One thing I like most about my job is the frequency with which I get to attend library and law school conferences. Add to this a great deal of personal travel, and I find myself spending a lot of time on airplanes. Problem is, I tend to be overambitious and take red eye flights, particularly the night before I'm supposed to be back in the office. Maybe that wouldn't be too much of a problem if I could actually sleep on a plane.

If you're like me and find yourself exhaustedly watching everyone else on your flight snooze away, you might want to check out Maholo's guide to "How to Sleep on a Plane." Here's one of the tips:

Exit rows will give you more legroom, but you will not be able to put the seat arms up if the seat next to you is empty. Also, you will have to be alert if there is an air incident.

Granted, some of the advice is kind of obvious, like recommending a prescription sleep aid. But even with that suggestion the authors note which ones are best suited for flight use.

Between a trip to Las Vegas later this week (hopefully O.J. won't rob me at gunpoint while I'm there) and a conference in Hawaii next month, I've got plenty of opportunity to make use of these suggestions.

[Maholo] How to Sleep on a Plane (via Lifehacker)

Due to a last minute change to state travel rules that would've forced me to pay several hundred dollars out of pocket with no reimbursement, I've canceled my trip to New Orleans to attend the AALL Annual Meeting. So no Bloggers Gathering. No Indiana University reception. No roundtables. No CS-SIS breakfast meeting. No AELIC meeting.

Worst of all, I won't be speaking at the program I proposed and coordinated on RFID technology in law libraries, scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of my co-presenter, University of Georgia Law Library Director Ann Puckett, the show will go on without me. Speaking in my place will be Maureen Cahill, also from the University of Georgia. Thanks to Ann and Maureen for moving forward in my absence.

In the meantime, this unexpected stretch at home provides me some extra time to prepare for my impending cross country move. My last day at UNLV is Tuesday, and I should be on the road to Connecticut by Saturday.

This year marks my first presentation at the AALL Annual Meeting. Here's the program listing for the session I'm presenting with Ann Puckett, Library Director of the University of Georgia Law Library...

I-6 A Friendly Game of Tag: Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in Law Libraries

Tuesday, July 17, 2007 at 2:45 p.m. (30 minutes)

Level: Introductory

Competency: Collection Care and Management

Target Audience: All librarians

Learning Outcomes:

1) Participants will be able to explain the basic technologies and applications of library Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems.

2) Participants will be prepared to identify the specific costs and benefits of implementing RFID technology in a law library setting.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has been a major source of controversy for public libraries over the last five years. RFID provides libraries with substantial innovations in collection maintenance, circulation workflow and statistics gathering,but the costs associated with implementing the technology are substantial.With questions about patron privacy and technology standards still being debated,it’s hardly surprising that few law libraries have yet implemented RFID systems of their own.This program will assess the implementation of RFID technology in a law library setting,demonstrating its many benefits while providing an honest assessment of the costs identified by the technology’s many vocal opponents.

Thomas R.Boone, Coordinator, Moderator and Speaker, University of Nevada – Las Vegas, William S.Boyd School of Law

Ann Puckett, University of Georgia Law Library

I'm presenting on Monday morning at the CALI Conference for Law School Computing here at UNLV. Here's the program summary of the session I'm co-leading with Prof. Megan Chaney:

What Can You Do for Me? Using Web Technology to Expand Library Service for Law School Clinics
Audience: All
Technical Level: Low

With experiential learning playing a prominent role in legal education, law school librarians need to expand the level of service they provide to law school clinics, moving beyond scholarship and curriculum support, offering the same kind of practice support found in law firms.

Professors Boone and Chaney argue that clinics and libraries must make some fundamental changes in the ways they work together. This includes the implementation of digital library technologies for clinics, as well as the creation of a new professional clinical position: clinic library coordinator.

The presenters will demonstrate some of the methods they have used this semester to implement these changes, including a walk-through of an clinic website that incorporates knowledge management for student case practice, electronic research tools for practice and scholarship support, course management for the classroom, enhanced communication tools, and full case management, all using open-source tools.

Tom Boone
Head of Electronic and Information Services
University of Nevada William S. Boyd School of Law
tom dot boone at unlv dot edu

Megan F. Chaney
Visiting Associate Professor of Law
University of Nevada William S. Boyd School of Law
megan dot chaney at unlv dot edu

H4: Technology Scouts: How to Keep Your Library and ILS Current in the IT World

Mary Jane Kelsey, Yale University School of Law
Katie Bauer, Yale University
Casey Bisson, Plymouth State University

Mary Jane Kelsey

Library catalogs have changed fast since the 1970s, and even though everything has moved onto the web, the changes are still coming fast. In order to keep up, we must think about ILS in widest view possible, because it's not just for bibliographic information anymore.

Why change? Because library users want change. Because libraries have to change in order to stay viable. And because we can change as ILS's offer new modules.

Young library patrons were born with joysticks in their hands, and they expect everything to be online. Thus expect library services to be online, too. They expect ambient findability, with the least amount of effort. Simply put, they won't use systems that require too much work.

And this drives librarians crazy. Many librarians try to keep viewing things as hierarchical, categorizable, and sequential. But that's not how information is anymore. Now, everything is "intertwingled" (e.g., a mashup of craigslist and Google Maps produces HousingMaps).

Administrators have similar expectations. They want web services that will save time and money and redeploy staff to higher functions. They expect a credible presence, which keeps reliability intact.

ILS vendors are finally beginning to provide products to make these things happen.

Here are a few examples of what Yale's Law Library has done...

• Implementation of an Electronic Resource Management (ERM) module that integrates fully with the ILS
• Using a WebBridge to suggest other resources for patrons to check
• Syndication of incoming RSS feeds into library catalog interface, including library news and legal news from Jurist
• Now producing RSS feeds going out of catalog (e.g., new acquisitions alerts)
• Library can communicate directly with users via portals and feed readers using RSS feeds
• Creation of a MiniCatalog module via AirPAC
• Spellchecking in the OPAC
• Added tables of contents, book jackets, and permalinks to the OPAC
• Creation of Firefox search plug-ins and LibX toolbar
• Place an icon in records on Amazon when the library has the book

Katie Bauer

Users now have a lot of options in searching for information. A recent OCLC survey shows that college students use search engines far more than library websites when performing online research.

This means it's time to start pushing library content out of library website and into places that the patrons already are. What users want is quick, simple, and seamless access. They want it to be easy.

One tool used at Yale to make this happen is John Udell's LibraryLookup, a javascript code that grabs an ISBN from an Amazon URL and plugs it into an OPAC search. This allows users to search for a book in the Yale catalog directly from that book's page on Amazon.

This leads to additional Firefox browser add-ons. The pros of these plug-ins include the ability to put a catalog search box in every browser window a user opens, providing users with complete control over when they can perform a catalog search, and the relative ease with which the plug-ins can be created. However, there are some notable drawbacks. For one, the plug-ins only work with Firefox. Also, to use the plug-ins, users must first download them. Finally, the user must take an extra step to search the catalog.

In addition to plug-ins, libraries can push content out into other realms using RSS.

Yale performed a study to discover where users are on the Yale webspace. The results of this study were then used to determine where the library would push its content. For example, students are using the university's course management system heavily, so Yale is now working on a prototype to push library content into the CMS via RSS. One such piece of content is an automated reserve book list for specific courses in each course's web space.

Yale is also now putting links to library resources into Google Scholar search results using SFX. The user doesn't need to configure anything in order for this to work. This same functionality can be added to Open WorldCat as well. The only drawback is that Google Scholar is very picky about what links it will include.

Casey Bisson

Library catalogs have been criticized a lot this year. The challenges that have generated these criticisms involve usability, findability, and remixability.

Recently, the Ann Arbor District Library (AADL) and the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Library have done things with library catalogs that everybody immediately wanted for their own institutions. AADL it inexpensively using open-source software, while NCSU spent a lot of money to develop a commercial solution. To attempt some of these same things, Bisson developed WPopac, a library catalog built using open-source blogging software (WordPress).

Usability is important, as is findability. How do libraries serve people who start their research with internet search engines? How do you increase the functionality of the OPAC for your users? You can improve findability by making content indexable by search engines and linkable. With linkable content, can much more easily track citations to your content and resources.

What about remixability? Flickr, an online photo sharing site, is an excellent example of content that is remixable. Flickr provides the content, and others build tools to manipulate that content for new uses. The tool builders don't have to invent Flickr, and Flickr doesn't have to invent the tools.

An excellent example of a tool built by someone outside of flickr to make use of flickr's content is the Crayon Box Colr Pickr.

In this new world, to make this kind of innovation occur in libraries, we must similarly separate the data and the data manipulation. Then the possible manipulations are endless because it's not limited by the interface of the data system.

Solutions to the challenges of usability and findability are imminent. Therefore, it's time we began focusing on remixability in our systems. To do this, we should look at the OpenSearch API, follow the development of WPopac, and ask our ILS vendors to keep the door open for experimentation (i.e., ask for APIs).

Casey's slides are now online at his blog, MaisonBisson.

If you're looking for coverage of last week's AALL annual meeting, Library Laws certainly isn't the only game in town. Here's a roundup of conference posts from some of the other bloggers in attendance...

Connie Crosby

• My First AALL Conference
• Live from St. Louis - AALL Conference (posted on Slaw.ca)
• AALL 2006 - Today's highlights

DennisKennedy.com (Dennis Kennedy)

• Meeting the Law Librarian Bloggers

LawLibTech (Cindy Chick)

• Desktop Search - The Ultimate PKM (Personal Knowledge
• Newsgator - Deliver News to Your Enterprise

MaisonBisson.com (Casey Bisson)

• The Social Software Over There
• Technology Scouts At AALL

Out of the Jungle (group blog)

• Betsy McKenzie: Time for AALL meeting!
• Marie S. Newman: Law Firm Library Survey

WisBlawg (Bonnie Shucha)

• Highlights from the AALL Annual Meeting

Also, be sure to check out the official AALL Gateway blog, which has numerous posts from before, during, and after the conference.

Looking for some audio?

Check This Out! (Jim Milles)

• Episode 035a: Live from AALL: Nightly Wrapup #1
• Episode 035b: Live from AALL: Nightly Wrapup #2
• Episode 035c: Live from AALL: Nightly Wrapup #3 - Lost to Posterity
• Episode 036: GenX GenY Caucus

How about some photos?

flickr

• AALL Gateway Pool

On Tuesday night a group of us tried to go to dinner at Grbic Restaurant in South City, but our clueless cabbie took us to an entirely different part of the city (where we ate at The Drunken Fish instead). While the driver stopped to examine his copy of the least detailed map of St. Louis ever published, we all got a chuckle out of this lawyer's phone number...

CS-SIS Breakfast Meeting: Connecting Big Dots

John Mayer, Center for Computer Assisted Legal Instruction

There are a number of "big dots" with problems to solve.

Legal Services Corporation (LSC) is an organization funded by federal government that gives money to organizations who provide legal aid to low income people. The federal government is currently shrinking, so LSC must find ways to become more efficient.

Courts are seeing an increasing number of people representing themselves. This forces judges to serve as law professors for litigants in their courtrooms.

Law libraries are being used less and less by lawyers, but more and more by the general public. This forces librarians to instruct inexperienced pro se patrons in how to perform legal research.

Law students, as always, need more on-the-ground experience while in law school to prepare them for practice.

There has to be a way to connect these dots and solve their problems simultaneously...

Recently, LSC decided to require legal aid organizations within a single state to join forces on a single website in order to receive funding. One example of this is probono.net, where organizations receive web space on the site using a content management system. Another is Illinois Legal Aid Online, a site for legal aid organizations in Illinois that provides information designed for three different audiences: pro se patrons, pro bono attorneys, and legal aid attorneys.

The Center for Computer Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) became involved in these projects through The Center for Access to Justice and Technology (A2J) at Chicago-Kent College of Law. A2J walks pro se users through the process of filling out a legal form rather than just giving them a blank form. The system takes things one question at a time, explaining information one issue at a time. To aid in the creation of these systems, CALI created A2J Author, which allows creators of A2J content to break a form down into a series of steps using a graphical interface to simplify the authoring process. When a law changes, or if a different jurisdiction reuses another's form, it is a simple process to make changes. As with CALI Lesson authoring system, an A2J author can view the entire form process as flow chart.

When an A2J user finishes a form, the system currently sends the answers provided into a HotDoc system that generates a completed hard copy of the form that the user can print and file themselves. The next logical step for CALI and A2J is automated electronic filing of these forms.

Currently, pro bono efforts typically involve courts, legal services, and legal education, but there needs to be a way to involve law libraries and lawyers in this process -- and to get law students involved while they're still in school. CALI is still trying to develop a way to make this happen.

So far, members of the organization have brainstormed many interesting (and sometimes humorous) ideas so far, but none have been workable. These include:

Virtual Legal Aid
A system for providing legal aid online that is similar to virtual reference service in libraries.

MyLawsuitSpace.com
A website where users could help one another with various legal problems. Of course, this leads to problems with the unauthorized practice of law, but people are already using the web for legal advice anyway.

Law students as "pre-authors"
Student writing explanatory text about the law.

Mentor eBay
Need legal help? Post your problem and price you're willing to pay for help. Attorneys then bid to take your case.

YouTube Law Guides
Online video tutorials about the law. (There is already one judge who is posting his sentencing hearings on YouTube.)

There are many problems with connecting these big dots in a single legal aid project. For one, different jurisdictions and local practices make online resources problematic. With the internet, there is always the risk of unauthorized practice of law (though this warning may just be protectionist propaganda by local attorneys who perceive online services as competition for clients. The quality of online information is always questionable, so there needs to be some evaluation of authority (and aren't librarians in a perfect position to help with this already?). There are also a number of second order effects that will be created by the online system CALI envisions, including electronic filing and an increase in lawsuits, and these must all be taken into account. There is also the question of how to provide incentives to students to encourage them to participate. Paying them is problematic, which leaves course credit as the only other obvious alternative.

Librarians + Live Music x Open Bar = Conga Line

E3: Invasion of the Podcast People: Podcasting for the Law Librarian

John Mayer, The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction
Jim Milles, University of Buffalo Law School

The guys made this one easy on me. John already has his synchronized slides and audio up over at CALIopolis. And while Jim added a lot of new detail to his presentation to gear it more toward law librarians of all different types, the big picture was pretty much the same as his session at CALI, which I've already summarized.

God bless you both.