Year archives: 2015

Vermonts Legislature is Considering Support for Blockchain Technology and Smart Contracts

Bitcoin is a significant disruptive technology with a growing impact on the financial sector and legal sectors, around the world. Alan Rothman expertly educates us on new legislation from Vermont that is intended to move the state towards using blockchain technology for “records, smart contracts and other applications”. One of the key distinctions Rothman highlights is that Vermont is not in any manner approving or adopting Bitcoin, but rather, the state is diversifying and adapting the underlying blockchain technology that supports it.

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Subjects: Business Research, Intellectual Property, Internet Trends, Legal Education, Legal Technology, Legislative, Technology Trends

In Warren Buffetts own backyard: Underfunded Omaha libraries. National digital library endowment, anyone?

David Rothman calls out an increasingly pervasive dichotomy of action by some of America’s wealthiest corporate philanthropists in regard to supporting libraries, literacy and equal access to comprehensive public library collections. As Rothman documents, Omaha Public Libraries’ spending per capita is substantially below that of surrounding communities and the current national average on library content spending is $4 per capita – or less than the price of a Big Mac. The National digital library endowment is certainly in need of public and private support on a significant and transparent level, and Rothman continues to advocate for progress to achieve this goal.

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Subjects: Digital Archives, Mobile Technology

Seuss Oh the Places Youll Go: Still Rings True Today

Cheryl Niemeier answers the questions many members have following the decision to change the name of the Private Law Libraries-Special Interest Section (PLL-SIS) of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) to the Private Law Librarians & Information Professionals-Special Interest Section (PLLIP-SIS).

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Subjects: American Association of Law Libraries, Competitive Intelligence, Law Librarians, Legal Marketing, Library Marketing

Watson, is That You? Yes, and Ive Just Demo-ed My Analytics Skills at IBMs New York Office

Alan Rothman attended a demo of IBM’s Watson Technology, and the shares insights about the core components of this high profile new analytical tool. The technology holds potential value for multiple sectors and cross functional work streams, and as Alan notes, is still under development with additional applications forthcoming.

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Subjects: Ahead of the Curve, Business Research, Competitive Intelligence, Information Management, KM, Social Media

Finding People Resources and Sites on the Internet

People centric resources and sites on the Internet allow you to find individuals based on a range of objectives: personal (family, medical, genealogy); business (legal, corporate, financial); academic; government and career. Web search guru Marcus P. Zillman’s new guide highlights selected sources to add to or supplement your current tools to focus research and retrieve information for actionable results.

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Subjects: Reference Resources, Search Engines, Search Strategies

Book-starved Utah boy begs postman for junk mail to read: How to respond?

David Rothman shares a recent story about a boy whose quest to read in spite of even minimal resources was captured and shared around the world, resulting in a flood of free books, thanks to the mail carrier who took the time to listen, and the initiative to help. At the heart of this example of action is David’s continuous work promoting a national digital library endowment and well-stocked national digital library systems.

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Subjects: Uncategorized

Library Research Guides: Best Practices

Many librarians have a set of research guides that they are responsible for keeping up to date, but finding time to devote to this important task can be extremely difficult. As libraries migrate to LibGuides 2.0, many are using this opportunity to study their users’ preferences, implement new policies, and completely refresh their research guide collection. If your library is going through this process, or you are simply planning on using the (relatively) calm summer months to update your research guides, here are ten best practice tips to keep in mind – by Kara Dunn, D`Angelo Law Library.

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Subjects: Legal Research Training, Libraries & Librarians, Library Marketing, Library Software & Technology, Mobile Technology, News Resources, Online Legal Research Services, Reference Resources, Reference Services, Search Strategies

Cut and Paste Opinions: A Turing Test for Judicial Decision-Making

Ken Strutin argues that cut-and-paste is a laudable method for reducing transcription errors in copying citations and quotations. However, he identifies that a problem arises when it is used to lift verbatim sections of a party’s arguments into a case decision. Stipulations and proposed orders from counsel for both parties might be enviable and practicable, but judgment and fact-finding are solely in the province of the court. This has been a long standing issue that has spanned technologies from shears and paste-pot to typewriters and computers, and which might culminate in a Turing Test for case law.

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Subjects: Case Management, Court Resources, Courts & Technology, KM, Legal Profession
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