Articles Posted in News from Organizations

The Brennan Center has launched an online book review site with a focus soley on books about law and policy. The site (Just Books) includes book reviews, author interviews, and recommended reading from prominent legal figures.The site was spearheaded by Susan Lehman, the director of communications and strategy at the Brennan Center. Ms. Lehman said “I want it to be a virtual water cooler for lawyers and people who work in policy….There are declining venues for serious material….Clearly there is a continuing appetite for that material.”

We agree. Many thanks to Susan Lehman for spearheading this worthy project.

In March 2010 OCLC announced an important change to their FirstSearch content services. According to the announcement, OCLC is transitioning out of their role as reseller of vendor-owned content. Therefore they will transfer or discontinue sale of the vendor-owned databases on FirstSearch when subscriptions have ended. According to the announcement, they will instead increase their focus for both FirstSearch and WorldCat.org on providing libraries with access to a rich set of library-owned content and increasing visibility and access to the full scope of a library’s collection. They will work with libraries, publishers and other information providers to expand WorldCat.org as a comprehensive platform for eContent. As a part of this migration, EBSCO has acquired the rights to license a select number of vendor-owned databases that OCLC currently offers on FirstSearch. OCLC’s long-term relationship with H.W. Wilson is also changing as OCLC will work together to transition from reselling Wilson databases on FirstSearch to indexing Wilson databases in WorldCat Local over the coming months. According to OCLC there will be no interruption in service to libraries.

FirstSearch FAQ’s: http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/questions/

EBSCO News Release: http://www.oclc.org/news/releases/2010/201015.htm

“On January 21st, 2009, President Obama issued a Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government in which he described how: ‘public engagement enhances the Government’s effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge.’

To support the President’s open government initiative, DOT has partnered with the Cornell eRulemaking Initiative (CeRI) in a pilot project, Regulation Room, to discover the best ways of using Web 2.0 and social networking technologies to: (1) alert the public, including those who sometimes may not be aware of rulemaking proposals, such as individuals, public interest groups, small businesses, and local government entities that rulemaking is occurring in areas of interest to them; (2) increase public understanding of each proposed rule and the rulemaking process; and (3) help the public formulate more effective individual and collaborative input to DOT. Over the course of several rulemaking initiatives, CeRI will use different Web technologies and approaches to enhance public understanding and participation, work with DOT to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of these techniques, and report their findings and conclusions on the most effective use of social networking technologies in this area….”

Quote from U.S. Department of Transportation Website.

@ the Center is the flagship e-newsletter of the National Center for State Courts (NCSC). It highlights major projects, publications and conferences related to the work of NCSC.. Even though this newsletter is of redcent vintage (still Volume 1) it has already caught the attention of many in the judiciary. If you are interested in more information click here. Below are highlights of the March 2010 issue.

Volume 1, Issue 6 March 2010

Budget resource center expanded Interactive maps show extent of cost cutting across the country

Thanks to Carole Levitt, President of Internet for Lawyers, for alerting us to the “key steps to improve public access to feferal courts by increasing the availability of court openions and expanding the services and reducing the costs for many users of the Public Access to Electronic Court Records (PACER) system”.

Below is Carole’s e-mail with a link to an Interner for Lawyers newsitem on the topic.The newsitem in turn contains links to both the March `16, 2010 Judicial Conference Press Release and to The Cybersleuth’s Guide to the Internet.”

March 18, 2010

Prepared by Michael Chernicoff

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/exclusive_inside_the_new_westlaw_lexis_bloomberg_platforms/#ecamp=t-n322

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).

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