As a literature lover, I spied this story in the Financial Times: according to the latest news on the e-book front, HarperCollins UK is joining Random House in its protest over the deal between literary agent Andrew Wylie and Amazon.com to create electronic versions of 20 classics.

Wylie’s classic collection includes Lolita, Invisible Man, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Updike’s Rabbit novels, and my personal favorite Jorge Luis Borges’ Ficciones.

According to Random House v. Rosetta Books, any publishing contracts negotiated prior to Random House gave the author e-rights. After Random House, all standard publish contracts now give these e-rights to publishing companies.

So Wylie, living up to his name, broke his relationship with Random House to form his own Odyssey Editions e-publishing house for his stable of classics and negotiate his own deal with Amazon.

Note: Random House still holds the print rights to these classics.

The outspoken Authors Guild, which is watching the matter closely, suggests that Wylie may be engaged in self-dealing as he is acting as both buyer and seller. The Guild also raises concerns about the exclusivity of the deal with Amazon, hinting at possible antitrust issues.

If Wylie’s deal goes through, it could substantially change the amount authors receive upon digital sale, moving their rate from 25% to 60% of the retail price, and cutting out the middle–err–publishing companies.

Viva la authors (and their estates)!

But I would like to raise another point: due to Digital Rights Management (DRM) issues, these e-books could be as nebulous as the clouds on which they reside. If DRM is initiated by the publisher, the classic is neither a classic, nor is it timeless. DRM creates a limited download that may not be preserved on your Kindle.

There are known issues surrounding the Kindle download capabilities and transfer limitations. If you buy it on the Kindle 1, you lose it on the Kindle 2. So, in essence, the consumer is merely auditing a copy that can be revoked by Amazon at any time.

So my question to Wylie and the Author Guild is, if Wylie succeeds, is he invoking DRM to limit the accessibility of these classics?

And, to add another layer, how does Wylie’s agreement interact with Google’s Book Settlement Agreement?
As I have indicated in an earlier blog, I am no fan of the Kindle. Let’s just hope Wylie has some love for the art and its artists. But I really don’t have a good feeling about this.


Technologists often get approached with opportunities to solve problems using technology.  We sit down and talk about the user’s desires.  This happened to me last week – Billy called asking for help solving a problem, but once we sat down, Billy said “I read this article about this software product that firm x is using and we should have the software too”.  The challenge here is to get the focus back to needs rather than solutions.  Without refocusing the discussion, you are going to end up with more shelfware (software that is owned but not used).
Once refocused and with a clear description of the problem on paper, we started to carve out the solution requirements (the spec).  I asked Billy to describe how he would imagine using this tool.  I encouraged him to approach it like the proverbial kid in a candy store.  If you can have anything you want, what would that be?  This is an important step, it allows me to understand what language Billy is comfortable using.  I can pick up on key terms and reuse them when speaking with Billy.  It gives me some insight into Billy’s understanding of technology and how important he feels this solution really is. 
This is where the dialog generally goes in one of two directions:
  • very productive with a lot of dialog and enthusiasm
  • Billy simply grows quiet and makes a statement like, “just give me something to play with”.  Billy has disconnected and doesn’t feel I have an ability to understand his needs.

Here are a few suggestions to help prevent the disconnect:

  • Speak a Common Language – Often times technologists speak one language while the user speaks another.  This leads to communication breakdown and the user tends to disengage, feeling that the technologist just doesn’t get it.  Technologists need to learn the business and speak the business language.  This will serve the technologist well, giving him or her more credibility with the user.
  • Lose Assumptions – Just because I understand what you mean by x, y and z, you should not assume I also understand a, b and c.  We need to spend the time to really understand the entire process.  Without such understanding, we are going to have a partial solution at best, and often times, what gets delivered is far from what the user imagined.
  • Set Expectations – Most people have never worked on providing a technology solution; they have no idea of how long it takes to build, test, fix, re-test, fix and deploy.  It is important for the technologist to provide a good ‘guestimate’ of the time needed.  This is essential for setting expectations.  Without this, the user is going to expect the solution in a unrealistic period of time.  I cannot tell you how many times I have heard “Heck, my son can build a website in an afternoon”.

Solving technology problems is much like purchasing a house.  Is there a solution on the market that meets your needs?  This approach is like buying a house that is already built.  Depending on budget, you can get a house that meets your needs, but you will not have the flexibility to make the house exactly as you imagined.  For many this is great, the builder has already answered all those pesky questions.  If there is no solution currently available, then you need to build the house.  You will start with an architect and he or she will ask a bunch of questions.  How many bathrooms, how many bedrooms, three car garage, one story or two?  You get the point.  This process takes much longer than buying something already built, but you will get, budget willing, exactly what you want.  During those initial meetings the architect will not ask you what types of countertops you want in the kitchen and bathrooms, those types of questions come later.  The first thing is to agree on the basics of the house (the framework).  Likewise, with technology you need to start with the basic framework.  All too often the user is more interested in the placement of buttons or colors of the background than in discussing the problem.  That is like selecting countertops before discussing floor plans.

Providing technology solutions is an iterative process.  You start by framing the issue or opportunity and putting general ideas on paper.  Once both sides are comfortable with the framework, the technologists need to work through the build or buy process.  Is there already a technology solution available that addresses these needs?  If there is nothing on the market that meets the needs, you will need to proceed with building the solution.  The process must include the providers of the solution and the consumers of the solution, not just the original architect and the requester.  It must be an iterative process with everybody helping to create the solution.

Somewhere between reading Jason Wilson’s post on “Exploded Data, the Legal Web and What We’re Missing” and Toby’s post on “KM 3.0 = Analysis“, my brain started to smolder from all the ‘future of data’ discussion. Jason takes an example of a 33 word sentence and how 66 individual pieces of “exploded data” (which looks a lot like XML structured data) were extrapolated, and the ‘explosion of data’ could probably have easily continued on for at least another 66 categories. Toby had talked about the predictions that the amount of information stored in the world today surpassed the zettabyte threshold and is continuing to grow as we get “better-faster-cheaper search and retrieval systems.” Wilson ends his post with these two sentences:

The question is whether we will step up to organize this sea of data, or wait until a program can do it for us. If the latter, what does it say about the future of legal research and the practice of law?

I don’t think that the problem is a “man vs. machine” issue, but rather a how can man make machine better, and vice-versa. Regardless of the amount of crowdsourcing you throw at legal information, there is just no possible way for humans, alone, to explode the information. Add to this the fact that there is no way for a computer algorithm (at least at this point in history) to do this either. Right now, it has to be a combination of efforts of humans working to ask the right questions, set the right conditions, and bring in the right experiences in order to help the computer algorithms or data structure establish methods of creating “smart information.” The overall process is for the human editors (curators) to get the information more quickly from “dumb” to “smart” through the use of technology, then work on tweaking the technology from time to time in order to keep make the smart information even smarter. Just as with many industries, the core functions of legal editing will become more and more commoditized, and the work will focus on establishing the next piece of smart information rather than focusing on uncovering the hidden data of existing information. Toby told me today at lunch that currently “humans ask the better questions when it comes to how to handle information.” He went on to say, however, that there will probably come a day when machines may actually start being better at asking the questions. What does that have to say about the future of information?


[Guest Blogger Mark Gediman]

There has been a lot of discussion lately regarding AALL committees, services and programs.  What seems to missing from some of this discussion is a desire to see constructive change.  In my mind, it isn’t enough to identify a problem, you need to also show a desire to fix the problem.  The tone of this debate may be as important as the actual debate.

Anyone with kids knows that it isn’t enough to point a finger at someone and say it’s the other person’s fault.  I know with my kids,  the one who says “no” to a suggestion without making one of their own automatically loses the debate.  In order for any discussion to succeed, it needs to be structured as a dialog, not a diatribe. Not doing so forces the singled out parties to be defensive and not willing to listen to what the other person has to say.  This does not allow for a constructive debate.  As someone who has contributed to the discussion, I can say from experience that you get further presenting your issue as a discussion.

AALL is an organization that is made up of different groups, and more importantly, individuals.  It can only evolve through the involvement of the individuals collaborating together for change.  I am proud to be a member of such a diverse organization that is made up of people that are genuinely committed to the growth of the profession.  They may stumble along the way, but it is our job as members to help them as they go along.  This is what makes the organization valuable to both the profession and its individual members.  So much for my two cents.

I know that with the exception of Flipboard for the iPad, that BlindType has been getting a lot of talk around the mobile webisphere (can I trademark “webisphere”??) But if you haven’t seen this “soon to be released” product yet, you need to take a look. It will change the way you text (especially those of you that text and drive… you know who you are!!)

By the way… I got my Flipboard to connect to Twitter and Facebook yesterday (and it is awesome!!) So I can’t wait until BlindType is actually out for the iPad, iPhone and Android devices.

While walking up and down the aisles of the vendor hall at the AALL annual conference, I saw a booth for an Indian company called Manupatra. I have to be honest, when I first saw the booth I thought that it was an outsourcing company and I avoided it on my first couple of sweeps through the hall. However, once I took a deep breath and walked up and started talking with Manupatra’s CEO, Deepak Kapoor, it turned out that I was flat wrong in my assumption and Manupatra is actually the Indian legal system’s equivalent to Westlaw or Lexis. After a short discussion about Manupatra, a few Indian sweets, and a little discussion of my Bollywood movie obsession, I walked away with a good impression of what Deepak Kapoor was doing in making it easier to track the decisions the courts in India were producing.

After a follow-up email, I sent Kapoor a few questions I had about the product, the Indian legal system, and how Manupatra’s presence at AALL was viewed by other law librarians in attendance. I’ve place the transcript below. There is also great interview of Kapoor with a little history of Manupatra at the Bar & Bench that will give you some background on Manupatra’s mission.

Lambert:      Thanks for the follow up on the exhibit at AALL. It was very nice meeting you and your colleague (and I enjoyed the Indian sweets as well.) I found the Bar & Bench article from May 20th of this year and found the story behind your creating Manupatra very fascinating. Why would a non-Indian lawyer or law firm use a product like Manupatra?
Kapoor:      India has been evincing lot of focus and interest from Companies across the globe in last few years for the opportunities the country offers. China and India are the two sought for investment destinations today . This interest is on the upswing. As a result there is a building and growing need for legislative , regulatory and [procedural Indian content .
Manupatra provides a one point solution to this need by bringing forth Legal, Taxation, Corporate and Business Policy information all in one place. Archives coupled with updates across all subjects of law covering primary documents ( Case laws, regulations, notifications, statutes etc ) and proprietary analytical content, www.manupatra.com is the largest and most comprehensive online resource for Indian material.
Thus a non Indian lawyer/ law firm assisting any Company/ firm to set up business in India or evaluating feasibility/ viability for their clients to have business interests in India would require access to Manupatra database.
Also, number of students are now going oversees for their Masters. They look for Indian materials since they do their projects on Indian issues.

Lambert:      How does Manupatra compare (price and content) to other products like LexisNexis or Westlaw?
Kapoor:      Both Lexis and Westlaw as of today do not host any Indian content, thus no comparisons are available.
Lambert:      Do you see Indian courts adopting an official citation system for its decisions? If so, are you currently lobbying the courts to adopt such a system?
Kapoor:      As per statute the court is to cite the citation of the official publication “India Law Reports specific to each court”. But this publication is either not published in most courts or has very skeletal coverage or is delayed by couple of months. Hence the private journals end up being cited. Each court pushes a particular journal which has maximum and fastest reporting. Since Manupatra is fastest to report , we see this working in our favour over years.
Lambert:      Can you give me a brief overview of how lawyers in India currently conduct legal research (are they still book researchers, or are they like American lawyers and conduct most research online?)
Kapoor:      India is still in the nascent stages as far as legal research is concerned. The users in metros and big cities have moved to online legal research The smaller courts use CD ROM based products or book research and the rest of the market is still driven by book research. Apart from geographical distinction, the age profile also distinguishes users. The senior guys would go for book research more out of habit and thus they trust the same. They personally are not tech savvy and thus books still rule the roost in their libraries/ chambers. India is fast moving towards electronic legal research, if not online research and with Computerization increasing and price of bandwidth going down the stag seems to be set for Online legal research.
Lambert:      I see you have about 45,000 current subscribers to your product. With the expansion of the number of lawyers in India increasing in great numbers, where do you see these numbers in a year? two years? five years?
Kapoor:      45000 are users and not subscribers. In India we still do not have a non sharing policy. So in a firm which has 15 users may still have a single subscription.
Lambert:      Please add anything else about Manupatra that you think would be of interest for those of us in North American.
Kapoor:      Manupatra not only started a Company but also has pioneered an industry. Through dedicated in-house effort and sustained support from clients, Manupatra has come to be recognized as the pioneer in online legal research in India.
Lambert:      I also have a question about your thoughts on the AALL conference. I imagine that many of the attendees at the conference had the same thoughts that I did when I first saw your booth… that you were a legal outsourcing company. Perhaps that is an assumption that we should not have made, but we law librarians here in the U.S. are a little paranoid that some of our jobs will no longer be around in a few years, and that they will be outsourced to a call center in India. Did you find that other attendees were thinking the same thing (or was it just me??)
Kapoor:      In India legal research is understood in a different way than it is in USA. Thus our tag line turned out to be confusing not only for you. There were some others also who came and clarified. Thanks for pointing this out since we will take care when we are exhibiting in different markets.

I’ve been using SnagIt for a number of years to do screen capturing and editing of screenshots and enjoy it throughly. However, I know from experience that not everyone has access to this paid software, but they still have the need to do screenshots and editing. For those of you that fit in this category, you need to go check out LightShot. LightShot is a very light weight (meaning that it won’t burn up a lot of memory or disk space on your computer), free (although you can donate money to them if you find it to be a valuable resources), Windows browser (FireFox, Chrome or IE), or Desktop application (Windows). (whew… was that too many parens?)

I downloaded this yesterday and have had a great time testing it. I’ve found it to be very powerful as both a screen capturing tool, and an image editor. I’ve been using the Chrome plug-in, and have had absolutely no problems using it. The Desktop Application is very cool in that you press the “Print Screen” and it gives you the ability to select the portion of the screen you actually want to grab. The online editor tool is very nice and has a lot of the same editing tools that you see in high end image editing software. I did have to refrain from “right-clicking” while editing because it is editing through the browser using an Adobe Flash interface, so it does take a little getting used to, but not much.

Here’s a four-minute video. Check it out, then get over to LightShot and test it out for yourself.
[BTW, if you know what song it is they are playing in this video, please let me know… I like it!]

LightShot Desktop Screenshot

As I was purusing the news yesterday, a comment from the SayAnythingBlog caught my attention. Apparently, University of North Dakota’s Law School asked for a $10 Million to expand their courtroom setting, and the request was rejected. The rejection of the courtroom wasn’t the comment that caught my eye, however, it was the alternative that was suggested on where to put the courtroom:

“The Law School has an enormous amount of space. They’ve got every electronic teaching aid known to man. If they want to they can clear out the law library since Lawyers don’t use law books anymore, it’s all electronic.” (emphasis added)

Between this comment, and the one I heard from R. David Lankes‘ keynote speech at AALL, it makes me wonder if the physical space that the library takes is actually hurting the concepts of libraries more than it is helping?

Take a look at the picture that Lankes showed of a library 70 years ago, and the same library today. There is a stark difference of a place that people go to gather, study and learn, to a place that houses books. Libraries look more like a showpiece for bound books than it does as a place to come to learn. So, should we be surprised when someone says to clear out the library since no one uses it any more? Now, the mentioning of moving collections back behind closed doors and having people come ask for those hidden items may be too appalling an idea to actually put into action. The idea sprung from the fact that closed collections could be housed in a far smaller footprint and allow libraries to be viewed more as a place for people than a place for books. [By the way, I ran the idea past my wife (who happens to now be an elementary librarian after many years of being a corporate librarian), and she thought the idea was horrible. But, horrible and/or crazy ideas have never stopped me from investigating them (or writing about them here!!)] If we turn the focus of a library away from the collection of physical items and toward more of an idea of where the community you serve comes to learn, then you may very well see a place that people go to gather and learn. As long as the identities of libraries are viewed as simply a space that houses books, then we will constantly lose that space, and eventually the true identity of a library as a place to gather and learn.

Although I’m loving my iPad, there are just certain things that I’d much rather do in a Windows-based environment. For example, editing this blog using the iPad is very difficult to do and I just don’t have the flexibility that I have when I’m on my PC. Well, never fear, TeamViewer HD helps connect your iPad to your personal PC’s desktop. For someone that has grown up in a Window environment, it makes the iPad even more productive, and gives me the ability to not worry about “do I need to find another app that helps me do what I could easily do from my home PC?”

Now TeamViewer HD is not for iPad alone… it works very much like the Real VNC program I used to use to connect to remote desktops. So the concept isn’t new, just the ability to do it from the iPad is. As with all remote desktop sharing software, you are literally connecting to the desktop as though you were sitting in front of that PC. So, remember, anyone that happens to actually be in front of that PC (or Mac, or Linux) can see everything you are doing.

The touchscreen capability of the iPad is limited to the moving around of the remote mouse, so you don’t get a touchscreen effect on your remote PC (and it can be a little disorienting at first because your finger movements can feel opposite that of how you normally operate the iPad. For example, when you move the mouse down (by dragging your finger), the screen will go up when you reach the bottom. There are a number of options that work with the touchscreen that make the product work well, such as the tapping of two fingers to emulate a right-click. It takes a little getting used to, but you should quickly catch on.

TeamViewer HD is free for personal use, and can range between $719 – $2,690 depending upon your licensing of the product for business purposes. I’ve found it very, very useful in the few days that I’ve played around with it. Here are a few screenshots of what the product looks like.

The Login Page

Splash Screen w/Basic Instructions
Navigating Through the Start Menu
Small Screen View w/Keyboard
Landscape View (of me catching my kids watching Justin Bieber Videos!)
A Reminder Screen That I Should Only Use This For Personal Use

I’ve never been afraid to tell you things that I should have know, but didn’t. Here’s just one more example of something that I should have been doing, but wasn’t. While at the AALL conference in Denver, I walked into the exhibit hall one morning, made that automatic left-hand turn to the BNA coffee and donut section (thank you, thank you, BNA!!), and sat down with a couple of academic law librarians that I’d never met before. Turns out that one of them was from Wake Forest and (after I had a couple sips of coffee) that triggered a memory. I had a Summer Associate from that school currently at my firm. Aha!! This was at least a conversation starter, so I mentioned it to the librarian and she immediately knew the name of the Summer Associate I was talking about.

I had never thought about this opportunity before, but I think I’m going to start doing something a little differently when preparing for these law library conferences. I’m going to start contacting the law librarians at the schools that my firm’s Summer Associates are attending to see who will be attending the conference that year. Perhaps we could meet up and discuss what we could both do to help the student succeed when he or she is ready to come back as an Associate next year. Simple things like identifying journals that we commonly route to the practice group could help keep the law student up to date on issues that others within their potential practice group are reading. Not only could it help the student, but it may also help the librarians by exposing each of them to materials they may not have currently in their own collections.

We law firm librarians tend to complain that law schools don’t prepare students for the realities of law firm life. Maybe here is an opportunity to give pointed suggestions to the law school’s librarians on how to assist specific students to be better prepared for the transition. At the very least, it gives us one more opportunity to network with others in our field.