QUESTION:
On behalf of the California Administrative Office of the Courts, we would like to know if there are any courts in the United States that “sell” delinquent court-ordered fines, fees, penalties, and assessments. In specific, we are looking for criteria, and private vendors used, including pricing structure.
RESPONSES:
This morning I was one of many who received the following e-mail from Jessica Van Buren of the Utah State Law Library. :
A few weeks ago I asked if any of you had disaster plans to share. I offered to compile responses for a new Toolkit page on the SCCLL [ State Court and County Law Libries Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) ] website if there was interest.
There was plenty of interest! Only two had plans to share, but it’s a start. The information I gathered is now on the new Disaster Planning page on the SCCLL website at http://www.aallnet.org/sis/sccll/toolkit/disaster-planning.htm.
We are not court reporters and normally do not become involved in discussions related to that field. Nevertheless we recently came accross an interesting exchange of e-mails which helps to identify and highlight the challenges and sometimes emotial reactions regarding how stenographic reporting and electronic recording relate to one another within the court reporting process.
The first e-mail, which we refer to as a comment, presented here in exerpted form, raises concerns about the impact of increased digitization of the process and a percieved lack of planning and resources to deal with these impacts.
The second e-mail is a response to the first. It defends some of the issues criticized in the first e-mail and presents an altervative perspective regarding the roles of stenographic reporting and electronic recording in the court reporting process.
Question (as asked):
“With times being as tough as they are, and job opportunities not being great, I’m considering getting certified as a paralegal. It seems from what I’ve read so far that a Librarian’s skills could translate well into a paralegal’s duties, and I wanted to ask if anyone has any knowledge, experience, or opinion in the matter.
Does being a Librarian with skills in research and reference and other areas mean such a person could potentially make a good paralegal? And if so, does anyone recommend a particular course of action over another for getting certification or experience?”
On june 15, 2009 we received an interesting question by e-mail regarding law school journals and open access. Somewhat later we received another e-mail from the same person, summarizing the responses to her original query. Due to increasing interest and concern regarding information access issues, including open access to law journals we are posting both the original question and responses below. In order to preserve confidentiality we will not be mentioning names but are very grateful to the legal bibliographer who raised the original question and summarized the responses:
QUESTION:
Do any of your law school journals publish their open access contents through a repository (like DSpace, BePress, etc..), or use a system like OJS-Open Journal Systems (PKP) to publish online? Do they simply post their issues/articles as pdf’s to the law school server?
QUESTION:
Recently, Connecticut and New Jersey have sought to remove funding completely for their county and court law libraries through budget bills and separate legislative actions. Has anyone experienced this threat from their state legislature recently?
SOME RESPONSES:
As you undoubtedly have heard, a new strain of influenza called Swine Flu or Swine Influenza apparently started about a month ago in Mexico. It has now spread, first to at least a few states in the United States and now may be spreading world wide.
Art Bernardino who provides consulting services in pandamic planning suggests seven things people can do to lessen infection and protect themselves and others:
1. Wash hands frequently using soap and water or waterless hand sanitizers
Q\UESTION::
In a recent e-mail, someone from Canada asked asked how she could obtain an “official copy” of a Congressional Research Service report, “one from Congress,” not one from the website of an organization such as the Federation of American Scientists. The responses which follow are very interesting; they address a variety of related issues including the following: Are Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports that contain added designations such as watermarks, trademarks, or copyright notices official and are they in the public domain? Does the U.S. Government have any special rights to use copyrighted materials? and can CRS reports always be freely disseminated as government documents?
RESPONSES:
The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) is proud to announce it is adopting a new, powerful, state-of-the-art learning technology, which will provide a new learning gateway to all AALL members.
The new Ed2Go @AALLNET site will provide members with:
Online access to the AALL Annual Meeting program recordings, as well as archived Webinars, audio recordings, and video recordings
QUESTION:
Does anyone have any complaints about the accuracy of court transcripts prepared off-site by transcribers who were not in the court at the time of the recording?
Also, what kind of a certification and qualifications do you require for your court reporters in your area?
Criminal Law Library Blog