Rule 18.2.1(b)(ii)

for purposes such as criticism, comment, … scholarship, or research (17 U.S.C. 107)

Earlier today, I began a semi-serious live tweet of my reading of the new rules concerning digital sources in 20th edition of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation®. (Our copies at UNC Law Library arrived this afternoon.) And while the editors are still claiming copyright protection for their work, my little show got some attention, and serious law librarians really do want to know what has changed. So here, I present a particular new rule, 18.2.1(b)(ii) for criticism, comment, scholarship, and research purposes. Perhaps we can puzzle out the Bluebook’s transformation on the way it privileges print. Ah, and for an excellent working list of “diffs” between the 20th edition and the 19th, see Janelle Beitz’s Google Doc, which expands upon the new edition’s preface (tip o’ the hat to my friends at Duke Law Library for the heads up.)

Here is the new rule, which I think shows some much-needed sense on medium neutrality:

(ii) Online sources with print characteristics. If an online source shares the characteristics of a print source such that it could be fully cited according to another rule in The Bluebook, the citation should be made as if to the print source and the URL appended directly to the end of the citation, even if it is unknown whether the cited information is available in print. (Latter emphasis mine.)

Examples of this follow. Then, we get a definition of what it means to “share the characteristics of a print source.”

an online source must be a version permanently divided into pages with permanent page numbers, as in a PDF, and have the elements that characterize a given print source, such as a volume number (for law review articles and the like) or publication date (for magazine articles and the like).

And finally, the editors then write that

for purposes of citation style it does not matter whether [the] source has in fact been published in print

In all, this seems to be an extension of what I always felt the spirit of the old 18.2.1 was, except that now it doesn’t seem to require an extensive search to find the print volume of a material if it is available online in permanently paginated form. Whether this is truly a “print characteristic” is a matter of debate, of course, but some movement on the topic is better than none.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to return to my careful reading of The Bluebook!

 

Welcome to “Consult The Index”

What is this? This is a blog. It is about legal information in the broadest sense, in that it is usually helpful to look at general issues in either law, legal education, the use of consumer computing technology, or information science and apply them to the field more narrowly. I am also kind of a dilettante, so, there’s that.

Why now? I am a legal information professional in training, graduating with a dual J.D. / M.S.I.S. in May 2015. For the past three and a half years, I have been studying up and, for the most part, keeping my developing thoughts to myself. As Willie Nelson once sang, “you can’t make a record if you ain’t got nothin’ to say,” and, as I approach the start of my career, I am feeling the itch to say some things.

What can I expect? Posts, not more than 800 words in length, that will be readable, containing

no areas for user-generated comments. Most will be by me, but I am considering allowing my good friend Burnham Sullivan to contribute reviews of relevant (or irrelevant) books, movies, or television programs. Both Burnham and I are former professional writers, so we will do our best to make good sentences. Subjects, verbs, adjectives — we’ll have them all.

And how often? Every so. We’ll be seeing you all on down the line.

Twenty of my favorite documentaries

I was chatting with one of my fiancee’s cousins this morning, and, not being able to come up with a conventional Top X list of documentary films, I devised this idea. (I used to be quite involved in the documentary film world before law and info science school, if you’ll believe that.)

Anyway, it’s a list of twenty of my favorite documentaries, but with a twist — each documentary having a documentary doppelganger. That is, one documentary you may have heard of (or even seen described as “classic”) and one that is related, but that you might not have heard of. I’ll leave it to you to figure out how each pair is connected. Beyond that, enjoy!

  • 1. Night and Fog
  • 1a. Triumph of the Will
  • 2. The Thin Blue Line
  • 2a. Gates of Heaven
  • 3. When We Were Kings
  • 3a. Hoop Dreams
  • 4. Sherman’s March
  • 4a. The Rough South of Larry Brown
  • 5. American Movie
  • 5a. Mule Skinner Blues
  • 6. Don’t Look Back
  • 6a. Gimme Shelter
  • 7. High School
  • 7a. Hands on a Hard Body
  • 8. Roger & Me
  • 8a. Salesman
  • 9. The Civil War
  • 9a. Hearts and Minds
  • 10. Man With a Movie Camera
  • 10a. Sans Soleil

Tweet me @kirschsubjudice if you want to argue, cajole, etc., etc.