The U.S. government’s CIO recently appointed by President Obama told Congress this week that obsolete regulations are blocking agencies from serving the people by participating in top Web sites and social media. Regulations governing the use of cookies and — ironically — disclosure laws are keeping government stuck in the 20th Century. See:
Obsolete Regulations Block Government Adoption Of Social Media
According to C.G. Lynch’s provocative artice in the CIO Insider Newsletter,Twitter’s growing popularity is exposing a considerable “fraility” of writing among those tweet. He observes that Twitter’s 140 character message format demands concise, engaging writing “and that’s a skill that a lot of people don’t have. To read more of Mr. Lynch’s practical, expert advice click here.
As for where to write, sometimes it seems as though tweeting or twittering is almost universal. Amy Hale-Jenke, Head of Reference at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has found many fellow twittering, or tweeting, law librarians by going to the Twitter Yellow Pages. To “meet” all types of legal professionals, including law librarians who like to tweet, you can also go to Justia’s Legal Birds, a “Twitter Community.” Perhaps all of this gives the quotation, “birds of a feather flock together” a special meaning. Thinking of all this one wonders if tweets are becoming sort of information age variations of haiku that are being spread around the web.
Top Ten Stories of the Week ending May 1, 2009:
Law Firms Profits Drop at 12 of 15 Top Firms
Apr 30, 2009, 07:11 am CDT
Friday, May 1, 2009
Every year on May 1 (Law Day) the New York Law Journal devotes a special section to articles written by prominent members of the New York legal community in commeration of Law Day. Here are abstracts of the articles for 2009.
April 29, 2009.
An e-publication of the American Library Association (ALA)
HIGHLIGHTS:
OCLC challenges ILS vendors In what clearly represents a challenge to the integrated library system industry, OCLC announced April 23 that it has created what it calls “the first web-scale cooperative library management service,” inviting member libraries to “take the first step to realizing this cooperative service model with a new, ‘quick start’ version of the OCLC WorldCat Local service.” The service expands WorldCat Local’s cataloging and discovery tools to include functions now performed in most libraries by a locally installed integrated library system. Andrew Pace, OCLC’s executive director for networked library services, explains why this service is a “sea change” in this exclusive interview….
American Libraries Online, Apr. 24
Groups submit comments in favor of access ALA, ACRL, and the Association for Research Libraries jointly submitted comments (PDF file) to the U.S. Copyright Office April 28 on the topic of facilitating access to copyrighted works for the blind or persons with other disabilities. The associations believe they should be afforded the same access to materials as sighted persons. Currently, only about 5% of published books are available in accessible formats for the visually impaired. Some materials are not available at all, particularly scholarly journals, research materials, professional resources, and local history materials….
District Dispatch, Apr. 28
Congress supports National Library Week The U.S. House of Representatives passed H. Res. 336, a resolution in support of National Library Week, April 22. During the floor debate, Reps. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), Vern Ehlers (R-Mich.), and Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) made statements highlighting the significant role libraries and librarians serve in communities across the country….
District Dispatch, Apr. 23 Continue reading
May 1, 2009.
Service from the ABA Criminal Justice Section, http://www.abanet.org/crimjust
DEAN v. UNITED STATES (No. 08-5274)
Volume 2009, Issue 4 April 30, 2009
Published by the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Government Relations Office
Through its Washington E-Bulletin, the AALL Government Relations Office keeps the AALL membership abreast of governmnt policy news important to law libraries and law law librarians.
Library of Congress Report: Information Technology Strategic Planning: A Well Developed Framework is Essential to Support the Library’s Current and Future Information Technology (IT) Needs
The Library of Congress Office of the Inspector General.
Library-Wide
The Brennan Center at NYU Law School just released a report grading the Obama Administration on its transparency efforts.* There is a report card and a longer report at this link.
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/report_card_table
_____________________________ * The above information is from an e-mail sent by Barbara Brandon of the University of Miami School of Law Library on April 30, 2008. We thank Barbara for both compiling and sharing this material.
“The Response”, a movie based on an actual transcript of a military tribunal hearing at Guantanamo Bay, has been selected by the American Bar Association (ABA) as the 2009 ABA Silver Gavel Award winner for “drama and literature”. It was made in collaboration with the University of Maryland School of Law and funded through its “Linking Law & Arts Program,” with support from the France-Merrick Foundation and Venable LLP.
Full Article: http://www.oea.umaryland.edu/communications/news/?ViewStatus=FullArticle&articleDetail=6275
