| The Future of Westlaw and Lexis |
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Ever wish that computerized legal research could be more like searching Google? You’re about to get your wish fulfilled. For those of you who haven’t heard, Westlaw and Lexis are revamping their databases to make searching and finding legal materials much simpler and efficient. Westlaw recently debuted their new product called WestlawNext and Lexis is rumored to be unveiling their “New Lexis” later this year. Here at Jenkins we’re not too concerned about all the changes to come- hey we worked through the switch from dial up to the web! We’ll let you know what we think about WestlawNext after we attend a preview on February 19. Stay tuned! |
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Submitted by: Nancy Garner, Assistant Director of Knowledge Services
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Comments (0)| Waters and Water Rights, 3rd edition, 2009 |
 By Robert E. Beck, editorWaters and Water Rights is the authoritative reference on this highly complex and rapidly evolving area of law. Primarily national in scope, but with interstate, state-specific and international coverage, this treatise contains more in-depth information than any other publication on legal issues involving water rights, water usage and water quality. Library Record • Borrow it • More Titles |
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Submitted by: Malgorzata Pawska, Digital Content Coordinator
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| New Jersey Family Law Practice, 13th edition |
 By Gary N. Skoloff, Laurence J. CutlerThe 13th edition of this 5-volume series of practice manuals will help with initial client interview and with every phase of a divorce. The first three volumes offer the foundation you need to advise your clients on divorce, annulment, custody, alimony, child support, counsel fees, bankruptcy, taxation, domestic violence, and other related matters. The 13th edition also features a new chapter on divorce mediation and arbitration. Library Record • Borrow it • More Titles |
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Submitted by: Malgorzata Pawska, Digital Content Coordinator
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| Medical Encyclopedia App for the iPhone |
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The University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) has produced a Medical Encyclopedia which is available as a free iPhone App. It can be downloaded at the Apple iPhone App Store or from iTunes. The App contains 50,000 pages of information that has been reviewed by medical professionals and that is updated regularly. The pages are organized by categories - symptoms, injury, disease, surgery, nutrition, special topics, poison, and test. When you retrieve an article, the date that it was last reviewed will be at the end along with the reviewer’s name and credentials. Articles contain links to related content and to medical illustrations with text. There is a search feature on the App home page, a search for a keyword or phrase returns all content relevant to that word/phrase. Once you retrieve an article, you can bookmark it or email it. There is also a link on the article which allows you to ask a UMMC expert a medical question related to your search. The expert won’t make a diagnosis but he will provide explanations of diseases and conditions and direct you to additional information. Another feature of the App is the ability to link to numerous topic-specific videos which are on UMMC’s youTube channel. To test the App out for this blog, I searched for information on “sinusitis”. First I chose the Disease category - after scrolling through a very long (but comprehensive!) list of medical conditions, I finally got to the “s’s”. Chosing sinusitis brings up an article with an overview of the topic and links to symptom, treatment, prevention, “all information”, related articles, and a list of references. As advertised, at the end of the article is the reviewer’s name as well as his or her professional credentials. The link to email the article is at the bottom of the “page”. In the Ask the Expert box you can “Get answers to your Ear, Nose and Throat questions”. The search box at the top of the App also worked fine. Typing in “sinusitis”, retrieved the same article and the same links. So you can retrieve the information that you need in 2 ways – by chosing a category and then scrolling through the list (useful if you are not sure how to spell the term) or by typing your search term directly into the search box. In my opinion, iPhone users should download this App. After all, everyone needs a medical encyclopedia from time to time – how handy to be able to easily carry one around with you. Anytime you need it, you can access current medical information, information that has been reviewed by a health professional at a reputable university medical center. And it’s free! (Note: If you don’t have an iPhone, you can access the Medical Encyclopedia at the UMMC website.) |
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Submitted by: Alice McCreary, Reference Librarian
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| Good News: Jammie Thomas’ File-Sharing Verdict Is Reduced By 97% |
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Bad news: it’s still more money than she can afford — $54,000. (But it’s better than $2 million.) Anyway, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis said in his ruling: “The need for deterrence cannot justify a $2 million verdict for stealing and illegally distributing 24 songs for the sole purpose of obtaining free music. Moreover, although plaintiffs were not required to prove their actual damages, statutory damages must bear some relation to actual damages.” Thomas, always ready to provide us with a good soundbite — back in June she talked about squeezing blood from a turnip — said she appreciates the effort but still can’t pay: “It’s not like I have a money tree in the backyard.” Link via Wired. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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| Disabilities and the Law, 4th ed. |
 By Laura F Rothstein, Julia RothsteinA comprehensive discussion of complex disability issues in employment, education, higher education, public accommodations and services, transportation, housing, and access to health care. Library Record • Borrow it • More Titles |
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Submitted by: Malgorzata Pawska, Digital Content Coordinator
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| A-B-C, It’s Easy As 1-2-3 |
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When it comes to online security, we’re just not very creative. Here are the 5 most popular passwords you, me and our fellow Web surfers employ, according to an analysis by security firm Imperva (love the name!) of 32 million login credentials stolen from social networking site RockYou.
(Number 10 on the list is abc123, hence the title of this post. And now you have the Jackson 5 running through your head, right? You can thank me later.) Anyway, you can’t say these passwords are very tricksy. It’s easy to take down a whole company if only one employee uses a weak password. (I’m looking at you, Twitter!) Imperva quantifies it for us: “[T]he combination of poor passwords and automated attacks means that in just 110 attempts, a hacker will typically gain access to one new account on every second or a mere 17 minutes to break into 1000 accounts.” So is the takeaway this: humans are lazy and stupid? Not really, according to the NY Times, which quotes Jeff Moss, a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council: “Nowadays, we have to keep probably 10 times as many passwords in our head as we did 10 years ago. Voice mail passwords, A.T.M. PINs and Internet passwords — it’s so hard to keep track of.” So how should you cope with password overload? Imperva gives us 3 suggestions:
I’ve got some tips for how to create a strong password. And may I recommend using a password manager such as KeePass? It installs on your USB drive, stores all your passwords in an encrypted database, and even auto-types them for you. All you have to remember is the master password for the database. I go over these topics and more in our Internet Ethics CLE class. Cue the ending music: … as simple as do-re-mi [not in the top 20] |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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| 50 is a Milestone |
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(And one that I’ll experience personally come August.) Anyway, Jenkins is offering 50 CLE classes during the January-April compliance period — beginning with Basic Westlaw a week from today — as well as one non-CLE class, Business Development 101. That’s the most classes we’ve ever offered during any compliance period in the 10+ years I’ve been at Jenkins. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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| New York Times to Start Charging Soon? [UPDATED] |
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New York Magazine reports that the NY Times “appears close to announcing that the paper will begin charging for access to its website, according to people familiar with internal deliberations.” The decision wasn’t an easy one: “After a year of sometimes fraught debate inside the paper, the choice for some time has been between a Wall Street Journal-type pay wall [Dan interjects: it's $100/year] and the metered system adopted by the Financial Times, in which readers can sample a certain number of free articles [Dan interrupts again: 10 articles/30 days] before being asked to subscribe. The Times seems to have settled on the metered system.” I’m saddened by this. As I said previously, I rely on The Christian Science Monitor, the NY Times, and Wall Street Journal (which I’d pay for even if Jenkins didn’t have a sub) for my serious news.” I can afford maybe one online newspaper subscription, but I can’t hack two. Having said that, I totally understand why they have to start charging. If they don’t they’ll disappear eventually. Columnist Thomas Friedman sums it up well: “My own feeling is, we have to do anything we can to raise money. At some point we gotta charge for our product … We’re in a megatransition. It hasn’t ever felt like anyone has the answer. My macro feeling is that I’m glad I had this job at this time. It was great working at the paper when it was on dead trees and could pay for itself.” UPDATE, January 20: Here’s the announcement from the Times. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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| Eight Days and Counting |
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Apple’s invited all the tech elite — apparently, I didn’t make the cut — to a special event on January 27 to “Come see our latest creation”. Most likely they’re referring to the iSlate (or whatever they decide to call it). Stay tuned. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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