New Year Salutations

Friends, Librarians
Lend me your ears...
For the DALL Bloggers
would like to say
Happy New Year!

:-)

Journalism: 2007 Edgie Awards Finalists

The finalists for the Newspaper Association of America’s Digital Edge Awards have been announced at Cyberjournalist. Dallas Morning News' Shopping Portal is a finalist in the Best Classified Innovation Catagory with a circulation of more than 250,000.

IMHO, I consider Dallas a shopping hotspot, so this comes to me at no surprise!

Gerald Ford died at age of 93

Gerald Ford died Tuesday evening at the age of 93. Additional details may be found at practically any web news outlet. A CNN story is here. The Gerald R. Ford Presidental Library and Museum is located at http://www.ford.utexas.edu/.

Holiday greetings

Here we go a'bloggin'
Down the info highway
Wishing everyone
a wonderful Holiday!

The DALL Bloggers

Public records and the web

Interesting article in the December 2006 issue of Law Technology News titled "Forget Privacy: Public records contain astonding amounts of personal information, easily discovered." Authors: Carole Levitt and Mark Rosch.

The article discusses both the ease of finding public records and the burgeoning backlash of people not wanting their information to be available to every spammer, stalker, or identity thief. It also gives ideas of alternative sources to find information on people, such as blogs, podcasts, PowerPoint presentations, social networking sites, etc.

Privacy laws are also briefly discussed, such as the Driver's License Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (18 USC 2721 et. seq) and the Supreme Court case six years later that finally told states to stop selling the driver's license information. (Reno v. Condon, 58 US 141(2000)).

Law Firm's Holiday E-Card

From Larry Bodine's LawMarketing Blog:

"McGlinchey Stafford has sent out an animated holiday card with sound. This novel online greeting card conveys season's greetings, with pictures of the moon and earth moving to a sweeping piano soundtrack. Then shows the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina in the New Orleans area, and announces that the firm has selected the boys and Girls Clubs of America's Katrina Relief Fund for the firm gift. "

The law firm has Texas connections. They have offices in Dallas and Houston.

NOTE: I looked at the e-card. It is very well done. Check out the comments!

Votes Are In...2006 WebLog Awards

The votes are in and here is the list for the Best Law Blogs for 2006:

THE WINNER: The Volokh Conspiracy
31.95 % (2399)

How Appealing
19.75 % (1483)

IMPACT
13.14 % (987)

Balkinization
12.08 % (907)

The Grotian Moment
10.60 % (796)

Blawg IT
3.25 % (244)

JURIST - Paper Chase
3.12 % (234)

Becker-Posner
2.57 % (193)

Concurring Opinions
2.42 % (182)

Consumer Law & Policy Blog
1.12 % (84)

Total votes: 7509

http://2006.weblogawards.org/2006/12/best_law_blog.php

The winner receives one complimentary basic registration to the Blog World & New Media Expo, which is next November in Las Vegas.

ABA TechShow Discount for AALL Members

NOTE: I have been to this show a few times as a librarian. It is wonderful! You hear sessions about new technology, e-filing, etc. And, at that time (1998 and 2000), there were not too many law librarians attending. It's a great opportunity!
________________________________

ABA TECHSHOW® 2007
AALL Members Special Discount
March 22 - 24, 2007
The Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers

ABA TECHSHOW® 2007 will take place on March 22-24, 2007 at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers.
The ABA TECHSHOW Planning Board is offering members of AALL a special discounted registration of $295 to attend ABA TECHSHOW 2007. That’s $600 less than the full conference registration fee of $895.

This year, ABA TECHSHOW will offer over 60 hours of legal technology and educational sessions in 16 different tracks. A two-day expo with over 120 vendors will display the most recent technological tools used in the legal profession. In addition there will be a special day of programming aimed specifically at solo practitioners and small firms and the professionals in organizations who support them.

The AALL member registration page is at: www.techshow.com/nosearch/lawlibraryoffer/. If you have questions, please contact Catherine Sanders Reach at 312-988-5053 or via email at sandersc@staff.abanet.org. For more information, visit www.techshow.com.

Sabrina Pacifici profiled

Sabrina has been profiled in Law Practice Management. A reproduction of the article is available via llrx.com at http://www.llrx.com/documents/law_practice_technology.pdf.

Library of Congress RSS Feeds

Just noticed that the Library of Congress has a series of RSS feeds listed on their site, broken into General and Copyright Office categories. Get the details and the feed links at http://www.loc.gov/rss/.

Mandatory E-Filing in District Court

Beginning Jan. 1st, 2007, there will be mandatory electronic filings for all civil and criminal cases in the Southern District of Texas.

View the Administrative Procedures for Electronic Filing in Civil and Criminal Cases.

Register on-line for Attorney Certification Class.

Notable Books

The New York Times has released their list of the Top 100 Notable Books for 2006.

Some of my favorite authors are listed:
Digging to America by Anne Tyler
Lisey's Story by Stephen King
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Echo Maker by Richard Powers

Now, to start reading the books!

Sports Legend Lamar Hunt Dies

Dallas native Lamar Hunt died last night in a Dallas hospital from cancer complications.

For me, a Missouri native, his name means "KC Chiefs" and Hunt Midwest Enterprises. In 1963, he moved the infamous Dallas football team to Kansas City and the team was renamed the Chiefs. He was also involved in creating another major entertainment landmark in KC--Worlds of Fun.

I would not be surprised that Kansas City citizens will be wearing red today and tomorrow in honor of Mr. Hunt. (In case you were not aware, red is the color for the Chiefs.)

Read the story in the KC Star and Dallas Morning News.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/

http://www.dallasnews.com/

Trial Ad Notes: IM Codes for Law

Trial Ad Notes: IM Codes for Law - Mary Whisner, on her Trial Ad Notes blog, discusses an article she read by an appellate attorney suggesting that in the future, opinions could be sent to cell phones if they used IM (Instant Messagener) type acronyms and abbreviations. Mary is the Assistant librarian for reference services, Gallagher Law Library of the University of Washington School of Law, who writes the wonderful reference column in Law Library Journal.

Quick Guide tot he Revised FRCP: Handy Slide Chart

From today's Dennis Kenney's Blog:

"Let me recommend a free little tool that I've found quite helpful in learning about the new amendments. It's called the Stratify Quick Guide to the Revised FRCP from one of the leading e-discovery vendors, Stratify.

It's a simple, handy slide chart that offers a summary of the main rule changes (five of them) on one side, and practical tips on how to prepare on the other side. Quite useful. David Bayer of Stratify tells me that the Quick Guide has proven to be very popular and, just in time for the holidays, Stratify has ordered up a second printing of the guide. Request your copy here."

Cataloging Workshop Announcement

Amigos' Workshop in Dallas

Date: January 30 - 31
Time: All Day
Place: Amigos in Addison
Topic: Advanced Serials Cataloging Workshop
Early Bird Registration Deadline: 1/8/2007

For the most up-to-date training schedule, a complete list of courses, descriptions, and a convenient online registration form, visit http://www.amigos.org/learning/calendar/ or contact Chris Brown at Amigos, 1-800-843-8482, ext. 2829, or brown@amigos.org.

Lex Scripta in directory

Lex Scripta is now indexed in the Justica Blawg Search engine (http://blawgsearch.justia.com/). I know we show up in both the Law Librarian and the Texas categories. Thanks to Barbara Fullerton for pointing it out.

Courtroom humor

You've read it in the Texas Bar Journal for years, now read it as a blog.

Say What?! Classic Humor from U.s. District Judge Jerry Buchmeyer
http://www.texasbar.com/saywhat/weblog/index.html

Description from the blawg:

Real life Texas Courtroom Humor. Since 1980, U.S. District Judge Jerry Buchmeyer has entertained lawyers far and wide with his "et cetera" column in the Texas Bar Journal. For this page, we've reached into the vault to bring you classic material spanning two decades of courtroom humor, most of which comes straight from actual depostions and trials. We'll post a new laugh each day.

EPA Press Release on Libraries

Now the EPA is stating it will release more materials on the web. See the press release for details.

Thwarting fraud

Michael Landauer from the Dallas Morning News blogs about a blatent attempt to defraud him. It's funny and sad at the same time. He offers a handy link to the Texas Consumer Complaint Form from the Texas Attorney General's web site.

EPA Web Site Redactions

Sabrina Pacifici has a good summary of the EPA web site redactions occurring now. Looks like the EPA is not only removing documents from their web site, but also trying to prevent libraries from reopening.

Vote for the Best Blawg

Here is the link to vote for the Best Blawg for the 2006 Weblog Awards:
http://2006.weblogawards.org/2006/12/best_law_blog.php

If you would like to vote in other categories, here's the link to the list:
http://tinyurl.com/ydl8cy

Rules:
Polls close at 11:59 PM (US - Eastern) December 15, 2006.
You may vote once every 24 hours in each poll.

Happy Voting!

Iraq study group report

From AP news:
http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives
/wdc/documents/2006isg_report.pdf

For all you coffee drinkers...

I've just discovered that there is a blog about Starbucks coffee drinkers at http://starbucksgossip.typepad.com/. It's title is Starbucks Gossip and is written by Starbucks' coffee drinkers and employees from all over the country.

IMHO: There are some great entries on this blog!

Bankruptcy filings down

December 5, 2006 — Bankruptcy cases filed in federal courts tumbled in fiscal year 2006. According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, filings for FY 2006, the 12-month period ending September 30, 2006, fell 37.6 percent to 1,112,542, from total filings of 1,782,643 in FY 2005. The FY 2006 figures include most of the filings that were part of the surge in filings prompted by the October 17, 2005, implementation date of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005; filings began to rise in the late FY 2005 and peaked as over 600,000 petitions were filed in the first 16 days of October 2005.

Press release from the US Courts web site.

Another Merger: Wiley and Blackwell

From today's Out of the Jungle Blog

"This week's Chronicle of Higher Education reports another merger that will likely have huge repercussions for librarians and researchers--John Wiley & Sons is purchasing Blackwell Publishing Ltd. for approximately $1.13 billion.

The combined Wiley-Blackwell will publish over 1,200 scholarly journals, putting it right behind Reed Elsevier and Springer in terms of numbers of journals published. Librarians are especially concerned "because Blackwell has been broadly regarded as the most benign of the for-profit scholarly publishers, and librarians are uncertain whether Blackwell's prices and practices will survive the merger." Most law librarians, who are veterans of a number of high-profile mergers in the legal publishing industry, would say that Blackwell will change as the result of the merger. Every merger that I can think of has led to dramatically higher prices and diminished quality of service, and there is no reason to think that the Wiley-Blackwell merger will turn out any differently. "

Voting begins tomorrow on the Best Law Blog

"The Weblog Awards are the world's largest blog competition, with over 1 million votes cast in the last three years for nearly 1,000 blogs. This year's edition is the biggest ever with 45 categories to choose from. Nominations ended November 24, and voting is scheduled to begin December 7."

Here's a list of the finalists:
http://tinyurl.com/ya3waw

And a list of the law blog finalists:

How Appealing http://howappealing.law.com/

Becker-Posner http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/

Blawg IT http://blog.bretttrout.com/

Balkinization http://balkin.blogspot.com/

Concurring Opinions http://www.concurringopinions.com/

Consumer Law & Policy Blog http://pubcit.typepad.com/clpblog/

The Grotian Moment: Saddam Hussein Trial Blog http://www.law.case.edu/saddamtrial/

IMPACT http://impact.freethcartwright.com/

The Volokh Conspiracy http://volokh.com/

JURIST - Paper Chase http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/

I'll post the voting link tomorrow.

Update on NY's ruling on banning Trans fats

From today's Wall Street Journal

"New York's board of health voted to make the city the first in the nation to ban artificial trans fats at restaurants, which will have to find new frying oils and other ingredients. Trans fats are seen as harmful because they contribute to heart disease by raising bad cholesterol and lowering good cholesterol at the same time."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116533693944641231.html?mod=djemalert

Registration required.

I'm sure other cities will follow!

Adobe 8

In today's issue of Law.com, Brett Burney gives a great overview of the new Adobe 8.
http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLTN.jsp?id=1165244464120&rss=ltn.

More info on the product can be located on the Adobe website http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/.

Rebates

Do you need to know what products have rebates? Check out this website at
http://www.freeafterrebate.info/

A free newsletter is also available.

AALL New Executive Board

Results of the AALL election for 2007

Vice President/President-Elect:(July 2007 - July 2008)
James E. Duggan

Treasurer:(July 2007 - July 2010)
David S. Mao

Executive Board:(July 2007 - July 2010)
Jean M. Wenger
Sally Wise

New! DALL Member Bibliography!

Terri Lawrence has compiled a bibliography of articles and presentations published by DALL members. This new bibligraphy page may be found here. If you have written any articles, presentations, book chapters, books, and would like to add them to the list, please let Terri know.

Collin County Law Library's Online Catalog

The Collin County Law Library is pleased to announce the completion of an online public access catalog!

The catalog, CLOE (Collin County Law Library Online Electronic Catalog), can be accessed via the Law Library's page of the Collin County web site at:
www.co.collin.tx.us/law_library/

The task of creating an online catalog of titles contained in the Law Library collection has been a dream ten years in the making. Collin County is proud to be one of only a handful of county law libraries in the state of Texas to offer this service to our patrons and to make it available on the web.
--submitted by Katy Gill

Friday Fun

I saw this referenced in an email on law-lib - http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/law_librarian_blog/
2006/12/find_x.html.

It's the way to solve one of those pesky geometry questions.

Civil Defense Logo To Be Replaced

From the New York Times:

Civil Defense Logo Dies at 67, and Some Mourn Its Passing

The Civil Defense symbol, left, born in 1939 and familiar to generations of
Americans, has been replaced by an emergency management logo.

By DAVID
W. DUNLAP
Published: December 1, 2006
The stark insignia of civil defense — a C and D forming a red circle in a white triangle on a blue disk — died yesterday after a long eclipse. It was 67 years old and lived in the mind’s eye of anyone who remembers air-raid drills, fallout shelters and metal drums filled with what had to be the stalest biscuits in the world.