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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