Yale Law Library - Reference Blog : Library

Library 2.0 Symposium

John Nann — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:02:00 GMT

This past Saturday, Yale Law School's Information Society Project hosted a fantastic symposium on "Library 2.0". Materials from the conference, including video of the sessions and the concurrent twitter conversations is available at: http://yaleispblog.net/ . Take a look, the issues are increadibly important: its no exageration to say that the future of society will, to a large extent, be driven by the resolution of these issues. Also, it was great fun.

Google Settlement

ryan.harrington — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:45:00 GMT

Google has reached a settlement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers in two different law suits arising under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 101. The suits were filed in the Southern District of New York on September 20, 2005 and October 19, 2005, respectively, challenging Google's plans to digitize and share copies and snippets of books without express permission from the author. You can log onto Pacer to view the complaints and responses. The password to Pacer is available on the intranet, under library database passwords.

Under the settlement agreement, which remains subject to approval, Google will pay $45 million dollars to resolve existing claims, but it also will allow Google to continue digitizing books and inserts. Read more about the future of Google Book Search, including options for accessing the resources. Of particular note:

We'll also be offering libraries, universities and other organizations the ability to purchase institutional subscriptions, which will give users access to the complete text of millions of titles while compensating authors and publishers for the service. Students and researchers will have access to an electronic library that combines the collections from many of the top universities across the country. Public and university libraries in the U.S. will also be able to offer terminals where readers can access the full text of millions of out-of-print books for free.

Library of Congress RSS Feeds

Tom Boone — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 17:04:00 GMT

The Library of Congress has a number of RSS feeds. Many are primarily of interest to those headed to DC, but there are also some excellent copyright feeds, law feeds, and other interesting feeds. A list of the feeds with descriptions is available here: http://www.loc.gov/rss/.

GPO And Depository Libraries Partner To Offer Online Reference Assistance

Tom Boone — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:34:00 GMT

The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) is joining the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Federal Depository Libraries around the country to provide an online reference service to the American public. UIC will manage and maintain this unique free web based service called "Government Information Online: Ask a Librarian." It will be supported by nearly 20 public, academic and state libraries throughout the country. This service will give the public an opportunity to ask questions about government resources to librarians who specialize in finding government information on every topic.

An example of how this service works: with the current process in the Presidential elections, the public may have questions about the primaries, caucuses and Electoral College process. A librarian is available at http://govtinfo.org/ to answer those or any other questions about the government.

Yale University currently offers "Ask a Librarian" services to its library patrons, at http://www.library.yale.edu/reference/asklive/index.html

S.M.U. Makes It Official: Bush Library Is Coming

Tom Boone — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 18:39:00 GMT

From the February 23, 2008 New York Times...

A center devoted to the life, works, papers and policies of President Bush will be built at Southern Methodist University, despite lingering concerns and opposition from some Methodists. In addition to a library of presidential papers, the center here will include a museum and a public policy institute that will generally be independent of the university, though it will appoint at least one board member.

Read More

To learn more about Presidential Libraries and executive documents, please visit:

The National Archives Presidential Libraries

The American Presidency Project