Judge Condemns Intelligent Design as "Breathtaking Inanity"

Dear Diary,

Judge Says 'Intelligent Design' Is Not Science

He calls a school board's effort to teach it as an alternative to evolution unconstitutional.

A federal judge, saying "intelligent design" is "an interesting theological argument, but … not science," ruled Tuesday that a school board violated the Constitution by compelling biology teachers to present the concept as an alternative to evolution.

The ruling came after U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III heard 21 days of testimony in a closely watched trial that pitted a group of parents against the school board in the town of Dover, Pa. In October 2004, the board had required school officials to read a statement to ninth-graders declaring that Charles Darwin's ideas on evolution were "a theory … not a fact," and that "gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence."

"Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view," the statement said.

Jones, a church-going conservative who was appointed to the federal bench by President Bush in 2002, said the statement was clearly designed to insert religious teachings into the classroom. He used much of his 139-page ruling to dissect arguments made for intelligent design.

Legal experts described the ruling as a sharp defeat for the intelligent design movement — one likely to have considerable influence with other judges, although it is only legally binding in one area of Pennsylvania.

The "overwhelming evidence" has established that intelligent design "is a religious view, a mere relabeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory," Jones wrote. Public remarks by school board members, he said, made clear that they adopted the statement to advance specific religious views. Testimony at the trial included remarks from a board meeting, where one of the backers of the intelligent design statement "said words to the effect of '2,000 years ago someone died on a cross. Can't someone take a stand for him?' " the judge noted.

Supporters of intelligent design argue that biological systems are so complex that they could not have arisen by a series of random changes. The complexity of life implies an intelligent designer, they say. Most of the movement's spokesmen take care not to publicly say whether the designer they have in mind is equivalent to the God in the Bible. On that basis, they argue that their concept is scientific, not religious.

But Jones said the concept was inescapably religious."Although proponents of the [intelligent design movement] occasionally suggest that the designer could be a space alien or a time-traveling cell biologist, no serious alternative to God as the designer has been proposed by members" of the movement, including expert witnesses who testified, Jones wrote.

Remarks by board members that they had secular purposes in mind — to improve science teaching and to foster an open debate — were a "sham" and a "pretext for the board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom," he wrote.

Anticipating attacks, Jones said his ruling was not the "product of an activist judge."He said school board officials had lied in their testimony and excoriated them for not bothering to understand what intelligent design was about before making their decision.

He rebuked what he called the "breathtaking inanity of the board's decision."

"This case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case" on intelligent design, he wrote.

The school district will not appeal the ruling, said Patricia Dapp, who was elected to the Dover board this year. The supporters of intelligent design have been voted out of office, and eight members of the board now oppose the concept, she said. The Dover trial, in which Jones heard testimony from leading advocates of intelligent design as well as experts on evolutionary theory, was one of several battlegrounds for intelligent design in the last year.

In January, a U.S. district judge in Georgia ruled that the school system in Cobb County, near Atlanta, had violated the Constitution by requiring stickers to be placed on biology textbooks casting doubt on the theory of evolution.This month, a federal appeals court in Atlanta considered arguments in the case, with at least one judge expressing doubts about the lower court ruling.

In Kansas, the state Board of Education has changed the definition of science to permit supernatural explanations.That reliance on the supernatural was key to Jones' rejection of the Dover school board's position.Intelligent design arguments "may be true, a proposition on which this court takes no position," he wrote, but it "is not science." "The centuries-old ground rules of science" make clear that a scientific theory must rely solely on natural explanations that can be tested, he wrote. That portion of the decision won praise from Kenneth R. Miller, a biology professor at Brown University in Providence, R.I. He was the lead expert witness for the parents in the case and is the author of biology textbooks used in college and high school classrooms. Miller testified that it was crucial that scientific propositions be able to be tested. To illustrate his point, Miller, an avid fan of the Boston Red Sox, testified that when his team beat the New York Yankees in the 2004 baseball playoffs, a fan might have believed "God was tired of [Yankee owner] George Steinbrenner and wanted to see the Red Sox win." "In my part of the country, you'd be surprised how many people think that's a perfectly reasonable explanation for what happened last year. And you know what? It might be true. But it certainly is not science … and it's certainly not something we can test," Miller said.

Supporters of intelligent design denounced Jones' ruling along the lines the judge had predicted."The Dover decision is an attempt by an activist federal judge to stop the spread of a scientific idea … and it won't work," said John West, associate director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute. The institute, based in Seattle, is a major backer of the intelligent design movement."Anyone who thinks a court ruling is going to kill off interest in intelligent design is living in another world," West said.Richard Thompson of the Thomas More Law Center, the lead lawyer for the school board members, called the ruling an "ad hominem attack on scientists who happen to believe in God.""The founders of this country would be astonished at the thought that this simple curriculum change [was] in violation of the Constitution that they drafted," he said.

But Lee Strang, a constitutional law professor at Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, Mich., which advocates a greater role for religion in public life, said that given Supreme Court precedents and the evidence that Dover school board members had religious goals in mind, Jones' ruling was inevitable.The Supreme Court in 1987 barred the teaching in public schools of what backers called creation science. The concept of intelligent design emerged after that ruling, Jones noted in his ruling.

Douglas Laycock of the University of Texas School of Law said the ruling would probably have considerable influence because it came after a trial in which "both sides brought in their top guns" to testify. The judge's detailed ruling "will be quite persuasive to other judges and lawyers thinking about provoking a similar case elsewhere," he said.

Marci Hamilton, a professor at Cardozo School of Law in New York, who is an expert on religious freedom issues, agreed that the ruling could have broad ramifications."These are tough times to rule against a religious group," Hamilton said. "This decision sends a message to judges that it is not anti-religious to find things like intelligent design unconstitutional."

Eric Rothschild, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, called the ruling "a real vindication of the courage [the parents] showed and the position they took."The testimony, he said, had demonstrated that "the emperor had no clothes. The judge concluded that intelligent design had no scientific merit" and could not "uncouple itself from religion."

Dear Diary,

Who knew?

There is a Santa Claus, Indiana!

Santa Claus is located just 7 miles south of Interstate 64 in Southern Indiana.

According to legend, this small community, originally founded by German immigrants in the late 1840s, got its name on Christmas Eve in 1852. The local residents and leaders had been struggling quite some time to come up with an acceptable name for their town. Most of the community was present for the last town meeting of the year, held right after Christmas Eve services in the local church. They were hoping to finally determine a name for their town, when suddenly the wind blew the church doors open and mysterious sleigh bells were heard outside. The children yelled excitedly, “It’s Santa Claus!” At last! They finally had the perfect name for the town.

In the 1940's, Industrialist Louis J. Koch, built the World’s first theme park in the town of Santa Claus. Koch loved holidays and wanted children who visited the town to be able to see that this was truly Santa's home. The theme park, originally named Santa Claus Land, has experienced tremendous growth over the years and is well-known today as Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari.
Santa Claus is the only town in the world with the Santa Claus name that has a post office. You will find quite a few other Christmas-themed business and street names throughout the town - everything from Christmas Lake Village and Kringle Place to Santa’s Lodge, Holiday Foods and Ho Ho Ho Video. Each year, this small town hosts an old-fashioned Christmas in Santa Claus celebration and a 14-mile Festival of Lights.
http://www.traveleze.com/travel_planning/santaclaus.html

Torture is Morally Necessary?

Dear Diary,
according to some IT is.

"The Truth about Torture It's time to be honest about doing terrible things. "
by Charles Krauthammer 12/05/2005

DURING THE LAST FEW WEEKS in Washington the pieties about torture have lain so thick in the air that it has been impossible to have a reasoned discussion. The McCain amendment that would ban "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment of any prisoner by any agent of the United States sailed through the Senate by a vote of 90-9. The Washington establishment remains stunned that nine such retrograde, morally inert persons--let alone senators--could be found in this noble capital.

Now, John McCain has great moral authority on this issue, having heroically borne torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese. McCain has made fine arguments in defense of his position. And McCain is acting out of the deep and honorable conviction that what he is proposing is not only right but is in the best interest of the United States. His position deserves respect. But that does not mean, as seems to be the assumption in Washington today, that a critical analysis of his "no torture, ever" policy is beyond the pale.

Let's begin with a few analytic distinctions. For the purpose of torture and prisoner maltreatment, there are three kinds of war prisoners:

First, there is the ordinary soldier caught on the field of battle. There is no question that he is entitled to humane treatment. Indeed, we have no right to disturb a hair on his head. His detention has but a single purpose: to keep him hors de combat. The proof of that proposition is that if there were a better way to keep him off the battlefield that did not require his detention, we would let him go. Indeed, during one year of the Civil War, the two sides did try an alternative. They mutually "paroled" captured enemy soldiers, i.e., released them to return home on the pledge that they would not take up arms again. (The experiment failed for a foreseeable reason: cheating. Grant found that some paroled Confederates had reenlisted.)

Because the only purpose of detention in these circumstances is to prevent the prisoner from becoming a combatant again, he is entitled to all the protections and dignity of an ordinary domestic prisoner--indeed, more privileges, because, unlike the domestic prisoner, he has committed no crime. He merely had the misfortune to enlist on the other side of a legitimate war. He is therefore entitled to many of the privileges enjoyed by an ordinary citizen--the right to send correspondence, to engage in athletic activity and intellectual pursuits, to receive allowances from relatives--except, of course, for the freedom to leave the prison.

Second, there is the captured terrorist. A terrorist is by profession, indeed by definition, an unlawful combatant: He lives outside the laws of war because he does not wear a uniform, he hides among civilians, and he deliberately targets innocents. He is entitled to no protections whatsoever. People seem to think that the postwar Geneva Conventions were written only to protect detainees. In fact, their deeper purpose was to provide a deterrent to the kind of barbaric treatment of civilians that had become so horribly apparent during the first half of the 20th century, and in particular, during the Second World War. The idea was to deter the abuse of civilians by promising combatants who treated noncombatants well that they themselves would be treated according to a code of dignity if captured--and, crucially, that they would be denied the protections of that code if they broke the laws of war and abused civilians themselves.

Breaking the laws of war and abusing civilians are what, to understate the matter vastly, terrorists do for a living. They are entitled, therefore, to nothing. Anyone who blows up a car bomb in a market deserves to spend the rest of his life roasting on a spit over an open fire. But we don't do that because we do not descend to the level of our enemy. We don't do that because, unlike him, we are civilized. Even though terrorists are entitled to no humane treatment, we give it to them because it is in our nature as a moral and humane people. And when on rare occasions we fail to do that, as has occurred in several of the fronts of the war on terror, we are duly disgraced.

The norm, however, is how the majority of prisoners at Guantanamo have been treated. We give them three meals a day, superior medical care, and provision to pray five times a day. Our scrupulousness extends even to providing them with their own Korans, which is the only reason alleged abuses of the Koran at Guantanamo ever became an issue. That we should have provided those who kill innocents in the name of Islam with precisely the document that inspires their barbarism is a sign of the absurd lengths to which we often go in extending undeserved humanity to terrorist prisoners.

Third, there is the terrorist with information. Here the issue of torture gets complicated and the easy pieties don't so easily apply. Let's take the textbook case. Ethics 101: A terrorist has planted a nuclear bomb in New York City. It will go off in one hour. A million people will die. You capture the terrorist. He knows where it is. He's not talking.
Question: If you have the slightest belief that hanging this man by his thumbs will get you the information to save a million people, are you permitted to do it?
Now, on most issues regarding torture, I confess tentativeness and uncertainty. But on this issue, there can be no uncertainty: Not only is it permissible to hang this miscreant by his thumbs. It is a moral duty.

Yes, you say, but that's an extreme and very hypothetical case. Well, not as hypothetical as you think. Sure, the (nuclear) scale is hypothetical, but in the age of the car-and suicide-bomber, terrorists are often captured who have just set a car bomb to go off or sent a suicide bomber out to a coffee shop, and you only have minutes to find out where the attack is to take place. This "hypothetical" is common enough that the Israelis have a term for precisely that situation: the ticking time bomb problem.

And even if the example I gave were entirely hypothetical, the conclusion--yes, in this case even torture is permissible--is telling because it establishes the principle: Torture is not always impermissible. However rare the cases, there are circumstances in which, by any rational moral calculus, torture not only would be permissible but would be required (to acquire life-saving information). And once you've established the principle, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, all that's left to haggle about is the price. In the case of torture, that means that the argument is not whether torture is ever permissible, but when--i.e., under what obviously stringent circumstances: how big, how imminent, how preventable the ticking time bomb.

That is why the McCain amendment, which by mandating "torture never" refuses even to recognize the legitimacy of any moral calculus, cannot be right. There must be exceptions. The real argument should be over what constitutes a legitimate exception. Click here for the remainder of this article http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/400rhqav.asp
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Amnesty seeks UK probe into CIA flights
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F70C4486-A501-4F69-9695-59F92AEB8226.htm
Amnesty International says Britain allowed the CIA to operate flights on its territory to transport terrorism detainees illegally and demanded that the government launch an investigation.

"The UK has allowed these aircraft to land, re-fuel and take off from their territory," the human rights group's regional director Claudio Cordone said in a statement on Thursday.

"The UK government must launch an immediate, thorough and independent investigation into mounting evidence that its territory has been used to assist in unlawfully transporting detainees to countries where they may face "disappearance", torture or other ill-treatment," he added.
The British government said on Monday it had no evidence that the current US administration had been transporting terrorism suspects through British airports.

Cordone said: "Whether the US is sending people to other countries to be tortured, or snatching them in other countries to be abused in Guantanamo, international law prohibits the UK, or any other state, from aiding or abetting them."

CIA prisons
Human rights groups accuse the CIA of running secret prisons in eastern Europe and covertly transporting detainees -a practice known as "extraordinary rendition". They say incommunicado detention often leads to torture.

"The UK government must launch an immediate investigation into mounting evidence that its territory has been used to assist in unlawfully transporting detainees"Amnesty International statementThe Amnesty statement named several men it said had been abducted by the CIA and flown to Jordan and Egypt as part of the US campaign of "extraordinary rendition".

In each case a Gulfstream V, registration N379P, had stopped to refuel at Prestwick airport in Scotland on its way back to the United States after dropping off its passengers, it said. It cited the case of Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed who it said was seen being bundled aboard the CIA plane by masked men in Karachi on 23 October, 2001. The plane then flew to Jordan and the following day, now without its passenger, it flew to Prestwick and then on to Dulles International airport near Washington.

Amnesty demanded that the United States reveal Mohammed's whereabouts. UK stop-overAmnesty said that on 12 January, 2002, Indonesian security officials saw Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni being put on the plane in Jakarta and flown to Cairo. Once again the plane stopped in Prestwick to refuel after depositing its passenger.

It said Iqbal Madni had since been returned to US jurisdiction and was now a detainee in Guantanamo Bay where fellow detainees had said he was on the verge of a breakdown.
Amnesty cited a third case where a Swedish investigation has already revealed that US security officials took Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed al-Zari from Sweden to Cairo for torture.
In total, Gulfstream N379P had been logged between 2001 and 2005 making at least 78 stopovers at British airports while en route to or from destinations such as Baku, Dubai, Cyprus, Karachi, Qatar, Riyadh, Tashkent, and Warsaw, Amnesty said.

Institutional Repository (IR) / Open Access Archives

Dear Diary,

I met with a few library faculty and other department faculty to give them a courtesy overview of our project.

The head of the IR committee and I met with the law school professor who specializes in Copyright. We learned a lot about exclusive rights to copy and distribute, difference in pre & post-1922 materials, and a few exceptions, such as photographs of pre-1922 works which would ordinarily be in the public domain.

We realized the amount of work involved in tracking down individual Copyright Agreements for contributing individuals. We understand better the focused, yet extensive audience that already exists for law faculty. Law faculty can be pre-published and track how many times their pre-prints have been viewed with SSRN. The law faculty specifically already has many of the conveniences we would offer with our IR. So at first glance it would appear that the benefits to contribute to our IR would be neglible. So we need to work to find a way to make it more appealing. I loved the explanation given: "Lawyers are cautious and risk adverse." Aren't we all?

So the next portion is to create a website for our IR project. I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel so these are some of the sample sites I plan to suggest we model our page after and/or link directly to:

FAQs:
https://drum.umd.edu/dspace/help/FAQs.jsp
http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/idea/faq.html
http://libweb.uoregon.edu/catdept/irg/SB_FAQ.html

Glossary:
http://library.osu.edu/events/cs/techseminar04/glossary/repos.html

Webliography & Sample Repositories:
http://www.bc.edu/libraries/about/scholcomm/s-repositories/#examples

RoMEO:
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/romeo/index.html

Virtue Ethics

Dear Diary,

Today the law school hosted a fascinating speaker on the topic of Virtue Ethics. The speaker incorporated wisdom from Aristotle:

He looked to both education through reason and education through habit.

By the latter he meant learning by doing -

Anything that we have to learn to do we learn by the actual doing of it...

We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate ones, brave by doing brave ones.

(Aristotle Niconachean Ethics, Book II, p.91). Such learning is complemented by reason - and this involves teaching 'the causes of things'. We can see here a connection with more recent theorists that have emphasized experience, reflection and connecting to theories.

The speaker asked if lawyers promote virtues when they persuade jurors. He also said that virtues are best used as a self evaluative tool rather than an external judgment weapon.

Churches File Bankruptcy to Escape Lawsuits

Dear Diary,

Today's discussion centered around bankruptcy as a solution to strain on church budgets, but also discussed the entanglement of judicial system with the church. This article discusses some of the issues raised today:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/bankrupt/2004-07-28-Beaudette-ChurchesWeigh.htm

Reception with the Provost & President

Dear Diary,

I attended a wonderful reception for Minority Faculty in the Press Box at the Stadium.

The Teacher is Also the Student

Dear Diary,

In preparing for the Legal Research Final this afternoon, in the midst of answering an onslaught of reference questions from the 1L (first year law students), it hit me that...I have pretty much learned along with them. In the beginning I had the privilege to work through the assignments at least 1 week before them, but without the benefit of an accompanying lecture to explain the assignments. But at least when they came to me for answers, I had already struggled through and the answer was burned into my brain.

Now, however, we are in the same boat. We have the same exposure to the information and it encourages me that I have been answering their questions in a rapid-fire manner, from memory. That means I have finally begun to grasp these concepts on a deeper level and my comprehension has moved from one of simply being able to answer those specific questions on the weekly assignments to my ability to speak intelligently about the subject matter and the overall process and reasoning behind the complex methods.

We'll see how it goes this afternoon. But either way, for a gal with no prior law school experience, I am doing a darn good job if I do say so myself.

Tuskegee Airmen Visit Campus for Veterans Day

Dear Diary,

Army, Navy and Air Force ROTC units will hold a series of ceremonies Thursday and Friday (Nov. 10 and 11) to mark Veterans Day.
Tuskegee Airmen ─
U. S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Lucius Theus
Lt. Cols. Alexander Jefferson
Washington Ross ─
will speak at 3 p.m. Friday in the Hesburgh Library’s Carey Auditorium.

The name Tuskegee Airmen refers to those involved in the so-called “Tuskegee Experiment,” the Army Air Corps World War II program to train African-Americans to fly and man combat aircraft. The airmen overcame segregation and prejudice to become one of the most highly respected fighter groups of World War II. They never lost a bomber to enemy fighters while serving as an escort fighter wing during the war and their achievements paved the way for full integration of the U.S. military.

Theus was on active military duty for more than 36 years and moved through the ranks from a private in the Army Air Corps to become the commanding general of the Air Force Accounting and Finance Center. He was the first African-American to be promoted to general and currently is the principal director and chief operating officer of the Wellness Group.

Jefferson flew in both France and Italy during World War II, completing 18 long-range escort missions for B-17 and B-24 bombers, before being shot down three days before the invasion of France. He spent nine months in German POW camps before being liberated by American forces. Following the war, he became an elementary school teacher in Detroit and retired from education as an assistant principal.
Ross flew 63 sorties and missions during the war and served in the U. S. Air Force Reserves for 25 years. In his civilian life, he was a teacher and department head with the Detroit Board of Education for 25 years. http://newsinfo.nd.edu/content.cfm?topicid=14442

For more information:
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/prewwii/ta.htm

http://tuskegeeairmen.org/pages/16/index.htm

http://www.nps.gov/tuai/

******************************* **********************************

Broken Landscape Library Project

Dear Diary,

I am a firm believer in harnessing the power of information to ignite action. There is an article in American Libraries that highlights such an instance. The Louisville Free Public Library has created a way to bring attention to the problem of AIDS in Africa with an exhibit focused on "Broken Landscapes," click here for Broken Landscapes photo gallery and information: http://www.networkphotographers.com/aidsinafrica/aidsinafrica.html

Do Tax Exemptions for Religious Organizations Violate the First Amendment

Dear Diary,

Today I finally found answers to a complex request, concerning the "public benefit" that results from "Tax exempt" status of religious organizations. (Cite as: 22 Cumb. L. Rev. 521)

INTRODUCTION

One commentator has written that "[i]t is easier to admire the motives for [a religious tax] exemption than to justify it by any sound argument." [FN1] Nonetheless, tax exemptions for religious institutions are a matter of longstanding historical practice despite the current controversy. The matter is often debated in the United States, at both federal and state levels, due to a lack of clear consensus regarding the proper basis for such tax exemptions in this country.

One basis for the exemption is due regard for tradition and respect for the test of time as evidenced in history. However, as one commentator laments, a "current, comprehensive history of tax exemption in the West remains sorely needed." [FN2] Other bases for the exemption may be found in the United States Constitution. Yet another basis might be theological. " S ome church people have expressed uneasiness with ... a pragmatic, utilitarian sort of rationale for tax exemption of churches .. feeling that the churches' mandate must be biblical and theological rather than legal and sociological." [FN3] A contrary perspective holds that:

[T]ax exemption is not a biblical or theological precept; the churches will attempt to preach and live the Gospel of Christ whether taxed or not, and have done so in many lands under many diverse regimes throughout the centuries, and they will continue to do so. Tax exemption is a legal and sociological *522 arrangement, and the only appropriate rationale for it is pragmatic, utilitarian, prudential. Furthermore, this argument is addressed not just to churches and those who accept their biblical and theological mandate, but it is designed to be useful to them in explaining their situation to those who do not necessarily accept that mandate. Therefore, it must be based on data and assumptions that are available to the wider community and which are a common grist for civic discourse. [FN4]

Part I reviews tax exemptions for religious institutions in various historical settings. [FN5] Part II of this article analyzes Supreme Court tax exemption jurisprudence relative to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Part III discusses the Court's treatment of religious tax exemptions in the context of the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause. Part IV examines religious tax exemptions in relation to the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.

For more information http://www.acluprocon.org/SupCtCases/193Walz.html.

Eye Wide Shut

Dear Diary,

My Bibliographic Essay on "Seldom Explored Minority Stories"
was published, click on the hyperlink below:

http://www.ala.org/ala/diversity/versed/versedbackissues/november2005ab/nov05.htm

Who Knew Water is Alcohol?

Dear Diary,

Neither database was working properly so my Chemistry co-facilitator reviewed chemistry concepts with me.
Naming Straight Chain Alkanes http://www.ausetute.com.au/namsanes.html. We also collaborated on ways to include Active Learning Techniques into our sessions. http://www.wpbschoolhouse.btinternet.co.uk/page06/DFalcether.htm

I'm Just a Bill

Dear Diary,

Today's Legal Research class was treated to the long awaited School House Rock clip to help explain the life cycle of Laws http://www.school-house-rock.com/Bill.html

The class ended with a poem. I loved it as did the students. Nice transition for the first week back after fall break.

Talk About Multi-Tasking

Dear Diary,

Monday I attended a libray tour and was struck by the fact that there are entire departments dedicated to single tasks that I did as a group of tasks. Naturally, I understand why, because I was one of two librarians in a relatively small library, but it demonstrated to me that I have a wide range of skills, as a result of being a semi-solo librarian. For example, I did collection development, acquisitions, weeding and de-accessioning, "Tattle-Taping" meaning putting the security strips in the materials, I put Mylar on the dust jackets, I cataloged the materials (print and audiovisual), I claimed missing materials, I shifted the shelves (shelf maintenance), I did reference, bibliographic instruction, reserves and ILL requests. All of the above are separate departments in the main library (with the exception of Government Docs). Wow! I never thought about it.

Bonus: Me and my co-resident were asked to co-chair the Library Committee for the Department of Africana Studies. Yippee! I created a Collection Development Policy and ran it by the team, before I begin my search for resources, I need to have a clear goal.

BONUS: My 4th article has been accepted for publication by the American Library Association's Versed. This one is my Bibliographic Essay that I spent the absolute most time on, it is 24 pages "short."

And I was notified of the following nomination:

"Congratulations! The American Library Association's Nominating Committee has selected you as a candidate for Councilor-at-Large in the 2006 election. You were selected from a pool of many well-qualified potential candidates. Your nomination indicates the high regard in which your peers hold you."

Jane May Have 2 Mommies BUT African-Americans Are Even More Incredible!

Dear Diary,

Interesting reference request to locate the decisions of cases cited in a Washington Times article, titled "Same-sex parent rulings spark debate in California." http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050823-105215-5319r.htm

1) Reversed 16 Cal. Rptr. 3d 123
2)Reversed 13 Cal. Rptr. 3d 136
3)Reversed 13 Cal. Rptr. 3d 494

I attended an inspiring speech by 2 quite exceptional African-American Judges, the Honorable Judge Anne Williams http://www.nd.edu/~lawvisit/reflections_alumni.html, and the Honorable Judge George N. Leighton.

Judge Williams spoke of her foundation Just the Beginning http://www.jtbf.org/.

Judge Leighton spoke of having a post office named after him, a first of its kind occurrence http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/07-05/07-24-05/a04lo505.htm and http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r109:H04MY5-0029: and http://www.gop.gov/Committeecentral/bills/hr1542.asp

Background
Judge Leighton was born George Neves Leitao to Cape Verde immigrants Anna Silva Garcia and Antonio Neves Leitao, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, on October 22, 1912. He attended grade school in New Bedford and on Cape Cod until he left the seventh grade to take a job on an oil tanker. But, he continued his education by reading books, attending night schools, and studying in Works Progress Administration classes. He went on to attend Howard University, after winning an essay contest, without EVER ATTENDING High School or completing Grade School!.

He worked an assortment of menial jobs and graduating with a degree from the College of Liberal Arts in 1940, magna cum laude. In September, 1940, he enrolled in the Harvard University School of Law, but his studies were interrupted by military service in World War II. He was awarded the Bronze Star for service during World War II. He received his LL.B. degree from Harvard in November of 1946.After graduation, Judge Leighton established a highly successful law practice in Chicago. He started his judicial career as a Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, serving from 1964 to 1969; then he served as a Judge of the Appellate Court, First District from 1969 to 1976. In 1976, President Ford appointed Judge Leighton to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois where he served until 1987 when he became Counsel to the Chicago law firm of Earl L. Neal & Associates.

Among his many accomplishments and honors, Judge Leighton was the first African-American lawyer to sit on the Board of Managers of the Chicago Bar Association, the first African-American judge to serve as a Chancellor in the Circuit Court of Cook County, and the first African-American judge to sit on the Illinois Appellate Court. Additionally, Judge Leighton has been a professor of law at the John Marshall Law School for twenty-seven years.

Look at Me

Dear Diary,

Let's play a game called Find the Resident! http://www.aallnet.org/caucus/bllc/
Hint: See the first photo.

What a fantastic conference! I learned about this great charitable concept, Reader to Reader on the listserv http://www.readertoreader.org/

Today I attended a training session, "ND Millennials: Characteristics to Instructional Success".

"I was born after the year 1982. I need structure and technology in myenvironment. Multi-tasking is a part of my life. Honest.I really can comprehend what you are saying while also sending a textmessage to my friend."
"I can run several IM conversations at the same time all while listening to MP3s on my PC as well as surf the web while adding content to my homework projects and assignments." Just who am I? I am a Millenial. I'm part of the generation known as Millenials.

"Meet the Gamers" http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/ca516033.html

I Know You Are But What Am I?

Dear Diary,

"Sticks and Stones...." www.alliancend.com Today is yet another day when students and faculty have been asked to wear their http://www.finebyme.org/index.html

ORANGE T- shirts "Gay? Fine By Me?"

I saw an article after the last time the shirts were worn and wanted to learn more and I did. I applaud the groups courage to fight for equality. I feel a wee bit timid being the only faculty with one in my building. But other faculty are wearing them. Some faculty have come up and inquired about the shirt because they were unaware that it was not JUST for students. I believe the mystery surrounding the shirts and the events have a lot to do with the fact that the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) of students, faculty, and staff are not officially recognized by the University.

I feel as a representative of "Diversity" in libraries, it is incumbent upon me to promote diverse beliefs and lifestyles and values. All too often, people confuse my being an African-American as the sum total of my contribution to diversity. Well they are in for a rude awakening. I have some of the most diverse thoughts on most subjects, and am not afraid to vocalize them. Sure wearing the shirt is attracting some stares but actually no more than when I first arrived. If I am this reticent and I am NOT GAY, I cannot begin to imagine how difficult it would be to walk around this campus or this homophobic world, and proclaim that you are gay.

Below is a schedule of events planned. On my Amnesty International listserv the question was posed:

What is your MORALITY Goal for this month?

I guess it is to stand up for equal treatment for all of God's children.

Tuesday, October 11: National Coming Out Day
Come Out of Your Closet!- 4:30 pm, South Quad.
“Come out” of a life-size closet for whatever reason you choose, and learn more about the significance of the act of coming out to members of the GLBTQ community. Also, a table in Lafun (GRC and Standing Committee on G&L Student Needs)

Wednesday, October 12:
8:00pm, Grotto Matthew Shepard Memorial Prayer Service
Prayer service to remember the murder of Matthew Shepard, victim of gay hate crime in 1998
Events Individually Sponsored by One or More of the Following: AllianceND, Progressive Student Alliance, Feminist Voice, Gender Relations Center & Standing Committee for Gay and Lesbian Student Needs, Sociology Dept., & Graduate Student Union.

I am doing a tutorial and assignment on History & Validation of Cases using Westlaw and Lexis.

Third Times a Charm

Dear Diary,

I am back after being off to tend to family business. I have been filling back dated requests, that came in during my absence. I key cite searched 2005 WL 2175166 in Westlaw. And am about to call a probate court to determine the dissolution of an intersting case in the news titled, "Florida Hospital Can Kill Man Via Euthanasia Over Wife's Objections" available at http://www.lifenews.com/bio579.html.

And what a great surprise, Christian Librarian emailed me that they want to publish what will be my 3rd article, "Spiritual Literacy."

I am bursting with excitement! I created a library concept, Spiritual Literacy and am so honored that it was accepted. I plan to include it in my panel discussion when I present at the Indiana Library Federation's Annual Conference in April 2006. The journal is backlogged and will publish it in the quote "very next issue, " April 2006 http://www.acl.org/tcl.cfm

I am so encouraged by having 3 articles actually accepted for publication, in 3 months. It may seem like quite an accomplishment but it doesn't reflect all the rejection emails I have received that can be discouraging at times. But I just recall it is said that Colonel Sanders' idea for KFC was rejected 1009 times. Good grief!
So what I have learned today is:

"Never give up...and never give in!"

Techno-What?

Dear Diary,

I attended the Indiana Library Federation's District 1 Conference in downtown South Bend today. I was impressed by Michael Stephens' Technology presentation http://www.tametheweb.com/

He talked about:
*Techno-Lust, just wanting things because they are cool.
*Techo-Must, things that you need to meet your mission.
Techno-Divorce, being able to disregard technology that does not meet your continuing needs.

He suggests having a Library Garage Sale for example his library sold old computers and there were lines around the corner.http://lishost.org/~sjcpl/

Mr. Stephens discussed IM virtual Reference at his library. http://sjcpl.lib.in.us/asksjcpl/asksjcpl.html

Mr. Stephens discussed Flickr.com as one example of photo-sharing services. Photo-sharing for the Digerati. He discussed how CD-ROMs will die because new wireless streaming video will replace them. He suggested that one day reference will be conducted using Skype http://www.skype.com/ and VoIP http://www.fcc.gov/voip/.

Mr. Stephens discussed how the South Huntington Public Library on Long Island, New York, became one of the first public libraries in the country to loan out iPod shuffles for audiobooks. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA515808.html

...And a Little Child Shall Lead Them

Dear Diary,

Retrieved "general audiences" from the Vatican, in microfilm newspaper L'Osservatore Roma.

My excerpt on "Innocents Lost" was distributed to Amnesty International Members. Tonight we discuss working with UgandaCAN http://www.ugandacan.org/speakout.php

Isaiah 11:6 http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?search=isa%2011:6-9&version=9;

Colloquium Mania & Making Sense of It All

Dear Diary,

Today I will attend a special Friday Colloquium, in addition to our weekly Tuesday meetings. Today's topic is “Similarities and Differences Between Statutory and Scriptural Interpretation”.

Some of the past colloquiums I attended discussed:
Aug. 23rd, The mind manager software
Aug. 30th, The Supreme Court's recent internet filing sharing cases
Sept. 6th, De re and De Dicto
Sept. 13th The D.C. Circuit's Handan military detention case
Sept. 20th The Constitution as a written document.

The next one I plan to attend is Religion and the rise of modern culture.

I remember attending my very first one on Tuesday July 5th, which was only my second day here. And when I left my heart was literally beating faster than it ever has, except when I rode the Whizzer roller coaster at Great America. I was so overly stimulated mentally that it was hard to breathe.

I was so proud that I was working among clearly some of the most brilliant minds and I was apart of this elite group of intellectuals. These colloquiums are just what I had always dreamed an academic environment would be like. A group of intellectuals in a room debating the merits of current hot topic political events. We have had discussions of faculty's trips to Alaska where they point out the waste left behind at abandoned military camps. I recently attended one where we discussed China and how half of all the construction cranes in the world are in China, rapid growth. But there are lighter sides to these discussions as well, for example, "The Colonel" (KFC) is more prevalent than the "Golden Arches" (Mickey D's) in China. No matter what the topic nor how esoteric it may seem, I leave each colloquium feeling more informed and more inspired to stay informed.

Some colloquiums are more heated than others, for instance the one on Detainees was intense. But the speaker explained about the 2 options for dealing with detainees under the Geneva Convention. And the importance of selecting the appropriate noun to describe these prisoners, either "Enemy Combatants" or "Detainees" and the different times that laws of war apply. And the captives' rights under each of those 2 titles. There has been much criticism about America's unchecked executive power, as is explained in this article:
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/guantanamobay-index-eng.

I am summarizing a complex issue, so for an abstract of one of this faculty's writing, click on this link http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=811046

I also helped some LLMs locate materials in the stacks. I did a reference request to locate "Audiences" from the Vatican, requires selecting appropriate "Holy Father," and I searched for articles on LexisNexis.

On a brighter note, all of this citation "stuff" is finally making perfect sense to me now. In fact, I helped a 1L student verify that there were no "Supreme Court" citations even though his answer was marked incorrect. So I showed the resources and the answer marked "incorrect" to the professors. And they changed the answer on their answer key. Phew! I am very proud of myself, and the fact that I felt confident in my answer, even though it clearly differed from what was touted as correct, proves I am becoming much more comfortable with the material.

Interesting article in the Observer...Gay? Fine By Me Tees.
http://www.ndsmcobserver.com/media/paper660/news/2005/09/30/News/Bright.Orange.Shirts.Make.Bold.Statement-1005171.shtml

Another Day in the Life of an Academic Library Resident

Dear Diary...

Today I attended a Law Library Faculty Meeting concerning "Collection Development for electronic resources." The main issues debated involved the necessity of both print and electronic versions of the same journals, taking into consideration usage metrics and cost differentials.

There was discussion of the ever present problem of preservation. I asked if the literature has indicated that libraries have been affected at any time by the "pervasive fear" that "IF" we subscibe to an electronic ONLY resource and 2 years down the line a patron needs an article from the previous year's archives but the company has gone belly up and no one has that vital article...all is lost!

I was informed that this phenomena is much too current to have suffered from such events, but with the palpable fear surrounding it, I guess I can't help but feel it is a tad bit overly dramatic.

I did learn that there is a real concern about the "shelf life" as it were of changing electronic formats, such as DVDs and CD-Roms. Some assume 100 years, max. I located the following excerpt that I found interesting:

"The Digital Problem; the Digital Challenge

Since the mid-1990s, we’ve known that digital preservation is a technical, legal, and organizational problem. Storage media degrade; signals decay; and the configuration of hardware and software required to render and display stored data become obsolete. Try running Microsoft Word 2.0 -- or any pre-1990 software -- on your Windows XP system and let me know how it goes. "
http://www.prelec.stonybrook.edu/lectures/marcumlecture.htm

There was also discussion of archiving websites, I had heard of one previously called the "Way Back Machine"
available at http://www.archive.org/

Academic Procession

Dear Diary,

Since I blew off my graduation ceremony for my MLIS, today was the first time I ever donned academic regalia. The hood color for MLIS is lemon.

On Friday, September 23, the faculty of the University of Notre Dame assembled at the Main Building and marched in Academic Procession to the Joyce Center for the Inaugural Convocation in which the Reverend Father John I. Jenkins C.S.C. will be invested as the seventeenth President of the University. Academic regalia was required.

God...Country...Notre Dame

Dear Diary,

"God...Country...Notre Dame"

That is phrase on the Red T-shirts volunteers wore to collect money for Hurricane Victims. We collected money by passing buckets through the rows during the Michigan State game on Saturday Sept. 17th. I enjoyed it but the collection did not go as planned. Perhaps next time we should have the audience attend the mandatory "rehearsal."

On more than one occasion I had to go running through the stands to retrieve my bucket of money. One excited fan simply put the bucket on the ground and resumed cheering. Then well-meaning people would simply pass my bucket a few rows back to anyone waving money in the air. While that was appreciated, we had been assigned specific rows to cover but no one except us knew that.

So I was just very thankful that while the collection process did not go quite as rehearsed, it was effective, all the same. We reportedly raised $197,871 for Hurricane Katrina victims and that is what it was all about. http://www.ndsmcobserver.com/media/paper660/news/2005/09/21/News/Community.Collects.Over.240000.For.Victims-992386.shtml

3rd Month in the Life of the "World's Busiest Resident"

Dear Diary,

Since today is my first day Blogging...I have included an account of the last few months of my Residency combined. See August for that compilation. My residency began July 1st, 2005.


Thur. 9/1 /05
Tour for undergrad students. Did reference request for Math Library "display" ideas after having lunch with the Supervisor of the Math Librarian. I completed a second request for a new law faculty member. I helped law students with homework.

Fri. 9/2/05
Bronchial Infection, was sent home.

**Sun. 9/4/05
Wrote "Spiritual Literacy" article since there is no literature on this. Creating the library concept from scratch using current literacies as a model to re-write my proposed definition.

Mon. 9/5/05
LABOR DAY HOLIDAY, I came in, voluntarily to complete Legal Research Assignment #3.

Tues. 9/6
Completed 4 Reference Questions for law faculty in London. I emailed my rewritten version of the movie "JAWS" in a library setting. I forwarded my Bibliographic Essay about Seldom Explored Minority Stories.
I learned about Case Reporter & Court Structure and the West’s National Reporter System.

Wed. 9/7
Met with Chemistry Librarian from 9am until Noon. Sent LexisNexis articles on SSN Privatization to patron. Sent LRI (Westlaw) articles on Elder Law. Sent weekly new resources update for the law library website.
Submitted "Spiritual Literacy" article for publication consideration in the Christian Librarian Journal.

Thurs. 9/8/
Trained with law librarian on Westlaw & Lexis. / Helped 1Ls with Assignment #3 and helped a student from Hesburgh Library find Congressional Record in KF 42.R42 in microfilm.

Fri. 9/9
Printed Westlaw (JLR & LRI) articles on the pros and cons of the smoking Ban in St. Joseph County. I used South Bend Public library website under- Community Info - Healthy Initiatives & I printed the actual ordinance which was requested.

BONUS: I learned today that my Reflections of a Resident article is published online!!! http://www.ala.org/ala/diversity/versed/versedbackissues/september2005a/sept05.htm

Mon. 9/12
I attended the new Provost Tom Burish introductory meeting.

I attended an Amnesty Int'l meeting (child soldiers group). I recommended "Innocents Lost" Book & possible Book signing or Video viewing of PBS video. I signed campaign letter to get law in Nigeria against Female abuse, since non-existent.

I was notified today that my 1st Editorial "That's All I Had" is among a few selected to be published in Christian Science Monitor. Excerpt from email from the:

"Your submission on Katrina is being considered for publication in a special Opinion page collection in The Christian Science Monitor. Given the overwhelming number of OpEds we've received, we've decided to pull the best nuggets from a dozen or so, and create a sort of literary collage of reflections in the wake of Katrina. This page is still in the works, and, as most things in journalism, there's no guarantee it'll run as planned until it's headed for the presses."

Tues. 9/13
3 reference requests. (Personal Note) I truly appreciate my supervisor’s confidence in me. It inspires me to try extra hard to meet his expectations. And I really appreciate his helpful hints as to "good places" to look for those requests, since he knows I would have no way of knowing where to look. His management style is totally conducive to allowing me to fulfill my potential. He does not micro manage and that empowers me.

I worked on transforming my Curriculum Vitae into Notre Dame's format. Pretty cumbersome examples in the faculty manual.

Wed. 9/14
My first day as an "Activist."

I handed out Darfur information during my lunch hour and spoke to a brave young woman who visited the region. At first I was apprehensive about approaching strangers, but since one of my strong suits is my assertiveness, I got over it, really quickly. I simply reminded myself how important the cause is.

As a librarian I am charged with informing the public. I was reassured of my mission, when I encountered the first person who had "Never heard of Darfur," and so naturally was unaware of the genocide transpiring there. That was all the motivation I needed.

I handed out Darfur information during my lunch hour and spoke to a brave young woman who visited the region. I signed up students for a petition to "Divest" and got students to send a campaign letter to an Indiana Senator. For more information see http://www.savedarfur.org/

Thur. 9/15
Lunch with the first Library Resident. Added "Reflections of a Resident" to my Notre Dame homepage with my reflecting image. Get it?

I submitted my "From Private Investigator to Librarian" article to LIS Career.com. Learned supra means "footnote" in Lexis assignment. Hesburgh Library Faculty meeting introduced me & Leslie, the other Resident. I submitted my registration to attend District 1 - Indiana Library Federation conference downtown South Bend on Oct. 4th. I search for faculty governance codes for our Director.

Fri. 9/16
Attended African American Studies Department reception. Scheduled lunch meeting with the new department head as a networking measure.

Mon. 9/19
Attended 1st Monthly Meeting with Laura. I told her about the 5 articles I have submitted already. She said we can be "Ex Officio" members of Diversity Committee and she suggested I look into WebCT/Vista class. She said I can use her CV as a model. I registered for WebCT see if I can incorporate into my sessions that I will teach next year for Chemistry Databases. At Amnesty International meeting we viewed a film "Invisible Children" http://www.invisiblechildren.com/

Tues. 9/20
Lunch meeting with head of Africana Studies department and the other Resident. We will be "Affiliates."
BONUS: LIScareers.com will publish my article scheduled for April 2006 or sooner if possible. I learned about Digests.

Wed. 9/21
Met with Dwight to ensure I work a normal 40 hours and not at home on my time off. I will focus on Legal Reference as did the previous Residents. He explained that I have written more than the other Residents. I have had 3 articles accepted for publication...2 of that 3 are technically pending.

Thur. 22nd - Fri. 23rd
Mainly Inauguration Events including Academic Forum & Procession (with Cap & Gown) and Investiture.
Tried to catch up on Assignment 4 and do #5 due next Monday. Laura and my supervisor, Dwight, are fully aware that I am a "Work-A-Holic" and since I am always working, during the academic procession I met David Link and had an intriguing conversation. I learned about KKK hired a Black attorney to defend them http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/analysis.aspx?id=14776 and Jewish lawyer defended Skokie Nazi.
These led to many deep and profound levels for discussion.

Monday 9/26
Emailed ND formatted CV to Laura. Completed past Assignment #4 and hand delivered library website "News Item " featured electronic resource to the law school webmaster. I emailed Information Literacy Program ideas to Africana Studies Director to discuss when he meets with Hesburgh Library Director. I re-familiarized myself with Dream Weaver using the Tutorial.

Tues. 9/27
Completed Assignment #6. Met with head of the Institutional Repository Committee. I did 2 reference requests. Hand delivered registration for ILF Dist. 1 meeting Oct. 4th South Bend.

Responded to law faculty listserv about Urban Legend "Do not call - cell phones"

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/dncalrt.htm What Phone Numbers Can I Register? 10. Can I register my cell phone on the National Do Not Call Registry? Yes, you may place your personal cell phone number on the National Do Not Call Registry. The registry has accepted cell phone numbers since it opened for registrations in June 2003. There is no deadline to register a home or cell phone number on the Registry. You may have received an email telling you that your cell phone is about to be assaulted by telemarketing calls as a result of a new cell phone number database; however, that is not the case. FCC regulations prohibit telemarketers from using automated dialers to call cell phone numbers. Automated dialers are standard in the industry, so most telemarketers don’t call consumers on their cell phones without their consent.

Also http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/cell411.asp . Aside from doing my professional duty to dispel MIS-information, those emails are my ultimate Pet Peeve! Medical librarians email those and in fact a fellow librarian here, tried to disprove my above email by replying with the top portion of the FTC website...so I had to reply yet again and include the aforementioned excerpt. I love being RIGHT.
But I digress!!



Wed. 9/28
Chemistry training to prepare to teach SciFinder Scholar. After yesterday, I decided that for my presentation for the Indiana Library Federation's Annual Conference that I'll included "www.Snopes.com" to my info information literacy section. Because not just librarians but other professions who are in the business of "information" such as teachers also pass along Urban Legends, for example the one about their students telling of a midget living in the student's basement and parents thought the child was talking to an "imaginary" friend.

2nd Month in the Life of a Remarkable Resident.

Dear Diary,

Mon. 8/1
Per our Director's request, I submitted an editorial article to AALL Spectrum Perspectives Journal. "Soul Searching in the Stacks, " proof read by 2 law librarians. I helped a law student (1L), locate information in Microfilm & print it using LegalTrac Index and LINK catalog.

Tues. 8/2
Volunteered for a community service organization working with teens.

Wed. 8/3
Continue writing Bibliographic Essay. Renewed ALA membership. Applied for Councilor-at-Large deadline was pushed back to 8/31. I applied to be a Mentor to other Residents on DLN website www.lib.utk.edu/residents/dln/mentor_submit.html

Fri. 8/5
Spoke with High School students on panel with other Residents. Yesterday researched History Timelines from '70s to present for our Director, since he was the 1st president of an association and it is their 30th Anniversary.

Mon. 8/8
Picnic at Laura’s with High School Students. Lexis tutorial.

Tues. 8/9
Met with Laura and Leslie, the other Resident who recently began. Told them about http://www.cies.org/specialists/ss_overview.htm#discipline Asked about Religion questions upon Employment and learned of Section 702 of the Title VII Civil Rights Act "religious exemption." USCA indicates West publication / USCS indicates Lexis. Laura said our current, primary job comes first before grants and publications, conferences etc. next semester.

Wed 8/10 & Thur 8/11th
Submitted Bibliographic Essay to Choice (1 year booked in advance) and so submitted it to Versed for (Nov. issue). I attended my volunteer orientation.

Fri. 8/12
Interesting reference request about Land Stolen (ROSA Project by Bobby Rush) http://www.house.gov/apps/list/speech/il01_rush/art_050729.html

Mon. 8/15
Scheduled meetings with Chemistry Librarian to prepare for my Chemistry Database classes that I'll teach in January. Worked out bugs for ILF Conference & ALA Midwinter conf. so will not conflict with Chemistry class schedule. I was assigned "News" section weekly updates of in-house electronic resources.

My initial program idea was approved by Dee Holliday for Indiana Library Federation (ILF) conference. Audited assignment #1 for Legal Research class and did reference request for faculty to get ND Fact book.

Tues. 8/16
BONUS: I was NOTIFIED my "Reflections of a Resident article" will be published! Began writing outline for JAWS in response to a Call for Papers for Serials Librarian journal that I learned about on one of my listservs. Met with the other Resident, Leslie, alone to discuss Grant Ideas.

Wed. 8/17
Did Statutes & Citations assignments for Legal Research class. Learned about Mandatory v. Persuasive Authority and U.S. Court of Appeals.

Thurs. 8/18
Categorized Subscription Databases. I got the complete list of Database Passwords. Finished Statutes assignment.

Fri. 8/19
Attended 3 law review sessions with each of the Law Librarians. Reviewed 4 Steps in Legal Research assignment and checked Bound, Pocket Parts, Pamphlets and ALS. One encouraging and positive note is that during one of the law review sessions, I was the only one in class to find the Senate Print in Lexis Congressional. Considering I had never used the database and was in a room filled with the top law students, I was pretty impressed with myself.

8/22
Consider doing Blog and use AALL Conference examples. I'll keep this type of journal on the blog to use for marketing and evaluating and "unique contribution to the profession." Link to AALL listed blogs. I did a request for a 98 page document on "ADVANCE Democracy Act." pros/cons and located article with only author and month in economist "Middle of the Class." Continued working on Categories for Databases. Attended LLM reception met Rwandan student and another student from China.

Tues. 8/23
Went through all 9 assignments on syllabus for Chemistry Database class prior to my training tomorrow.

Wed. 8/24
Met with Chemistry Librarian. Did reference request for our Director. Worked on Law Database Categories.

Thur. 8/25
Reference request for US Court Cases (used US Report vol/page #) and then Under Law - Supreme Court - Opinions - Bound Volumes - Searched Alphabetically by Plaintiff v. Defendant & violation. For 1999 - Present but for Pre-99 or for both used http://www.findlaw.com/ and searched "Legal Prof." and US Cases, then Supreme Court then entered volume (US) page can EMAIL it or Printable Version. Finalized Sub. Database. Categories & Gave Tours

Fri. 8/26
Reference request for "Grand Forks" book and links, I printed specifics. My supervisor, Dwight liked my suggestion about "i" icon in database table. Dwight wants me to send weekly the news items along with 2 images to change. I discussed adding a blog of my daily activities from my homepage with Director of computer services who thought it was a good idea. Second day for 1L students, I did 3 tours.

Worked on request for "behind scenes civil rights cases" for a faculty member. Dwight showed me how to find Direct History Chart in Westlaw and corresponding PDFs.

Mon. 8/29
Did assignment #2. Continued proofing the website I emailed him "Acquisitions" etc...typos and dead links // Worked on Reference Requests, and subscription database descriptions. I re-wrote law library Mission statement per Dwight's request.

Tues. 8/30
Completed Table Layout for Subscription Database and all Information descriptions under each. Finished checking all links on Kresge law library webpage.

Wed. 8/31
Prepared for Undergrad class tomorrow. We ran through class and tour. I'll take 10 and my supervisor, Dwight will take 10 students.

1st Month in the Life of the Luckiest Resident in the Universe!

Dear Diary,

Fri. July 1st
I read "Innovative Redesign & Reorganization of Library Technical Services" book and journal photocopies left by the head of Technical Services: "New Technologies in the Library" and "100 Colleges Sign Up w/ Google to Speed Access to Library Resources" and "XML & MARC" and "Access to E-Resources" and "NISO's Metasearch Initiative.

I did my first (3) reference requests in a Law Library. Yippee!

Tues. July 5th
I met with the Head of Technical Services about Workflow. I did 1 Reference Request. I read the Research Services Dept. Annual Report from my supervisor, Dwight. My Director was kind enough to pay for me to attend the American Association of Law Librarian's Annual (AALL) Conference. I attended my first ever Colloquium. The topic was the 10 Commandments Statues in Courthouses. http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/27/scotus.ten.commandments/


Wed. 7/6/05
I met with the Technical Services department. I proofed the "In progress" Kresge Law Library Website and looked for comparable sites.

Thurs. 7/7/05
I decided to create a MOCK Webpage for Kresge and show Dwight different designs using animation, sample JavaScript codes available on www.DynamicDrive.com. Margaret Porter asked me to speak at an informational session for 7 Summer Students on "Why I became a Librarian and my Spectrum Scholar Experience" scheduled on Aug. 8th. I emailed the Library of Congress regarding a memo from Justice Robert Jackson to his Law Clerk John Costello 7/10/42.

I was amazed when the Dean of the Law School came to my office and addressed me by name and invited me to walk with her to her car. At my last job, it was highly unlikely that the head of the department would take time out of their day to just chat with lower level employees. I really enjoyed walking with Dean O’Hara to her car. Unfortunately, I got locked out of building.

So most important thing I've learned TODAY is the need to keep your keys and/or your ID with you at all times, especially after 5pm when the library doors lock automatically.

Fri. 7/8
I looked into IFLA, LITA and/or ACRL professional memberships. I did a complete (30 pages) list for Bankruptcy courts & Divisions for a patron. I prepared 15 minutes speech for High School students: "Including how my premature nephew inspired an intense need for consumer health information and was thankful for the medical librarians who helped me, and decided that I wanted to do the same for others. I am also incredibly competitive and just simply don't like people knowing more than I do."

I helped a patron locate CIS for 89th Congress and Serial Set and Committee Prints, which were in separate locations. I reviewed Martindale law directory and Digest for Statutes of Limitations and Lawyer Rankings, both print and online.

Mon. 7/11
Looked for duplicates of donated materials to make sure we do not need to keep it, if we already own it...boxes of donated material. I worked on wording for Access Restrictions for the website. I checked for ND Estate Planning Institute and notified patron. I searched for Legislative Histories of 1954 Tax Code and HR 8300.

Tuesday 7/12 - Thursday July 14th
I redesigned the website and submitted several different layouts that Dwight thought were better and replaced ND information on those websites, 10 different selections. Compared icons, legends and formats of similar libraries. Attended presentation of Serial Acquisitions Candidate Began a couple of articles to submit for publication to versed by Aug. 1st deadline. Lunch with Margaret Porter and the former Resident, Jessica.

Fri. 7/15
Re-did in Photoshop U of C webpage and Yale webpage, to see how that format would look with ND's information. Submitted rough draft of "Reflections of a Resident" article for proofreading and made suggested revisions. Began preparing to write scholarly article in the form of an Bibliographies (print & Media)

Monday 7/18 - Thur. 21st
Was at AALL Conference in San Antonio, TX. I networked and learned about www.liblime.com and Koha at Roy Tennant's plenary I session. I subscribed to his listserv WebforLib. I learned about AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), and his article "MARC Must Die" Web 2.0 like on www.chicagocrime.org. Web services like SOAP & REST (Simple Object Access Protocol) and (Representational State Transfer) Open Archives and collaborative filtering like on unalog.com or Del.icio.us. Different MODS (Metadata Object Description) and METS (Metadata Encoding Transmission schema) RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) and library blogs http://library.law.wisc.edu/wisblawg/blogslistpublic.htm. I learned about www.Redlightgreen.com especially for their ranking and FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) like WorldCat' Tabs and Table of Contents Redlightgreen.com also does APA Style Manual citations. Metalib is best for metasearching and found duplicates in OVID not known there before. The Plenary II was awesome as well. Jerry Kang of UCLA. spoke on Public Sphere. Other Web Design sites suggested by Susan Boland were:www.ssi.developer.net/main/templates and http://glish.com/css/home.aspwww.w3.org/Amaya/ instead of Notepad, WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) color pickers http://www.morecrayons.com/ 4,096 colors versus 216 normal amount of graphics if no Photoshop = http://www.gimp.org/ and FTP to move from your computer to server = http://sourceforge.net/project (for Filezilla) or http://www.coreftp.com/ Validate code to make sure Compliant = http://validator.w3.org/ or if CSS used try http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator to see if accessible to be ADA compliant http://www.wave.webaim.org/Link Checkers:http://validator.w3.org/checklink (page by page) or Xenu for entire site http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html but you must download it. http://watson.addy.com/ no more than 20 links, spell checks also) Log Analyzer to track usage "Webalizer."

Fri. 7/22 /05
Submitted "Reflection of a Resident" article for publication in Versed online bulletin of the American Library Association. Dwight is on vacation but told me to continue web designs. I got a brand new color printer in my office. I was given DreamWeaver to help with my designs. Dwight liked some sites and I'll incorporate those into my layouts. I gathered a list of books to begin doing a bibliographic essay.

Mon. 7/25/05
Worked on web designs and bibliographic essay.

Tuesday 7/26/05
Had a meeting over coffee with Laura who is over the Residency Program. We discussed problems with a few high school students. Laura wants me to "PARTICIPATE in meaningful way on Committees." She wants me to add a Webpage about myself she can link to from Diversity Page.

Wednesday 7/27/05
At my Director's request, I prepared a perspective article to submit to Spectrum journal about my experience at the AALL Conference.

Thursday 7/28/05
I completed 3 reference requests for a law faculty member on HR Bill 3144 / S1317 / Congressional Records / and Lexis search on June 13 National Law Review article about "flight attendants & 2nd hand smoke" and finally a request about OAR (oocyte reprogramming).

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