Those who know me understand that I am not a fan of The Bluebook, a Uniform System of Citation. It never seems to definitively answer my citation needs nor is it consistent, which a good system of citation ought to be. Over the years The Bluebook’s illogical rules have left a hint of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in me. So, it’s no wonder why I now celebrate, heck I’m rejoicing at this new legal citation book called The Indigo Book. With a “CC0” Creative Commons designation, this book is in the public domain and it is F*R*E*E. One can “use it, copy it, distribute it, and—we hope—improve it.” It is available at https://law.resource.org/pub/us/code/blue/IndigoBook.pdf. From its Introduction, The Indigo Book was compiled by a team of students at the New York University School of Law, working under the direction of Professor Christopher Jon Sprigman. The Indigo Book isn’t the same as The Bluebook, but it does implement the same Uniform System of Citation that The Bluebook does. The scope of The Indigo Book’s coverage is roughly equivalent to The Bluebook’s “Bluepages”—that is, The Indigo Book covers legal citation for U.S. legal materials, as well as books, periodicals, and Internet and other electronic resources. In addition, The Indigo Book offers citation guidance that is deeper than The Bluebook’s Bluepages—for example, The Indigo Book has citation guidance for bills, and for legislative history, that the Bluepages lack. For the materials that it covers, anyone using The Indigo Book will produce briefs, memoranda, law review articles, and other legal documents with citations that are compatible with the Uniform System of Citation. Many of the “Indigo Inklings” speak to me on a very basic, almost primordial, level. Reading them is therapeutic. For example, I’ve always wondered why The Bluebook insists on using underlining rather than italicizing font since the underlines were a signal to the typesetter to put in italic font. The typewriter was invented around the 1860s. The first edition of The Bluebook is from 1926. Typewriters of that era did not support italics or boldface. If you wanted to emphasize text, your sole option was to underline. Throughout The Indigo Book, you'll see us italicizing text rather than underlining, because that’s how we do it in the 21st Century. The Bluebook 20th Ed. still gives you the option to do either, but you know where we stand. Citing legislative materials is much clearer in The Indigo Book: If unenacted, cite as follows: <name of bill, if helpful>,<abbreviation from the list below> <bill number>, <number of the Congress> <section, if not citing the entire bill> <year of publication>, with additional information when needed to distinguish between different versions of the bill in a given Congress, with names of subcommittees and committees abbreviated according to the form set out in Table T5, Table T11, and Table T12. See for yourself if The Indigo Book can help you maintain your sanity when citing legal authorities.
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By Roberta WoodsThe blog, Citing Legally, offers an interesting entry about online case law validation, i.e. Shepard’s, KeyCite, etc., in its article, “The Complex Relationship between Citations and Citators.” (http://citeblog.access-to-law.com/?p=300) According to the blog, citations to as yet unpublished decisions pose particular problems in the online environment since the cases typically don’t get solid book citations immediately. As of April 23 five “precedential” decisions in cases appealing a denial of benefits by the Social Security Administration had been released by the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals since the beginning of 2015. . . . Four of the five were written by Judge Richard Posner. Three of his decisions and one by Judge Daniel Manion reversed trial court decisions that had affirmed the agency’s benefit denial. Westlaw gives the case a “WL” citation. Lexis gives it a “LEXIS” citation. Bloomberg Law gives it a “BL” citation. When it finally gets a citation to the Federal Reporter (book), the parallel citations to the WL, LEXIS, and BL cites are not carried through. Researchers have to know to look at the predecessor cites for the proprietary databases to get the full picture. The article illustrates the problem for researchers using the example of Curvin v. Colvin, No. 13-3622 (7th Cir. Feb. 11, 2015). The decision was handed down on February 11, 2015 but did not receive its “778 F.3d 645” designation until a month and a half later. During the intervening weeks it was cited at least eight times by district courts within the Seventh Circuit. Perforce those citations identified the Seventh Circuit opinion by docket number and exact date or a proprietary database citation (“WL”). Most, but not all, used both in parallel, yielding citations in the following form: Curvin v. Colvin, No. 13-3622, 2015 WL 542847 (7th Cir. Feb. 11, 2015). A straight database search on “778 F.3d 645” will not retrieve those cases. A database search on “2015 WL 542847” will retrieve those using the Westlaw cite (but not those employing the LEXIS equivalent “2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 2170” or the “F.3d” cite). A search on “13-3622” and “Curvin” will retrieve those including Curvin’s docket number but not those relying solely on a proprietary database cite or the ultimate “F.3d” cite. Reliance on the publication of print volumes of the National Reporter System, once a boon to the legal researcher, creates a cascade of issues when researching in a digital environment. The author recommends that jurisdictions “attach official citations to decisions at the time of release” as they do in Oklahoma. The purpose of Citing Legally is “to draw attention to important differences in practice among jurisdictions and distinctive approaches – from the commendable to the lamentable, the new and novel to the archaic. Like the reference from which it springs the focus here will be on how judges and lawyers cite legal authority rather than law journal norms.”
The library Data-Planet datasets subscription now includes three premium sources you may want to investigate: China Data Center, EASI Market Planner, and World Stocks and Precious Metals.
China Data Center The China Data Center datasets provide yearly historical indicators of social and economic characteristics of the People’s Republic of China. Included are national-level statistics dating in some cases to the 1950s. Premium subscriptions to Data-Planet also include access to subnational data distributed by the China Data Center, which provides data (as available) for all provinces, cities and counties within provinces, all cities, and all counties in China. For a wealth of additional information be sure to visit this LibGuide: http://data-planet.libguides.com/CDC. The guide gives examples of datasets you could research and shows you how to explore the resource for these items. EASI Market Planner Easy Analytic Software Inc. (EASI) is a New-York based software engineering and statistical modeling firm that specializes in consumer demographics. Using input data from the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Mediamark, EASI develops model-based indicators of the demographic characteristics, consumer spending, and behavior patterns for a wide range of geographic areas—State, counties, census tracts, and block groups. Mediamark is a market research firm that annually publishes The Survey of the American Consumer, based on detailed interviews of 26,000 households. To learn more about the uses and how to explore this data please consult http://data-planet.libguides.com/EASI. World Stocks and Precious Metals This dataset provides historical prices for equities trading on more than 50 global exchanges. Daily open, close, high, low, and volume statistics are reported. See http://data-planet.libguides.com/worldwidestocksandpreciousmetals for guidance and assistance. The graduating class of 2015 gifted the ATMOS water generator to the law school. The AWG creates clean, triple filtered hot and cold drinking water from the moisture in the air. The water generator holds 8 gallons of water maximum and continuously filters water out of the air. The filtration process can take several hours, so, if the containers are drained by thirsty law students, try again later. We plugged the device in at C.J.'s corner. The cold water is running at about 42 degrees while the hot water is running at about 180 degrees. (PLEASE be extra careful with the hot water.) I've created this video to provide instructions on how to use the AWG. Mucho mahalos to the graduating class of 2016! Happy Constitution Day! September 17th was designated as National Constitution Day in 2004 (see PL 108-447, Division J, Title 1, § 110). This intent behind declaring a special day to celebrate the Constitution was to encourage schools who receive federal funds to teach students about the Constitution. It has since grown to be celebrated by many universities and schools across the country.
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