QUESTION:
Does any one use electronic signatures for documents? We conduct video arraignments with detention facilities around our county and this would be most helpful and much more efficient. Any information you can provide will be appreciated.
RESPONSE:
The transition of evidence from paper to digital imposes new challenges to ensuring a proper “chain of custody'” in the authentication of digital evidence.
The legal group of Merrill Corporation has recently compiled a report which addresses this and related issues:
Report: AUTHENTICATING DIGITAL EVIDENCE: IDENTIFY AND AVOID THE WEAK LINKS IN YOUR CHAIN OF CUSTODY.
Georgia K. Briscoe* of the University of Colorado School of Law Library has sent the following announcement which we are please to post here for the benefit of all law librarians and perhaps some others as well. Here is her announcement:
In case you haven’t heard, there is a new online SSRN journal which academic technical services librarians will find useful. LEGAL INFORMATION & TECHNOLOGY eJOURNAL is edited by Randy Diamond and Lee Peoples. I am pleased to be a member of the editorial board representing technical services issues. The archive already includes over 150 papers and is growing daily. This ejournal provides another avenue for TS librarians to publish.
Subscribers to SSRN will soon start receiving email issues announcing works in progress and recent publications. SSRN will issue a formal announcement soon, but the editors are pleased to provide a pre-launch viewing. Detailed information from Randy and Lee follows. I hope you will check out this new opportunity for professional growth and development.
Sometimes it seems as though Google has become ubiquitous in the world of searching and may want to repeat its act in the world of books. While thinking about this, two articles, one forthcoming and one published Febrary 1 have come to our attention>
The forthoming article Google and the Future of Books* by Robert Darnton, Director of the Library and Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor of Harvard has much to say on the subject and should be required reading for all who are concerned about these developments. He writes:
“How can we navigate through the information landscape that is only beginning to come into view? The question is more urgent than ever following the recent settlement between Google and the authors and publishers who were suing it for alleged breach of copyright…”
I received the following e-mail from Scott Frey on January 29 and am posting it here for those who are interested. If you are interested please contact Scott directly as noted below:
I’ve received a grant from the Wolters Kluwer Law & Business Grant Program to develop a search engine for law-related public domain electronic books (http://www.aallnet.org/news/newsdisplay.asp?nid=146). As part of the project, I’m seeking law librarians and other legal researchers to provide feedback on the search engines’ interfaces and results.
I envision that the initial test in April 2009 would take about 30 minutes, followed by tests of similar length in May, August, September, and potentially October. (I figure that 30 minutes would be sufficient for good testing and feedback, without impinging unduly on people’s busy schedules.) I might call or email some testers for clarification or elaboration of their feedback.
January 2009 Volume 2 # 1
Challenge or Secret Questions
From the Desk of David Badertscher
In case you missed it, the results from the 2008 version of Marshall Breeding’s Library Automation Survey are available at http://www.librarytechnology.org/perceptions2008.pl. This Survey is international in scope. There were 1,450 responses.
State of New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library (New York County)
Inspired by the recent New York Unified Court System Report Green Justice: An environmental Action Plan for the New York State Court System*, the New York Supreme Court Law Library, Criminal Term (New York County) is pleased to announce a major upgrade to the section of our website dealing with search engines. Our objective is to best serve your information needs through enhanced access to reference and research sources. Consequently, we have have provided a wide variety of general Internet search engines as well as search engines that specifically target legal information sites. Moreover, we have included in our resource page meta search engines which combine the search results and different technologies of multiple companies (e.g. Google and MSN). We hope that these resources are another means for you to conveniently and best retrieve information from the Internet. Our new search engine page is located at: /nyc_criminal/search_engines.shtml .
You may wish to reacquaint yourselves with out library homepage which is located at: http://www.nycourts.gov/library/nyc_criminal/ .
Michael Gartenberg’s predictions as reported in Computerworld – December 17. 2008.
“Well, it’s that time of the year again. Time to enjoy the glow of a nice LED-backlit display and huddle with the warmth that only an overclocked PC can produce. Yep, it’s time to take a look at what’s going to happen in technology in 2009. Here are my five predictions for the new year.”
“What happens to your mission-critical… application source code should the vendor go bankrupt? This is when you need a Technology Escrow service.Tech Escrow requires vendors to deposit source code into an account held by a third party agent to ensure ongoing accessibility of the software. Recent research by IDG research Services highlights some recent trends and gaps in coverage, making the case for Technology Escrow.”
See: How to Minimize Risk with a Software Vendor ‘Prenup’ Paper by Digital Iron Mountain under sponsorship of IDG Research..
Criminal Law Library Blog