UHLC Nota Bene

Blogging can be a lonely business, especially when the audience is unknown or undetermined. A blogger tries her or his best to write something meaningful (at least to a certain group of people), yet one may never know how the audience reacts. The bloggers at Nota Bene surely have our moments of uncertainty. But judging from the numbers, 2011 has been a very encouraging year. Below are some figures from Blogger’s statistics: Total pageviews since the beginning, as of 7 p.m., 12/31/2011: 22,099 Total pageviews of 2011, as of 7 p.m., 12/31/2011: 17,633 Total posts in 2011: 103 Total bloggers in 2011: 8 Top ten viewing countries: U.S., Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Canada, Latvia, Netherlands, and Australia. As the person starting this blog, I first want to thank my fellow bloggers—reference and research librarians in the University of Houston O’Quinn Law Library. They are great colleagues in many ways. The second entity I should give thanks is Blogger.com, which h

On this day in 1584 noted English jurist and intellectual John Selden was born. In his day-- and for a long time afterward-- Selden was considered by none other than John Milton as “the chief of learned men reputed in this land.” What did John Selden do and why does his name sound vaguely familiar? Selden, after much education, was called to the bar in 1612. “At bar he enjoyed a high reputation as a giver of opinions, and was called in in cases requiring special learning. But a large legal practice was not the sum of his ambition, nor was contented to be a mere lawyer.” In fact Selden pursued other careers; that of intellectual and as a Member of Parliament. In 1614 he wrote the book Titles of Honor which concerned itself with the history of titles, “. . .the rotes and insignia of appropriate to each, of the ceremonies of investiture, and so on.” He was first elected to the House of Commons in 1621 and served off and on for many years. These were turbulent times; Selden served d

On this day in legal history the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights, were ratified and made the law of the land. We should consider ourselves lucky that we have a Bill of Rights because the path which these amendments strode was a rocky one. While the Constitution originally came with limitations on the new federal government, there were framers who felt the document did not go far enough to protect individuals. Delegate George Mason, who had drafted Virginia’s Declaration of Rights desired that “the plan had been prefaced with a bill of rights. . .[It] would give great quiet to the people.” Those who supported ratification of the new constitution downplayed the need for it as Alexander Hamilton did in the Federalist Papers. They felt that since Congress could only exert enumerated powers there was no need for a bill of rights; a bill of rights would only constrain national powers. A majority of states had their own bills of rights and the f

A recent announcement on the Google Scholar Blog indicates that the company has now made Google Scholar Citations available for all. Google Scholar Citations is a free tool that allows authors to track citations to their articles and compute citation metrics. It provides overall citation information as well as information about citations in the last five years. Once you provide your name and affiliation, Google Scholar will search for possible articles authored by you. False hits can be deleted easily from the list, while omitted articles can be added as well. In addition, multiple versions of the same article can be merged into one listing. You can also set up an alert to receive an email when a newly published article cites one of your articles. Initially profiles are private, but you can choose to make your information available to the public. Public profiles can be searched, allowing you to locate information about co-authors and other scholars in your area of expertise. To le

As focus on the 2012 election gains momentum, there is also growing attention on the issue of voter identification laws. These laws require people to show ID, or sometimes photo ID, before they are allowed to vote at the polls. There is a great deal of debate about this issue as some argue that these measures are meant to limit the right to vote for particular groups, while others maintain that these laws are necessary to curb voter fraud. In the last few years, voter ID laws have been enacted or introduced in a growing number of states, including Texas. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures website, in 2011 only three states (Oregon, Vermont, and Wyoming) did not have voter ID laws or consider voter ID legislation. For information about specific requirements in each state, see the map and chart provided by the National Conference of State Legislatures website. The Brennan Center for Justice has also put together a report detailing the large number of vot

Today marks ten years since the fall of Enron . The law library has a number of sources for those are interested in the collapse itself as well as the investigations and reforms that followed. The following list includes some of those sources: After Enron: Lessons for Public Policy, 2005 ( HF5658.A24 2005 ). Conspiracy of Fools: a True Story ( HD9502.U54E5736 2005 ) Enron and other Corporate Fiascos: The Corporate Scandal Reader ( KF1422.E57 2009 ) Enron: The Legal Issues ( KF1449.A75.E57 2002 ) Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (DVD) ( HD2741.E57 2005 ) The Sarbanes-Oxley Deskbook ( KF1446.A31 2002B67 ) The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron ( HD9502.U54E5763 2003 ) Resisting Corporate Corruption Lessons in Practical Ethics from the Enron Wreckage ( E-book ) The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 , which passed Congress in response to Enron is available along with amendments and legislative history documents on the GPO's Federal Digital Syst

The Texas Bar Journal is reporting that the Texas State Bar now has its own app for attorneys available for both Android and Apple devices including phones and tablets as well as a web app for those using other devices. The App, created by the Computer & Technology section of the Texas State Bar , provides access to dozens of Texas and Federal statutes, codes, and rules as well as free case law from Google Scholar . There are search and e-mail options available to users who can also access materials without an internet connection, unless using the web app . The app is free for members of the Computer & Technology section and currently requires a section username (bar number) and password for access. The app can be downloaded from the Android market and Itunes , and those using the web app only need to login directly from their mobile devices.

On the Supreme Court of Texas Blog , Don Cruse, inspired by a presentation by Robert Dubose given at the Austin Bar Civil Appellate Lunch on the topic "Can I Cite Wikipedia ? The Ethics of Citing Online Information on Appeal", recently wrote a posting entitled "How to Cite to Wikipedia in Appellate Briefs" . One thing I especially liked about this posting was that Mr. Cruse correctly encourages his readers to use the Permalink that Wikipedia provides for each version of an article so the reader can link directly to the exact version of the article the author relied upon rather than the most current version one receives when using the generic article URL, if they're going to cite to Wikipedia. Unfortunately, he doesn't discourage his readers from actually citing to Wikipedia in briefs or discuss when citing to Wikipedia in briefs might be appropriate, nor does he actually explain where Mr. Dubose stands on this issue. But that's not exactly why I'm w

This week in legal history was a big one for the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, aka Justinian the Great. On November 16,534 he published his Codex Justinianus , a landmark legal codification and on November 14, 565 he died after a reign of 38 years. Justinian I was the emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 527 to 565. While we think of it as the Byzantine Empire, Justinian thought of it as the Roman Empire since Constantinople had been the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire at the time that the Western Roman Empire was over-thrown by the Visigoths in 410. In fact, Justinian was the last emperor who spoke Latin. After Justinian, the empire spoke Greek. Justinian is rightly known as Justinian the Great. He was the emperor who re-conquered the lost provinces in the West-- regaining North Africa and Italy-- that had fallen under the control of Visigoths and Ostrogoths. After rioting destroyed the Hagia Sophia, Justinian rebuilt it bigger than it had been before and making it the ce