News from Organizations

May 15, 2008

Harvard Law School Faculty Approves Open Access Policy for Scholarly Publications

The May 13, 2008 issue of the Library Journal Academic Newswire reports that Harvard University Law School (HLS) has adopted an open access policy for making its scholarly publications available online. Quoting from the Academic Newswire report:

“The Harvard University Law School (HLS) faculty last week followed the lead of their colleagues in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences by voting unanimously to make their scholarly articles available online for free, making HLS the first law school to commit to a “mandatory open access policy” via an institutional repository. ”

“Under the new policy, HLS will require that articles authored by its faculty members be placed in an online open access repository. The measure comes just months after the Harvard FAS approved its landmark mandate, after which, university librarian Robert Darnton, an architect of the policy, said he would be talking to Harvard’s professional schools immediately about adopting similar measure. HLS is the first professional school at Harvard to approve the measure. “That such a renowned law school should support Open Access so resoundingly is a victory for the democratization of knowledge,” Darnton said.”

May 15, 2008

AALL Presents the Joseph L. Andrews Bibliographical Award to Edward Grosek*

by David Badertscher

AALL presents the Joseph L. Andrews Bibliographical Award to Edward Grosek for his work, The Secret Treaties of History. As the title states, the book indexes treaties that nations entered into secretly. Some treaties trace back as early as 499 A.D. The result of the longtime effort of Grosek, this work includes 110 nations involved in secret treaties. The book annotates 973 secret treaties and includes an annotated bibliography, as well as an important country index. It is a unique resource that researchers in a variety of disciplines-from history to law to political science-can use.

Grosek is currently associate professor at Northern Illinois University and is in charge of the United Nations collection at the Founders Memorial Library. He has published a number of articles on government information.
______________________________________ “From: Ann Fessenden, AALL President, May 15, 2008.

May 14, 2008

ABA Criminal Justice Section 2008 Spring Conference

by David Badertscher

Click here for highlights, audio and photos related to the Conference.

May 13, 2008

National Launch of Self Representation Leadership Package, September 8-10, 2008

by David Badertscher

The following e-mail was received from Richard Zorza, Access to Justice:

As many of your have heard, in September 2008, the Self-Represented Litigation Network will be launching its leadership package entitled: Court Leadership and Self-Represented Litigation Solutions for Access, Effectiveness, and Efficiency.

Following the model of last years successful judicial conference at Harvard, the launch, to be held at the Court Solutions Conference sponsored by the National Center for State Courts, held in Baltimore on September 8-10 will provide an opportunity for groups of leaders to come together and learn about, and practice the use of leadership tools for innovation for the self-represented.

May 9, 2008

AALL State-by-State Survey and Report on Authentication of Online Legal Resources

by David Badertscher

An Introduction*

David Badertscher

How trustworthy are state-level primary legal resources on the Web? The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) published the State-by-State Report on Authentication of Online Legal Resources (Authentication Report) that answers this very important and timely question. The comprehensive report examines and draws conclusions from the results of a state survey that investigated whether government-hosted legal resources on the Web are official and capable of being considered authentic. The survey was conducted by the Access to Legal Information Committee of AALL. For a quick overview, the Authentication Report’s Executive Summary provides an excellent introduction to some of the underlying issues and facts surrounding the pressing and timely issue of the authenticity of state primary digital legal materials.

May 9, 2008

News From Region 1 of the New York State Archives

by David Badertscher

Newsletter No. 5 of 2008

2008-2009 LGRMIF Grant Applications:

I know that many of you are wondering about the status of your 2008-2009 grant application. Here is where we are now: The first step in the review process, the formal evaluation by outside reviewers and staff members, was recently completed. All reviewers had to evaluate and score each proposal assigned to them and return it to the State Archives by April 18th. This information is now being compiled and shared with the other Members of each panel. Those panels, which are organized by grant category, meet on May 14th to make final recommendations on funding to be forwarded to the Commissioner of Education, who by state law authorizes all grant awards.