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Government Relations Committee Update

By Anne McDonald, Co-Chair, LLNE GRC, and Emilie Benoit, Co-Chair, LLNE GRC

PUBLIC ACCESS TO COURT RECORDS

The Massachusetts Trial Court’s Public Access to Court Records Committee held a public hearing on June 15, 2015 to hear comments regarding public access to court records.  Newly implemented changes in the Trial Court’s online access policies have resulted in many users losing eligibility for online accounts which are now restricted to attorneys with Board of Overseers registration.

Bob DeFabrizio, President of the Association of Boston Law  Librarians , (ABLL) expressed the concerns of firm law librarians, and LLNE’s President Mindy Kent stated that providing greater access to court records would allow law librarians to provide more aid to their users, including self-represented litigants, and make it easier for court personnel to do their jobs more effectively. Mindy’s testimony was cited in a Boston Globe article on the hearing.  You may read Mindy’s  written comments submitted to the committee here.

AALL  President Holly Riccio  also submitted written comments, urging the Trial Court to provide law librarians and other users with the same level of no-fee access to court docket information that was previously available. The letter also states that many states and the United States Supreme Court are moving towards greater public access.  We thank  President Riccio and AALL’s Government Relations Office Director Emily Feltren for their support.  See the  AALL website for Holly’s comments.

MASSACHUSETTS UELMA BILL

Massachusetts UELMA bill  H. 43  was reported favorably out of the House Judiciary Committee following a May 27th hearing  and is now in the House Ways and Means Committee.  The UELMA in Massachusetts Subcommittee of LLNE’s GRC has been spearheading this effort and will meet soon to strategize on the next steps.  The Subcommittee’s Chair Barbara Morgan  testified on behalf of LLNE . Here are some excerpts from her prepared testimony.

“As a law librarian, I am concerned about access to both current and historic Massachusetts legal material. If you visit a Massachusetts law library, you’ll find the General Laws of Massachusetts available in print. It’s easy for me to provide access by placing these books on a shelf and it’s easy for me to preserve access to past laws by keeping the older volumes. It’s also easy for someone using these volumes to tell that they’re looking at an authentic text by inspecting the title page. I don’t currently have the same ability with electronic versions of legal materials.

UELMA will ensure that if an online version is deemed official, it will guarantee the same level of trustworthiness traditionally provided by print legal publications. UELMA provides for a technology neutral, outcomes based approach that will give Massachusetts flexibility in making sure that official legal material, solely available online, will be authenticated, preserved and made permanently available to the public.” 

We thank all members of the UELMA in Massachusetts Subcommittee for their persistence and dedication.  We also thank LLNE members who reside in Massachusetts and who have supported this effort by contacting their state legislators.

The LLNE Government Relations Committee is providing this information to you to further its committee charge to keep you apprised of developments which may be of interest to you as an informed law librarian.

Register for LLNE Business Meeting & Luncheon

Don’t forget to register for the LLNE Business Meeting and Luncheon in Philly!  We’ll be meeting on Tuesday, July 21st from 12:30-2 pm.  You can register here: http://llne.org/meetings/2015-annual-luncheon/

The deadline is Friday, July 10th, so register today!  We’re looking forward to seeing everyone!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Fourth of July from the Law Librarians of New England!  Here are some fireworks safety tips and legal reminders from mass.gov.  There are similar useful pages for  Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Maine.  Each state approaches fireworks slightly differently; some allow nothing, some allow sparklers, some allow non-aerial fireworks with permits, and some don’t allow any non-licensed fireworks displays at all.

Stay safe and enjoy the holiday!

LLNE Archives: Cooks Reports Salad Dressing Recipes

By Heather Pierce

salad1 Summer time to farmers markets is like the bat signal to Batman and with all these farmers answering the call to provide fresh veggie goodness people are going to be making a lot of salads. So the most important question here is what kinds of dressings will you use? Well look no further than LLNE’s good old Cooks’s Reports for those answers. Here are six dressings that will add a bit of awesomesauce to your salad creations.

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LLNE President Melinda Kent quoted in Boston Globe article on public access to court records

Melinda Kent, LLNE’s president, recently testified in the recent June 15th public hearing before the Trial Court Public Access to Court Records Committee to provide comment concerning the public’s access to publicly available court case records. You may read her written comments submitted to the committee here. She was also quoted in Boston Globe article about the proposed changes. Mindy argued that allowing greater access would help librarians as we aid various users of the court system.  You can read the whole article here:

Mass. courts hear pleas for Web access: Data is available on federal system http://bit.ly/1Lfpnal

Bob DeFabrizio, LLNE member and Co-Director of Education also testified in his capacity as President of the Association of Boston Law Librarians (ABLL). AALL also submitted testimony which is available on the AALL website. A list of people registered to speak at the hearing and a list of the members of the Trial Court Public Access to Court Records Committee also appear on our website.

LLNE Legal Research Instruction Program

Every year LLNE runs the Legal Research Instruction Program, offering legal research training to folks in the community, from technical services librarians to library students, for the amazingly low price of $150.00. This was my first year administering the program, and it made me realize how much it depends on the incredible support of LLNE members. So I want to take a moment to thank those who made this awesome program happen:

  • Claire DeMarco from Harvard, for giving everyone a great overview of the legal system.
  • Rick Buckingham from Suffolk, for teaching the ins-and-outs of caselaw research
  • Kristin McCarthy from New England Law, for a nifty overview of statutes
  • Steven Alexandre de Costa from Boston University, for a dive into administrative law (and additionally, for inspiring at least one of our attendees to comment on proposed administrative law through regulations.gov)

And last, but certainly not least, a huge thank you to Ron Wheeler and Suffolk University Law Library for hosting the Legal Research Instruction Program. In all, we had 9 students, gave out 2 scholarships, and ran 6 individual sessions. Thank You!

Action Alert: Mass Lawyers Weekly poll about law libraries

By Michelle Pearse
LLNE Government Relations Member and Communications & Technology Committee Co-Chair

A recent issue of Mass. Lawyers Weekly has an article about potential closure of various Massachusetts trial courts.  http://masslawyersweekly.com/2015/06/04/mba-head-30-courthouses-on-chopping-block/   On the right hand side, there is a poll asking how often you visit your local law library.  If you are interested in participating, please fill it out (and encourage your patrons to fill it out) soon as it will probably close in a couple of days.

Thanks to Bob DeFabrizio for bringing the article and poll to the attention of the LLNE Executive Board!

Law and Technology: Canva

By Carli Spina

No matter what your exact job title is, you probably find yourself working on design projects from time-to-time. Whether you are creating posters for an upcoming event, adding content to your library’s website or blog, or creating internal documentation for processes and workflows, graphic design is a feature of a huge array of different library projects. While a client’s job gets done with a Graphic Design Service Subscription, a designer has a series of works to do. If you work on these sorts of projects every day, you probably have your favorite (and likely expensive) graphic design software installed on your computer. But, if you only work on these sorts of projects occasionally, you may find the steep costs and learning curves of this software daunting. Canva is a great tool for anyone in this situation. This web-based graphic design tool is free and quite easy to use and offers you the option to keep costs down by finding your own media to add to your project or to use premium Canva images and templates for a reasonable cost (usually $1 per item).

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When you first log onto Canva, you are given the option to create a design either based on your own custom dimensions or by using one of the available project types. These run the gamut from the dimensions needed for common types of social media posts to the dimensions needed to create slides for a presentation, so you will frequently find an option that meets your needs. Even if you don’t find the size you need, you can easily specify your own dimensions.

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Once you select your dimensions, your new project will automatically open and prompt you to select a layout. You can instead opt to create your own custom layout, but it is nice to have the option to use one of the included layouts as a starting point. Though not all of the available layouts are free, any that are not free are marked, as is true of all premium content in Canva. One of the nicest features offered by Canva is its integrated image search. This tool allows you to search for images from within Canva when you need them for your project. Some of the images that are returned will be premium images (most, if not all, of which cost $1 each), but generally you will also find free images this way. If you can’t find the right image for your project, you can also upload your own images, which allows you to maintain complete control over the final product. Canva also offers a number of fonts and logos that can help to give your project a professionally designed appearance.

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Your project will automatically save as you work on it. Drafts or completed projects can be shared using the unique URL given to each project and you can specify whether you want the shared project to be editable or not. By default, only you are able to edit the project. Canva also has an integrated option to share projects directly to Facebook, Twitter, or email if you want to solicit feedback on your design. You can also download your project as a PDF or PNG file, at which point you will be asked to pay for any of the premium content that you used.

If you are new to graphic design (or have patrons who are), Canva also offers a number of resources to help you get started. Canva users can opt to make their projects public and those projects all end up in the “Design Stream,” which is part gallery and part social network. This can be a great place to look to see what others have done with the tool and to get inspiration. Canva also offers tutorials that are designed to walk even someone who has no design experience through many of the basic principles of graphic design. If you are interested in offering classes to teach your patrons about graphic design, Canva also offers lesson plans that make it easy to integrate Canva into this type of programming. All of this content is free, which makes it a great perk for Canva users. I’ve been using Canva off and on for months and I think it is a great tool for library design projects.

Mass. Court System Press Release: Trial Court Access to Court Records Committee Announces Notice of Public Hearing

The Massachusetts trial courts have issued a press release regarding public access to court records.  You can read the press release here.  The public meeting will bee June 15, 2015 from 4-6 pm at the Suffolk Superior courthouse.