Morgan Wilson: commentary

AOL Journals and iBlog

Wed, 13 Aug 2003 12:14:08 GMT

OK, I was never serious about AOL Journals - but I was curious. Now I've discovered a flaw that makes it almost worthless as a blogging tool. In AOL Journals you must choose between making an entry with a title (which is essential), or making an entry which contains links (which is also essential). You can't have both - and this is an anathema to any self-respecting blogger. This is because you can make an entry with a link by using AOL instant messenger - but when you use AOL instant messenger, you can't designate a title for your entry. Now there is a way of editing an entry, when you could theoretically add a title, but if you try this, you will lose your link! Because the stupid editor only handles plain-text - it doesn't even support any HTML tags! So until this is fixed, it's quite useless as a blogging tool.

The trouble with iBlog is that I'm yet to find a iBlog blog which seems to offer a good RSS feed. This is crucial for a blog - your blog may as well be invisible if it doesn't have a reliable RSS feed (this was something which AOL at least, could get working). In no way have I surveyed all of them, maybe I was just unlucky with the ones that I looked at. So I'd like to support iBlog, but it's not quite ready yet either.

Besides, I've been playing around with TypePad some more and am still very impressed. Its elegance and functionality remind me of a Mac. Coming from a Mac user like me, this is high praise.

ads with air guitarists and the idea / expression of the idea dichotomy

Mon, 11 Aug 2003 06:44:32 GMT

Ads Ape Apple's Air Guitarists. Upstart BuyMusic.com is doing more than just offering a music service that mimics iTunes. Its commercials are strikingly similar to Apple's ads, too. Flattery? Perhaps, but it also could be a lawsuit in the making. By Danit Lidor. [Wired News] [A blog doesn't need a clever name]

"The fair-use doctrine does provide a defense to copyright- and trademark-infringement claims," Crowther said. "The critical issue will be whether the BuyMusic.com is a parody of the Apple ads."
"When the second work just borrows from the first work to get attention or to avoid having to develop something new or fresh and does not make fun of the original work [sigma] it is not a parody and may not have protection," Crowther said.
Parody or not, a copyright-infringement suit wouldn't necessarily be an open-and-shut case. "The dichotomy between 'ideas' and 'expression' is hard to get across," said Blaney Harper, an intellectual property attorney at Jones Day.
"Showing average people air guitaring their way through a song against a white background" is not enough to show BuyMusic is copying Apple's expression, he said.

I haven't seen these ads, but I admit that they would really annoy me. It would seem that BuyMusic is stealing numerous ideas of Apple. But this happens all the time - in business, in art and science. Stealing an idea (unless it's patented) is different from violating intellectual property rights. This is a really good thing - even if it is infuriating to see BuyMusic use this legal point to peddle its lame Windows knock-off of the iTunes Music Store. It's corny, but the law is meant to be blind, (if people stay within its bounds) it protects the good and the bad, the creative and the exploiters. To change the law to stop the "bad" BuyMusic would be opening the possibility of flooding more of the "good" public domain under a torrent of copyright claims. It could shut down or severely damage the blogosphere. The idea / expression of idea dichtomy is being undermined enough already by contract law, without this happening. So what can be done? Protest this protected form of idea theft in non-legal ways. Try to shame BuyMusic into changing its behaviour.

Music (legally downloaded from iTunes): Moby, 18, I'm not worried at all

Dave Pollard on the blogging process

Fri, 08 Aug 2003 10:50:20 GMT

Another intriguing flow-chart from How to Save the World. My thoughts: This is a very detailed & helpful description of what's generally an unconcious process for me. It also serves as a best practice to aim for, because it's rare that I'm doing all of the things which Dave mentions.

tinkering with AOL Journals

Thu, 24 Jul 2003 23:54:24 GMT

The first AOL journal (blog) I've seen.

Via Hylton Joliffe I've clicked through to an AOL Journal called sound & fury. The branding at the top (below the generic AOL nav) reads "AOL Journals: Your Thoughts. Your Blog."

I was hoping I could find my way from that blog to other AOL blogs but there doesn't seem to be any central jumping-off point (or blogroll/sidebar, for that matter).

[Radio Free Blogistan]

I was playing around with AOL Journals yesterday. My attempt was very experimental & silly so I'm not going to link to it. As I expected, it was very easy to set up - there are various templates for choosing how the Journal looks and how functions it has. Updating is also easy - you just send an instant message to the AOL Journal bot. This means that you can use all the formatting that you can use in an instant message, which is quite a lot. But I also a discovered a bug with this. If I add an entry with AIM and then want to edit that entry in AOL to give it a title or information about my mood or the music I'm listening (like LiveJournal), then most of the formatting goes away. If I initially created the entry in AOL, then there's no option to use anything but plain-text - and no HTML tags for bolding, italicizing, changing colours or fonts. This isn't an issue, so long as they fix that bug about editing entries created with AIM - or allow you to give the title, mood and music in the instant message. Hopefully they'll fix this by the time it's officially released.

An AOL Journal does provide an RSS feed, but not any news aggregator functions. Because of this, I think that AOL Journals is more equivalent to LiveJournal (albeit not as good!) than software like Radio Userland or Blogger. And I agree that AOL needs to provide a way of locating other AOL Journals.

Safari and internet banking sites

Wed, 23 Jul 2003 14:04:00 GMT

Macintouch has had some interesting postings concerning the fall out from Microsoft’s decision to discontinue developing IE for Mac. There is concern because some sites, notably online brokerages internet banking sites, only work with IE. People are worried that if IE for Mac atrophies, Mac users will be shut out of many sites because so many lazy web developers design only for IE.

I think that there is a little bit of panic occurring with this issue. There are already sites which only work well with IE 6.x for Windows, not IE 5.2 for Mac. By the way, my credit union’s internet banking and online bill paying works well with just about any web browser. If the big, mean banks and brokerage firms are being troglodytes about only supporting IE, I say that Mac users should take their business elsewhere – especially to credit unions which have lower fees and are usually more responsive to their customers.

Now that Microsoft has won the first browser war, it has little incentive to develop IE for any platform. So their announcement about discontinuing upgrading IE 5.2 for Mac comes at the same time that IE 6.x for Windows also goes onto the back-burner, at least until Longhorn is developed.

my flirtation with EverCrack

Wed, 16 Jul 2003 05:07:06 GMT

So things have been kind of busy at work. Then I am embarrassed to mention that EverQuest has just been released for the Mac and that I have wasted many an hour on that game. I have decided that although EverQuest has some good points, it is diabolically designed to be the biggest addictive timesink, even more so than Lineage. Furthermore, although I like all the different class/race combinations which EverQuest offers, this makes for some very specialized characters which can’t function well outside of a group. And although group adventuring can be fun – especially when it’s only with Mac users – it seems that finding a good group which plays at an appropriate time (in terms of hour of the day/night as well as duration) is very challenging. So having sampled it, I won’t be planning EverQuest. I will continue to play Lineage in moderation.

Music: Liz Phair, Liz Phair, Little Digger

random silliness - Strong Bad emails on Homestar Runner

Wed, 11 Jun 2003 05:20:08 GMT

Today I was doing some systems librarian stuff - basically updating some people's privileges in the library system. I was reminded of Strong Bad's privileges email. Homestar Runner is the weirdest site. Some of the Strong Bad emails are hilarious. There are some silly games, which I'm not really into - although there's something about Trogdor which appeals to me. This is a twisted retro-style game where you are a dragon who is supposed on stomp on hapless peasants. Squash enough serfs and you get to burninate the entire village! There are some short cartoons - the King of Town special edition being my favourite. Watch the normal version first, then listen to Strong Bad's commentary.

avoiding blogging burnout

Wed, 04 Jun 2003 13:17:06 GMT

Gone. Now Jonathon Delacour and Mike Cohen have stopped blogging, too. What's this - some kind of disease? How many more of my favourite bloggers will disappear in the next few weeks? ... [The Aardvark Speaks]

This is sad news. Will there be more of this as the novelty factor of blogging recedes? Or as the blogosphere becomes more stratified? My own way of avoiding blogging burnout is to be very undisciplined about it - to treat it as something I enjoy doing rather than a chore. It also helps to take a hiatus from it, whenever I feel like it.

what people in my home town think about libraries and librarians

Wed, 21 May 2003 04:05:49 GMT

How often do you use your local library. writes Paul McIntyre took to the streets of Hobart Australia recently and discovered overall most people perceived libraries as friendly helpful places with a diversity of systems in place to help the avid book browser ... [LISNews.com]

I just had to post this one. I grew up in Hobart, Tasmania and went to high school with Paul McIntyre. Although we weren't really friends, we hung out in the same circles for a while. I could barely recognize his voice - so much more of an Australian radio voice! Maybe it's also that my voice has changed from living in the US, a change which I stubbornly oppose.

why I'm not interested in audio blogging

Fri, 09 May 2003 14:22:31 GMT

NPR Highlights Audioblogging.

Audio Blogs: Online Diarists Sound Off

"In the 18th century, people recorded the mundane details of life in diaries. Today, bloggers -- or Web loggers -- share their most intimate thoughts and opinions with the entire world on the Internet. The online journals, known as "blogs," are increasingly popular. And while they've been dominated by text and photos, they're now also going in a new direction, using audio as well.

NPR's Ari Shapiro reports on "audio blogs" -- online audio diaries that can make anyone's life a serial drama. New technology allows them to be updated via a simple phone call....

Moorehead predicts that once the novelty of audio blogging subsides, it will become just another tool in a blogger's repertoire.

Since audio blogs are relatively new, they don't yet cover the range of their written equivalents. But some people are already using audio in creative ways. A site called The Quiet American provides audio travelogues submitted by people around in a feature called 'one-minute vacations.' " [NPR, via weblogged News]

I agree with Will that this article is already behind the curve by not even noting moblogging ...[The Shifted Librarian]

I heard that segment too. Basically I'm not interested in audio blogging because of the following reasons. I would umm and ahh too much - unless I had written down everything that I was going to say, which would make me wonder what was the point of audio blogging. Yes, I would be providing my readers with the novelty of hearing my voice with its weird/cute blend of accent. But that novelty couldn't justify how stressful I would find the whole thing to be.

the FBI would have a field day snooping in Amazon.com's customer profiles

Tue, 06 May 2003 18:57:17 GMT

Recommendation Systems in 2003. Recommendation Systems in 2003
Source: The New York Times
"Making Intelligence a Bit Less Artificial"
Lisa Guernsey takes a look at recommendation systems being used by Amazon and others. Interesting reading. You'll also learned what happened to the Firefly technology after it was purchased by Microsoft. [The ResourceShelf]

I'm a little embarassed to admit it, but I've found some of Amazon's recommendations to be quite spot on. Admittedly, this has required me to be proactive and remove the anomalies from my purchasing history. It also helped to tell them which things I already have and how much I like them. The question for me is whether it's worth it, considering how much personal information I'm entrusting to Amazon. Because I don't really trust them not to share it without my permission, And then there's the spectre of the PATRIOT Act. The information in library borrowing records is nothing compared to some of the goodies which might be contained in Amazon's customer profiles. These would surely be "business records" for the purposes of the Act. So why do I continue playing Amazon's recommendations game, knowing of the risks to my privacy? A part of me thinks that the damage is already done, so what does that it matter. Also, I'm too interested in this technology to be able to ignore it.

the iTunes Music Store is what I've been waiting for, mostly

Wed, 30 Apr 2003 14:30:17 GMT

Louis Louis.

Forbes' Arik Hesseldahl ("Apple Tunes Up"):

[A]fter a short tryout and a tad of obligatory skepticism, we can honestly say we're impressed. The iTunes Music Store, an online music download service that is integrated into Apple's iTunes 4 digital jukebox software, is enormously easy to use and dangerously addictive.

On the user-friendliness front, I can observationally add it was far easier for my Dad to set himself up than it can be for him to edit a Word document. He was thrilled to find plenty of Louis Prima.

[Bag and Baggage]

I must confess that for all my criticisms of the RIAA and its attempts to stifle technologies which do not fit into its outdated business model, I have never used Napster, Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster or any other file trading services. There are a few reasons. Lack of bandwidth for one (not an issue now thanks to my new EarthLink dsl connection at home). Also I have vague fears of viruses or adware that might hijack or embed itself in my computer. Finally, although I oppose the RIAA's rhetoric that brands all online music consumers as thieves, my own moral compass has cautioned patience, to wait until there is a legal and safe alternative.

Well, I'm glad that I'm a Mac user and that some very cool software is available for us (and that the Windows world will have to wait for months for an alternative! *gloat*). Maybe it's because I've never looked at the other services that I'm so impressed with the iTunes Music Store. It's a fabulous time-waster for one thing. I spent at least an hour browsing through their catalogue, just listening to the free 30 second streaming samples which they provide for each song. Some of these are daggy songs from my childhood & teens which I haven't heard for years, which I'd never think of buying - although at 99 cents a song, I guess that I could. It is dangerously easy to buy music on iTunes. Once you've given them a credit card number, it's all "one-click" purchasing. Before I knew it I had bought 5 songs. I am yet to test the features of transferring the purchased songs to other computers (up to 2 others) or burning the songs to a CD (up to 10 times), so I can't comment on how the DRM works in practice. The catalog is extensive enough to keep me busy & poor. It does have gaps in its content. For example, I noticed that a few prominent artists are missing (the Beatles & Madonna). Also, most of the catalog is mainstream in that the artists are somehow connected with a major record label. There's no reason why local and more independent artists (such as Australian alternative bands) couldn't appear on iTunes - or is there? Finally, the coverage is often incomplete for the artists which are on the catalog. For example, the only Crowded House albums on the catalogue are Woodface and the self-titled album. Also, not necessarily all the songs in an album will be on the catalogue - such as only 2 songs of Crowded House's self-titled album are included. None of this is very surprising or intimidating - as a law librarian, I'm very used to dealing "selected coverage" issues with electronic journals. Just because the library supposedly has access to an electronic version of a journal - it doesn't mean that the particular article which I'm looking for will be covered.

You can find music by browsing through their catalogue or using their search engine. The search engine works well, especially if you're looking for something specific. One drawback with browsing is that you might not have the same definitions of "alternative", "pop" and "rock" as iTunes' catalogers. On the other hand, browsing gives you the chance to serenditously find music which you've long forgotten about.

On the whole, I am very impressed with the iTunes Music Store. It's easy, legal and cheap - at least in my opinion. Most importantly, it seems to work. I'm sure that as it gets more established, it will improve in coverage and other functionality.

By the way, there is a very interesting article about this in Salon - to read it you need to subscribe or watch an ad to get a daily pass.

Judge overturns school board's restriction of Harry Potter books

Wed, 23 Apr 2003 14:49:16 GMT

"Only in America" has been an informal part of the establishment of the Australian news media. This example from the Sydney Morning Herald is more serious than whacky, and ultimately it's good press for the U.S.

A federal judge ordered Harry Potter books back onto an Arkansas school district's library shelves, rejecting a school board's claim that tales of wizards and spells were harmful.
Ruling in favour of a fourth-grader's parents, US District Judge Jimm Larry Hendren today ordered the Cedarville School District in western Arkansas to put the four books in JK Rowling's popular series back in general circulation.
The district's board drew wrath from national free-speech groups for its June decision to require students to obtain parental permission to check out the books. The 3-2 decision, which overruled a unanimous decision by the district's library committee, came after a parent complained about the books.
The Harry Potter books have been assailed by some Christian groups for their themes of witchcraft. The American Library Association says the books were the most frequently challenged of 2002, but rarely did those challenges lead to restrictions or bans.

cataloguing ejournals in the exploded library

Wed, 02 Apr 2003 06:37:02 GMT

Library Catalogs: The Wrong Solution. By Roy Tennant, in Library Journal.

Pick a popular book and pretend you are a library patron. Choose three to five libraries at random from the lib-web-cats site (pick catalogs that are not using your system) and attempt to find your book. Try as much as possible to see the system through the eyes of your patrons[~]a teenager, a retiree, or an older faculty member. You may not always like what you see. Now go back to your own system and try the same thing.What should the public see?Our users deserve an information system that helps them find all different kinds of resources[~]books, articles, web pages, working papers in institutional repositories[~]and gives them the tools to focus in on what they want. This is not, and should not be, the library catalog. It must communicate with the catalog, but it will also need to interface with other information systems, such as vendor databases and web search engines.

[News Is Free: Popular Items] [A blog doesn't need a clever name]

My library (specifically, the consortium of which my library is a member) is in the process of cataloguing its ejournals. My tentative definition of ejournals are those journal articles which can be accessed in full-text via the databases which the library subscribes to, whether or not the library holds a print copy of the ejournal. It's my library's task to catalogue its collection of Hein-On-Line journals. The reason why we want these ejournals in the catalog is so that people can find them and access them. This is especially so when we don't hold the print version. In the meantime, we provide access via Serial Solutions. They provide us with a list of which particular ejournals can be accessed in the library, including the coverage dates and information like that. This information goes onto our website. I wonder if we will maintain our subscription to Serials Solutions once our ejournals can be found in the catalogue. I would hope so - although this may be very unrealistic in this year of library budget cutting. I agree with the above author that despite our best efforts, library online catalogues are not the easiest things in the world to use. That's why we need to give people other options for their searching. The library catalogue is, in a sense, a remnant of the unexploded library - a small area where the information has been ordered and arranged in a logical and systematic way. The trouble is that many people are used to the new combinations offered in the exploded library, and find the method underlying the traditional library catalogue to be foreign.

The biggest change is that now library users/patrons are beginning to have a choice as to whether they will use our systems or not. In the law library, the obvious alternatives are Westlaw and Lexis, with their full-text coverage, sophisticated searching capacities, extensive marketing & research & development budgets, not to mention their online & phone help. Already, many law students do research assignments relying on these services exclusively. Librarians could mention many reasons why this is not such a good idea, but that's not going to stop them, or prevent more from following in their footsteps. I wonder how many of our students will use our catalog to access our Hein-On-Line ejournals when they can just go into Westlaw's JLR database - even if Hein-On-Line offers broader & cheaper coverage in many respects.

tough choices for the Minneapolis Public Library

Fri, 14 Mar 2003 00:20:33 GMT

This morning by chance I listened to a discussion on Minnesota Public Radio's Midmorning show about the funding crisis in Minnesota public libraries. This finding crisis was precipitated by the State Auditor arbitrarily classifying libraries as "non-essential services" and recommending that the Governor cut the state funding for these services. It's possible to hear this discussion with the RealOne player (scroll down to March 13, hour one). It was a very interesting discussion and it was gratifying to see how strong support which libraries are getting in the community - it's a shame that this support is falling on deaf ears at the State Capitol.

These problems couldn't have come at a worse time for the Minneapolis Public Library, which is in process of building a new central library building. Its old premises have just been demolished and it is currently renting a temporary (& inadequate) space until its new building is ready.

Because of this funding crisis, there is the possibility that the size of the new building will be scaled back or its construction delayed. It is ironic that one of the reasons why the old library building was inadequate and did not age well was because of similar funding short-cuts which were taken when it was built - according to Kit Hadley, the new director of the Minneapolis Public Library, who was the guest speaker on today's Midmorning show.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has provided good coverage of this issue. Here's a brief chronology -

*The Minneapolis Public Library faces a $25 million shortfall in its operating budget over the next 10 years
*Columnist Doug Grow: "No one, Minneapolis leaders say, could have predicted that Minnesota would elect a governor who would smile kindly, then slash such programs as Local Government Aid. LGA money has accounted for 43 percent of the library's operating budget, according to Laura Waterman Wittstock, chairwoman of the Library Board."
*Q & A with Kit Hadley: "Think about the library's role in democracy. Every country has a police infrastructure, but not everyone has free information."
*Editorial: "the downtown [library] project was once conceived as part of a four-block development, which then was reduced to two, then to a single block, then without a planetarium -- and now even the bare bones may not survive."
*The Minneapolis Public Library's finance committee rejected Kit Hadley's plan to close four branches. The library's funding shortfall will addressed by across-the-board cuts.

do presidents get the parodies which they deserve?

Thu, 13 Mar 2003 04:58:31 GMT

Reading Other People's Mail - Lynne Cheney v. WhiteHouse.Org.

Time on their hands. The Counsel to the Vice President (of the U.S.) wrote a demand letter to the operator of whitehouse.org asking that it remove this fictitious bio of the VP's wife, ... Mrs. Cheney. Some might view the fake bio to be political speech. The VP's lawyer believes that the disclaimer indicating that the website is a parody is insufficent. They're probably bummed about the clown-nose photo as well. Perhaps VP Cheney has coulrophobia.

Go to the site - you be the judge.

I appreciate that the government should incur expense for ensuring Mrs. Cheney's physical safety. However, while the letter does mention mis-use of the presidential seal, the thrust of the letter alleges violations of Mrs. Cheney's rights of privacy and publicity, torts suggesting economic harm. As such, it's interesting that the government pays for the lawyer (I'm not familiar with the law on this - if you are, please share).

Practitioner's Note: Further proof that protesting something is the best way to ensure its universal dissemination.

...

Further aside: Coulrophobia is the term for fear of clowns. I read that on the Volokh Conspiracy so it must be true.

[The Trademark Blog]

The Clinton administration gave us whitehouse.com which featured the Intern of the Month & other nasties (I don't know if it's still up - and I definitely wouldn't want to check while I'm at work!). Now the George W. Bush administration has inspired whitehouse.org, a very different kind of site.

This site made me laugh more than anything else in the entire week. It was almost rofl & lmao. I felt tempted buy one of their "Thought Criminal" t-shirts. I only wish that the parody was a little bit more subtle so that it would blur the distinction between truth & exaggeration some more. The most fascinating & scary section is the feedback area. If you look at the older comments (remembering that the comments are in reverse chronological order) there are some who appear to be genuinely confused if whitehouse.org is real or not (" i am in the US ARMY and am very upset by what i see on this site, i thought the White house would be more professional about what they show the public."). Of course, given whitehouse.org's recent publicity by Drudge and Salon, the more recent comments are very hateful indeed. Most of these comments are even more extreme than the language on the main whitehouse.org site - so maybe the parody isn't over the top. I think that these reader comments are more damning of their authors than the most brutal parody or insult which the left could hurl. The evidence comes out of their own mouths. If anyone had the stomach for it, I think it would be a great concept for a blog - to find and record these vignettes for posterity and for all to see. Some of these comments are so over the top and full of visceral hatred that they can't seem real - surely they're invented. But I've received such comments and I know that I didn't invent them. That's the reason why I turned off my comments feature. I realize that criticism is one of drawbacks of expressing an opinion, but at least on my own blog, which I pay for, I'll get the last word. Dialogue would be nice - but it's almost impossible over the internet when there are such diametrically opposed positions. It's easier to have constructive, respectful debate with somebody face to face - when people can't so easily ignore the other's humanity.

what happens when the US government can seize any .com domain name?

Fri, 28 Feb 2003 02:47:29 GMT

In Web disputes, U.S. law rules the world, by Michael Geist, in the Toronto Star. ... [A blog doesn't need a clever name]

The [Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act] statute, which applies to dot-com, dot-net, and dot-org domains, reaches that conclusion by referring to the fact that the domain name system's root server, the database that houses all domain names and their corresponding numeric addresses, is located in Virginia. The use of the in rem jurisdictional provision is a classic example of legislating outside national borders. For example, the provision surfaced in 2000 in a dispute between two Canadian parties over the technodome.com domain name. Although the trademark holder could have launched a trademark infringement action in Canada, where the courts have addressed cybersquatting issues on several occasions, it chose instead to launch an ACPA action in Virginia where it successfully invoked the in rem jurisdiction clause by suing the domain name, rather than its owner.

So it looks that at least for disputes concerning most important domains, all roads lead to Virginia and US law will apply. This is still going to be a contentious area. I remember how outraged people were that the High Court of Australia dared to assume jurisdiction in the Dow Jones v. Gutnick case - and dared to reach a different outcome than an American court would have. But that tussle over jurisdiction is miniscule compared with what could happen. This week the news has come out that the US Government has seized domain names for non-cybersquatting purposes. The Department of Justice has seized the isonews.com domain because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The site sold mod chips and was a forum for people wanting to play bootlegged console games. In related news the DEA took over sites that sold drug paraphenalia.

So what do you get when ultimate power of domain names rests in the US, and a US government that is willing & able to use this power to advance its political agenda? This could be very messy indeed. If the DEA could seize a domain in the name of the war on drugs, imagine what could be done in the name of the war on terrorism or the war on Iraq? If the PATRIOT Act and PATRIOT Act 2 are any examples, I don't think that the US Government is interested in being restrained with this power.

journalists and librarians and information disintermediation

Wed, 26 Feb 2003 03:24:35 GMT

Scott Rosenberg's piece about the Davos reporter who got caught saying what she really thinks. [Scripting News]

I hadn't heard about this particular row (American readers might want to substitute flap or controversy for "row"). I found Scott's post more interesting for its discussion on the role of journalists in this world of blogs and information disintermediation. If journalists have a role in "digging out" what certain public figures "really think" about particular issues, I wonder if there's a parallel with librarians... Something special about the good old-fashioned face to face interaction between a librarian and the library user is that it often helps the library user clarify what she or he was really looking for in the first place. Of course, this can also happen over the phone - although it seems more difficult. I can't even imagine Virtual Reference software could put the spontaneity and free-flow of real conversation into toneless text messages. Maybe I'm wrong here.

article in Searcher about the digitial divide in legal research

Fri, 14 Feb 2003 06:00:26 GMT

Slashdot has reported (& discussed in typical Slashdot style) an article in Searcher magazine by Melissa Bar called "Democracy in the Dark: Public Access Restrictions from Westlaw and LexisNexis." It is a very interesting and well-written article that highlights the important issue of public access to the law.

In my biased opinion, this article has one major flaw, which is that it seems to totally ignore the role of law libraries - particularly academic law libraries and court libraries. I can only speak for the academic law library where I work. Although we mainly exist to serve our students, faculty and alumni, we never turn anyone from the public away who needs help with legal research. We are trained to help people find what they want or need without crossing over into the area of unauthorized practice of law. At the risk of blowing the profession's own horn too much, I say that the the assistance of a good law librarian - who is armed with a standard collection of printed materials and the resources available on the "free web", including the Legal Information Institute, West's FindLaw and LexisOne - will usually do a much better job for the pro se patron than free access to LexisNexis or Westlaw. The printed sources aren't all bad. They are very strong with the older materials, which Ms. Barr uses as an example, and they make it more difficult to fall into the full-text infoglut trap - where the few pearls are hidden in a tonne of garbage.

Law libraries should do a better job of communicating all this to public libraries. I know that some of the professional associations, including the Minnesota Association of Law Libraries are already doing some work in this area.

None of this is to say that I don't have my issues with LexisNexis or Westlaw - or think that they're perfect, altruistic companies. But now there are more free electronic alternatives (or cheap ones, like VersusLaw) available for legal research. They don't have the all the fancy bells & whistles of Westlaw or Lexis, but they still offer the public access to primary legal materials that would have seemed unthinkable 15 years ago.

Has the ABA withdrawn consideration of the UCITA?

Thu, 13 Feb 2003 03:15:23 GMT

Cognito writes "AFFECT, Americans for Fair Electronic Commerce Transactions, is reporting that the American Bar Association has withdrawn its consideration for endorsing a resolution to approve UCITA, the Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act. This is a good thing. It's interesting to note that a recently filed law suit would have been prohibited if UCITA were endorsed and adopted as a common law." [Slashdot]

I'm a little hesitant to post this because I haven't yet seen any confirmation of this from the ABA's end - and wasn't able to view the pdf on AFFECT's site. If it's true, it's very good news. Although some of the slashdotters think that if the ABA doesn't like the UCITA, then maybe it's not all bad.

LLRX is not being updated, for the time being

Thu, 13 Feb 2003 02:49:42 GMT

LLRX Takes an Indefinite Break ... (11 Feb) LLRX co-editors Sabrina Pacifici and Cindy Chick announce that LLRX will take a break, but will remain available "without any updates at this point." The home page refers readers to beSpacific, Sabrina's law and technology news Weblog. I'm sorry to learn that LLRX will no longer publish new articles (at least in the immediate future). I also think that Sabrina and Cindy deserve a virtual round of applause for their invaluable contributions to the legal and library professions. [TVC Alert]

This is quite sad. LLRX is a great site for legal research & scholarship. Its new content will be sorely missed. I hope that this is only a temporary hiatus.

even more information about information overload!

Wed, 05 Feb 2003 01:11:52 GMT

Newsreaders & Information Overload.

Newsreaders Help Combat Information Overload. (23 Jan) J.D. Lasica suggests that using a newsreader (like Newzcrawler or AmphetaDesk) to scan information from "weblogs and niche news sites" helps to cut through the mounds of information. [TVC Alert]

Sounds like Mr. Lasica agrees with my Jan. 17 post on this topic and Genie Tyburski's recent Law Practice Managment article Surviving Information Overload.

[Internet Tools for Lawyers]

The other day I stumbled over this fascinating collection of links on information overload at Look.com. I wish that I had access to this collection while preparing for a Speechcraft presentation on the topic a couple of years ago. This also makes me curious to explore more of Look.com

nice annotated list of legal blogs

Wed, 05 Feb 2003 00:56:28 GMT

Robert J. Ambrogi has compiled this helpful annotated list of legal blogs. This particular list surveys the interesting non-practical blogs - from the pundits, polemicists, parodists and navel-gazers. I'm thrilled that the exploded library has been included in this non-practical list!