Government Documents Online

To Cornell Law Faculty:

Cornell Law Library is an official depository for federal government documents, many of which are produced electronically these days. From the recent list of new documents, here are a few that may be of interest:

 

Can we sue our way to prosperity?: litigation’s effect on America’s global competitiveness : hearing before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, May 24, 2011

http://purl.fdlp.gov/GPO/gpo9538   

 

National strategy for counterterrorism, Executive Office of the President, June 2011

http://purl.fdlp.gov/GPO/gpo9627  

 

Failed state 2030: Nigeria : a case study, February 2011

http://purl.fdlp.gov/GPO/gpo9564     

 

Nigeria’s pernicious drivers of ethno-religious conflict, by Chris Kwaja.  Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2011

http://purl.fdlp.gov/GPO/gpo9658

 

USA PATRIOT Act: dispelling the myths: hearing before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, May 11, 2011

http://purl.fdlp.gov/GPO/gpo9632

 

To find more federal government documents, search the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications or the Cornell Library Catalog. Please contact me or your librarian liaison with any questions.

Pat Court

pat.court@cornell.edu  

Prize Winners for Exemplary Student Research

The 2011 Winners of the new Cornell Law Library Prize for Exemplary Student Research are:

• First Place: Improving Drinking Water Provision under Increasing Global and Regional Economic Integration, by William Garthwaite, awarded $500
• Second Place: Law on the Books vs. Law in Action: Under-Enforcement of Morocco's Reformed 2004 Family Law, the Moudawana, by Annie Eisenberg, awarded $250

 

The Law Library inaugurated this research prize to recognize excellence in research by our law students.  A review panel comprised of Research Attorneys Jean Callihan, Pat Court, Amy Emerson, Iantha Haight and Matthew Morrison selected the winners from among 18 well-crafted applications, each of which demonstrated exceptional research and original thought.  Their final decision was based upon the following criteria:

• Sophistication, originality, or unusual depth or breadth in the use of research materials, including, but not limited to, print resources, electronic search engines and databases, primary and secondary legal resources, interdisciplinary resources, and empirical resources
• Exceptional innovation in research strategy, including the ability to locate, select, and evaluate research materials with discretion
• Skillful synthesis of research results into a comprehensive scholarly analysis

 

Criteria for acceptable papers include, but are not limited to, papers written for a class or a journal note, but not work product from employment. In addition to receiving a monetary award, the winners are also invited to publish their papers in Scholarship@Cornell Law, the Law Library’s digital repository, and to feature their papers in Reading Room displays during the next academic year. 

 

Funding for the Cornell Law Library Prize for Exemplary Student Research is provided by an endowment given to the Law Library by Barbara Cantwell in honor of her late husband, Robert Cantwell, a 1956 graduate of Cornell Law School. I know you join us in congratulating these rising 3Ls who are our inaugural prize winners!

 

Pat Court

Interim Law Library Director

 

Shutdown of the Federal Government - Causes, Processes, & Effects

The Congressional Research Service recently published a 10-page CRS Report for Congress on Shutdown of the Federal Government: Causes, Processes, and Effects.  If Congress does not pass a budget today, the information in that report will be particularly important. 

 

Clinton T. Brass, Analyst in Government Organization and Management, author of the report, explains that “OMB documents and guidance from previous funding gaps and shutdowns may provide insights into current and future practices. OPM has recommended on a website that agencies use OMB guidelines to determine ‘excepted’ positions (i.e., those not subject to furlough) and provided retyped copies of previous OMB bulletins and memoranda for reference.”  Those guidelines are all cited in footnote 19 of the report.  Please contact me or your librarian liaison if you’d like to see the text of any of those OMB memoranda or bulletins.

 

Pat Court

Associate Law Librarian

pat.court@cornell.edu  

 

CHECKPOINT for Tax Research

Yes, it’s almost Tax Day.  It happens to be Monday, April 18, this year because Emancipation Day is Saturday, April 16, and therefore celebrated in Washington, D.C. with a day off on Friday, April 15.  If this three-day reprieve is not enough, you can check out the IRS's website on how to get an extension for filing your taxes.

And to help you with your taxes or other research around federal tax, I just wanted to let you know that the Law Library makes available CHECKPOINT, a comprehensive tax research database that you may find to be an easy spot to find various laws, regulations, IRS publications, court decisions, journal articles, financial calculators, and much more.  It is also available to law students if you want to assign a look at tax information or have a tax angle in your scholarship assigned to a research assistant.  To access Checkpoint, start from our list of Online Legal Resources, click on Tax in the left column, then click on RIA Checkpoint.  Take a look at our quick guide to get started using Checkpoint.

 

As always, you are encouraged to contact me or your librarian liaison with any questions about tax research or using Checkpoint.

 

Pat Court

Associate Law Librarian

pat.court@cornell.edu  

 

Google Books Settlement Rejected

Last Tuesday Judge Denny Chin refused to grant the plaintiffs' motion for final approval of the Google Books Amended Settlement Agreement ("ASA"), finding that the ASA is not fair, adequate, or reasonable.  The opinion is available here, and worth the quick read.  Judge Chin, in analyzing whether the agreement met the requirements of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 23(e), applied the factors articulated in City of Detroit v. Grinnell Corp., 495 F.2d 448 (2d Cir. 1974).  He found that most of the Grinnell factors favored approval, i.e.:

• litigation has been complex, expensive, and lengthy
• the case has been pending since 2005
• the outcome of the case, were it to go to trial, is in substantial doubt
• maintaining the class throughout the litigation is risky

One factor however, weighed substantially against approving the settlement: the many negative reactions of class members, which Judge Chin summarized as follows:

1. Adequacy of class notice. Judge Chin rejected this objection.
2. Adequacy of class representation.  Judge Chin found there to be an issue regarding the existence of competing interests between class members.
3. Scope of relief under Rule 23.  The judge found that the scope of the settlement goes beyond permissible bounds in several respects.  First, the settlement reshapes copyright law related to orphan works and affects international copyright law, which are matters more properly determined by Congress.  Second, the settlement goes far beyond the boundaries of the complaint, which was limited to the scanning and display of "snippets" by giving Google the ability to digitize and sell copies of millions of books, including books still protected by copyright.  Third, the interests of some class members have not been adequately represented, such as academic authors who may prefer free access to their copyrighted books and the copyright holders to orphan works, who have a conflict of interest with Google.  Fourth, the agreement violates copyright law by requiring copyright holders to take affirmative action to prevent the scanning of their books.  Fifth, the settlement grants Google a monopoly over orphan books and increased Google's position in the search market.  Sixth, some objectors have concerns that consumers will lose privacy in their reading habits to Google, but Judge Chin rejected this concern due to Google's safeguards.  Seventh and lastly, despite the removal of certain foreign works from the ASA, foreign copyright holders continue to object that the settlement will affect their works and violate the international copyright law.

So what's next?  In closing, Judge Chin informed the parties that he may approve the settlement if it were changed to an "opt-in" agreement from an "opt-out" agreement.  This option is extremely unattractive to Google because it significantly decreases Google's ability to exploit the books it has digitized so far.

So what is next?  A status conference is scheduled for April 25.  Google has not yet publicly responded to the court's decision.  Settlement does not seem very likely.  An "opt-in" settlement agreement accomplishes very little for Google because Google can, and already has, continue to make private agreements with publishers and authors.  Many of us hope that Google will approach Congress to pass copyright reform, such as this legislation that stalled out in Congress in 2008.

While Congress is the appropriate forum for addressing the issue--and not a far-reaching agreement between corporations and private parties--Congress is notorious for leaving the crafting of copyright legislation to large, wealthy, corporate copyright holders.  The voices of libraries, the public, and people who make use of public domain materials are typically ignored.  So although I have been hoping for the settlement to be rejected so that Congress can tackle the problem, there are some serious barriers to the creation of legislation that does not favor corporate interests.  Google will propose legislation very similar to the ASA, except the Registry will be government run and the ability to exploit orphan works will be opened up to other entities.  Companies like Amazon and Microsoft will not like this because Google has a head start on commercializing orphan works.  Congress will ignore provisions meant to assist libraries in digitizing their collections or helping patrons gain access to orphan and out-of-print works. 

Is there any way to make arguments in support of a robust public domain palatable to Congress?

Iantha Haight

Research Attorney and Lecturer in Law

imh24@cornell.edu

 

China Legal Knowledge Database

If you are interested in law from China, you are encouraged to try out China Legal Knowledge Database.   This is the only content officially sanctioned by the People’s Republic of China, and the most extensively used by Chinese attorneys.   CLKD features more than two million records from secondary resources back to 1994—law reviews, journal and newspaper articles, dissertations/theses, and conference proceedings—plus statutes from as early as 1949, and cases from 1979. In addition, laws at both the national and local level are added within days of enactment.

Use it on the web at:

an English interface: http://clkd.cnki.net/

a traditional Chinese interface:  http://law1.cnki.net 

simplified Chinese interface: http://chinalaw.cnki.net

Any of those interfaces lets you easily change over to another.

 

They planned to give us IP-authenticated access, but I find you need to sign in with:

Username:  cornelllaw

Password:    cornellclkd

 

Although the journal articles themselves are in Chinese, it has English keywords, abstracts, article titles, journal titles, and authors, which are all searchable and viewable.  The trial runs through April 8, 2011.  Please let me know if you try it out and what you think, to help the library makes its decision to subscribe or not.

 

Xie xie,

 

Pat Court

Associate Law Librarian

 

 

 

HeinOnline Webinars Rescheduled

The webinars on HeinOnline Searching have been rescheduled for this week on Thursday, March 3, at 10am & 2pm. 

It’s not too late; you can still register for one of these sessions, below. 

Upcoming Webinar: HeinOnline Searching 101 The Basic Fundamentals     This webinar has been rescheduled for this week: Thursday, March 3, 2011 10:00am to 10:45am EST 2:00pm to 2:45pm EST This webinar will focus on basic search techniques and searching options in HeinOnline. Below is a short snapshot of what we will cover during the session:   • Title Lookup Search  • Understanding the electronic table of contents and how it can help you formulate a search  • Reviewing Field & Advanced Search Forms  • How to use facets to narrow search results  • Review of basic Boolean operators (AND, OR)  • Review of proximity and wildcard searching    Sign up for 10am at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/122053890  Sign up for 2pm at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/619093115

Original InfoBrief announcement on February 15, 2011

Pat Court

Associate Law Librarian

Submitting Articles to Law Reviews

Handy in one location is “Information for Submitting Articles to Law Reviews & Journals,” fully updated in February 2011 by Nancy Levit and Allen Rostron, law professors at UMKC.  This SSRN document contains information about submitting articles to 202 law reviews and journals, including the methods for submitting an article, any special formatting requirements, how to contact them to request an expedited review, and how to contact them to withdraw an article from consideration.  Also included is a chart of US News ratings of the law schools and William and Lee law review rankings.

Pat Court

Associate Law Librarian

 

Center for Research Libraries

We can make available to you some esoteric legal research materials through Cornell’s membership in the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), an international consortium of university, college, and independent research libraries.  CRL, headquartered in Chicago, acquires and preserves newspapers, journals, documents, archives, and other traditional and digital resources from a global network of sources.  Most of the materials acquired are from outside the United States, and many are from the emerging regions of the world: Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Latin America.  Cornell faculty, students, and other researchers have liberal access to these rich source materials through interlibrary loan and electronic delivery.

To identify materials that may be of interest to you:

·         Search the CRL online catalog

·         Browse the CRL digital collections (including Chinese Pamphlets and African newspapers)

·         Use a CRL topic guide (including Law, Human Rights, Labor, France, US History)

·         Consult with Member Liaison and Outreach Services Director for research assistance

 

The extensive collection has these monographs, and many more:

Violence against women in North East India: an enquiry

Human rights in Egypt

Empirical studies in corporate finance, taxation and investment

Pleasurable pastimes: seven essays, including judgement awarding capital punishment

               

Learn more about CRL and their incomparable collections from your liaison or at the CRL web site.

 

Pat Court

Associate Law Librarian

 

HeinOnline Webinar

HeinOnline has earned its place as a comprehensive legal research tool.  You probably use it for finding pdfs of journal articles when you have the citation.  Over the last few years, it has developed its searching capabilities to be a first choice for searching journal articles.  Hein is offering a webinar on Thursday, February 24, at 10:00 am and at 2:00 pm on search techniques for HeinOnline.  Sign up at the links below, and you can learn – right at your desk top -- more strategies for improving your searches.

Upcoming Webinar: HeinOnline Searching 101 The Basic Fundamentals     This webinar will be held: Thursday, February 24, 2011 10:00am to 10:45am EST 2:00pm to 2:45pm EST This webinar will focus on basic search techniques and searching options in HeinOnline. Below is a snapshot of what we will cover during the session:   • Title Lookup Search  • Understanding the electronic table of contents and how it can help you formulate a search  • Reviewing Field & Advanced Search Forms  • How to use facets to narrow search results  • Review of basic Boolean operators (AND, OR)  • Review of proximity and wildcard searching    Sign up for 10am at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/871521891 Sign up for 2pm at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/732671170

Pat Court

Associate Law Librarian