a little break for a cold

I've not been around blogging, but I've been enjoying a quiet house to myself for the last few weeks and I've been recovering from a cold, so that has kept me mellow.
I should have kept a daily log of the last few weeks to see what it is I do when I'm alone. Mostly I cleaned the house, watched a little TV, read a few books, surfed the Web, and I have been working late way too many nights. It's easy to stay late when you have no reason to be home at a specific time.

I have also been brainstorming about teaching legal research to associates. How to do it, how to make it relevant, how I am failing in some ways, succeeding in others, and what I can do to improve.

I probably need to find a powerful partner to be on my side. Am thinking of approaching someone if I can carve out a few minutes of his/her attention.

As for legal research writ large - I have had ideas, and am using my most wonderful VooDooPad to keep my thoughts organized. I should publish it all to the Web, but I want to wait until I have more things to say. I realized that if I want to have anything important to say, I have to see what else has been said and done and published. The only thing I know for sure is that most summer associates and 1st year associates are ill-prepared for legal research in a law firm, and it usually doesn't improve. Perhaps I'll have an article or two at the end of this. I don't care about publishing to get something "published" I'm not in Academia (thank God!) so I just want to help other law librarians with this if there is something worthy to share.

Here's one of my brainstorming sessions, only partially complete, and it surely needs to be edited, but just a taste, here it is for your reading delectation:

LEGAL RESEARCH - MAIN POINTS
• In a law firm, you should always start with a treatise or a practice guide. This will save you enormous amounts of time. Practice material will give you the bearings on where to begin with your research, tell you where an issue has been, where it is now, direction it is heading. Point you to all important statutes, regulations and cases.
• You should never be searching in cases until you have a firm understanding of your issue. Cases update the treatises, and other research, you should only need to search caselaw on Wexis to supplement and update what you have already found elsewhere.
• If your issue is a procedural question, you should be looking in procedural resources.
• Statutes are the law. Always go to the relevant statute and read it/them.
• Find out if there are regulations related to your statutes. Agencies are empowered by statutes to create rules to enforce the statutes. This is called rulemaking. Your Federal rulemaking sources are the CFR and the Federal Register.
• Know what the Federal Register is and when you need to use it.
• Know what a final rule is.
• Know why you might sometimes need to look at a proposed rule.
• Know what the CFR is.

(At this point I quit, and realized I should look back at the MacCrate report inspired Legal Research material posted at AALL.)

Here was a bit about librarians...

• Librarians are a resource.
• Librarians save time.
• Librarians should be able to help you find all of the available resources on a topic.
• Librarians should know or be able to find all the relevant treatises, databases, articles, etc., that cover your topic so that you don't miss anything.
• Librarians usually know the fastest way to find the answer to a discreet question.
• Librarians are experts at formulating complex search strategies.
• Librarians should help you think about an issue in a new way.
• Librarians do not judge. Okay, we only judge if we never see you. Then we judge that you are not using your resources wisely.
• Librarians do not judge you if you do not know the answer.
• Librarians do not judge you if you have made a mistake, they just want to help.
• Librarians are here to save you time and money.
• Librarians know that when you succeed, the client succeeds, and we succeed. We want to help you succeed - that is what makes our day. Every interaction with a librarian is based on the fact that a librarian wants to help you succeed.
• The more information you give a librarian about your issue, the better job the librarian will do and the better the results will be.

So, that is where my head has been. Lots of work to do. Have been perusing the literature. Continuing to brainstorm GAMES as a way to make this STICK.

El Corazon, or, shot through with an arrow

Happy Valentines day! Hope your day was sweet! Mine was, because Sees decided to open up a special Valentine's day stand in the building across the street from my office, precisely where I go to get coffee everyday. So this morning my resistance was low, and Peet's in hand, I bought some candy - one for work and one for my sister. Our library family enjoyed a sugar high today, and I will successfully resist the box of candy at home.

For some giddy humor to go with the day, you must visit Catherine Newman's blog.

I was up too late last night, so I will make an early night of it.

Sweet Dreams.

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Reading Roundup

Back at work. Worked hard all day. Listening to Carmina Burana right now. Not tired of it yet. Saw that it will be performed in Portland by the Oregon Symphony. I'm thinking about getting tickets and taking a trip up there to see it. But after checking the Website, looks like the tickets are only available to various subscriber packages. Maybe I'll have to give the box office a call to see if there are any exceptions.

Iran & Iraq

Build up to an Iran conflict Wes Clark Daily Kos: Is War with Iran Inevitable?

Powerful Women and how society deals with them....Or wait, how they deal with society....

What was so great about Catherine? By Laura Miller Feb. 13, 2007 Salon.com Books. This review makes me want to read the book, but I suspect the reviewer makes it more interesting than the book reads. I'll have to see. Nice bit on our (and all?) culture's perceptions and discomfort with successful, powerful women.

A ‘Rebellious Daughter’ to Lead Harvard

Eco-Madness

I clean green but the dishes don't gleam! I use nonpolluting products wherever I can -- but this brand-name commercial stuff really makes plates and glasses sparkle! By Cary Tennis Feb. 13, 2007 Salon.com Life. O God, this could be me. Hilarious. Cary made me laugh tonight. Oh we are silly, but I have to admit, I've noticed the same thing with my dishwashing eco-tablets. At some point I'll get to all the excellent (I'm sure) articles linked at the bottom of his column.

Science and Health

Surgeon Transplants Ovary Into Woman What a wonderful development!!! Maybe this will someday allow women who want to have a career to have children later in life - safely and with less infertility.

Male Sweat Can Boost Arousal in Women Well, this one is something I've known for years, and many other folks have suspected - probably since relations between men and women began. I guess if you needed the proof of science, well, here it is. I think the sweat aspect of it is just for kicks, the "substance" is more like the pheromones we all have and exude. (But then, does exude sound nastier than sweat?) Not sure on that one. (Oh, and when do they find the pheromones produced by women?)

A kind of modern day book-burning

EPA Libraries: Where Do They Stand Now? A fairly dispassionate overview of the EPA library situation, with lots of links. News of this has made me want to scream ever since the news first broke. This is similar to the sacking of the Iraq museums and libraries, only we did it here at home. What crimes this administration has committed via mis-management and waste is hard for me to fathom. This has set environmental researchers and litigators back years, but they don't know it yet - most have no clue what this means to them and don't really understand why they should care. Maybe not even when a case hinges on getting access to a document and they can't because the documents don't exist anymore. Much of the collection has already been destroyed and in some cases, the only existing copies have been lost. Heartbreaking. This is what happens when you put partisan hacks in charge of our historical and intellectual heritage.

And for a little light librarian humor

March of the Librarians