Year archives: 2013

On the Legal Importance of Viewing Genes as Code

On June 13, 2013 the Supreme Court issued its opinion in the much–awaited Myriad case, which challenged the validity of patents on isolated human genes. The Court held that the isolated genetic sequences claimed in Myriad’s patents did not satisfy the inventive threshold for patentability, although the complementary DNA (cDNA) claimed in the patents did. Prof. Annemarie Bridy examines critical elements of the case with a focus on the extent to which the outcome turned on a single conceptual choice: When assessing patentability, should the legal analysis focus on the isolated DNA’s chemical structure or its information-coding function?

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Subjects: Courts & Technology, Features

OMB issues New Guidance for Meeting Attendance

Via the American Society of Access Professionals, of which he is President, attorney and FOIA expert Scott A. Hodes informs us about the new guidance to all federal agencies that acknowledges the need for federal employees to attend mission-related conferences and provides some best practices for approving travel and conference expenses. This new guidance adopts many of the best practices suggested in a meetings protocol that the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) provided to OMB at their request.

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Subjects: FOIA Facts, Public Records

Negotiating Justice: The New Constitutional Spectrum of Plea Bargaining

Ken Strutin focuses on the impact of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Missouri v. Frye and Lafler v. Cooper, and the upcoming appeal in Burt v. Titlow in regard to placing plea bargaining front and center on the national stage. As a result, they have divided practitioners and scholars into two camps: (1) those who consider the rulings to be a new statement in the law of plea bargaining and right to effective assistance of counsel; and (2) those who believe they are only a restatement of established principles. These cases have generated interest in the centrality and regulation of plea bargaining, the ethics and effectiveness of defense counsel as negotiator, the oversight of prosecutors regarding charging decisions, sentence recommendations and pre-trial discovery, and the scope of federal habeas corpus review and remedies. Ken’s article is a comprehensive annotated guide to high court opinions, scholarship and commentary regarding the themes addressed by the Supreme Court in Lafler and Frye as well as their implications for the administration of criminal justice.

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Subjects: Constitutional Law, Court Resources, Criminal Law, Features, Legal Research, Supreme Court, United States Law

Journalism Resources on the Internet

This guide by Marcus P. Zillman is a comprehensive listing of journalism resources and sites on the Internet. These sources provide researchers with a wealth of reliable, topical and comprehensive data, information, reports, images, bibliographies, style and writing guides, from a wide range of public, institutional, association, advocacy and news organizations.

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Subjects: Business Research, Competitive Intelligence, Features, Search Engines, Search Strategies, Technology Trends

Promising DPLA debut–but please don’t confuse with a full-fledged ‘public library’ demo

David H. Rothman discusses the strengths and gaps of the current site, which he notes is a demo project with which the DPLA hopes to raise money and attract more, and much needed volunteers. The organization also plans to use this iteration as an opportunity to apply lessons learned to future versions as the project navigates forward in a demonstrably challenging time for libraries.

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Subjects: Features, Libraries & Librarians, Library Marketing, Library Software & Technology, Web Accessibility

Concert at New York City’s Carnegie Hall Zankel Hall – Properly Performed Masterpieces

The Foundation For The Revival Of Classical Culture presents master pianist Tian Jiang in a concert entitled “Properly Performed Masterpieces.” The concert will take place at New York City’s Carnegie Hall Zankel Hall, May 28, 2013 at 7:30 pm. The program includes Beethoven’s Sonata no.7 in E flat Major, op.10, no.3; the Sonata no.23 in F minor, “Appassionata” op 57; and Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Handel, op.24.

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Subjects: Features

Copyrights, Fundamental Rights, and the Constitution

The recent Supreme Court decision, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, addresses fair use and the “first sale” doctrine, upon whose protection libraries, used-book dealers, technology companies, consumer-goods retailers, and museums have long relied. Professor Annmarie Bridy’s commentary focuses on the position that intellectual property rights in general and copyrights in particular are important, and when their scope is circumscribed to ensure the existence of a robust public domain, they benefit society. However important IP rights are, though – and reasonable people disagree pretty vigorously about that – they are not fundamental in the Constitutional sense.

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Subjects: Copyright, Intellectual Property, Legal Research

DOE Launches New Database: SciTech Connect

Tim Byrne announced that the Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) launched a new database product called SciTech Connect that employs an innovative semantic search tool enabling users to retrieve more relevant information. Other features include faceting, in-document search, word clouds, and personalization.

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Subjects: E-Government
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