If you are not familiar with LLRX I would recommend you take a visit. Usually something interested being reported on or discussed in the area of law and technology.
Here are a few highlights from the past year that resonated with me:
Effective Project Management: the Art of Creating Scope Statements
“Carol A. Watson‘s discussion of how well-defined scope statements are the key to successful project management continues with this article focused on how all written documentation should be clearly and concisely written, avoiding ambiguities at all costs.” — Published February 6, 2010
Preserving Born-Digital Legal Materials – Where to Start?
“Sarah Rhodes discusses the monumental challenge of preserving our digital heritage. She argues that law libraries specifically have a critically important role to play in this undertaking as access to legal and law-related information is a core underpinning of our democratic society. Our current digital preservation strategies and systems are imperfect but tremendous strides have been made over the past decade to stave off the dreaded digital dark age, and libraries today have a number of viable tools, services, and best practices at our disposal for the preservation of digital content.” — Published February 14, 2010
Social Media, Geolocation and Privacy, Oh My!
“Nicole L. Black highlights how our net activities are carefully monitored and meticulously tracked by some of the biggest players, including Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook. Our individual online footprints, from the Web sites we visit, the items we purchase, the people with whom we communicate, to the locations where we access the Internet, are extremely valuable commodities that are increasingly sought after.” — Published March 6, 2010
“This is Nicole L. Black‘s primer for the legal profession on an emerging technology which is defined as a “type of computing that is comparable to grid computing, [and] relies on sharing computing resources rather than having local servers or personal devices to handle applications. The goal of cloud computing is to apply traditional supercomputing power (normally used by military and research facilities) to perform tens of trillions of computations per second.” — Published March 6, 2010
DNA Identification Evidence in Criminal Prosecutions
“In criminal cases, there have been challenges on sufficiency grounds and concerns over the use of forensic DNA evidence as the sole or primary proof of guilt. Uncorroborated DNA matching might not be enough to satisfy the burden of establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The reliability of forensic DNA testing results might be questioned for any number of reasons, e.g., laboratory error, cross-contamination, interpretive bias or fraud, etc. Ken Strutin‘s essay provides an overview of nuclear DNA typing, a sampling of the kinds of discretionary decisions that analysts often confront when interpreting crime scene samples, and concludes with with remarks about current disputes in forensic DNA typing, and how recognition of its inherent subjectivity might inform and illuminate these debates.” — Published March 7, 2010
Knowledge Discovery Resources 2010 – An Internet MiniGuide Annotated Link Compilation
“Marcus P. Zillman‘s latest guide is a touchstone from which all researchers seeking comprehensive, reliable and diverse resources for knowledge discovery via the Internet can benefit. The key is to be able to find the important knowledge discovery resources and sites both in the visible and invisible World Wide Web. This guide to selected knowledge discovery resources and sites offers excellent knowledge and information discovery sources to assist you attaining your research goals.” — Published May 7, 2010
“In the past few years, the term open source has been bandied about not just in library-land, but in every industry. When a term is talked about this much, some would say to the point of overuse, people start to think it’s a fad. In this and upcoming articles, Nicole C. Engard is here on LLRX to tell you that open source is no fad, and why.” — Published June 12, 2010
Basic Legal Research on the Internet
“This article explores the corner of the Internet landscape that concentrates on legal research. For the most part, these databases and search tools are free, although some might require a library card. Essentially, this is a short list of “go to” sites that most researchers will find useful. Before delving in, author Ken Strutin also examines a few time tested research concepts for the Internet age.” — Published June 24, 2010
Google Instant and Legal Search
“Steve Matthews enumerates some of the issues that merit attention with respect to Google’s recent implementation of this default setting search query application.” — Published September 24, 2010
Open Source Tools for Tutorials
“Nicole C. Engard continues her series on best practices for libraries to leverage open source tools with a guide on publishing tutorials for using library resources. Rather than creating a printed pathfinder, she suggests creating a video tutorial instead, as the learning experience is often more engaging and has deeper impact when users see something done versus reading about it.” — Published December 19, 2010
Juror Behavior in the Information Age
“Ken Strutin focuses on the impact of social media on jurors who increasingly try to stay connected to work and home while performing their civic duty, and the resulting impact of the power of individual jurors to virtualize a trial by going online. His article collects recent and notable examples of juror online misbehavior and highlights scholarship and practice resources concerning its implications for voir dire, trial management and the administration of justice.” — Published December 26, 2010