Legal Docs LibraryKnow Your Rights

Budgetary concerns have forced lawyers to take a hard look at software costs. Thats brought Open Source software onto their radar screens. The price - free - is obviously attractive, but Open Source is a completely different approach to software than lawyers expect. In this episode, co-hosts Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell introduce the approach and philosophy of Open Source, the programs available, and when and where it might make sense for you. After you listen, be sure to check out Tom & Dennis co-blog and book by the same name, The Lawyers Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies.

Stacey Friends, JD 00, discusses the copyright issues surrounding Googles initiative to digitize books.

A couple of sources that are good to bookmark and check back with periodically:

ResourceShelf - “A daily newsletter with resources of interest to information professionals, educators and journalists.” I’d call it a grab bag of goodies from the web from librarians for librarians. They hoover the internet for all sorts of miscellanies of interest. Some are weird, some are wonderful and some are really, really useful. Worth checking periodically.

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Tobacco litigation continues to pop up across the states and is growing internationally. On this edition of Ringler Radio, host Larry Cohen welcomes legendary tobacco industry insider and founder of the non-profit organization, Smoke-Free Kids, Inc., Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, to discuss the latest in tobacco litigation. Larry and Dr. Wigand will talk about the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, concerns about smokeless tobacco products and how to protect our children from the dangers of smoking.

Sarah Rhodes discusses the monumental challenge of preserving our digital heritage. She argues that law libraries specifically have a critically important role to play in this undertaking as access to legal and law-related information is a core underpinning of our democratic society. Our current digital preservation strategies and systems are imperfect but tremendous strides have been made over the past decade to stave off the dreaded digital dark age, and libraries today have a number of viable tools, services, and best practices at our disposal for the preservation of digital content.

Car giant Toyota ordered a global recall of 400,000 Priuses for brake problems. This comes on the heels of earlier incidents where reported gas pedals were becoming stuck in floor mats in different makes and models of Toyotas. On Lawyer2Lawyer, co-hosts and attorneys J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi welcome Attorney Dee Miles from the law firm, Beasley Allen and Mike Rozembajgier, Director of Recalls for ExpertRECALL, to discuss the latest. They take a look at the Toyota recall, the legal troubles that surround this recall and how the recall will impact customers and ultimately Toyota.

On this debut podcast of The Landy Law Letter, host John L. Torvi, from the Herbert H. Landy Insurance Agency of Needham, Massachusetts welcomes Dan Reed, 2nd Vice President of the Bond & Professional Products Liability Division at Travelers Insurance, to help better understand how lawyers professional liability insurance fits into your legal practice. John and Dan will discuss a firm’s insurance needs, the classic legal malpractice claim, negligence and what a lawyer should be looking for in professional liability insurance.

This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All, by Marilyn Johnson (Harper 2010) 272 pp. $24.99. The Boston Globe includes a very nice book review of this book today, which brought it to my attention. If you follow the link to Amazon, you can see that the cover features a superhero librarian, which is always a nice change. According to the Globe reviewer, Judy Bolton-Fasman, the author of the book Marilyn Johnson, was inspired by an obituary of non-librarian library hero Henriette Avram. Mrs. Avram was the developer of the MARC record, and was blogged about here by my co-blogger, Marie Newman. Avram’s development of the computer-readable code that translated millions of card catalogs into OPACs transformed librarianship in many ways. And that is part of this new book. The review is delightful and inspiring, and makes me want to get this book. There is more than I quote here, so you will want to follow the link back and read the whole thing, but I snipped the most delectable parts: Read the rest of this entry »

Stacey Friends, JD 00, discusses Salinger v Colting, the copyright case stemming from Fredrick Coltings sequel to JD Salingers The Catcher in the Rye.

Education is vital to a successful paralegal career. On this edition of The Paralegal Voice, co-host Vicki Voisin welcomes Linda J. Wolf, ACP, the current President of the National Association of Legal Assistants (NALA) and Attorney Elizabeth Mann, Department Head of the Paralegal Program at Greenville Technical College, to focus on the importance of paralegal education. They will also discuss entering and growing in the career field and what employers look for when hiring paralegals.