Legal Preservation & ChatGPT

By: Molly Brownfield

Molly: Hello ChatGPT. I am writing a blog post this month for LIPA, the Legal Information Preservation Alliance and thought it might be fun to have a conversation with a chatbot as the topic. Can you tell me what you know about LIPA and what we do in a paragraph or two?

ChatGPT: Sure, LIPA is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving legal information in all forms, including print, digital, and audiovisual. LIPA works to ensure that valuable legal information is accessible to the public, scholars, and practitioners for both current and future generations. LIPA offers resources and expertise to libraries, archives, and other organizations to help them preserve and provide access to legal information. Additionally, LIPA advocates for policies that promote the preservation and accessibility of legal information, such as the digitization of historical legal materials and the development of best practices for preservation.

Molly: Thank you! Can you explain why preservation of legal information is important?

ChatGPT: Absolutely! Preservation of legal information is critical for a number of reasons. First, legal information is an essential component of the rule of law. Without access to legal information, individuals, businesses, and governments cannot make informed decisions or comply with legal requirements. Legal information includes statutes, case law, regulations, and other legal documents that provide guidance on how to interpret and apply the law. Second, legal information serves as a historical record of our society's laws and legal processes. Preserving legal information ensures that future generations can understand and learn from the evolution of our legal system over time. Third, as more legal information is created in digital formats, there is a risk that this information may become lost or inaccessible over time due to technological obsolescence, data corruption, or other issues. Preserving legal information in a variety of formats and ensuring its long-term accessibility is therefore critical to maintaining an accurate and comprehensive record of our legal system.Overall, preserving legal information is essential to upholding the rule of law, understanding our legal history, and ensuring that legal information remains accessible to all.

Molly: Thanks! Can you summarize in one paragraph why law librarians should consider becoming members of LIPA?

ChatGPT: Absolutely! Law librarians should consider becoming members of LIPA because the organization offers a wealth of resources and expertise for preserving legal information. As a member of LIPA, law librarians gain access to a network of professionals working in the field of legal preservation, as well as educational resources and best practices for preserving legal information in all formats. Additionally, LIPA offers opportunities for professional development and advocacy for policies that promote the accessibility and preservation of legal information. By becoming a member of LIPA, law librarians can help ensure that legal information remains accessible and available to all, both now and in the future.

Molly: Great! One last thing - can you provide a link to LIPA's website?

ChatGPT: Sure! Here is the link to LIPA's website: https://lipalliance.org/

Preservation-the Time is Right, Still

Margaret Maes, a recipient of the Marian Gould Gallagher Award in 2018, served as the Legal Information Preservation Alliance’s Executive Director beginning in May 2008 until her retirement. This past November Margaret Maes passed away. How to best honor Margaret’s active and influential professional career was a discussion point at LIPA’s December board meeting.

Still fairly new to the world of the law library profession, equally small and large at the same time, I did not know Margaret. The paragraph above should suggest as much. Reading a heartfelt remembrance written by a close friend which was shared with the LIPA board, viewing some of her accolades and a list of scholarship, I am confident in saying her passing is a loss to us all.

In discussing how to best honor Margaret, known by many as Margie, I volunteered to read something she had written and share a thought or two. That brings me to a 2003 Spectrum article in which Margaret details the “Preserving Legal Information for the 21st Century” conference. There participants created a draft plan that ultimately led to the creation of LIPA. Margaret wrote of her belief in the law librarian profession and a need for collaboration to “ensure that legal materials will be available to future generations” (Spectrum 2003). Nearly twenty years later LIPA is going strong and that is in large part thanks to Margaret’s efforts as its executive director.

Margaret’s article, Preservation - the Time is Right, has a message that is true today and one that will be true in the future. The time to preserve is now and to collaborate as suggested by Margaret, I share here the need to carry out good practice. While we as a profession spend time trying to discover best practices for preservation, at a minimum we need to carry out good practice. Good practice is one of five objectives found in the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) Strategic Plan for 2022-2027. To learn more about good practice, I encourage you to view the freely available DPC Digital Preservation Handbook.

If you are interested in further collaboration and learning what LIPA is up to, you are invited to the upcoming Winter Membership Meeting. A date and time will be announced soon.

“It’s up to the rest of us to carry out the preservation vision with the Legal Information Preservation Alliance. The time is right.” - Margaret Maes, Spectrum 2003.

IALL 2022 Recap – Focusing on Open Access and Preservation Programming

By: Molly Brownfield

I had the pleasure of attending the 40th Annual Course of the International Association of Law Libraries at Stanford Law School October 9-12, 2022. The theme was U.S. and International Approaches to Law, Justice and Technology: Learning from the Past and Strategies for the Future. The outstanding program featured several presentations that touched on a variety of issues involving open access and preservation, four of which are briefly summarized below.

In the Opening Ceremony on Sunday, October 9th, Keynote Speaker Corynne McSherry, Legal Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, summarized the recent summary judgment arguments in the lawsuit between four publishers and the Internet Archive over the latter’s controlled digital lending program. The next stage in the case will be a hearing before presiding Judge Koeltl. The outcome of this case could have far-reaching implications for controlled digital lending in all libraries. For more information about the case, including links to the summary judgment briefs, see https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/90566-publishers-internet-archive-ready-for-summary-judgment-hearing-in-book-scanning-case.html.

On October 10th, Professor Mark A. Lemley, Stanford Law School William H. Neukom Professor of Law and Director, Program in Law, Science & Technology; Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research; Affiliated Faculty, Stanford Symbolic Systems Program, gave a presentation titled “Disappearing Content.” As one example of disappearing content, Professor Lemley noted that Netflix once had 100,000 movies available on DVDs. Now there are just 4,000 available with their streaming model. He pointed out that there is no second-hand market for streaming content, so when it’s gone, it’s really gone. Professor Lemley talked about how the function of libraries as repositories comes to a head in a climate where copyright owners can’t or won’t continue to provide a published work. For more information, see Professor Lemley’s paper at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3715133.

Professor Elizabeth Hidalgo Reese, Stanford Law School Assistant Professor of Law, gave a presentation on October 11th titled “The Challenge of Building a Sustainable Tribal Law Infrastructure That Respects Tribal Sovereignty.” Professor Reese talked about the challenges of making tribal law (the law that tribes make internally to govern themselves) resources available, including funding, staffing, and understandable skepticism from the tribes themselves about sharing these materials. While there are projects at various institutions to collect and make select tribal law materials accessible, the future of these projects is dependent on continued time, money, and interest. Professor Reese noted that part of the solution is to create demand. We need to teach about, talk about, and write about tribal law in order to normalize demand for it such that commercial legal database providers will expand their tribal law collections and offer them at an accessible price point. For more information see Professor Reese’s article at https://review.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2021/03/Reese-73-Stan.-L.-Rev.-555.pdf.

Carl Malamud, President of Public.Resource.Org, gave a presentation titled “Edits of the Government in the United States” on October 11th. He discussed the U.S. Supreme Court case of Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc. (finding that Georgia state laws and their official annotations, like all other works authored by judges or legislators, are not protected by copyright) and the issues that remain in the aftermath of the decision, including accessibility and format of state government-issued works. He also talked about a case he is currently working on involving access to building & safety and other codes and summarized recent developments in several states, including the Wisconsin Jury Instructions being made freely available online through the Wisconsin State Law Library, and the recent decision in Tennessee in which Davidson County Chancellor Lyle ruled that the Tennessee Code Annotated is exempt from Tennessee public records law, but also wrote that the TCA cannot be copyrighted – citing the Georgia case.