Where are the Catalogers? Proposed Amendment to the Durham Statement

Reflecting on the character of the Durham Statement
As the scholarship becomes more widely available in digital formats, it is critical that we seek input from catalogers and technical services librarians on how to make these digital resources as useful and usable as possible.
I've been thinking about the meaning to legal researchers and legal bibliographers of the Durham Statement. It has occurred to me that there is a very important stake-holder/contributor is missing from the statement. The Statement involves aspirations that reflect observations and presuppositions about how we feel the future will affect the publication of modern legal scholarship. The observations and assumptions are well and good, and, at least partially true. (See my post, "Why I'm Signing the Durham Statement” 2/6/2010)
The Statement accurately reflects how technology is speeding the process of the digitization legal scholarship along and, therefore, calls on law schools to immediately and expeditiously cease publication of their journals in print in favor of digital formats. It presumes, of course, that technology is developing in such a way that researchers will prefer to access the information digitally, and, not only that the technology either exists, or will exist, but that it will be presented in a form that researchers can use. The two parties present in this scenario are researchers and technicians.

The missing party
The best technology available, in terms of readers, websites, formats, etc., and the scholarship it contains is only as good (to a large and very practical extent) as the form of the content itself. One of the advantages of print media was that it's very "artifactness" seemed to beg the question, but that it must be curated properly. That is, each item received into a library should be thoroughly analyzed and objectively described in order to facilitate discovery and access, and, hence, usage. Part of the nature of analog scholarship is its very permanence: once printed, its memorialized, it becomes an artifact. It is, thus, capable of objective description. This description, seen by cynics as bibliographic hypertrophy, is what we know as MARC, LC Classification and LC Subject Heading description. These descriptions and analyses made collection of, and access to library materials standard. Despite our cynicism, the system as a whole served/serves us well. RLIN and OCLC and the host of OPAC and serial automation vendors made access to collections remarkably easy, especially when compared to the alternatives. (Librarians simply storing materials as they see fit based on their own understanding of a subject, for instance.)
It is time to subject digitally produced, born digital scholarship to the same rigorous analysis. It is almost certainly the case that the old wineskins won't meet the needs of modern libraries. MARC record format, Library of Congress Classification and Subject Headings would likely all need to be modified or revised to served the needs of modern formats that aren’t physical or don’t possess the physical character of printed law review articles, for example. This new analysis would need to take advantage of things like metadata and hypertext links and would be less concerned, of course, with organizing the materials themselves, but could provide important tools to allow others to organize, use and access them
Whatever the exact format, form or nature, it is clear that production and distribution of born digital scholarship will benefit from systematic, standard analysis and bibliographic description. If each article of a born digital law review, journal or scholarly blog was subjected to standard bibliographic description and analysis, it could serve the user in many ways. First, it may facilitate the development of better search engines that mine this important form of legal scholarship. Second, it may also facilitate the creation of better, more secure storage formats. It would also bring thoughtful vigor to the process of digitization and make stability of formats not merely useful, but desirable to librarians and technicians.
The alternative of doing nothing and letting technology take care of itself results in relying on Google as a search engine. Google’s fine to an extent, but its functionality and reliability as a search engine is not consistent or reliable. Its quickness and ubiquity make it an easy thing thing to rely upon and use despite its limitations. With something so cheap and easy, it’s very easy to overlook its shortcomings. But as the volume of digital scholarship increases Google’s limitations may become more and more apparent and it may be harder for users to shrug off the annoyance of Google’s inherently sloppy indexing.

It's an easy conclusion that we must bring Technical Services to the table as we endorse (more or less) the migration from print to digital formats.

The Proposal
I don’t have specific language in mind for how the Durham Statement should be amended or supplemented. It would be something to the effect that the signatories commit to involving TS departments and experts in the process of digitization of their law reviews.

The Year In Law Libraries

The panel had some good comments on the year's biggest developments. And predictions.... the predictions are available in the chat room transcript, which you can find by clicking here.

I'll post more information about the show later.

Reflections on Conversation with Anurag Acharya, Google Scholar

Reaction to Google Scholar Legal Opinions and Journals (SLOJ) has been largely defined by our experience with extant legal databases. All online legal research tools that we're familiar with at present are databases filled with documents that we search using boolean operators or simple, character-by-character, word-for-word text searching. The main differences between, say, Westlaw and the ordinary "find" command when you search your documents or use Spotlight on your computer, is that Westlaw indexes the documents in ways that we take for granted. Things like proximity connecters, segment searches, etc., are all part of the indexing process and gives us extraordinary power to use the computer to conduct detailed and very precise searches of its database. Other vendors that we're familiar with use similar processes.

Google, on the other hand, as a search engine, is unlike any other in our experience. There is really no full text searching going on. Google's search philosophy is very adequately discussed in James Surowiecki's, "The Wisdom of Crowds." Google does not really search cases or articles for the terms used in your query. Rather, it uses the terms in your query in a variety of ways. It will recognize which are names of parties, which are legal principles, or author's names, article titles, etc. It then uses it's vast network of data which links cases and articles together and returns results based upon frequency of linking and cross-referencing. This is a gross over-simplification, but it suffices to illustrate that the search results are not the objective kind of results that Westlaw, Lexis and others produce. Searching in Google is quite subjective by comparison. Not, of course, in the sense that it is anticipating or evaluating the meaning of the query and returning results accordingly, but in the sense that based on your query, the results returned are based on a document's popularity. The more times a document is cited, the more important the search engine assumes it is.

This approach to searching for law is completely different from other search engines and poses very distinct problems for legal researchers who are tempted to use it as a substitute for "Wexisberg". (Thanks to Greg Lambert for this new portmanteau of Westlaw, Lexis and Bloomberg.) When understood, Google will produce stunning results. The fact is, it does exactly what it says it does. Many criticisms of it as a legal research tool are based upon comparisons of it to Wexisberg, which is something like comparing apples and oranges.

This is not to say that Google SLOJ doesn't need to improve. There are many things that Google can do to make it more palpable to lawyers and legal academics. Clearly defining the content of the databases being searched for one thing. At this point, it all seems very mysterious.

Chat Room Transcript from 4 December 2009 BlogTalkRadio Show

I will be writing later about our conversation with Anurag Acharya, Chief Engineer of Google Scholar. Greg Lambert, Roger Skalbeck, Marcia Dority Baker and I had a wonderful 90-minute conversation with Mr. Acharya, and I think that I speak for us all when I say that the conversation was not only enlightening, but we were all very impressed with Mr. Acharya's charm, his sense of humor and the great delight he has in his work. Like I said, more on that later. For the time being, please feel free to peruse the transcript of the chat room. And, as always, remember that you can download the show on iTunes or from the show's website: http://blogtalkradio.com/thelawlibrarian.

A couple of notes about the show, for anyone interested: we had a record of 301 live listeners and 105 people in the chat room! Over the weekend, there have already been nearly 140 downloads of the show. Thanks everyone who participated. We've a lot of exciting shows planned for 2010. We'll be taking the holidays off, but plan to return on January 15. At that time, we'll begin our new schedule of recording/airing twice a month on the first and third Fridays of the month.

Until then, please, everyone, please have a safe and happy holiday season. And for all the crew at The Law Librarian on BTR, we'd love to hear from you your ideas and thoughts about how we may improve.

Google Scholar LOJ - Where Did Google Get the Cases?!

Uh-oh. It may be nothing at all, but a few searches in Google SLOJ have retrieved cases that have headnote numbers embedded in them. There are no headnotes, of course, nor are there any key numbers, but the headnote numbers themselves are clearly embedded in the text of the cases.

What does this mean? Apparently the cases in Google SLOJ were, at some point, in the Westlaw database. To see what I mean, search for State v Dragoo, 765 N.W.2d 666 (2009), in Westlaw. Now, find the case on Google SLOJ. As you scroll down through the opinion, you'll notice that on page 670, at the beginning of the first paragraph under the heading "Standard of Review," is a number one, in brackets: [1]. The second paragraph of the section has the numbers two and three in brackets: [2][3]. This corresponds to the headnote numbers in the West version of the case.

Oddly, the Google SLOJ version of the case has excluded the court's own Syllabus, which isn't an official part of the opinion, but is written by the court and is contained in the official publication of Nebraska Supreme Court cases, and is included in the Westlaw version as well. This also explains why the Google SLOJ version is missing page 667.

Listen carefully, you might soon be able to make out the sound of a shoe dropping in Mountain View....

Official Google Blog: Finding the laws that govern us

Always humble. Read Google's explanation of what their new service, Scholar Legal Opinions and Journals (SLOJ), is intended to accomplish, you'll see that they see themselves as giants standing on the shoulders of giants. Fascinating.

Official Google Blog: Finding the laws that govern us

Google Scholar - (Almost) Great Free Legal Search

Amazing. Google has made a giant step toward creating a practical search engine of legal materials. Click on the link above the check it out. Google's new Legal Opinion and Journals (LOJ) is not a Wexis, or VHPPLM killer. It is a game changer in the "free law," community.

Here are a few initial comments about it. First, it is still classically a Google product. By this I mean that they spend little time working on user interface. It is what it is. We tend to forgive Google for all it's faults because it simply has little competition and it's so quick, easy to use that the annoyances of the way the search results and options are presented to you are forgiven. It's quick and easy. Forget the clutter.

Second, it's amazingly snappy. Searches on any topic I threw at it, in any combination of databases were returned in the blink of an eye.

Third, the "How Cited," tab is fascinating and provides quick access to raw citation information on the case. Like everything Google, there's little help distinguishing one cite from another, but there is help. And the information provided is good. The speed of the Google engine can make drilling down to particulars very quick - even if it means that you have to wade through hundreds of cases. Clicking from case to "How Cited" tab, to case, one can quickly get lost, but if you keep your wits about you, you can learn some interesting things about the case you're researching.

Fourth, it is unclear just exactly what you're searching when you use Google Scholar's Legal Opinions and Journals, (GSLOJ). When you click on the Advanced Search link, you get choices of, "Search all legal opinions and journals," or searching only Federal opinions or individual state court opinions. State court opinions can be searched in any combination, just by clicking boxes and selecting the states that you want to search. Trouble is, there is no description of what library of journals is being searched, or what are the years of coverage for case databases. Do the Nebraska cases, for example, go back ten years, twenty, or two. It's hard to say.

Fifth, there are no statutes or regulations to be found in/on LOJ. What's with that?!

Sixth, you can't search only Law Journals. With the growing movement to develop digital commons, and to move law reviews to the web, it would be immensely helpful to be able to mine this vein of secondary material.

Overall, Google Scholar's new LOJ is a welcome entry into the free online legal research community. I don't think that West or Lexis have much to worry about, but LII, Justicia, et al, may have "competition."

What impact this will have on Law.Gov, "Free Law," and kerfuffles? This is certainly a game changer.

For the Official Explanation: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/finding-laws

New Concept in Database Search Engines

I have been thinking about this concept for about a year, and I can't get it out of my head. It's time to share it. I hope that Google, CCH or BNA reads it, exploits it and sends me a hefty check....

Why online haven't legal database providers figured out that online databases are a new breed of legal research tool and developed something completely different? To date, all online databases are not much more than online versions of their old-fashioned print tools. There are differences, of course: Online searching allows users to find particular cases and documents quickly, sort rapidly and print more cleanly, but in reality, online tools do no more than allow users to skate around through masses of undifferentiated primary law, using cite-verification tools to sift through the mass of material fairly quickly. But without much help or guidance.

I propose development of a new kind of online search engine. First, let's establish a few assumptions. First, let's presume that cases cited by treatises, law review, blog writers and commentators are cases that are most important than cases that are not cited by these writers. Second, let's presume that cases cited more frequently are more important than less cited cases. Third, it is possible to make assumptions about the relative value of a case based upon the kinds of works a case is cited in, as well as the kind of treatment that a case receives in that work.

Based upon these three assumptions, I think that it is possible to develop a database(s) that is comprised of only cited cases. What's more, meta-data can be created that will note where it was cited, and the level of treatment.

There are at least six great sources from which you can build such databases. West has, perhaps the greatest library from which to build such a database. It's collection of secondary materials is tremendous. Lexis is also well-positioned to accomplish something like this with its Matthew Bender titles. But, perhaps the two companies best equipped to build such a high performance database are CCH and BNA. These companies own some of the very best specialized law treatises. It's nice for these companies to put their newsletters and looseleafs in electronic format, but, to paraphrase early library automation consultants, "an electronic version of a good looseleaf only creates a good electronic looseleaf." In other words, it doesn't make a good thing better; it only makes it electronic. In order to make a good thing great, it must be different. (That should be obvious, but somehow it's not….)

But what if you're not West, Lexis, BNA or CCH? Are you out of luck? I don't think so. There are two resources left. First, Hein Online is now comprised of an unprecedented collection of law reviews. This is a vast gold mine of notable cases. Hein itself could develop a search engine that sifts through the very best cases based on citation frequency among law review writers.

A newly emerging resource that may accomplish roughly the same thing, are digital commons and blogs. Looking forward, a crawler could be designed that will crawl through digital commons, legal blogs and law review websites looking for cited cases. Here, the presumption is that cases that are discussed by more writers are more significant.

Finally, it is possible that such as database could be made simply from cases cited by other cases. It can be presumed that cases that are cited by other cases most frequently are those cases that are more significant legal precedents.