| If You Can Read This, Then Everything’s OK |
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But just in case you can’t, I wanted to let you know that we’ve been under attack by spambots over the last couple of days. That’s why you haven’t been able to connect to our Website from time to time, or to databases we offer you such as Fastcase. (It’s not Conficker, BTW.) The bots have been scraping our blog content. Story of my life — my only readers are software programs looking for content to dump on spam Webpages. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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Comments (0)February 13, 2009
| Yet Another Article About Carl Malamud |
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Yesterday the NY Times had another article about the ongoing activities of Carl Malamud, the guerilla legal publisher who’s trying to shove PACER into the 21st century. The article doesn’t really say anything that hasn’t been said before: Malamud says the PACER system is outdated and we shouldn’t have to pay to see legal documents, which are part of America’s “operating system”. Lets be real here. The federal government is good at spewing out documents. They’re not so good at analysis. So if they got their you-know-what together, the feds would be absolutely fabulous at dumping huge amounts of cases on us. (At the EPA, we used to call that “shovelware”.) But would they make it easy to analyze the cases to determine which ones are the “good” ones, the ones to use as legal precedents? No. That’s why we have aggregators such as LexisNexis and West. The hard reality is that anybody who wants to do serious legal research is going to have to deal with “Wexis” at some point. Spoiler Alert: Here comes the shameless plug for Jenkins. We understand that legal research can be expensive. That’s why we make a bunch of quality legal tools available to our members. From your desktop at home or in the office, you can access:
Now I know that these tools are not technically “free”, because you have to pay to become a Jenkins member. But the services you get more than make up for what you spend to join. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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January 16, 2009
| “Future of Jenkins” Survey [UPDATED] |
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UPDATE: The deadline for participation has been extended until Friday, January 30. Jenkins has engaged Axelroth & Associates to assist with refreshing our library’s Strategic Plan. Today, libraries face many challenges and we want to be sure that we are positioned to meet them over the next few years. We need your help in identifying the library services and resources that you value most, as well as input on other topics. We want to make sure that we continue to meet our members’ needs now and in the future. Our consultants have developed a survey that should take no more than 15 minutes to complete to get your feedback. We are offering a certificate for a free one-hour CLE class to those who participate in the survey in appreciation for your input. Thanks in advance for your feedback. |
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Submitted by: Regina L. Smith, Executive Director
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December 31, 2008
| Jenkins Closed on Saturdays Beginning January 2009 |
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Having reviewed usage on Saturdays over the past few years, we found that an average of 14 patrons, some of them members of the general public, use Jenkins on Saturdays. This is less than 3% of our membership The cost of keeping Jenkins open on Saturdays is about $30,000 annually. Not only do we pay for staffing, we also have to pay for utilities and other operational costs. In addition, the people who work on Saturdays are off on Mondays, so we are short staffed on that day. Having analyzed the situation and spoken with our Board of Directors, we have made the decision to eliminate Saturday hours at Jenkins beginning in January 2009. We recognize that some of our members want to work on the weekend and we believe that we can offer a service that will assist them with their research. In 2009, we will offer 24/7 access to Fastcase, a high-quality online legal research alternative to the larger commercial vendors. Fastcase offers unlimited searching of cases, statutes and regulations for all 50 states and Federal coverage as well. This new service will be available to all members who are solos or with firms with less than 50 attorneys. There will be no time limits for your research as we have with the Lexis Thru Jenkins Remote Program. We plan to continue the Lexis Thru Jenkins Remote program, for solos and firms with 10 or fewer attorneys. Our excellent web site, www.jenkinslaw.org , links to legal and non-legal information and our library of remote access databases that members can search from home or office continues to grow. We dislike having to withdraw a member benefit, but we are confident that the combination of remote databases we offer will assist our members with many of their after hours research needs. |
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Submitted by: Regina L. Smith, Executive Director
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October 8, 2008
| As a Public Service … |
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… I present you with a guide for stopping cellphone spam. One of the options involves blocking text messages sent through email. (You may not be aware that your cellphone has an email address. For AT&T, my carrier, it’s phone_number@text.att.net. Other carriers use different addresses.) That’s all well and good, but it’ll disable the Text to Phone feature we’ve recently added to our online catalog. If you find an interesting book, you can send its title and call number to your mobile. That way, you don’t have to waste paper printing the record. And you never go anywhere without your cellphone — right? — so you’ll have the info you need when you get to Jenkins. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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September 25, 2008
| Journal Portal |
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Have you checked out Jenkins’ Journal Portal lately? The Journal Portal is a great tool to use when you are trying to figure out where a title is available electronically (i.e. Westlaw, Lexis, HeinOnline, etc.). It works well for journals and even many treatises. Once the portal helps you determine which databases carry the title you want, how do you get access to these databases? Many are available through Jenkins. Call the Jenkins reference desk at 215-574-1505 or email research@jenkinslaw.org. We can check to see if the title is available on your desktop through one of Jenkins’ Member Online Services databases or is included on our Lexis & Westlaw Patron Access stations here at the library. Other databases (as well as Lexis or Westlaw titles outside of the Public Access accounts) can be searched for you by our librarians. Sometimes titles that come up in the portal might not be part of Jenkins’ collection. Usually this occurs when there is a coverage issue in one of the electronic databases. For example, a particular title might be available in full text for very recent volumes, but only as an abstract for older issues. If your title is only available as an abstract, we can still help you locate and obtain the full text. We have a wonderful Interlibrary Loan Department with staff that work hard to obtain material as quickly as possible. So search away on the portal, and let us know if there is anything we can do to help you get what you need.
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Submitted by: Jenny Hohenstein, Reference/Electronic Services Librarian
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September 11, 2008
| Congressional Record |
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Check out the U.S. Congressional Documents on HeinOnline. This is a great new addition to our Member Online Services. Search or browse the Congressional Record (1873-2003) or the Congressional Record Daily (1994-2008) from your desktop. As with all of our Member Online Services, they are accessible 24/7. Wondering what the difference is between the Congressional Record and the Congressional Record Daily? Both contain debates and proceedings from the floor of the U.S. House and Senate. The Daily gets published quicker and is numbered with a pagination system that begins with H for House, S for Senate or E for Extension of Remarks. The Congressional Record, sometimes referred to as the bound or permanent edition, gives legislators a chance to revise or amend remarks. The permanent edition should usually be cited to, unless it is not yet available. HeinOnline is only available to Jenkins members in firms with less than 50 attorneys. |
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Submitted by: Jenny Hohenstein, Reference/Electronic Services Librarian
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September 4, 2008
| U.S. Federal Agency Decisions added to Member Online Services Remote Access |
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Jenkins has added the U.S. Federal Agency Library from HeinOnline to our Member Online Services remote access databases. You can search or browse decisions from the National Labor Relations Board, the Federal Communications Commission, the Board of Immigration Appeals and much more! Many titles have great coverage - the Internal Revenue Cumulative Bulletin, for example, goes all the way back to 1919. HeinOnline is only available to Jenkins members in firms with less than 50 attorneys. |
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Submitted by: Jenny Hohenstein, Reference/Electronic Services Librarian
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June 30, 2008
| Courts Records & Briefs - Jenkins’ Unique Collection |
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Jenkins has an extensive records and briefs collection of Pennsylvania Appellate Courts: Supreme, Superior, and Commonwealth, and records and briefs of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and US Supreme Court. There are many valuable components of records and briefs that would draw the attention of both legal and non-legal researchers. In addition to being an excellent example of how to prepare an appellate brief, they also contain a table of citations or authorities that affords the researcher relevant cases on a specific point of law. The appellate record may be a rich resource if you looking for copies of the complaint, answer, preliminary objections, transcript of oral testimony, lower court opinion, or other items. The Jenkins’ Courts Records & Briefs collection is large and growing. It is also noteworthy in the sense that the researcher has access to an index to documents published between 1832 and the present. The index is available via Internet at: www.jenkinslaw.org/crb/index.php. There are some documents that are not yet included in Jenkins’ electronic index. If you cannot find a needed document, do not hesitate to email or to call Jenkins’ Reference. The law librarians may be able to locate it for you. More information on how to access records and briefs may be found on the Court Records & Briefs Guide, available at: www.jenkinslaw.org/crb/guide/. |
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Submitted by: Malgorzata Pawska, Web Content Coordinator
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June 24, 2008
| Spending Long Hours Commuting? |
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If your answer is yes, fill this time by listening to PBI workshops available on CD @ Jenkins. Our recent acquisitions in this area include: Autism and education [sound recording] ——————————– General practitioners’ update 2007 [sound recording] [Mechanicsburg, Pa.] : Pennsylvania Bar Institute, [2007] Practice of law — Pennsylvania ——————————– Pitfalls of family law [sound recording] : malpractice and/or ethical dilemma? ——————————– The stem cell debate [sound recording] : the intersection of law, religion and bioethics [Mechanicsburg, Pa.] : Pennsylvania Bar Institute, [2006] Stem cells — Research — Law and legislation ——————————– Trial of a medical malpractice case [sound recording] [Mechanicsburg, Pa.] : Pennsylvania Bar Institute, [2007] Physicians — Malpractice — Pennsylvania — Trial practice The best way to keep up with Jenkins’ current Acquisitions is by visiting our New Acquisitions page. To find titles related to your area of specialty, use the JAC Advanced Search, enter your subject terms, then use the Material type to limit to Audio. You can also subscribe to our weekly “New for You: Jenkins’ Collection Alert” by loging to My JAC and following steps: For further assistance feel free to contact our Information & Research Department at research@jenkinslaw.org or call 215.574.1505. |
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Submitted by: Katrina Piechnik, Head of Technical Services
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