully the permant designation of this Commission will increase its influnce and help ensure that it’s recommendations and ongoing guidance will have significant impact over many years.

For official Unified Court System Press Release announcing establishment of New York State Sentencing Commission visit:

http://www.nycourts.gov/press/pr2010_11.shtml:

September 20, 2010

Book Review: Making Our Democracy Work, By Justice Stephen Breyer*

by David Badertscher

I often find there is little time to read all of the books I would like, or even need, to and therefore find myself resorting to book reviews. Last Sunday I read a review that to me seemd exceptional and would like to share it with you.

David Badertscher

REVIEW::

September 20, 2010

Should Cost be a Significant Factor in Sentencing Convicted Criminals?

by David Badertscher

Apparently the court system in Missouri thinks so. In her article, Missouri Tells Judges Cost of Sentences, publsihed in the September 18 New York Times, Monica Davey reports that “When judges here [Missouri] sentence convicted criminals, a new and unusual variable is available for them to consider: what a given punishment will cost the State of Missouri”. According to the article “legal experts say no other state systematically provides such information to judges, a practice put into effect here last month by the state’s sentencing advisory commission, an appointed board that offers guidance on criminal sentencing.”

Smart Sentenciing Volume 2 Number 5 August 17, 2010 A Bulletin of the Missouri Sentencing Commission includes a discussion of cost of sentencing as a variable when determining sentences. According to the Bulletin the Missouri Sentencing Commission has added data about the risk of being reincarcerated and the costs of sentences to its online application as a variable to enhance the availability of objective inform

I found it somwhat surprising that “….no other state systematically provides such information to judges”. On alternative for those interested in pursuing this subjct further would be to start by following a search I conducted on the National Center for State Courts website using the terms cost and incarceration.

September 2, 2010

Digitizing the World’s Laws: Authentication and Preservation

by David Badertscher

BY: Claire M Germain, Edward Cornell Law Librarian and Professor of Law Cornell University and Director, Dual Degree Programs, Paris & Berlin

Publishers Note:

Claire Germain is interested in all aspects of legal information, from rare books to digital libraries, and often writes on these topics, most recently “Digitizing the World’s Laws: Authentication and Preservation.” the topic of this posting. For several years she has been actively advocating for effective measures to bring about authentication and improved preservation of digital law locally, nationally, internationally, and globally.