[Ads-l] News: Harvard digitizing its entire collection of U.S. case law

Tue Nov 3 01:59:12 UTC 2015

Thanks.  I wondered about that, since the dissected books are being kept in something like plastic shrink-wrap, or perhaps merely sealed boxes.  Rebinding would seem a large, unnecessary expense.

Joel

      From: "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
 To: Joel Berson <berson at att.net>; "ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU" <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> 
 Sent: Monday, November 2, 2015 4:34 PM
 Subject: RE: News: Harvard digitizing its entire collection of U.S. case law

The article stating that Harvard will be rebinding the cut pages was erroneous in this respect.  The spines are being saved and kept with the cut pages, but there is no rebinding.

Fred Shapiro

________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Joel Berson [berson at att.net]
Sent: Sunday, November 01, 2015 5:54 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: News: Harvard digitizing its entire collection of U.S. case law

The article I read did point out that the database will probably be of most use to the impecunious scholar.  It also said that Harvard will be rebinding the cut pages (IIRC), although of course there has been damage, and they will not be cutting up rare imprints.

Joel

      From: "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
 Sent: Sunday, November 1, 2015 2:58 PM
 Subject: Re: [ADS-L] News: Harvard digitizing its entire collection of U.S. case law

I would seem to be the person on this list most likely to "have any sway with the Harvard [Law Library] digitizers," and I would have zero sway.  What should I let them know -- that nondestructive digitizing is superior from some standpoints?  They know that, but presumably have chosen destructive scanning because it saves them, or rather saves their startup-company partner, millions of dollars.

I do have a lot of sway with the Yale Law Library digitizers, in fact I am the Yale Law Library digitizers.  At Yale we (in partnership with a commercial vendor) have digitized tens of thousands of primary U.S. and foreign legal books non-destructively.

Note that, in terms of linguistic-database creation, the "Free the Law" project will add little to the corpus already searchable through Lexis and Westlaw, although it may add greatly to the searchable material available to those who don't have access to Lexis or Westlaw.  (Google Scholar already has free searchable case law, but I don't know much about their coverage or functionality.)

Fred Shapiro

________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of ADSGarson O'Toole [adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Sunday, November 01, 2015 12:00 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: News: Harvard digitizing its entire collection of U.S. case law

Here is news of an important new legal and linguistic database under
construction. The accompanying video shows pages being cut from
bindings.

The non-destructive Google Books approach seems to be superior, in my
opinion. If you have any sway with the Harvard digitizers please let
them know. (Of course, the video may be inaccurate, and the digitizers
may think they have the best approach.)

Website: today.law.harvard.edu
Article: Harvard Law School Launches “Free the Law” Project with Ravel
Law To Digitize US Case Law, Provide Free Access
Date: October 29, 2015

Short link:  https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__bit.ly_1XIsP0T&d=AwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=sRkhHMQo6W5Ird1lkQFqb23bCfSHAR2XjUSUG53db5M&m=G8X-U4p4oZh32WvZ_N-TE3RW4-8dDVHVioXKedK91v0&s=4CwT-wExr6gx4JPhutY_p1OexNWrSlMXBlJ-uOcBb2Q&e=

http://today.law.harvard.edu/harvard-law-school-launches-free-the-law-project-with-ravel-law-to-digitize-us-case-law-provide-free-access/

[Begin excerpt]
Harvard Law School has announced that, with the support of Ravel Law,
a legal research and analytics platform, it is digitizing its entire
collection of U.S. case law, one of the largest collections of legal
materials in the world, and that it will make the collection available
online, for free, to anyone with an Internet connection.

The "Free the Law" initiative will provide open, wide-ranging access
to American case law for the first time in United States history.
"Driving this effort is a shared belief that the law should be free
and open to all," said Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow. "Using
technology to create broad access to legal information will help
create a more transparent and more just legal system."
[End excerpt]

Garson

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