The Goodson Blogson

Today, CNN and the Consumerist blog reported the story of a Pennsylvania couple, Jenn Friberg and Ron Quigley, who were dismayed to discover that their new home had previously been a meth lab. Lingering drug residue made the new owners physically ill just days after moving in, and professional cleaning will cost the couple an additional $25,000 over their purchase price. Friberg and Quigley have started a blog, Our Meth House , to solicit donations for the cleanup, as well as to help raise awareness of the warning signs for other potential home-buyers. Goodson Blogson readers who have survived the labor-intensive process of purchasing a home may be shocked to hear that no laws were broken by the inspectors or sellers who failed to disclose the property’s colorful history. Disclosure laws vary widely by state, and in Pennsylvania the burden is on the homeowner to request a “meth lab test” by the inspector and/or to conduct independent research on the property. Friberg and Quigley lea...

Last year, the Goodson Blogson rounded up some recommendations for law-themed holiday gifts . But our Dec. 11 post came a little late for many shoppers-- and besides, who wants to brave the mall when you need to study for final exams? This year, we’re beating the Black Friday crowds with our 2010 legally-minded gift guide. The links from last year’s post still remain great sources for legal-themed holiday gifts. What budding constitutional law scholar could resist the wares at the Supreme Court Historical Society Gift Shop ? This gift shop still boasts perennial favorites like the “Lawsuit!” board game and guest room soap with the Court’s seal (although the Goodson Blogson still wishes for a revival of the shop’s book-and-gavel salt & pepper shaker set, which hasn’t appeared on the site since 2008). Another site highlighted in our 2009 list, The Billable Hour , offers a similar mix of lighthearted games, “survival kit” care packages (including one just for law students), and pra...

The end of fall semester classes will bring some changes to the Goodson Law Library’s access and service hours. To ensure that adequate study space is available for law students during the reading and examination period, the library will implement a new access and use policy from December 2-18. During the reading and examination period, use of the Goodson Law Library will be restricted to the Duke Law community at all times (including when the entrance doors are unlocked). Exceptions will be made for other students who are currently enrolled in Law School classes, or researchers with a demonstrated need for use of the law collections. All others may be asked to leave. (Please contact the Reference Desk during normal business hours about access under the above exceptions, or assistance with researching legal materials.) The Law School and library entrance doors will be locked (with card swipe access restricted to the law community) after 5:00 p.m. on weekdays, and on weekends from D...

With the busiest travel days of the year fast approaching, the news media has been focused on the latest developments at the Transportation Security Administration , which has overseen airport security since its creation in November 2001. After an attempted airplane bombing on Christmas Day 2009, TSA stepped up its deployment of Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) machines , which are expected to eventually replace the traditional metal detectors at most airports. (A list of airports which are currently using the new screening technology is available on the TSA’s website. ) The new machines, which produce X-ray-like scans of passengers that are monitored by an officer at a remote location within the airport, stirred immediate controversy among civil-liberties groups for their detailed imagery (revealing everything from artificial joints and other medical devices to the outline of genitalia) and potential for misuse by staff. (Although TSA promises that travelers’ faces are obscured by t...

In September and October, the library tested new reservation calendar software for its eight private study rooms. After making some improvements to the system based on user feedback, we are ready to relaunch the online reservation calendar . (For example, no longer will you need to puzzle over making a 210- or a 240-minute reservation – we’ve adjusted the time display based on the #1 complaint about the software.) Law students may log in at http://www.law.duke.edu/lib/studyrooms with a NetID and password to reserve one of our study rooms up to 72 hours in advance . The link is accessible on the Law Library home page as well as the Library & Technology page. If you experience access problems where the system does not recognize you as a law student, please submit a feedback form and include your NetID so that we can resolve the error. We welcome other comments and suggestions about improving the calendar software, as well. Although not every suggested change will be possible in...

Last night, the Duke Law Bowling League Fall 2010 tournament entered its semifinal round. GV903 , a team comprised of staff members from the Goodson Law Library & Academic Technologies, was knocked out of contention for the BarBri Cup after an exciting Elite 8 match with defending champions Strike a Posner . The competition has been strong all season, and GV903 has enjoyed rolling against so many Duke Law students. But we were a bit concerned to hear the same question from virtually all of our opponents this season: “What does your team name mean?” The answer, of course, can be found in the library! You may have noticed that most materials in the library are organized by the Library of Congress Classification Outline , where books are arranged not by their title or author name but by an alphanumeric code (known as a “ call number ”). These call numbers correspond to the subject matter of the book; as a result, books on similar topics are grouped together. In this classification s...

The web buzzed this morning with talk of Blekko , a new search engine which has just launched to the public after several months in private beta-testing. As The New York Times reported , Blekko aims to filter out spam-like sites which push unhelpful results to the top of other search engines. In some areas which Blekko editors consider especially vulnerable to spam results (health and medical information, recipes, cars, travel, song lyrics, finance and college searching), the results are automatically filtered. In other areas, Blekko’s “ slashtag ” search option allows users to quickly filter irrelevant results. (See a demonstration and comparison at Search Engine Land .) Blekko is just the latest search engine competitor to debut in a Google-dominated market. So how will they fare? It’s hard to tell. Last year’s “new kid” Bing is still holding strong, thanks to aggressive advertising and financial support from its heavyweight parent company Microsoft. But for every Bing which captur...