Articles Posted in March, 2006

Centralized Archives, Searching for Public Papers: This is pretty amazing. Not that long ago if you were looking for the papers of say, Arthur Corbin, you’d would have had to contact, probably in writing, each and every institution where he might ever have taught and asked for a paper card catalog search. Then, even less long ago, you could search the individual institution’s electronic catalog, assuming they put the archives collection in the catalog. Now we have the ArchiveGrid, with contributers from major collections around the world. Archivists are amazing.

Criminalizing Product Liability: ATRA testified before Congress on the definition of “defect,” here.

Tricks of the Trade: If you learn one useful trick a month, aren’t you ahead of the game – even if you learn just one a year?

Legal terms and Ordinary People: Lawyers and law librarians could use one of these, Library Terms that Users Understand. Have a non-attorney, preferably one who is willing to be blunt, look at your web page and render an opinion on how client-friendly it is.

Oregon Court of Appeals 2005 Report: This report is now posted at the OJD publications web site, here.

Debiasing Judges: The latest issue of Willamette Law Review (vol. 42, #1, Winter 2006) has an interesting article by Evan Seamone on “Neutralizing Harmful Judicial Bias.” It’s [typically] long and is nicely offset by the next article at page 77, written by Vic Snyder, that is worth reading, on McConnell v FEC.

Patriot Act and your Driver’s License: Is misuse of the Patriot Act by silly, foolish, or misguided people going to be the real death of the Patriot Act? See this story, from the Chicago Sun-Times, via Schneier on Security, March 8th story.

“Of Counsel” Resources: Dennis Kennedy has compiled a masterful list of free resources on Of Counsel articles and discussions, here, in his March 1st posting.

Jury Duty Scam: It’s a scam that’s no longer a scam apparently, here. Con artists phone people to tell them they failed to report for jury duty and a warrant is out for their arrest. Personal data is solicited and received. Oy. Teach your children well: DON’T GIVE OUT PERSONAL INFORMATION OVER THE TELEPHONE and a few other places as well. Story link came from Bruce Schneier, posted 3/1/06. The comments to his posting are most interesting.

Filing and Service: The February 2006 PLF “In Brief” newsletter is chock full of useful information on service, computer backup and recovery, and much more. It’s an issue worth saving.