There is a new video available at the law library, a discussion with Aziz Rana '06 on his new book, " The Two Faces of American Freedom," with commentary by Professor Bruce Ackerman.  The video is available here, and the book is available at the Law Library.

"The Two Faces of American Freedom" boldly reinterprets the American political tradition from the colonial period to modern times, placing issues of race relations, immigration, and presidentialism in the context of shifting notions of empire and citizenship. Today, while the U.S. enjoys tremendous military and economic power, citizens are increasingly insulated from everyday decision-making. This was not always the case.   Aziz Rana argues that America began as a settler society grounded in an ideal of freedom as the exercise of continuous self-rule-one that joined direct political participation with economic independence.  However, this vision of freedom was politically bound to the subordination of marginalized groups, especially slaves, Native Americans, and women. These practices of liberty and exclusion were not separate currents, but rather two sides of the same coin.However, at crucial moments, social movements sought to imagine freedom without either subordination or empire. By the mid-twentieth century, these efforts failed, resulting in the rise of hierarchical state and corporate institutions. This new framework presented national and economic security as societyrsquo;s guiding commitments and nurtured a continual extension of Americarsquo;s global reach. Rana envisions a democratic society that revives settler ideals, but combines them with meaningful inclusion for those currently at the margins of American life.

Coming soon: Title 51 Space Law!  More here.

Finding aids from Yale's special collections repositories are now discoverable through Connecticut Archives Online (CAO, ).  CAO is a union index of finding aids from repositories across Connecticut, developed and hosted by Western Connecticut State University.  Users can cross search finding aids from Western Connecticut, UConn, Yale and other repositories.  After discovering a finding aid in CAO, the user will be redirected back to the Yale Finding Aid Database to view the actual finding aid.

On November 4th, President Obama signed an executive order requiring agencies to use one term only -- “Controlled Unclassified Information,” (CUI) -- to mark documents that they believe should be protected, but not designated as “classified.”   The order establishes a program for managing this information that emphasizes the openness and uniformity of Government-wide practice.  Prior to the order, several federal agencies used their own system of approximately 120 different markings in order to categorize and protect information.  These agency-specific policies led to unclear and sometimes unnecessarily restrictive dissemination policies, and created impediments to authorized information sharing. 

The order can be viewed here.

On Tuesday November 9th LexisNexis will host a webcast entitled Alternative and Pro Bono Career Exploration. In this webcast you will:

• Learn about Pro Bono opportunities from Esther F. Lardent, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Pro Bono Institute. 
  Learn more about the Pro Bono Institute here.
• Hear from Edward Adams, the Editor and Publisher of the ABA Journal about various legal career paths.

Register now here  - the first 1,000 students to register and attend the November 9th webcast will receive a free law student membership to the ABA valued at $25. You will also receive 200 LexisNexis Reward points for attending.

There is no cost for this short webcast, you only need a computer and an internet connection to attend.

On Tuesday, October 5th, a representative from Bloomberg will provide a basic overview of how to use the system, followed by advanced training on searching court dockets.  Basic training will be from 2:30pm-3:00pm and repeat 3:00pm-3:30pm.  Docket training will take place from 2:00-2:30 and repeat 3:30pm-4:00pm.  To register for basic training, see here.  To register for dockets training, see here.  Bloomberg law is a real-time legal research system that integrates innovative search technology, comprehensive legal content, company and client information and proprietary news all in one place.

The Judicial Conference of the United States recently approved a three-year pilot project to evaluate the effect of cameras in federal district courtrooms, video recordings of proceedings and the public release of digital video recordings of some civil proceedings. For more information, see here.

Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 53 prohibits electronic media coverage of criminal proceedings in federal courts.  However, the Judicial Conference allows each appellate court discretion to permit broadcasting of oral arguments. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals allow such coverage.

Yale law students and faculty currently have a new option when they log into their Westlaw accounts: WestlawNext.  The database provides most of the content you are familiar with, but the interface has changed dramatically in an effort to make searching easier.  We will be offering many training sessions throughout the course of the semester. There are some glitches as the database has not yet been widely released, so you retain access to Westlaw's traditional platform.  Of important note: you CANNOT currently print to the Westlaw printer from WestlawNext. To use the Westlaw printer, you must use the traditional platform. 

Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate William J. Boarman as Public Printer of the United States.  The announcement, as well as a description of Mr. Boarman's background, is available here.   The Public Printer is the official head of the Government Printing Office (GPO), which is responsible for printing federal government documents including the Supreme Court's U.S. Reports, Congressional materials, the Code of Federal Regulations, the Federal Register and other documents from the Executive Office of the President.

The NEW version of the open web LexisNexis Communities went live yesterday.  Containing news, blogs, podcasts and videocasts and analysis of top cases, LexisNexis Communities allow students and professors to stay on top of emerging issues by connecting with practitioners and other legal professionals in certain practice areas.  Practice areas include:
· Bankruptcy
· Copyright and Trademark
· Corporations and Securities
· Estates and Elder Law
· Environmental Law and Climate Change
· Insurance Law
· International and Foreign Law
· Patent Law
· Real Estate Law
· Tax Law
· Torts
· UCC and Commercial Law
· Workers’ Compensation

So, West is coming out with a new research system.  It will be rolled out next week (February 1).  When will we see it?  Not sure yet.  But, a few law librarians have seen it and are letting us know about it.  First, our own Jason Eiseman (along with former YLS librarian Tom Boone. Greg Lambert, and Jason Wilson) discuss WestlawNext.  Next, Betsy McKenzie gives a thoughtful analysis of WestlawNext and what it means for researching and what to do with those old skills.

We'll have more news about WestlawNext (and the new Lexis and Bloomberg) as we learn about them.

Today, U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra and U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra launched the Administration’s comprehensive Open Government Plan, furthering the President’s commitment to increasing transparency and accountability in Washington and ensuring greater access to information.  You can view the directive, which instructs the agencies to take specific actions to open their operations to the public here.

Below please find the text of an email that was sent to YLS students regarding current awareness tools.

Today, I thought that I would let you know about a few tools that can help you keep current.  These tools can help you keep current with the law in particular fields or scholarship in particular fields, by particular authors, or that appear in particular journals.

There are several methods that you can use to stay current with new events in particular areas of law.  I expect that you are already familiar with Lexis' and Westlaw's saved searches (if not, contact a reference librarian or the Lexis or Westlaw representative for instruction).  Those tools allow you to receive new results from searches that you have constructed.  There are, however, better tools.

Two publishers have specialized in a form of legal publishing called "looseleafs".  Looseleafs pull together all primary source material on a legal topic as well as analysis and current awareness information (the name hearkens back to their print past).  Today, these publishes still produce these research tools and they are still very useful and they produce excellent current awareness tools.

Commerce Clearinghouse is one of these publishers.  CCH has pulled many of their looseleafs together into one online platform that you can access from the Law Library Databases page (under the name CCH Online Networks).  After a short registration process you will have access to information on a wide variety of legal topics.  You can also sign up to receive "tracker" newsletters from CCH (either in your email of via your rss reader) on over 70 legal topics.  Just click on the "tracker News" link in the upper left.

Another looseleaf publisher, the Bureau of National Affairs also produces material on a large number of legal topics and produces newsletters on over 100 legal topics.  You can see a list of the newsletters here: http://www.law.yale.edu/library/research/bna-email.asp.  These newsletters will come to you by email.  If you are interested in receiving any BNA newsletters, please send an email with your name, your Yale email address, and the name(s) of the newsletters that you would like to receive to john dot nann at yale dot edu.  Please note that it will take several days for your BNA subscription to become active.

There are several tools that you can use to track legal scholarship.  I expect that you know about the "New Acquisition" lists that the law library publishes, http://www.law.yale.edu/library/acquisitions.asp, but did you know that you can find out, on a weekly basis, what new books we've recieved on any topic that  you choose?  To do that, set up a preferred search and have new results sent to you.  To set up a preferred search, conduct a search in MORRIS (a subject search is a good one) and, on the results screen, click on the "Save as preferred search" button.  Log in and follow the prompts and from then on, you'll receive notice of any new books that we receive that match your search.  By the way, for broader coverage, you can also do the same at worldcat.org.

There are a couple of good tools for keeping up with legal periodical articles.  Washington and Lee Law Library's Law Journal Content tool allows you to set up an rss feed for new journal tables of contents (http://lawlib.wlu.edu/CLJC/index.aspx) (there is actually a lot more that you can do with the content, you can see their information page for more: http://lawlib.wlu.edu/CLJC/explanation.aspx).

The Current Index to Legal Periodicals is another contents tool.  CILP is available to you by a variety of means.  First, it exists as a database on Westlaw (database identifier is CILP) and the usual Westlaw saved searches work on it.  Second, you can sign up to get the tables of contents of selected journals and/or information about articles classified under selected subjects.  To set up a CILP search, go to http://lib.law.washington.edu/cilp/scilp.html and set up a profile.  First, however, you will need YLS's code.  You can get that in the Library databases link on the Inside site (https://inside.law.yale.edu/Research/305/default.aspx - this should work if you sign in).  And third, you can go to CILP and read it in html, Word or PDF at: http://cilp.nellco.org/cilp/index.cfm.

Also, some journal publishers provide table of content or other current awareness tools for their stable of titles (see Sage Journals Online for example) and other, non-law, indexes allow you to save searches.  If you are interested in any of these, stop by and see a reference librarian or contact one of us and set up a meeting (http://www.law.yale.edu/library/reference.asp).

Also, don't forget that we can help with your other research issues.  You can stop by or, for more complex probnlems, contact us and set up a meeting.

Thank you!

John

--
John B. Nann
Associate Librarian for Reference and Instructional Services,
Bibliographer for EU and UK Law, and Lecturer in Legal Research
Yale Law School
127 Wall Street
P.O. Box 208215
New Haven, CT 06520-8215
203.432.1259
john dot nann at yale dot edu

Just received this press release from the YLS Information Society Project:

Yale ISP Celebrates Open Access Week with New Research

The Information Society Project at Yale Law School (Yale ISP) today launched three new reports on the state of access to knowledge in comparative national perspective. The new works feature research on challenges of intellectual property and innovation in three developing countries. The launch is timed to coincide with the first-ever international celebration of Open Access Week, October 19-23, 2009.

Open Access Week seeks to raise awareness of the importance of open access to research. In today's world, proper use of digital publication platforms and open copyright licenses can greatly facilitate the spread and impact of academic research. Consistent with these values, the research launched this week carries Creative Commons licenses and is available for free download at the Yale ISP website.

In developing the reports, the Yale ISP partnered with academic institutions abroad at the University of Buenos Aires, the University of Addis Abeba, and the University of Cape Town. Research teams within these and other institutions have joined with the Yale ISP to form the A2K Global Academy, a network of academic centers dedicated to research, education, and policy analysis promoting access to knowledge.

The project has already resulted in two books, both forthcoming from the open access publishing imprint Bloomsbury Academic this winter: Access to Knowledge in Brazil: New Research on Intellectual Property, Innovation and Development, and Access to Knowledge in Egypt: New Research on Intellectual Property, Innovation and Development.

Research examining related topics in India and China was launched in August 2009. The newest installment, featuring insights into the state of access to knowledge in Argentina, Ethiopia, and South Africa, completes the series of seven reports. Topics addressed by the research include: open source software, alternative business models for cultural production, exceptions and limitations to copyright, ICT for development, access to medicines, open educational resources, technological standards, and biotechnology.

The three-year research project was supported with funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, as part of an initiative supporting international academic collaboration on access to knowledge challenges and opportunities.

“Innovation is the basis for economic growth and finding solutions to pressing problems,” said Lea Shaver, director of the ISP’s research program in access to knowledge. “But law and policy do not always support innovation optimally, nor ensure that new knowledge spreads as widely as it could. This research offers important guidance to policymakers, particularly in the context of developing countries.”

Continuing its academic work in this area, the Yale ISP will host a major conference on access to knowledge and human rights on February 12-13, 2010 at Yale Law School.

The Yale Information Society Project is an intellectual center at Yale Law School that studies the implications of new information technologies for law and society, guided by values of democracy, human rights, and innovation. For more information, visit isp.law.yale.edu.

The Law Library has a variety of case law materials in print from the European Union, including:

Proceedings of the Court of Justice and of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities

Reports of Cases Before the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance, usually referred to as European Court Reports (ECR)

Common Market Law Reports (CML) and European Union Law Reporter

European Commercial Cases

International Law Reports

Case law is also available online from the EU, as well as on LexisNexis Law School and Westlaw.