Gov 2.0: a free 3-hour online conference that will show off some of the brightest examples of Web 2.0 technologies creating greater collaboration, transparency and efficiencies in government will be held on Thursday, Dec. 10 from 12 – 3:30 Eastern time.  The event is sponsored by O’Reilly Media and will feature the five Gov 2.0 award winners from their recent Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington DC:

• Peter Koht (City of Santa Cruz) – City of Santa Cruz Budget Crisis: A Blueprint Using Social Media
• Merrick Schaefer (UNICEF) – txts 4 africa
• Melissa Jordan (Bay Area Rapid Transit) – Transit 2.0 at Bart.gov
• Jeff Nigbur (State of Utah, Department of Public Safety) – Utah Department of Public Safety Media Portal
• Rita King (Dancing Ink Productions) – Digital Diplomacy: Understanding Islam Through Virtual Worlds

You can register for the free conference at the O’Reilly Gov 2.0  website.

The next Law Librarian Radio show on Blog Talk Radio will be next Friday, Dec. 4, at 3 pm Eastern time with host Richard Leiter, Director of the Schmid Law Library at the University of Nebraska.  Topics for discussion will include Google Scholar’s Legal Opinions and Journals, Intelliconnect, tinyThom.as, and  XYGGY.COM.  There may even be a guest from Google joining the discussion!

You can join the Law Librarian Radio show  live at http://blogtalkradio.com/thelawlibrarian, where you can listen live, call in with questions or comments and  join your fellow law librarians in the chat room. If you miss the show, it will be available as a downloadable podcast on iTunes. You might also want to join the show’s Facebook page to keep in touch with upcoming events.

The blawgosphere has been abuzz the past week about a new feature in Google Scholar: you can now use Google Scholar Advanced Scholar Search (still in beta) to find case law as well as patents and articles in legal journals.  Search options include Search all legal opinions and journals; Search only US federal court opinions; Search only court opinions from individual states.
According to Justia, the Google Scholar database includes US Federal Appellate, District Court, Bankruptcy & Tax Opinions since 1924, and US 50 State Cases since 1950.  Google Scholar also gives alternatives versions of cases from legal websites including Cornell’s LII, Justia, and Carl Malamud’s Public.Resource.org.
Andrew Plumb-Larrick at the Case Western law library blog has done some testing and has a useful post that reports in more depth about how to use this feature and what content you can find.  Andrew also provides links to other places with new news and tinkering/experiment results:    Justia’s Law, Technology, and Legal Marketing Blog (and Paul Stanley’s Twitter feed); Harvard Law School Library’s Et Seq. blog; ResourceShelf; and Internet for Lawyers; Rick Klau of Google, on Twitter.

Google explains the reasons for the new addition on the Official Google Blog: “Laws that you don’t know about, you can’t follow — or make effective arguments to change. Starting today, we’re enabling people everywhere to find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts… We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of several pioneers, who have worked on making it possible for an average citizen to educate herself about the laws of the land: Tom Bruce (Cornell LII), Jerry Dupont (LLMC), Graham Greenleaf and Andrew Mowbray (AustLII), Carl Malamud (Public.Resource.Org), Daniel Poulin (LexUM), Tim Stanley (Justia), Joe Ury (BAILII), Tim Wu (AltLaw) and many others. It is an honor to follow in their footsteps. We would also like to acknowledge the judges who have built this cathedral of justice brick by brick and have tried to make it accessible to the rest of us. We hope Google Scholar will help all of us stand on the shoulders of these giants.”

Excellent news announcement from CS-SISizens Sarah Glassmeyer and Jason Eiseman: Save the Date

When: January 16, 2010 9am – 5 pm (Casual dinner outing Friday evening)

Where: Harvard Law School Library

Why: Why wait until July to meet, learn and laugh with other law librarians and legal information professionals?

Lawberry Camp Midwinter will be a full day of activities…including lightning talks, open round table discussions and ending with the exciting and fun Battledecks Powerpoint Karaoke competition.

Have you tried an interesting project in your library and want to give a 5 minute talk about it? Is there some pressing issue that you’d like to hash out and discuss? Public services, technical services, private, court or academic…whatever your job title is and no matter where you work, if you are interested in law libraries or legal information, you should come to Lawberry Camp!

Registration is not open yet! We’ll announce that closer to the date.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the organizers, Jason Eiseman or Sarah Glassmeyer.  We hope to see you in Boston!

Sincerely,

Jason Eiseman and Sarah Glassmeyer

p.s. Sharp eyed individuals may note that this is the same weekend as ALA Midwinter, also happening in Boston. This is not entirely a coincidence! So come to Boston! Make a weekend of it! ALA exhibit passes are available for only $25…double your professional development fun!

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts announced on November 2 that it is looking for feedback on PACER through an online survey to assess user satisfaction and generate suggestions for future improvements to the system. The survey is part of the Administrative Office’s year-long, comprehensive assessment of PACER. According to the announcement, the survey will be open for approximately 30 days.

It’s  important for the Courts to hear from law librarians. AALL is encouraging all of us to participate in the survey, and  share this info with your chapters and colleagues.

There are 7 questions in the survey, and you must have a valid PACER account to take the survey.

1. Are you a PACER user? (If no, you can’t take the survey.)
2. If Yes, What is your account number? (If you don’t have an account number, you aren’t permitted to continue with the survey.)
3. What is your name? Please enter first and last names.
4. Which of the following best describes you?

   I am a plaintiff, defendant, or debtor in a case, or the family member of a plaintiff, defendant, or debtor in a case

   I work in the legal sector (such as attorney, paralegal, Office of the Clerk of Court, Trustee’s office, librarian)

   I work for a commercial business (such as financial institution, data aggregator, claims agent, publisher, auto dealer)

   I am a creditor or work for one

   I work for a service provider to the legal sector (such as legal software vendor, consultant)

   I work at an educational or research institution, or am a student

   I am a member of the media

   Other (Please specify)

5. Overall, how satisfied are you with PACER :
   Very satisfied
   Somewhat satisfied

   Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied

   Somewhat dissatisfied

   Very dissatisfied.

6. Why did you give the rating“somewhat dissatisfied”? (there is a text box to fill in)
7. If you could make one change to PACER, what would it be and why? (Another text box to fill in.)

The Congressional Research Service has published a report (37 page pdf) entitled Congressional Printing: Background and Issues for Congress. It is a must-read for gov docs librarians (and law librarians who deal with Congressional documents). The report gives an overview of the GPO and the statutory requirements it must fulfill, as well as the actual practices of the GPO and statistics of what it publishes and how much it spends.
Some tidbits from the Summary:
“In current practice, more than half of all government documents originate in digital form, and are distributed electronically. As a consequence of electronic production and dissemination, some congressional materials are now more readily available to wider congressional, governmental, and public audiences than when they were only produced and distributed in paper form.”
and ” (T)he transition to electronic distribution of materials may raise questions about the capacity of current law and congressional practices to effectively oversee GPO’s management and distribution responsibilities regarding congressional information.”
Finally, the report lists “Potential Options for Congress”, should Congress believe that action on government printing practices might be necessary or desirable, (p. 16) which include:
1. Maintain the status quo.
2. Conduct studies related to congressional printing policies on such topics as how users access congressional documents; whether current distribution practices for GPO-printed and electronic documents are effective or efficient; the costs of creating paper and electronic documents, including retention of archival documents, and disposal of obsolete materials; the extent to which current congressional printing and document distribution practices support Congress in its work; and what potential changes to congressional rules and practices might be necessary if Congress were to transition to “paperless” operations.
3. Consider legislation to amend current printing authorizations, found in 44 U.S.C. 906 and 44 U.S.C. 701 , to reflect current printing practices.

AALL is sponsoring a webinar on Thursday, Nov. 19 from noon- 1 pm Eastern time titled “Global Legal Research: Routes to Success“.  It features Jean M. Wenger of the Cook County (IL) Law Library and our own Lyonette Louis-Jacques, Foreign and International Law Librarian at the U. of Chicago.  These two global research experts will discuss how to approach global research, sensible starting points, legal systems and terminology, resource strategies, collections and more.

Today is the last day to register here.   The cost is $45 for AALL members, $60 for non-members, $200 for a site registration.

This Friday, Nov. 13, at 3 pm Eastern time, CALI will host a free webinar for law school faculty about using CALI lessons in your course, including how you can integrate CALI lessons with TWEN. The presenters will be Prof. Debra Cohen, Visiting Associate Professor & Interim Director of Academic Support at the University of Baltimore School of Law; and Prof. Sally Wise, Director of the Law Library and Professor of Law at the University of Miami School of Law.

Register for the webinar on the CALI website.

This Friday, November 6, at 3:00 PM Eastern Time, The Law Librarian on BlogTalkRadio will welcome Carl Malamud, founder of EDGAR, FedFlix, and Public Resource dot org to discuss  his newest project, Law.Gov.  Host Richard Leiter,  co-host Marcia Dority-Baker, Margi Maes, (Executive Director of LIPA) and Roger Skalbeck, Associate Librarian of Electronic Resources, will delve into the subject of Open Access to Law, and explore the nuances of the “nation’s operating system.” You can call in and/or join the chat room to participate. (Follow the link above  for phone numbers and log in information.) The transcript of the chat room will be posted online after the show.