Vincent G. Rinn Law Library

U.S. Courts Provide Helpful Consumer Videos On Bankruptcy

Difficult economic conditions have placed many consumers in circumstances in which they may be considering filing for bankruptcy as a way to deal with their excessive debts.Such consumers can find authoritative  and  understandable guidance on this process, from nine videos offered on the US Court's website.

They are produced by the Administrative Office of the US Courts and the Federal Judicial Center. They are designed to orient and guide consumers considering using bankruptcy in their situation. Topics covered include : Types of Bankruptcy, Limits of Bankruptcy, Filing for Bankruptcy, the Creditors' Meeting, Bankruptcy Crime, Court Hearings, The Discharge and the need for legal assistance. In addition to the videos, links to detailed written information are also provided on their Bankruptcy Basics page.

Federal Register Made Available in “XML” …..So ?

The White House Blog announced on October  5  that the Government Printing Office (GPO) is making ten years of the Federal Register available in what is called XML format. Future funding will allow making  the remaining issues  from 1994 – 2000 available, as well. So why does this matter to readers of the Federal Register ?

Actually, right now  it doesn’t matter much to most of us end-users who just search and read relevant sections of the Federal Register either in paper copy  or on an online database. That is because XML is a machine readable computer language that is meant to be applied by those who have a certain level of computer expertise. They will be the ones who will employ XML  “to transport data from a Web site and store it, reorganize it or customize it elsewhere.” As Beth Noveck, director of the White House Open Government Initiative, says “…people can manipulate it and customize it and reuse the content to make the information even more accessible,"

So it will be creative applications using XML that will eventually filter down to most of us on the end user side. Some of these uses are mentioned in the White House post, “For example, Princeton's Center for Information Technology is today set to launch Fedthread.org, which allows users to annotate the Federal Register and comment in its margins. Another organization, Public.Resource.org, has created a software application that makes it simpler to search the Federal Register. And GovPulse makes it possible to visualize the Federal Register by topic or by location so the reader can see how particular government actions affect different local communities.”

In  an ABA journal website story,  Mary Alic Baish from the American Law Library Association calls the change "a win-win situation for business, the regulatory community and consumers." "We see law libraries being able to use the data for empirical research by law professors who want to track agency activities. For being able to track trends in the regulated industries. Even for studies of semantics and language,"

So while for many of us, XML  is just an acronym. For law librarians and other information providers these developments will open up whole new areas of enhanced services for our clientele.

"FDsys", the New GPO Online Public Information System Almost Out of Beta

In the early 1990s the Government Printing Office (GPO) implemented GPO ACCESS, a service that provides free electronic access to a wealth of important information products produced by the Federal Government. It has been a mainstay for providing digital government information into the present. But a new online system called FDsys is being deployed that will succeed GPO access and provide significant  additional functionality. Content is being migrated to the new system from GPO access. The process should be completed later this year when GPO access will be retired.

The three main functions of the new system are described as:

• FDsys is a Content Management System —  FDsys securely controls digital content throughout its lifecycle to ensure content integrity and authenticity

• FDsys is a Preservation Repository —  FDsys follows archival system standards to ensure long-term preservation and access of digital content

• FDsys is an Advanced Search Engine —  FDsys combines extensive metadata creation with modern search technology to ensure the highest quality search experience 

To prepare GPO Access users for using the new system, GPO staff have developed several introductory instructional videos about using FDsys:

FDsys Overview (Adobe Flash) - This video is a brief overview on the background of FDsys.

FDsys Simple Search (Adobe Flash) - This is a video tutorial on how to perform simple searches within the system and filter your results.

FDsys Advanced Search (Adobe Flash) - This is a video tutorial on how to perform advanced searches and citation searches within the system.

FDsys Browse (Adobe Flash) - This is a video tutorial on how to browse for government publications within FDsys.

Law Libraries to Have Role in New US Courts/GPO Pacer Pilot Study

A recent posting on this blog,"Law Librarians Initiate Petition On PACER Service", spoke to the issues surrounding access to the US Courts litigation documents database, PACER. Several user groups are working for greater no-fee access to it's records.

The posting did not mention that back in 2007, Government Printing Office (GPO) and the Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO) undertook a pilot to provide free public access to Federal court records at 17 Federal depository libraries. The study was abruptly suspended in late September of 2008 with the AO saying that there had been a security breach that resulted in the download a massive amount of documents ( See: "Free PACER - Balancing access and privacy").

The pilot was not restarted. Some observers had questioned how a study with only 17 libraries for the whole country, could yield valid information about the public demand for access to the documents on the PACER service.

Yesterday, the Federal Depository Library Program of the GPO, posted an announcement that  "...the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) has been contacted to discuss ways the pilot could be reinvented to make PACER part of a legal research and training program for librarians and the users." It goes on to say that, "The AALL strongly supports the GPO and the FDLP program, and is willing to assist with developing a proposal to move forward. Once a proposal is developed, it will be submitted to the Judiciary's advisory groups and the Judicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management for consideration."

This is a very hopeful sign that the AO may be seriously exploring the possibility of providing a no-fee, no-account option for public access to PACER documents.While it does not go as far as some of the user constituencies would like, it does show a proactive stance by the AO to broaden access to it's resources.

Law Librarians Initiate Petition On PACER Service

A group of law librarians have drawn up a petition regarding the PACER litigation documents service operated by the Administrative Office of the US Courts (AO).On September 11 a representative from Stanford Law Library, University of Texas Law Library and from the Georgetown Law Library will present the petition to the AO and the staff of the Judiciary and Appropriations committees and also Senator Lieberman's office.(Source e-mail on GovDoc-L )

Earlier this year, Senator lierberman had written the AO with concerns about the costs of  using the PACER service and inquiring why free public access might not be feasible. ( See blog posting: "Fees For Judiciary PACER Service Questioned by Sen. Lieberman" )

Also, an in-depth artice "The case against PACER: tearing down the courts' paywall"  from arstechnica.com , strongly argues for the AO paying attention to a much broader constituencies and removing the registration and cost barriers to users which would include third parties who could remix the data in new and useful ways.

The petition specifically asks for:

•  For verification and reliability, the AO should digitally sign every document put into PACER using readily available technology.
•  PACER needs to be much more readily accessible if it is to be usable for research ,education, and the practice of law. Improved accessibility includes both lowering the costs for using PACER and enhancing the web interfaces.
•  Depository libraries should also have free access to PACER.

Initiatives like the Carl Malamud's Public.Resource.org, Justia's harvesting of users paid-for PACER documents and most recently, the Firefox extension created by the Center for Information Policy at Princeton which captures PACER content and sends it to the Internet Archive for access, are also putting pressure on the AO to re-examine how the PACER service has been operating for over 20 years.

The current law librarian petition joins these stakeholders who are also pushing for change in the PACER service.

Rinn Law Library Director, Allen Moye, Publishes Legal Research Article

Associate Professor & Director of the  Rinn Law Library, Allen Moye, has recently had an article published in Legal Reference Services Quarterly entitled "Tubs, Buckets, and a Variety of Lumber: Developing a Strategic Approach to Legal Research". (Volume 28, Issue 3 & 4 July 2009, pages 181 - 199) ( Link should work for on-campus access or via proxy server)

From introduction to the article:

"Today's instructors of legal research face a number of challenges. With an increasing variety of formats and access points for obtaining information, the landscape of legal research material is fluid and evolving. Teaching students the value of some of the more traditional methods of research in a technology-saturated world focused on instant gratification requires some creativity and innovation. Using simple references and metaphors from everyday life, the author focuses on creative ways of helping students to develop a practical strategy for approaching any legal research problem."

LLMC-Digital On the Move - Partnering With Google, Fastcase & LA County Law Library

The non-profit corporation founded in 1976 by several U.S. law libraries and known by the not so exciting name of the Law Library Microform Consortium, is transforming itself into a significant provider of digital legal information with the involvement of some 21st Century players such as Google and Fastcase. The Consortium has a vast storehouse of legally related information from it's accumulation of print and microform for preservation purposes.

The project is similar to the development process undertaken by Hein to digitize the collection of microform titles it controlled and to make them accessible and searchable via the internet. LLMC-Digital has decide to accelerate their own efforts by enlisting some strategic partners.

The current LLMC-Digital newsletter reports that on the heels of it's ongoing massive scanning project of California Records & Briefs ( ca. 77,000 vols.) with the Los  Angeles County Law Library, LLMC-Digital is setting up a partnership with Google to scan the even larger (ca. 84,000 vols) collection of New York Records & Briefs.

The scanning partnership with Google may move into digitizing such main stream materials like the entire Congressional Record and archives of the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations. These products would compete directly with HeinOnline which has mounted the same resources.

In a bid to better distribute it's existing digital content and generate revenue, LLMC-Digital, at the suggestion of the California State Bar, decided to partner with Fastcase Accelerated Legal Research, to make a joint bid for  providing services to the associations members.

Law Library of Congress Preparing "Lawyers Handbook"

The Law library of Congress has an online “handbook for lawyers” in the works. This is according to an informational report from AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE LAW LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, at the recently concluded ABA conference in Chicago. The new tool will be designed to guide working lawyers in the use of the Law library’s comprehensive collections for their research.

ABA staff and members will be working closely with Law library staff to insure that the materials address the needs of ABA members. The handbook’s creation is now under the supervision of Acting Law Librarian Donna Scheeder, formerly the Director of Law Library Services.

“The Standing Committee believes that with such a document online, ABA members as well as state and local bars, law schools, corporate law departments and the general public will be able usefully to track their way through the world’s largest collection of legal materials.”

At present, see “Find Legal Resources” guide on the Law Library’s web site

Federal Courts Try to Deal With Dead Links In Opinions

Most of us who use the internet for research find ourselves providing links to online materials to backup a quote or lead our readers to additional information. But as we well know, the passage of time, even a brief one, can  lead to some of those links becoming inoperative. For  many  reasons , online resources can come and go, move elsewhere or be altered, from  the moment we located them.  Judges confront this situation too.

An article in the July 2009 issue of  “The Third Branch”, quotes Judicial Conference Secretary, Jim Duff, “Judges are citing to and using Internet-based information in their opinions with increasing frequency,”. When a judge’s legal opinions have citations to internet  materials , their potential inaccessibility becomes a serious problem. Since attorneys cite opinions to support their legal arguments, missing citations and information from an opinion can seriously undermine its usefulness and maybe even its value.

The Judicial Conference has developed a series of “suggested practices” to attempt to deal with this somewhat pernicious problem. They recommend capturing and preserving the web pages cited in an opinion which would then be added as attachment to the opinion that had cited them. The article indicated that the recommendation came after a pilot study conducted by an ad-hoc working group of circuit librarians. Judges will retain the ability to decide which citations to preserve. “The attachment, like the opinion, would be retrievable on a non-fee basis through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records system.”

There is no mention of any intellectual property considerations that may impede the copying and saving of the online content. Since the judiciary is a branch of government carrying out its mandated function, it may not need permission to do this. This may be analogous to the situation of congressional  hearings that often include reproductions of copyrighted works along with the congressional testimony. However, this is in the print versions of the hearings. When the online version is produced, the copyrighted content is usually absent.

We will have to wait and see whether this may become a stumbling block for this seemingly elegant solution to the vanishing links problem in federal court opinions.

State Dept. IG Critical of Process To Publish Foreign Relations of the United States

The "Foreign Relations of the United States" (FRUS) series is a government publication that most of us have probably seen on library shelves or possibly used for a school paper. But since its inception in 1861 in the Lincoln administration, it has been  a vital source of access to information for both the general public and scholars around the world. It  constitutes the State Department’s official documentary historical record.

PL 102-138 mandates that the series provide "a thorough, accurate, and reliable record of U.S. foreign policy within 30 years of the events therein recorded". The process involves assembling mountains of both public and classified information and carefully analyzing and selecting what will be used to actually write the history that we  find in the books or online.

The schedule of publication found in the law has rarely been met. "In fact, in the years that the 1991 law has been in effect, no presidential administration has seen all relevant FRUS volumes published within the 30-year deadline." But more recently internal problems and mismanagement have created greater challenges to FRUS meeting its legal mandate and the expectations of scholars worldwide.

The May 2009 State Dept. Inspector General's recent  report on this situation, "Management Review of the Office of the Historian Bureau of Public Affairs U.S. Department of State", details the problems that have been affecting the production of FRUS and provides many recommendations to improve the process. The primary recommendation was reassignment of  the office’s director, Marc J. Susser after years of complaints from 75% of his employees. Recommendations for improved hiring practices, re-alignment of resources , along with several internal organizational changes were also made.

The seriousness of the challenges facing the timely production of the FRUS was underlined by the comment by the OIG that " It may be that the 30-year deadline is inherently unachievable and should be changed (necessitating a change in legislation, which would bring along with it another set of challenges)."

Yet the attention being paid to what for many of us is a rather obscure government document, is merited, for as as the Inspector General states in his report, "While other countries publish series similar in nature, the FRUS has been widely regarded as the “gold standard” of such efforts, a testament to the principle of transparency in government and a vehicle for easy public access to previously classified information about foreign policy."