D'Angelo Law Library Blog

New Westlaw Password Requirements

Today is the first day that Westlaw will be requiring "strong" (more secure) OnePass passwords for all Westlaw users. Users will have until January 31, 2010 to comply with this requirement. After that date, you will no longer have access to Westlaw until you update your OnePass account.

So, what does this mean for you?

1. If you use the Westlaw “Remember me” feature to log in to Westlaw, it will not work. The first time you try to log in, all your “remembered” information will be turned off, and you will get an e-mail from Westlaw explaining the new OnePass requirements and including some of your log in information to help you get signed back in.

2. If you sign in to Westlaw with your usual credentials, you will be taken to a screen allowing you to update your OnePass account immediately, or to proceed to lawschool.westlaw.com as usual. Even if you already have a OnePass username and password, you may have to update to a “strong” OnePass.  Many Westlaw users, especially faculty, do not currently have OnePass set up, and will need to pick a new OnePass username and password.

3. What is a “strong” username and password?

A "strong" username:

• must be unique
• must be 8 – 70 characters
• must contain TWO of the following: lowercase letter, uppercase letter, number, or one of these symbols .(period) @(at sign) –(dash) _ (underscore).
• TIP: You can use your email address since it contains an @ symbol and lowercase letters.

A "strong" password:

• must be 8 – 16 characters
• must contain THREE of the following: lowercase letter, uppercase letter, number, or one of these symbols .(period) @(at sign) –(dash) _ (underscore)
• cannot be the same as your username

Volokh on "The Future of Books Related to the Law"

UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh is publishing an article on this topic for the next Michigan Law Review “Books Related to the Law” issue. He posted the Foreword on his Volokh Conspiracy blog and plans to serialize the rest of the article to generate online discussion. This topic is obviously central to the future of law libraries, so I look forward to reading the entire article when it is published. I’ve excerpted part of the Foreword below.

People have been reading books for over 500 years, in more or less the same format. Book technology has changed in some measure since then. Fonts have become more readable. Books have become more affordable. The indexing of reference works has generally improved. Still, the general form of the book has remained much the same.

But the arrival of e-readers, such as the Kindle 2 and the Sony eBook, offers the possibility of a major change. First, people may shift to reading existing books on those readers, and the shift may lead them to change the way they use books, for instance by letting readers have many reference works at their fingertips. Second, the shift may change the content of books. And, third, the shift may change who publishes books, and in some measure which books are published.

In this Foreword, I will try to briefly sketch how these changes might play out as to books related to the law: textbooks, scholarly books, legal books aimed at laypeople, treatises, other practitioner reference books, and law student study tools. I will also talk about what changes to the technology, and to the structure of the legal book market, are likely to be needed to capture the technology’s possible benefits.

The effects of the change in medium will likely be varied….But many of the effects will point in the direction in which electronic distribution tends to change the media generally: Electronic distribution will reduce cost, increase choice, and increase convenience. And in the process it will not only facilitate access to existing material, but will also promote the production of more material.

Use CALI Lessons to Supplement Your Class Work

The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) provides a library of over 800 interactive computer-based lessons covering 32 legal education subject areas. The lessons are designed to supplement the instruction you receive in your Law School classes. These lessons are written by law faculty and librarians and are regularly updated and revised. To access the lessons, you must register with the Law School's password, which you pick up at the Reference Desk.  Access codes will also be distributed during the Computer & Library training sessions this week. You may also pick up a DVD-ROM with the lessons at the Reference Desk.

CALI's website includes a page showing which CALI lessons correspond to commonly used casebooks, including those used in the Law School's Civil Procedure, Contracts, and Criminal Law courses.

Schedule a tour of the D'Angelo Law Library

We will be offering tours of the D'Angelo Law Library every Friday at 1:30 pm and 3:00 pm, from now through the end of October. If you would like to sign up for a tour, please fill out this brief form with your contact information and preferred date. Tours will meet at the Reference Desk on the second floor of the library and should last about half an hour.

If you would like to arrange a special tour and/or workshop for a group, please make a request through Ask a Law Librarian.

The Constitution and Black's Law Dictionary go mobile...

The U.S. Constitution and Black''s Law Dictionary are available as apps for your IPhone.  See http://legalcurrent.com/2009/09/18/constitution-goes-mobile-with-west/ (the Thomson Reuters blog) for more information. From the blog post:

West’s development of the U.S. Constitution as an app is an extension of the company’s commitment to providing the text to the public.... West has been printing a pocket Constitution since the 1980s, when Chief Justice Warren Burger asked West to make it....West’s app features the complete text of the U.S. Constitution, including a table of contents. Audio of the spoken text also is available.

The 8th edition of Black's Law Dictionary is also available as an app for your IPhone; see http://www.iphonejd.com/iphone_jd/2009/04/review-blacks-law-dictionary-for-iphone.html for a detailed review. 

Global Trade Alert (WTO and other international trade news)

A useful resource for tracking WTO and other international trade news:

Global Trade Alert (GTA): "independent monitoring of policies that affect world trade"
http://www.globaltradealert.org/

The GTA is coordinated by the London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) under the direction of Professor Simon Evenett of the Swiss Institute for International Economics.

The GTA covers World Trade Organization (WTO), and other international trade news.  It includes statistics and analysis on world trade.  Plus links to the Latest News on international trade. You can also sign up to receive email alerts.

A couple of recent analyses and reports:

Broken Promises: a G20 Summit Report by Global Trade Alert (PDF)
(Centre for Economic Policy Research, 2009)
(covers the rise of protectionism, trade-restricting and distorting policies/measures worldwide)
206 pages
Summary: http://bit.ly/aP8dV

Report on G20 Trade and Investment Measures (OECD, UNCTAD, WTO)(Word)
14 September 2009
60 pages
Summary: http://bit.ly/Oy7Ck

The Global Trade Alert has a database of trade-restricting measures that enables searching by "Affected Trading Partner", "Implementing Jurisdiction", "Type of Measure".
 
Browse or try a search! 

Trade Measures Database
http://www.globaltradealert.org/measure

The results report includes:

Implementing Jurisdiction
Affected Trading Partners
Measure Type
Description of the Measure (background information)
Chronology of Key Events
Affected Sectors
Affected Tariff Lines
Date Discovered
Implemented
Date of Inception
GTA Evaluation (Red or Green)
Any Evidence-Based Deliberation
Source
Government Response

Know the facts

If you've been following the news lately, you know that there has been a lot of misinformation out there about some bills currently before Congress. Therefore, it's a good time to remind readers of some invaluable non-partisan resources that will help you sort the fact from the fiction. 

Factcheck.org has been closely tracking the health care reform bills and the bizarre conspiracy theories that have sprung up about them.  If you want to actually read the bills themselves, we have identified some helpful resources on our guide to Tracking Current Legislation. If you (understandably) don't want to read the 1000+ pages of the House Bill (H.R. 3200), GovTrack.us also provides a one page summary of each bill from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.

John Peter Zenger

Today is the anniversary of the 1735 trial of John Peter Zenger in the Colony of New York "for printing and publishing several seditious libels dispersed throughout his journals or newspapers, entitled The New York Weekly Journal; as having in them many things tending to raise factions and tumults among the people of this Province, inflaming their minds with contempt of His Majesty's government, and greatly disturbing the peace thereof" (Bench Warrant for Arrest of John Peter Zenger, November 2, 1734). Mr. Zenger was defended by Andrew Hamilton, one of the most famous trial attorneys of the day, and was acquitted, in a victory for freedom of the press and the proposition that truth should be a defense to an accusation of libel.  A Brief Narrative of the Case and Tryal of John Peter Zenger was published in 1736; an html edition may be found at http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/zenger/zengerrecord.htm .  A PDF file is available in Eighteenth Century Collections Online (use Database Finder under Electronic Resources on the Law Library webpage).  More information and links can be found at the Historical Society of the Courts of New York at http://www.courts.state.ny.us/history/Zenger.htm . 

The Future of Today's Legal Scholarship

On July 25, 2009 Georgetown Law Library hosted a symposium on The Future of Today's Legal Scholarship.  The morning's discussions concentrated on the contributions legal blogs make to legal scholarship while the afternoon focused on methods and problems in archiving legal blogs to ensure that their content is preserved for future scholars and historians.  See the webcast, archived at http://www.law.georgetown.edu/webcast/eventDetail.cfm?eventID=872.  Look for me in the panel on blogs and legal scholarship towards the end of the webcast....

National Archives releases materials relating to Sonia Sotomayor

Announcement from the National Archives website:

The National Archives Office of Records Services, the William J. Clinton Library, and the George H.W. Bush Library will release records relating to Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

The Clinton Library is releasing 5,032 pages of Presidential records relating to the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

President Clinton nominated Judge Sotomayor to the position in 1997, and she was confirmed by the Senate in 1998. The records contain biographical information, court opinions as Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and letters in support of her nomination. This series also includes court records, correspondence, news clippings, articles, and e-mails concerning her nomination. These Clinton Presidential records were processed in accordance with the Presidential Records Act.

The Bush Library is opening four newly released pages of Bush Presidential records in addition to the 58 pages that were previously released.

In November 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated Sonia Sotomayor to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. The documents consist of internal memoranda, biographical information and letters in support of Judge Sotomayor. These Bush Presidential records were processed in accordance with the Presidential Records Act.

The National Archives Office of Records Services is opening 122 e-mails that were retrieved from the Federal electronic files of the Clinton administration that contained Judge Sotomayor's name either in the e-mail or in the attachment. These Federal records were processed in accordance with the Federal Records Act. These materials will be available only electronically through the National Archives web site.

WHERE:

All of these records will be available on the National Archives web site at http://www.archives.gov/news/sotomayor.

The Clinton records will also be available at the Clinton Library , 1200 President Clinton Avenue, Little Rock, Arkansas, 72201 and http://clintonlibrary.gov/textual-sotomayor.htm

The Bush records will also be available at the Bush Library , 1000 George Bush Drive West, College Station, Texas, 77845 and http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu.