Libraries are bridges to information and knowledge.

The Supreme Court may have its own police force, its own museum curator, and even its own basketball court, but unlike the courts of yore it has no Jester. As a result, the responsibility of delivering humor within the hallowed halls of One First Street falls squarely on the backs of the nine Justices themselves.” So, which Justice is the best at it? Well, before last year we had no way of knowing because the court reporter did not indicate which Justice asked a question or was speaking. But in the 2004-2005 that ended; now the Court Reporter reveals the names of the speaking Justices. And you might have guessed who won: Justice Scalia. He instigated 77 laughing episodes during the term. In last place was Justice Thomas; he instigated 0 episodes.

Justice Breyer was right behind Scalia with 45, Kennedy was third with 21, Souter had 19, Rehnquist had 12, Stevens 8, O’Connor 7, and Ginsburg 4.

[From an article entitled Laugh Track by Jay D. Wexler in “The Green Bag,” Vol. 9, No. 1, p.59]

From an e:mail sent by Guy St. Clair. President and Consultation Specialist for Knowledge Services at SMR International:

Legal Division members will be interested in reading about Lois Ireland, who is the subject of the current SMR International e-Profile.

Ireland, Manager of the Corporate Information Resource Center (CIRC) at Freddie Mac in McLean, VA was selected because of her role in working with the company to develop a enterprise-wide knowledge hub, providing knowledge services for all Freddie Mac employees and stakeholders.

The following are new articles and papers included in LLRX.com for October 2007:

**Cultural Challenges in Cross Border Mediation http://www.llrx.com/features/crossbordermediation.htm

Vikrant Singh Negi discusses how the role of cultural differences are crucial in cross border mediation. Although an individual’s nationality does not necessarily determine the attitudes and behavior brought to the table, it can provide valuable guidelines as to which negotiation strategies are likely to work and which are likely to end in failure.

Source: LJExpress, Libraryjournal.com, October 30, 2007.

By Norman Oder — Library Journal, 11/1/2007 Don Borchert, a library assistant 1 and 12-year employee of the Torrance Public Library, CA, has written a memoir of his library life, Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library, coming November 13 from Virgin Books. LJ’s Norman Oder asked how it came about.

DB: I’ve been writing since I was 16. I started out writing bad science fiction. I’ve written a couple of other books that didn’t get close to being published. [I thought] ‘I know the library.’ I’m not a professional, but I had all these anecdotes that I thought were kind of neat. Every night before I went to bed I’d sit and write a chapter. Some are anecdotes about people that come into the library, some are the events that occur, and other chapters are the bureaucratic goings on. I figured that wouldn’t see the light of day either but at least it was fun to write.

Source: LJXpress, October 30, 2007.

by Michael Rogers — Library Journal, 10/30/2007 6:52:00 AM

OCLC October 22 announced that it and the European OCLC PICA division have merged into a single “global organization” under the OCLC brand. OCLC said that by “bringing together all offices under one name and identity, libraries worldwide can benefit from OCLC membership, research, and an expanded portfolio around a comprehensive set of products and services.” The announcement immediately raised questions among other vendors regarding how OCLC can maintain its nonprofit status, since OCLC PICA is directly competing with for-profit vendors.

I just received the following news item from Lawrence Savell which I am delighted to post. It adds a dimension to the blog which we can all appreciate. If any of you would like to send me either news items or longer articles I will be happy to consider them for posting.

…now to the featured item!

Dear Mr. Badertscher: First, thank you for your excellent law blog. Second, I thought your readers might enjoy a lighter news item, and I am therefore also writing to request that you please consider mentioning the release of my indie music label LawTunes’ (www.LawTunes.comhttp://www.lawtunes.com) latest humorous lawyer-created, law-related album, “The Lawtunes: Live At Blackacre.”

BY Basil Tilmon, Account Manager GalleryWatch Inc.

This Week – Thursday afternoon, October 25

The week featured an interesting cyclical pattern – after a turbulent week of an attempted veto over-ride and floor ranting, this week was relatively conciliatory. Veto threats however loom over much of what Congress is doing, however. (Note: when you see the word veto…the link will take you to the appropriate veto statement.)

The following are some recent letters, memoranda and other correspondence in regard to the contractor, Blackwater:

Letter to Blackwater CEO Erik Prince from House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (PDF 360 KB)

Letter Requests Further Information on Blackwater’s No-Bid Contracts, Additional Incidents Involving Their Personnel in Iraq, and Payments Made to the Families of Iraqis Killed by Blackwater

CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Issue: Global Warming, Governance, and the Law

Fiona Haines, Nancy Reichman, and Colin Scott, as editors of Law & Policy, are bringing together a series of papers on the legal and policy issues around global warming. We are interested in papers in all areas of law and policy related to climate change from any relevant academic discipline including:

Best Practices in Information Retrieval and Records Management: Analysis and Recommendations from the 2007 Sedona Conference

By Steven Essig

The Sedona Conference Journal, Volume 8, Fall 2007, includes much relevant commentary on possible best practices and other important concerns on effective information retrieval of legal documents. Issues raised range from effective precision and recall searching, appropriate sorts of indexing strategies, word choice, email retention policies for courts and other legal organizations among other major concerns. Of particular interest to librarians should be the section of the issue entitled “ESI Symposium”, which contains a report from “The Sedona Conference ® Working Group on Best Practices for Document Retention and Production (WG1), Search & Retrieval Sciences Special Project Team” (the August 2007 Public Comment Version).

Contact Information