Month: December 2010

Google has been quietly capitalizing on its various library and publisher partnerships with its Google ebookstore project. In addition to its more commercial titles offered for sale at the site, it will also be offering over 1800 government publications from the Government Printing Office, according to this Washington Post article. First Google Books, tomorrow the world.

Every year, we see stories and musings about the death of blogging. Yet we keep finding new law blogs to pour into our directory. Even after we delete defunct and lapsed blogs, we count more than 3,000 in our listings. So for now, at least, reports that blogging is on its way out are greatly exaggerated.

That’s especially true for blogs written with personality, passion and enthusiasm. New niche blogs pop up all the time—and those that are smartly written, teach us something and introduce us to new perspectives will catch and keep our attention.

In our 4th annual Blawg 100, we organized a bit differently and created some new categories. Yet we know that many blogs defy categories. We have a “lighter fare” grouping, but you can find witty and funny blogs in any category. More of our readers had a hand in the selections this time around: We received more than 1,250 blawg amici, or friend-of-the-blawg, nominations; you’ll see some of the testimonials on the pages that follow. This year, more bloggers embraced Twitter, though law profs are trailing the pack.

We’ve picked our favorites. Now it’s your turn. Go to ABAJournal.com/blawg100 to vote for your favorite blogs in each category. Voting will run through the close of business Dec. 30. The popular vote-getters will be announced online in January and in the February edition of the magazine.

Be sure to follow the links to our 100 favorites this year. Then browse our directory of more than 3,000 law blogs by topic, blogger type or location. And you can follow 85 of our Blawg 100 authors on Twitter by following @ABAJournal’s Blawg100 list.

Google’s long awaited e-book-only bookstore, Google eBooks, puts the company in competition with Amazon, Apple and Borders for the burgeoning electronic-book market. The move, limited at the start to U.S. customers only, also marks the first real retail venture for the search and online-advertising behemoth, if you don’t count the Android app market.

Yesterday LexisNexis announced it acquired State Net after having distributed State Net content under license for 20-plus years. From the press release:

“Through the acquisition of State Net, LexisNexis has secured critical content and tools needed by legal and business professionals to rapidly monitor and analyze the policy decisions being made by Federal and State governments and regulatory agencies across the US on a daily basis,” said Bob Romeo, senior vice president of Research and Litigation Solutions at LexisNexis. “Access to this critical information means our customers are at an advantage when assisting their clients in finding, analyzing and planning for those decisions.”

State Net collects, normalizes and editorially enhances all bills introduced in the 50 U.S. state legislatures, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Congress, as well as all agency regulations from every state. The service also provides timely delivery of data, legislative intelligence and in-depth content and tools reporting on the actions of government institutions.

State Net provides users access to information on individual legislative bills and their progress within twenty-four hours of public availability. It also enables subscribers to obtain current versions of bills and statutes, check the validity of statutes, track pending changes to statutes and regulations, and research historical summaries of legislative actions. State Net tools and content enable users to assess the impact of proposed legislation and regulations, influence proposed matters, and reduce compliance risk.

According to a press release, ProQuest acquired CIS & UPA from LexisNexis. The impact of this sale on law libraries is uncertain at this point. According to Mike Simmons, senior vice president of Specialty Businesses at LexisNexis: “We look forward to working with ProQuest – including licensing back certain legislative content sets from ProQuest for our legal professional customers.” Below is a list of products that were sold off and a list of products that remain with LexisNexis. [BA]

ProQuest has acquired the following LexisNexis products:
* LexisNexis Congressional (to be renamed ProQuest Congressional)
* LexisNexis Statistical Insight (to be renamed ProQuest Statistical
Insight)
* LexisNexis DataSets (to be renamed ProQuest DataSets)
* LexisNexis Statutes at Large (to be renamed ProQuest Statutes at
Large)
* LexisNexis Government Periodical Index (to be renamed ProQuest
Government Periodical Index)
* LexisNexis Primary Sources in US History (to be renamed ProQuest
Primary Sources in US History)
* Congressional Hearings Digital Collection
* Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection
* Congressional Research Digital Collection
* US Serial Set Digital Collection
* US Serial Set Maps Collection
* All CIS microform and print products
* All statistical microform and print products
* All UPA microform collections

LexisNexis is retaining these academic-oriented products:
* LexisNexis Academic
* LexisNexis Library Express
* LexisNexis Scholastic
* LexisNexis State Capital
* LexisNexis for Development Professionals

The FTC released its preliminary report on consumer privacy today. Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Business and Policymakers identifies the need for businesses to collect information about their customers for marketing purposes in comparison to the corporate maintenance of personal electronic dossiers that spell out consumer habits, preferences, and interests. The statements and proposals contained in the report suggest the Commission would like to split the difference between data collectors and consumers.