Prepared by Michael Chernicoff
Despite coming out with new platforms of their own, the perceived‐legal research monopoly of “Wexis” – WestLaw and LexisNexis – is facing pressure from a newly rejuvenated Bloomberg platform. Benefits of the updated Westlaw platform includes the use of a powerful natural language search in the newly‐named WestlawNext, and in the case of Lexis Nexis an intuitive display of results in their product, NewLexis.
BY: Michael Chernicoff
President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) has promsed to make its statistical body free from political manipulation. In making an independent statistical body, James Lynch may hope to reverse that likelihood that the BJS and its official are, “inappropriately treated in the future.”
In 2009, James Lynch was a member of the Panel to Review the Programs of the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT), which provided recommendations to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) on ways to improve the quality, creditability, and relevance of U.S. justice statistics. In that report, the Panel recommended that “BJS be moved out of OJP (Office of Justice Programs),” and further suggested, “that the position of BJS director be made a fixed-term presidential appointment with Senate confirmation.” (A full-text copy of this report behttp://www.nap.edu/catalog/12671.html).
SigInt Technologies, LLC seeks a Senior Level Digital Library Programmer Analyst to support a US Government Agency.
Salary range: $125,000.00 – $135,000.00
We are growing our hardcopy-centric collection to include a substantial amount of digital content. You will have the opportunity to chart the course as we incorporate a variety of electronic data sources into the collection and make them available to our users. You will have the freedom to select the tools you deem best and implement them as you see fit. You’ll work directly with library management to collect requirements and propose and implement solutions. You will lead and direct other developers who will assist with the implementation.
Although addressed primarily to Internet Society members, the following message contains information which should be of interest to librarians, lawyers and other important stakeholders in the internet community who need to follow ongoing developments.
Dear Members, Friends, and Colleagues,
The end of 2009 is here – and what a year it has been. The Internet
OCLC’s QuestionPoint and Mosio’s Text a Librarian announce virtual reference collaboration Project to offer text messaging reference options to QuestionPoint users. Here is the Press Release :
DUBLIN, Ohio, January 15, 2010-OCLC and Mosio are working together to enable seamless integration of Mosio’s Text a Librarian text messaging reference software with OCLC’s QuestionPoint reference management service to provide a comprehensive virtual reference solution for libraries.
OCLC and Mosio are exploring solutions to the demands of a mobile world and the need for libraries to be able to communicate with their patrons online and on-the-go.
Top 10 Stories for Week Ending January 29, 2010.
Law Firms EEOC Sues Kelley Drye Over Firm’s De-Equitization Policy for Older Partners
Jan 28, 2010, 02:44 pm CST
Includes both useful resources and a request for information from the courts.
Nora Sydow reports that the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) has recently developed a Social Media and the Courts web module. Included in this module is a state links page that links to courts that are using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. In an effort to make this page as complete as possible, we are asking for your help.
(1) If your court is using a social media site, could you please send me the link(s) so we can include them in our state links page?
For Week Ending January 22, 2010
Law Students
Deluged with Clerkship Apps, Some Federal Judges Don’t Look at All of Them
Top Ten Stories for Week Ending January 15, 2010
Careers DLA ‘Working Lawyer’ Explains Why He and 8 Others Moved to Jackson Lewis Jan 14, 2010, 09:39 am CST
Legal Ethics Unhappy Secretary’s Report Spurs Ethics Trouble for NJ Litigator
David Badertscher
Although not primarily a reviewer of legal materials, Kirkus Reviews is one of the most outstanding and respected review magazines devoted to book media. It was founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893-1981) a former head of the children’s book department of Harper & Bros. with the idea of holding book reviewing to a very high standard, being selective in both the books reviewed and the people assgned to review them. The first year they received about 20 advance galley proofs.
By all accounts Kirus has managed to maintain these high standards throughout the years, becomeing one of the true standard bearers for the authoritative reviewing of all types of titles including those related to law. According to their website, Kirkus currently reviews about 5,000 titles per year “with the idea of of providing Kirkus regulars (librarians, newspaper editors, agents, film producers, booksellers, and those throughout the book world in general) with professional, informative, and impartial descriptive evaluations of forthcoming titles, and to do so on a timely basis.”
Criminal Law Library Blog