“The Freedom of Information Act Guide is an overview discussion of the FOIA’s exemptions, its law enforcement record exclusions, and its most important procedural aspects. Prepared by the staff of the Office of Information and Privacy, it is updated and revised biennially. “
Thanks to beSpacific for the notice and the link.
When does the Baby Boomer lawyer start to go boom? Read David Giacalone’s masterful essay on “the Graying Bar” at f/k/a.
From the essay:
mid-argument
the senior partner
has a senior minute
old rocker —
a gray ponytail
keeps the beat
“Libraries Must Follow Rules of Secrecy to Get New ‘Potter’ Book” (Foxnews story here and excerpts below, linked to from Library Link of the Day, April 6th).
“The publisher of the new Harry Potter novel has strict rules for libraries handling the book this summer….
Despite the “weighty, ominous” language, Giacoma said he takes the contract seriously, although it may be part of the marketing strategy. “It adds to the mystique,” he said….
The rules are required to honor Rowling’s wishes of preserving a “magical moment” for children, Scholastic spokeswoman Kyle Good said.
… monetary damages will be inadequate to compensate for violations,” the contract states.”
Washington County Sheriff’s Office has released a review of the Lukas Glenn shooting. The review and additional information can be found at the Sheriff’s Office web site, here.
LibraryLaw (an excellent blog, by the way) reports to us that the Copyright Renewal Database at Stanford is available. It covers those key dates, 1923-1963 (read the About the Collection section of the web site).
And if you are a neophyte just embarking on a copyright quest, don’t forget to start with the official U.S. Copyright Office web page. Everyone has an opinion on copyright law. Read the best, read the law, do your research, and when in doubt, consult an attorney.
“Better than Google: Libraries offer online databases with quality information – for free,” by Dan Giancaterino, from “Philadelphia Lawyer,” courtesy of Jenkins Law Library. Article here.
“One evening, my daughter’s boyfriend parked himself in front of my computer for a couple of hours, furiously typing away. Finally I asked him what he was doing. (Actually, I wanted him to go home.) “I’m trying to find a schematic for my car’s electrical system on Google,” he said. “I need to know where the heater blower resistor is located because I have to replace it. But all I’m getting is junk.” I told him to take a break and kicked him off the PC. He went to raid the fridge and I went to work. I accessed the Delaware County Library System, www.delcolibraries.org, clicked on the Auto Repair Reference Center, and typed in my card number. Once I was logged into the database, I clicked on the appropriate year, make and model of car. Then I selected the electrical system and printed out the schematic. Total elapsed time: around five minutes. The boyfriend was amazed: “Dude, how did you do that so fast?” Did I tell him? Nope … “knowledge is power.”
So go on and check out your own public library’s database subscriptions.
It was only a matter of time before the “great Plastic Coffee Cup Lid Webcomics Challenge” targeted lawyers. The April 4th comic strip does just that. Click on previous comic strip for more on plastic coffee cups (or on Archive for all previous strips). Librarians gotta do what librarians gotta do.
Another posting at LexBlog that caught my eye (this one I know I linked to from Legal Underground!), titled, “Niche Legal Bloggers Could Threaten Legal Publishers.” I don’t think bloggers are a real $$ threat yet, at least not in the near future, but the decisions made by legal publishers do tend to baffle and boggle the mind. In my law library right now, we’re cleaning up a list of the looseleafs and treatises we’ve cancelled in the past 5 years or so. We’re a small library mind you, but the list is astonishingly long. There are lots of reasons for this. The driving one for a lot of law libraries is price inflation, but there are certainly other reasons. Note that not all of these titles, in fact few of them, are available online. There’s no long tail publishing decision-making going on here – at least I don’t think so. Or is the tail invisible, curled, or perhaps a double-helix? Surely lawyers are exchanging information as much as they used to, aren’t they? So … maybe the blawgers are filling some of that gap the books have left behind? It’s a big stretch, but, there are some awful good blawgs out there. Still, I’m not quite ready to say, capisco.
It never hurts to keep these sorts of lawsuits in view if only peripherally. LexBlog posts about lawsuits against bloggers, linking to the original article at WebProNews.
As for how I got there, to LexBlog that is, and to which blogger I should give the credit, I’m not entirely sure. Coffee is still in my future. I do remember starting with Evan Schaeffer’s Legal Underground, but as usual, he goes boldly where some other lawyer bloggers might fear to tread. The journey is almost always worth it, but I’ve yet to retrace my steps perfectly when traveling the Legal Underground so just let your interests and your instincts guide you and don’t worry about those bread crumbs – they’re refined wheat flour anyway, which you should avoid. If you must, try leaving a trail of chocolate covered ginger (my latest local find – organic too :-).
Update: I forgot to link to this posting over at LibraryLaw: the face-to-face gathering of SF blawgers included a discussion of blawger cease and desist letters and libel law.
“We need to make books cool again,” he said. “I had a plumber come into my house, and he said, ‘Did you read all these books? I hate reading: Turn the pages, right to left, right to left.’ I was astoundedy at his militancy.
“There’s a book for everyone,” Waters added. “You have to remember that it is impossible to commit a crime while reading a book.”
John Waters on crime and librarians. I laughed, but not everyone will, so brace yourself. (It’s also not true that you can’t commit a crime while reading, but I’m not going to quibble with the sentiment.)
Thanks to Library Link of the Day for this April 2nd story link.
