People who work in the legal community don’t generally ask us this question, but ordinary mortals do. I am an ordinary mortal too, mostly, so the question seemed well worth a blog post on the subject:
Before trying to track down that transcriptionist, aka transcriber, or even doing it yourself:
1) First, make sure you know what is on the CD and how it was recorded. For example, Oregon Courts use FTR (“For The Record”) to record trials. Is that what is on your CD?
This story from the Law Librarian Blog caught my eye, “Short Takes on the News”:
Excerpt: “…If someone lives in Philadelphia and blogs, and collects even a tiny amount of income from that activity, then that person could expect a tax bill from the city for $300. It represents the cost of a business privilege license. Apparently any activity that generates even a tiny amount of money is subject to the license fee. The Philadelphia City Paper tells the story or Marilyn Bess, who operates a low traffic blog that generates about $50 in ad revenue. She received one of the bills, which was not a mistake after she investigated it. It’s sad that even in rough economic times that a city such as Philadelphia would stoop to these tactics. I wonder how Ben Franklin would respond? Hat Tip to Andrew Sullivan’s blog for the tip….” (Link to full blog post.)
(Read about Benjamin Franklin.)
The website, I Write Like, is wonderful, funny, and inventive (and I’m not inquiring into their algorithms, etc. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow, even if they all lead to Corey Doctorow). Give it a spin.
For many of my sample paragraphs I feed to it, I’m also told (as a couple of the 3 Geeks folks were) that “I write like” Cory Doctorow (including this blog post!) with a few paragraphs coming up “like” David Foster Wallace. If that’s not worth a laugh (and a pang for DFW), I’m not sure what is, but if you have to choose your writer-company, it certainly pleases me muchly – such august company – even if it’s all a fantasy.
Thank you (I think) to 3 Geeks and a Law, August 23, 2010, for their hot tip blog post: I Write Like Jonathan Swift – Who Do You Write Like??
That little old “space key” or its absence can matter, a lot.
Abbreviations can drive one crazy, especially when searching online, either on the free web or in subscription databases. Those of us in the digital searching world know that searching for something by its abbreviation is an exercise in frustration. (Librarians (almost) never give up so it’s not an exercise in futility. We WILL FIND that document, if we have to die (figuratively speaking) trying.)
Most of us vividly remember searches where we had to try a dozen variations on a theme in the effort to locate a case, a person, or a document, where the only unique “name” was an abbreviation.
Whenever I feel cranky, about my library, my patrons, our dysfunctional wireless service, about Congress, about people who don’t and won’t use libraries but feel free to spout off about their uselessness, about children who have been denied the pleasures of story time or experiencing the library as a “The Third Place” (See James’ Great Good Place and Oldenburg’s Great Good Place), and other sources of crankiness, e.g. librarian listserve participants who don’t actually contribute productively to a conversation, an argument, a discussion, or a teachable moment – or even offer simply a light moment…:
I often turn to Will UnWound (formerly known as Will Manley, fired library journal sex columnist – yeesh – some things you can’t live down – but he does so with style and substance – he also wrote about Guerrilla Librarians).
Will is old-fashioned; Will is cranky. Will is annoying. Will is a librarian, one of “my people.” Will has been for many of us in the public library world, a virtual (and literary) rock and mentor. I’ve survived, with no small degree of grace and dignity, some very tricky library administration situations due, almost solely, to reading and thinking about some of what Will has written over the years (as well as listening to other mentors’ advice). Will and I don’t always agree, but I always learn, from his humor (read his books!) and his practical words of experience, which are seldom off the mark.
If you haven’t yet discovered how much excellent information can be buried inside law firm websites, here is another example: Latham and Watkins Books of Jargon, including “book” on corporate and banking finance jargon.
See previous OLR blog on Law Firm Websites and Blogs.
(Thank you to 3 Geeks and a Law Blog for the hot tip!)
Multnomah County Library now has Oregonian Archives:
“PORTLAND, OR – Multnomah County Library now features the only publicly available, complete full-text digitized archive of The Oregonian newspaper. Multnomah County Library cardholders can now access every article, editorial, illustration, photograph and advertisement published in The Oregonian between 1861 and 1972. By the end of this year, the archive will include all editions up to 1987.
Multnomah County Library is the only source for free access to this archive and all associated features. Previously, total access to this vast resource for Oregon history was available only by paying a monthly subscription fee to NewsBank, the service provider….” Oregonian Archives.
Can Someone Use My Picture Without My Permission?
Public law librarians hear this question quite frequently and while we don’t really want to make our responses more complicated than is necessary, sometimes questions like these can be about as difficult to answer as you can imagine, especially in the abstract (such as on a blog rather than with a live person in the law library or on the telephone).
In part this is because, as with most questions in life and law, answers depend on context and specific facts unique to the person asking the question.
So, what IS the Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review Panel?
Read about it at these sites and search the web for news stories and more:
1) Health Democracy Oregon (Facebook page and national site, Healthy Democracy)
I saw this link at Library Law: Urban Copyright Legends, to the article“Urban Copyright Legends,” by Brandon Butler, Director of Public Policy Initiatives, ARL.
You can make the direct link to the full issue of “Research Library Issues” or to a PDF of the article itself. (And a big thank you to the publisher and author for making the article available easily and for no cost!)
[To cite this article: Brandon Butler. “Urban Copyright Legends.” Research Library Issues: A Bimonthly Report from ARL, CNI, and SPARC, no. 270 (June 2010): 16-20. http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/rli/archive/rli270.shtml. RLI 270 Urban Copyright Legends 20, JUNE 2010]
