U.S. Government Printing Office is on Facebook

The Garbrecht Law Library is a designated Federal Depository Library. The United States Printing Office has joined Facebook as a way to enhance transparency and dissemination of government information. Please visit the their new page at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/US-Government-Printing-Office/162592897126454?v=wall%3E

In the Library Stacks

The Offensive Internet: Privacy, Speech, and Reputation edited by Saul Levmore and Martha C. Nussbaum, focuses on the abuses made possible by anonymity, freedom from liability, and lack of oversight on the Internet. The scholars that contribute to this book connect the absence of legal oversight with harassment and discrimination and argue that misuse is the outgrowth of social, technological, and legal choices. The authors detail some of the vile and hateful speech that the current combination of law and technology has bred and conclude with analysis and policy prescriptions.

The Overdrive Book Project

The Garbrecht Law Library is participating in The MaineInfonet Downloadable Books Project. What a great way to spend your semester break--reading for pleasure! Explore the growing collection of downloadable audiobooks and use your library card barcode to download audiobooks to your personal computer, transfer them to an MP3 player, or burn selected titles onto a CD for listening on the go.

You may have a maximum of 2 titles checked out from the Digital Library.Downloaded titles are checked out for 7 days and are automatically returned to the library after the 7 days.
To get started go to: http://download.maineinfonet.org"

Welcome

The staff at the the Garbrecht Law Library would like to welcome the Class of 2012 to Maine Law. Please come to visit us on the 3rd floor of the law building. Reference staff is available from 8:30am-6:00pm Monday-Thursday and 8:30-4:30 on Fridays. You can also contact us via email at lawref@usm.maine.edu. We look forward to working with you this year and throughout your law school career! Good luck.

Recap the Law: Better Access to Public Records

A new Firefox extention has been created that allows you better access to court records available through PACER. To learn more visit the website RECAP - Turning PACER around online at http://recapthelaw.org .

RECAP is a free extension for Firefox that improves the experience of using PACER, the electronic public access system for the U.S. Federal District and Bankruptcy Courts.
Using RECAP allow you to:
* Helps give back by contributing to a public archive hosted by the Internet Archive
* Save by showing you when free documents are available, and;
* Keeps you organized by providing you better filenames and more useful headers

From the RECAP site:

Transparency is a fundamental principle of our legal system. Since the 1980s, the cutting edge of judicial transparency has been PACER, an electronic system that allows attorneys and the general public to access millions of federal court records. PACER was a big step forward when it was originally created, but lately it has begun to show its age. At a time when the other two branches of government are becoming ever more subject to online scrutiny, the judicial branch still requires citizens to provide a credit card and pay eight cents a page for its documents. For reasons we detail on our "Why It Matters" page, we think this needs to change, and the sooner the better. Today we’re excited to release the public beta of RECAP.

RECAP is an extension to the popular Firefox web browser that gives PACER users a hassle-free way to contribute to a free, open repository of federal court records. When a RECAP user purchases a document from PACER, the RECAP extension helps her automatically send a copy of that document to the RECAP archive. And RECAP saves its users money by notifying them when documents they’re searching for are already available for free from the public archive.

RECAP is a project of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. It was developed by Harlan Yu, Steve Schultze, and Timothy B. Lee, under the supervision of Prof. Ed Felten. Some of the key ideas that inspired RECAP are described in this paper, written by Harlan, Ed, and two of their colleagues. The RECAP repository is hosted by the Internet Archive, a world-renowned online library. With the help of RECAP users, we want to build the nation’s most comprehensive public archive of freely-available federal judicial records.

RECAP is looking for partners to help them build the archive more quickly and find new, innovative uses for the information. They are already working with Justia and public.resource.org to integrate the public records they already have into RECAP's archive. A video on RECAP's website provides a quick demonstration of RECAP in action.

If you’d like to be a RECAP beta tester, please check out our privacy policy and then go to their installation page to get started.

Associated Press to Use Twitter and Blog To Cover Confirmation Hearings

Web 2.0 meets the United States Supreme Court with the confirmation of Judge Sotomayer. The Associated Press plans to use Twitter and it's blog to inform us about what is happening at the Sotomayer confirmation hearings, which start Monday. Connie Crosby, writes about the AP's plans on slaw.ca.

Filling Justice Souter's Seat

Filling Justice Souter's seat will be one of President Obama's biggest tasks, early in his Presidency. The following resources will enable you to follow the developments as they happen.

The Ninth Justice Blog: Provides news and analysis on the search to fill the Supreme Court Seat. You can also follow on Twitter at http://twitter.com/9thjustice.

Blogrunner's Supreme Court Topic Page: This site collects the most recent and influential stories and blog posts on the topic.

The New York Times Supreme Court Page, is another excellent resourse for information on the happenings at the United States Supreme Court.

For an excellent research guide on Supreme Court Nominations and the nomination process, I recommend the one created by the staff at the Georgetown University Law Library.

As always, SCOTUS Blog, will provide continuing coverage of the nomination process and all other Supreme Court related happenings.

A new Database to Search Journals Online

Check out Jurn if you are looking for scholarly journals on the internet. Jurn searches 2,374 scholarly / intellectual ejournals in the arts & humanities. JURN indexes ejournals that are either free, or offer some substantial free content. You can use it just like Google. JURN is running on a Google Custom Search so it is speedy, and you can use all the usual Google search modifers, such as intitle:”your phrase” and filetype:pdf. There is also a Firefox plug-in and an RSS feed.

The entire list of available resources is available on the site or in PDF format here.

Source: The Centered Librarian

LexisNexis ASPIRE Program

If you are a new associate and your firm has deferred your employment you may be interested in the LexisNexis ASPIRE program.

You may qualify for this program if you have accepted Associate positions at law firms, but 1) are experiencing a deferred fall 2009 start date, and 2) are taking on public interest work during their deferral period.

The LexisNexis’ ASPIRE Program offers:

Free access to a LexisNexis menu consisting of federal and state case-law, codes, regulations and law reviews. The Martindale-Hubbell Career Center which provides access to non-profit interest and pro-bono job opportunities. Online training and materials to be better equipped for public interest work. Non-profit companies can post job opportunities for free on the site.

ASPIRE Program details. Qualifying students can register here.

Source: Law Librarian Blog

Article of Interest To New Clerks

For those of you who will be clerking either this summer or in the Fall, the following article may be of interest!! I hope it helps.

Sheppard, Jennifer. The "write" way: a judicial clerk's guide to writing for the court. 38 U. Balt. L. Rev. 73-163 (2008).

Christine

The American Association of Law Libraries announces the first annual Morris L. Cohen Student Essay Contest

Currently enrolled students attending graduate programs in library science, law, history, or related subjects are eligible to enter the competition. Papers may be on any topic related to legal history, rare law books, or legal archives. Papers must be submitted by April 15, 2009.  

   

More information is available at: http://www.aallnet.org/sis/lhrb/Cohenessayprocapp.pdf

Associate Dean Maine Steps Down, Associate Professor Knott Named Interim

In anticipation of sabbatical semester in Spring 2009, Professor Jeff Maine will step down as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the end of this calendar year. As he focuses more substantially on his teaching and scholarship in the coming years, Jeff will continue to share his institutional memory and expertise in administration of academic affairs. We extend many thanks to Jeff for his extensive and valuable work as Associate Dean.

I am pleased to report that Professor Chris Knott will serve as interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs as of January 2009. He already is working with Jeff in transition and meeting regularly with Assistant Dean Sherry Abbott and with me to plan for next semester and beyond. Thanks, too, to Chris for assuming this responsibility.

--Peter

Student Lounge in Law Library

The library has responded to numerous requests for student community space. In collaboration with the Student Bar Association, we have re-purposed our under utilized large student lab into a lounge space for students. The furniture in the space has been "borrowed" from the Berman Lounge. The library staff and the SBA would love to hear furniture suggestions that would best suit the purpose of this new space. There are still 3 computers in the student lounge intended for email viewing, printing and web surfing.

The small computer lab is still available for student work space. It is equipped with 2 MACs and 2 PCs. In addition, the computer located on the 2nd floor of the library is now a student use only machine to provide another quite place to work in the library. Please also note that all 10 computers located in the library can print to the circulation desk.

We hope you enjoy your new student space and would love to hear comments from you. Email http://mailto:lawlib@usm.maine.edu/ or just stop by the Reference Desk and share your thoughts.

Most Cited Journals on HeinOnline

The HeinOnline Weblog has posted a list of the most cited journal titles and most cited journal articles in HeinOnline. Check it out at http://heinonline.blogspot.com/2008/06/most-cited-journal-articles-titles-in.html.

Source: HeinOnlie

U.S. Courts with Audio Recordings Online

Five courts in the U.S federal court system have added digital audio files to the Case Management/Electronic Case File System, including the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Maine. The audio files are accessible through the PACER system. It should be noted that not all the judges in the participating courts are making the audio files available.

Source: beSpacific

Podcasting Legal Do's and Don'ts

For those of you interested in podcasting, Colette Vogele, Esq. and Mia Garlick from the Standford Center for Internet and Society, in cooperation with the The Berkman Center Clinical Program in Cyberlaw at Harvard, have created a guide to the legal issues specific to podcasting, Podcasting Legal Guide: Rules for the Revolution. This guide covers the legal issues concerning the creation, and the distribution of podcasts. For those new to podcasting, this guide also includes a section on the basics of podcasting.

Source: InSite

Edward S. Godfrey Professor of Law Don Zillman Publishes Two Books

Edward S. Godfrey Professor of Law Don Zillman has had two books recently published. The first book, Beyond the Carbon Economy - Energy Law in Transition (Oxford University Press, 2008), which is co-edited with Catherine Redgwell, Lila Barrera-Hernandez and Yinka Omorogbe, explores the legal ramifications of the unsustainability of our carbon-based, global economy. The book was discussed at a conference of the International Bar Associations, held recently in Copenhagen, Denmark. The second book, Strategic Legal Writing (Cambridge University Press, 2008), which is co-authored with Assistant U.S. Attorney Evan J. Roth, is designed to help law students sharpen their writing skills. The text was used by Professor Zillman and Assistant Dean Sherry Abbott in their spring Advanced Legal Writing course.

Director of Legal Research & Writing Nancy Wanderer Elected To AALS Section Executive Committee

Earlier this year, Nancy Wanderer, Director of Legal Research and Writing, was elected to the Executive Committee of the Section on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS). This spring, the committee has been planning a full-day program for the Annual Meeting to be held in San Diego next January--Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues Across the Curriculum: The Challenge of Keeping Law Schools Current with Recent Developments in LGBT Issues. Professor Wanderer will be leading a breakout section--Legal Research, Legal Writing, and Moot Court: Pink Ink and Beyond--in which participants will discuss guidelines for using sexual orientation and gender identity issues in legal writing problems and examine specific topics (such as criminal and civil actions for hate crimes) that have made for particularly effective legal writing assignments. In addition, Professor Wanderer's law review article, "Writing Better Opinions: Communicating with Candor, Clarity, and Style," was recently cited in a Wisconsin Supreme Court opinion, and will be used for an upcoming CLE with Ohio state judges.

Associate Professor Dave Owen Published

Associate Professor Dave Owen recently had two articles published. "Climate Change and Environmental Assessment Law" was published this spring in Volume 33 of the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law. And, "Law, Environmental Dynamism, and Reliability: The Rise and Fall of CALFED" was published this spring in Volume 37 of Environmental Law.

Associate Clinical Professor Northrop Speaks at AALS Conference

Associate Clinical Professor Christopher Northrop spoke earlier this month (with co-presenters Ken King, Suffolk Law School; Jennifer Lee Koh, Stanford Law School; Jayashri Srikantiah, Stanford Law School) in Tucson, Arizona, at the AALS Conference on Clinical Legal Education. The title of the session was "Clinical Engagement at Multiple Levels: Exploring the Relationship Between Direct Representation and Policy Reform Work." The presentation ended with a general analysis of "best practice" findings for selecting policy projects to integrate with individual representation clinics.