Producing, Using, and Preserving Public Information

About This Session

Kevin Hawkins will present on Publishing by Academic Libraries:

A growing number of academic libraries are moving beyond acquiring content from scholarly publishers and acting as publishers in their own right, usually online but sometimes also in print and e-book formats. The roots of these activities lie in major research libraries with digital library infrastructure providing scholarly publishing venues as an alternative to commercial scholarly publishers, but the locus of activity is increasing in providing alternative, and often open, textbooks. This presentation will provide an overview of these activities and of the Library Publishing Coalition, a consortium of academic libraries that supports a strong community of practice. Activities related to legal literature will be highlighted.

John Mayer will present on Open Access: I see the Content, but What's the Algorithm?:

Open access to the text of the law is vitally important and our systems have been woefully inadequate in providing just this simple service, but there is a bigger problem looming as we get beyond mere access and into what it all means to the court, lawyer, client and (especially for my talk), the self-represented litigant.  Sometimes it's res ipsa loquitur, but that doesn't account for interpretation, presentation, cost or whether or not it's worth your time.  Some of these are extra-legal issues, but they are important to the "user".  I will talk CALI's experiences with A2J Author as a tool that captures some of the algorithms of the law as well as some of the heuristics within software and the problems this will present in the future as law changes and as our legal systems become more data-driven.

Mark Phillips will present on Collecting and Archiving the Federal Web:

The University of North Texas Libraries has actively been involved in the collection of Web-published material from the federal government for over fifteen years. The CyberCemetery began in the mid-1990's as a collection of defunct agency, commission, committee and initiative websites.  In 2008 UNT Libraries worked with other US members of the International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC) to collect and preserve the federal .gov Web presence during the transition period from the Bush to the Obama administrations.  Based on the success of the 2008 End of Term Presidential Harvest, in 2012 an expanded group of IIPC members created a snapshot of the Obama administration between his two presidential terms.  This presentation will describe these large collaborative projects and how important this content is in relation to the goals of research libraries in the 21st century.

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Presenters

Kevin Hawkins

Kevin Hawkins

  • President, Library Publishing Coalition; UNT Director of Library Publishing

In May 2014, Kevin S. Hawkins was appointed director of library publishing for the University of North Texas Libraries and since October 2014 serves as the first president of the board of directors of the Library Publishing Coalition.

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John Mayer

John Mayer

  • Executive Director, Center for computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI)

John Mayer has been the Executive Director of the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) since 1994.  CALI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit consortium of US law schools that does work at the intersection of legal education, technology and access to justice.

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Mark Phillips

Mark Phillips

  • Assistant Dean for Digital Libraries

Mark Phillips is the Assistant Dean for Digital Libraries at the University of North Texas. His current research focuses on digital library infrastructure, Web archiving, and systems for analyzing, identifying and improving metadata related to cultural heritage and digital library collections.

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